Law Of Cause Research Articles

Cormac McCarthy's Violent Destinies: The Poetics of Determinism and Fatalism

Cormac McCarthy's Violent Destinies: The Poetics of Determinism and Fatalism

The Thabarwa centres - a mindful foresight strategy

Within the frame of globalisation and the strive for future modes of living in a global society, this article describes the development of the Thabarwa Meditation Centres, which started in Yangon, Myanmar, in 2007. It explains the aim of the centres, their mode of operation and their organisational structure, based on the centres' main paradigms. To understand their stunning growth and success, it is crucial to perceive how they bring their members to understand what is called the 'law of cause and effect' concerning everyone's actions. Once a person understands this law of cause and effect, one can use it to transform his or her life. A Thabarwa centre is the place where any person can abandon creating causes for suffering (understood in the Buddhist sense) and instead make causes for good results. This article describes how the Thabarwa centres are answering the needs of society on material and spiritual levels by offering free food, housing, medical care, education and meditation guidance to everyone that arrives in the centre.

Pendekatan Saintific Quantum dalam Memahami Perjalanan Isra’ Nabi Muhammad SAW (Teori Saintifik Modulasi Quantum Isra’)

Abstract
 This paper examined the journey of Isra Prophet Muhammad SAW with the Quantum Scientific Approach. In this paper, the theory of Isra’s Quantum scientific modulation is used with deep discussion through theoretical, empirical, scientific and modulation also quantum verification. The result of this paper explained that Isra 'Mi'raj was the event of Prophet Muhammad's execution in the evening which was aimed to pick up the five-hour prayer commands consisting of 17 Raka’ats according to the letter of Al-Isra [17] verse 1. This event examined our faith in God because if we use logically thinking without faith it is difficult to make a sense, furthermore, it is as wisdom for man that God, in giving orders is using the laws of cause and effect (sunatullah). Therefore, the journey of Isra' performed by Prophet Muhammad SAW was accompanied by Gabriel with Buraq. Theoretically, this journey was supported by the quantum theory of light, Einstein's relativity, light wave modulation and the theory of annihilation and teleportation theory. These theories reinforce the power of Allah SWT in giving the command to his prophets is always in accordance with the nature of his irodat that prevailed in the universe. In accordance with the approach and material review with the scientific verification of the quantum, this theory is called the Isra’ Quantum Modulation Theory. Although, in empirically it can be proved, but this journey remains a secret of God that cannot be solved by reason and human science, because the experiment it’s only done on electrons and protons that are very small and lifeless, whereas inanimate objects and humans it has not been able to prove, so the journey of Isra and Mi'raj of the Prophet Muhammad remains us a miracle that cannot be obtained by others.
 
 Keywords: Scientific, Quantum, Isra', Modulation

Crystallization of Character Values of Banyumas Society in Central Java, Indonesia, 1830-1930

ABSTRACT : In fact, the existed character values of society are result of an ongoing process of values crystallization. As an impact of flow of intensive cultural interaction, character values ha ve also been experiencing shifts for adjustment. Crystallization in forming new values is also processing and accumulating forming character values in society as symbol of identity in a social community. This research aimed to describe the form of Dutch colonial intervention in Banyumas , Central Java, Indonesia ; and continuity process of character values crystallization in the area. This research used historical method by using five steps of main activities, i.e. “H euristic ”, as a step to collect historical sources; C riticism, as an activity to criticize sources both internally and externally; I nterpretation to provide elucidation on data and facts ; and H istoriography, the phase of history writing by analysis based on the law of cause and effect , including the e xplanation s . It was the writing phase along with commentary followed by concept and social theory by using multi-dimensional approach. The finding s of the research describe d about the Dutch colonial intervention in Banyumas covering the areas of governance bureaucracy; economics covering tax sector, monetary ; and policy for independent labor. Colonial intervention , that is gradually , also affected the process of crystallization on character values that became the characteristic of Banyumas society until now , consisting of value of self-identity, social solidarity, leadership, religion, and work ethic. KEY WORD S : Banyumas society, Dutch c olonial intervention, social shift, value crystallization, and people character . About the Author: Dr. Tanto Sukardi is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of History Education, Faculty of Education and Teacher Training UMP (Muhammadiyah University of Purwokerto), Jalan Raya Dukuhwaluh, Purwokerto City, Central Java, Indonesia. For academic interests, the author can be contacted via e-mail at: tanto_sukardi@yahoo.com How to cite this article? Sukardi, Tanto. (2016). “Crystallization of Character Values of Banyumas Society in Central Java, Indonesia, 1830-1930” in TAWARIKH: International Journal for Historical Studies , Vol.7(2) April, pp.173-182. Bandung, Indonesia: Minda Masagi Press and UIN SGD Bandung, ISSN 2085-0980. Chronicle of the article: Accepted (March 1, 2016); Revised (March 21, 2016); and Published (April 28, 2016).

The Impetus to Creativity in Technology

The author describes the ensuing developments from two now well-known publications in the twentieth century. They contained significant and seminal technological results: a paper by Claude Shannon in 1948 and a patent by Horst Feistel in 1971. Shannon announced the scope at the start, writing, “The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected *sent at another point” [55, p. 379]. Shannon's coding theorem established the relationship between the probability of receiving the message in error and transmission rate measuring the process efficiency. Shannon proved the existence of codes achieving optimal performance, but it required 45 years to exhibit an actual code achieving it. The optimal-efficient Shannon codes are responsible for a wide range of communication technology we enjoy today, from GPS to the NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity on Mars, and also to worldwide communication over the Internet. U.S. Patent #3798539A filed by the IBM Corporation in 1971 described Horst Feistel's block cipher cryptographic system, a new paradigm for encryption systems. It was a departure from the current cryptographic technology based on shift-register stream encryption for voice and the variety of the electromechanical cipher machines introduced nearly 50 years before. Horst's vision was its application to secure the privacy of computer files. It was invented at a propitious moment in time and implemented by IBM in automated teller machines for the Lloyds bank cashpoint system. The emergence of e-commerce in the next decades would far overshadow the value of encryption in banking business. Finally, it has drastically altered the SIGINT mission of the National Security Agency. While Horst Feistel did not directly participate to any of these commercial applications of cryptography, the traditional interpretation of the law of cause and effect certainly describes the effect of Feistel's patent.

Kantian Ethics in Gulliver’s Travels : Are the Houyhnhnms Role Models?

Kantian Ethics in Gulliver’s Travels:Are the Houyhnhnms Role Models? Janelle Pötzsch The aim of Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals is to ascertain and justify the categorical imperative.1 I will concentrate on the third part of the Groundwork. Here, Kant wants to show why the categorical imperative is binding for us. The purpose of this part of the Groundwork is to show that we have the faculty of practical reasoning—that we are able to establish ends independent of sensual impulses. I Before taking the pains of establishing and justifying the moral principle, Kant has to clarify why it should be binding for human beings. After all, it could be possible that man cannot act autonomously because he is a slave of his passions / genes / brain structures. The categorical imperative applies only to beings whose actions stem from their own free will. According to Kant, a free will is the “ability to control how [one] behaves in conformity with the representation of certain laws” (GMM, p. 28). Therefore, only rational beings have a free will, for only they can act according to self-assigned laws (recall the Greek roots of “autonomy”: autos, self; nomos, law). In other words, rational beings can act autonomously and hence are free. Kant contrasts this kind of causality with absolute necessity, which is the causality of unreasoning beings—of creatures that cannot act autonomously because they are completely bound by their biological necessities and urges. However, Kant points out that even though rational beings act freely, this doesn’t mean that their will is anarchical. After all, autonomy is the [End Page 259] causality of reasonable beings, and causality implies the law of cause and consequence. Kant underlines: “Although freedom is not a property of the will according to laws of nature, it doesn’t follow that freedom is lawless!… The ‘concept’ of lawless free-will would be an absurdity” (GMM, p. 41). The freedom of the will consists in its autonomy—its “property of itself being a law” (GMM, p. 41). Kant reminds us that the locution “the will itself is a law in all its actions” denotes the formulation of the categorical imperative: “Act only on a maxim that can also have itself as a universal law for its object” (p. 41, emphasis in original). He concludes: “Therefore a free will and a will under moral laws are identical.” Hence, to assume a free will ultimately leads to the moral principle. II So far, Kant has only shown why and to what extent the moral principle is binding for autonomous beings. On what grounds could man be ranked among them? In that respect, Kant proves himself quite pragmatic: to avoid giving a theoretical proof of man’s free will (an issue that is still unsolved), he proves it practically, and declares: “Any being who can’t act otherwise than under the idea of freedom is, just for that reason, really free in his conduct—i.e. all laws that are inseparably bound up with freedom hold for him just as if his will were validly pronounced free in itself as a matter of theoretical philosophy” (GMM, p. 42). Assuming that we are free has the same consequences for our moral conduct as if we were free. This is a necessary condition for us, as human beings, to legitimately claim that we have a will of our own. If we didn’t, we would have to suppose that our moral judgment doesn’t stem from reason, but from mere impulse. This, however, runs counter to the way we see ourselves. We therefore have to consider ourselves as free agents. To summarize, Kant claims that we have to follow the categorical imperative because we are free, and that we are free because we are able to develop moral principles like the categorical imperative. Kant concedes that this does indeed sound strange: “It has to be admitted that there is a kind of circle here from which there seems to be no escape. We take ourselves to be free in the order of effective causes so that we can think of ourselves as subject to moral laws...

A Buddhist God?

A Buddhist God?

MIND AND MATTER IN THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

In chapter 8 of Dorian Gray, Dorian reflects on the terrifying discovery, which he has made the previous night, that the painting has been somehow altered to express his own moral state. He speculates thus on a possible explanation for the change in the picture: Was there some subtle affinity between the chemical atoms, that shaped themselves into form and colour on the canvas, and the soul that was within him? Could it be that what that soul thought, they realized? – that what it dreamed, they made true? (Wilde 93) At the end of the chapter, he thinks along similar lines: Might there not be some curious scientific reason for it all? If thought could exercise its influence upon a living organism, might not thought exercise an influence upon dead and inorganic things? Nay, without thought or conscious desire, might not things external to ourselves vibrate in unison with our moods and passions, atom calling to atom in secret love or strange affinity? (103) Wilde's references to “atoms” encapsulate something of the complexity and paradox which characterise the novel's representations of the mind and its connection with the body. Atoms make up the painting and Dorian's own body, and this reminder of the materiality of both reminds us, in turn, of the possibility that Dorian, and all human selves, may occupy an insignificant yet inescapable place in the wider processes of the physical world. Most pervasively in the novel, and in the fin de siècle more generally, anxieties about one such material process – that of evolution, and especially of degeneration – haunt representations of the self. In Dorian's thoughts about “atoms” lies the still more extreme possibility that the very distinction between organic and inorganic may be blurred, a vertiginous sense that human evolutionary kinship extends beyond even the simplest organisms to matter itself, and that the category of the human is thus under greater threat than ever in the light of scientific theories of the material world. At the same time, the questions that Dorian asks himself envisage not the reduction of the mind to matter but the near-opposite of this: the possibility that “thought” may somehow “influence” the matter of the painting. In a fantastical version of the Hegelian idealism which forms an important part of Wilde's philosophical position, the mind may prove to be the ultimate reality, independent of and dominant over matter, as the state of Dorian's mind is mysteriously given sensuous form in the transformations which the painting undergoes. The atoms of the painting, like the human mind, take on an ambiguous relationship to the material world. The atoms are not fixed but fluid; like the mind itself, they are material and yet seem to act in ways contrary to physical laws of cause and effect, always in process and resistant to external comprehension.

Reflections on Aging in Buddhist Thailand

Thailand is fast becoming an aging society. Steeped in the Buddhist belief in the transiency of life and kamma (law of cause and effect), for many Thai elders the experience of aging is an opportunity to reflect on their lives and to deepen their understanding of Lord Buddha's Dhamma (Teachings) through the practice of meditation and by the cultivation of good kamma (deeds) that will result in a more favorable life and future rebirth. The virtue of gratitude that is nurtured in traditional extended families and reinforced by Buddhist teachings persists in the modern Thai family; this virtue also undergirds government programs that serve the elderly.

Comparative Study of Western Concept of Law and Islamic Concept of Law

Comparative Study of Western Concept of Law and Islamic Concept of Law

Physics of Monetary Systems

The physical laws of monetary behavior in economic systems need exact examination; this is the method to develop monetary economics from a profession to a science. Money and banking are physical activities in the working body economic and are governed by the physical/natural laws of cause and effect. This experimental approach will undo the dominating financial religion of monetary alchemy, and elaborate a natural-law monetary science.

No I, No Problems: The Quintessence of Buddhist Psychology of Awakening

If psychology is viewed as the science of human mind, the Buddha could unarguably be termed as the finest depth psychologist humanity has seen. Not only did he penetrate deep into the hidden recesses of human mind and uncovered the machinations of the latent tendencies, he also found the way out of their stranglehold on mankind. As a compassionate teacher, he focused his entire teaching primarily on the later practical aspect. He often mentioned that he taught only two things: there is unhappiness (dukkha) and there is a way out of this unhappiness. The root cause of this unhappiness, he identified as the primeval ignorance avijja, which creates the notion of ‘I’ as an individual entity, the doer, the feeler and the thinker. This in turn gives rise to the concepts of ‘I and mine’, ‘thee and thine’ from which originate craving (raga) and aversion (dosa). The Buddha’s penetrative insight into the nature of human reality revealed that what we call ‘I’ or a ‘being’ is only a concatenation of the five impermanent aggregates, viz. the body, consciousness, intellect, feelings and volitional mental formations, which work interdependently, changing from moment to moment in accordance with the law of cause and effect. By a systematic cultivation of the mindfulness of these aggregates anyone can progressively uproot the ego and purify the mind by extinguishing this fire of defilements continuously burning within it. As the mind gets progressively purified, it awakens from the illusion of ‘personality’ and naturally abides in loving kindness (maitri), compassion (karuna), altruistic joy (mudita) and equanimity (upekkha) to increasing degree. ‘No I, No problems’, as one contemporary Master puts it.

Zen and the art of film narrative: towards a transcendental realism in film

<disp-quote> Nations and peoples are largely the stories they feed themselves. If they tell themselves stories that are lies, they will suffer the consequences of those lies. If they tell themselves stories that face their own truths, they will free their histories for future flowerings. <attrib>(Okri 1995: 21)</attrib> </disp-quote> What defines the classic narrative is also at the root of its limitations; an epistemology that ties it to a material and psychological paradigm governed by largely explicable laws of cause and effect. Such notions as character motivation, narrative aims, obstacles, climax and so on have evolved to become as overwhelmingly dominant in cinema as the dogma of reason which subsequently the industrial age solidified. It is from this that the moving-image medium emerged: empirical evidence of motivations, mechanistic notions of causes and effects and scientifically based including the pseudosciences of psychology and sociology that provide justifications for events and actions all serve to reinforce the dominance of the classic narrative's role in the storytelling of the developed world. In this article, I shall call for a different perspective on cinematic narrative form; not with a view to discussing what film generally is, but to make some general suggestions of what it could be, particularly from the perspective of a film-maker trying to transcend the limitations of the classic narrative. The motive is to try and understand how, in practice, one may evolve narrative forms in such a way as to deal with experiences not sufficiently touched by the classic form, as it is currently generally practised in cinema. I shall, in particular, look at the relationship between emotions and feelings and their relationship to narrative structure and bring into this examination some notions and ideas from Zen Buddhism to re-evaluate that relationship. The issues I hope to raise are about paradigms and I shall therefore deliberately base my discussion on general assertions and eclectic contextualization.

Death as Postmodern Topos in José Ramón Fernández's Para quemar la memoria

DEATH AS POSTMODERN TOPOS IN JOSÉ RAMÓN FERNÁNDEZ’S PARA QUEMAR LA MEMORIA by John P . Gabriele The College of Wooster THE Spanish playwright José Ramón Fernández (1962) is affiliated with a group of versatile authors who began their careers in the 1990s. They are democratic Spain’s first generation of playwrights. Their works offer a penetrating and universally appealing reflection of today’s society and an affront to traditionally -held notions about theatre. Other representative members of the group include Lluïsa Cunillé (1961), Margarita Sánchez (1962), Antonio Onetti (1962), Sergi Belbel (1963), Beth Escudé (1963), Antonio Álamo (1964), Raúl Hernández Garrido (1964), Laila Ripoll (1964), Luis Miguel González Cruz (1965), Yolanda Pallín (1965), Juan Mayorga (1965), Borja Ortiz de Gondra (1965) and Itziar Pascual (1967), among others. Fernández, like the others, was formally trained in the courses and workshops of some of the more experimental avant-garde playwrights of the previous generations, namely José Sanchis Sinisterra (1940), José Luis Alonso de Santos (1942), Fermín Cabal (1948), Luis Araújo (1956), Paloma Pedrero (1957), and Ernesto Caballero (1958). Fernández is well aware of the most recent theories about theatre , which frequently inform his works, whether intentionally or not. Eduardo Pérez-Rasilla has suggested that there is a definite postmodern contexture to the form and content of Fernández’s theatre. Among the many themes the playwright treats, Pérez-Rasilla underscores “el tiempo,” “la memoria,” “el desarraigo,” and “la búsqueda de la identidad.” The critic also speaks of the “formas especulares” and “abismales” of Fernández’s plays and his “juego con la duplicidad o con la multiplicidad poliédrica de los personajes ” (36-37). Death, while not a postmodern theme per se, is also among “los temas y motivos en los que abunda su [Fernández’s] obra dramática” (36). 13 The postmodern signifies the end of conventional artistic expression on a variety of levels and in a variety of contexts. It constitutes a rebellion against the laws of cause and effect, unity, spatial determinacy, temporal linearity, the fixed subject, and structural coherence, marking the end of traditional expectations regarding form, content, characterization, and narrative. Renouncing his or her traditionally privileged position of authority, the postmodern author becomes secondary, if not tertiary, to his or her text. As the author seemingly disappears, the text becomes autonomous. This has led numerous critics, Ulrich Broich among them, to claim that the Foucauldian notion of the “death of the author” is among the “strategies which have been regarded as typically postmodernist” (251). Postmodernity also marks the end of the passive reader who, sufficiently dislodged, now feels obliged to decode the text with which he or she is confronted (Spanos 135). Summarily speaking, we might say the postmodern is tantamount to death, a correlation that Brian McHale expressed succinctly more than twenty years ago in one of his many authoritative studies : “[P]ostmodernist fiction is about death in a way that other writing, of other periods, is not. Indeed, insofar as postmodernist fiction foregrounds ontological themes and ontological structure, we might say that it is always about death” (Postmodern Fiction 231). Given the intrinsic connection between death and the postmodern, it comes as no surprise that death figures prominently in José Ramón Fernández ’s theatrical repertoire: Para quemar la memoria (1992), El cometa (1993), 1998 (1995), Las mujeres fragantes (1997), La tierra (1998), Si amanece nos vamos (2001), Nina, El que fue mi hermano (Yakolev), and Monólogo de la perra roja (all written in 2004). Of these plays, nowhere does the Spanish playwright’s conceptual use of death inform his postmodern discourse more textually and contextually than in Para quemar la memoria, a play for which he was awarded the prestigious Calderón de la Barca Prize in 1993. Para quemar la memoria is at once alluring and alienating. Its fragmentary composition and the non-sequential manner in which the action evolves are intriguing. Consequently, it draws the viewer into the production of its meaning but also has a decisively disorienting effect. The action is so multilayered in its presentation and sufficiently confusing to...

医学における因果推論 第一部―研究と実践での議論を明瞭にするための反事実モデル―

A central problem in natural science is identifying general laws of cause and effect. Medical science is devoted to revealing causal relationships in humans. The framework for causal inference applied in epidemiology can contribute substantially to clearly specifying and testing causal hypotheses in many other areas of biomedical research. In this article, we review the importance of defining explicit research hypotheses to make valid causal inferences in medical studies. In the counterfactual model, a causal effect is defined as the contrast between an observed outcome and an outcome that would have been observed in a situation that did not actually happen. The fundamental problem of causal inference should be clear; individual causal effects are not directly observable, and we need to find general causal relationships, using population data. Under an "ideal" randomized trial, the assumption of exchangeability between the exposed and the unexposed groups is met; consequently, population-level causal effects can be estimated. In observational studies, however, there is a greater risk that the assumption of conditional exchangeability may be violated. In summary, in this article, we highlight the following points: (1) individual causal effects cannot be inferred because counterfactual outcomes cannot, by definition, be observed; (2) the distinction between concepts of association and concepts of causation and the basis for the definition of confounding; (3) the importance of elaborating specific research hypotheses in order to evaluate the assumption of conditional exchangeability between the exposed and unexposed groups; (4) the advantages of defining research hypotheses at the population level, including specification of a hypothetical intervention, consistent with the counterfactual model. In addition, we show how understanding the counterfactual model can lay the foundation for correct interpretation of epidemiologic evidence.

Rih min-Nofsinhar by Immanuel Mifsud, Adrian Grima

^^^^H "identity search." Lipus's freeverse, ^^^^H with its roving first-personnarrator ^^^^H who both converses and observes, ^^^^H ismeticulously built upon both aes ^^^^H thetic and philosophical concerns. ^^^^H There is a strong sense of fullness in ^^^^H the poems, imparted by short, eru ^^^^H dite, visually rich sentences spiked ^^^^H with powerful verbs that convey ^^HJ^I decisive, ifbrief, action. But there is ^^B[H also an abiding feeling of expectan ^^|(H cy.There is a positive kind of antici H|l pation in the poems thatwaits or ^^H|H calls for fulfillment,or recognition, ^^BjjH but there is also amood of incipient ^^ H defeat, relocation, clogging, threat ^^||H ening. Finally, there is everywhere Hfl the need to take stock, to line up ^^|1H and be counted, toget to theessence ^^H|H of things, even to impose order on ^^^^H multifarious lifein itsbewildering or ^^^^H murky manifestations. ^^^^H Lipus setsup forthereader a ^^|SH kind of archetypal tension in our ^^B^H consciousness. On theone hand there ^^B^| is theworld, familiarand chronicled ^^^^H and rendered fecundby her inimita ^^^^H ble language, and on theother hand ^^^^H there is an absence or a stillness, a ^^^^H kind of no-man's-land?both tran quil and pagan, perhaps?where we ^^^^^1 findout what animates or linksour ^^^^H blood and bones. The individual, including you and me and thenar ^^^^^1 rator alike, must take note of the gravity of our task: "In an enduring ^^^^^1 / singular tense,you lap at theedge ^^^^H of your ^^^^H John K.Cox ^^^^^M North Dakota State University Immanuel Mifsud, Adrian Grima, et al. Rih min-Nofsinhar San Gwann, Malta. Edizzjoni Skarta. 2008. 60 pages. 6. isbn978-99932-652-5-2 Slowly but very surely, contempo rary Maltese verse is garnering an ever-greater presence on the inter lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll national scene, in a process running parallel to the broadening ofMal tese poetic expression in terms of spirit and thematic scope. Whereas theMovement for thePromotion of Literature of the 1960s was closely linked to political independence, this second epanouissementofMal tesepoetry isnot such a joyous one, and necessarily so. The shift from insularity to the acute awareness of formingpart of aworldwide jigsaw where the laws of cause and effect stretchfarbeyond political and geo graphical borders?particularly in view of the changes sufferedby the global environment and thepeoples thatinhabit it?bridges Maltese writ ingwith thegrowing supranational continent of "green" literature. RiR min-Nofsinhar (Wind from the south) is an essential book of poetry on climate change by Imman uel Mifsud and Adrian Grima, two well-traveled authors who have fully understood Jonathan Bate's reassertion that literatureessentially works upon consciousness and leads to unpredictable long-term practi cal consequences (The Song of the Earth, 2002). Following in the steps of publications such as Earth Shat teringand Feeling thePressure, the poems ofRiRmin-Nofsinharare inter spersed with prose contributions from a wide range of social actors. Launched during last June's World Fest, the impact of the publication can be gauged by the two editions printed within fivemonths, as well as by favorable reviews frompromi nentmembers of civil society and a speech inParliament by an opposi tion spokesman quoting a Mifsud poem in itsentirety. The planetarymeets the local in a series of compositions byMifsud entitled "The Poems of theSahara," inwhich a familyofMaltese farm lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll KARLO MiLA ujirh paintings bij Delicia Sampero AWell Written Body ers laments thedesert sand brought increasingly more often with the subtle, frightening noise of thesouth ern wind. In another local poem, Grima speaks of "The Ice-cream Man" transferring his business from the abandoned beach to the frontof a school, in plain language by no means devoid of a lyricalrhythm. To a large extent, the authors appear to have consciously sacri ficed aesthetics and metaphor in favor of a clearer message, in con trast to the more dense, probing poetry usually composed by both of them, and perhaps rightly so, in view of theurgencywith which this poetry needs to be communicated. Neville Bezzina of Friends of the Earth has pointed out thesing-along quality ofMifsud's poems as a sign that theeffectsof climate change are "a song we must all sing together"; meanwhile, Grima's freer, journal...

The Politics of Life and Death in Thailand

NEW RELEASES Alan Klima. Funeral Casino: Meditation, Massacre, and Exchange with the Dead in Thailand. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002; 317 pp.. Why, asks Hal Foster in Return of the Real, this fascination with trauma, this envy of abjection today? He notes the recent tendency to redefine experience in terms of trauma in art, academic discourse and popular culture. In art and theory, the discourse of trauma brings the critique of the subject to its most radical conclusion: there is no subject of trauma, the position is evacuated. In popular culture, on the other hand, trauma is treated as an event that guarantees the subject. subject, however disturbed, rushes back as witness, testifier, survivor. This is a traumatic subject and it has absolute authority, for one cannot challenge the trauma of another: one can only believe it, even identify with it, or not. And Foster concludes: In trauma discourse the subject is evacuated and elevated at once (168; author's emphasis). These preliminary comments are helpful heuristic devices for approaching Alan Klima's Funeral Casino. It is quite probable that Klima would disagree at the outset with this way of framing his book, in particular since he is opposed to the 11 violent assertions and facile and offhand interpretive statements he often finds in (un-named) Lacanian approaches in anthropology (300, n.12). He identifies with Buddhist conclusions on the question of the subject, which resonate with the initial position Foster outlined: the position of the subject is evacuated. And his situation as an activist-ethnographer resonates with the second position Foster outlines, that of a subject rushing back as witness, testifier and survivor. Informing these two positions, bridging them, and occupying the position of the real, lie the traumatic events which form the core of this book. In May 1992, the Thai army massacred hundreds, perhaps thousands, of prodemocracy protesters, many of them students, in Bangkok. Klima was there, among the shocked students and bystanders running for their lives, and trying to find cover from the bullets. This event forms the core of Funeral Casino. This massacre-as witnessed and experienced by the ethnographer, by prodemocracy activists, by families of the deceased, and as constructed in Thai commemorative memory, media and propaganda-was the most recent in a series of violent crackdowns on pro-democracy movements in Thailand. October 14, 1973, October 6, 1976 and May 1992 form a cycle of violent repression and killings which Klima juxtaposes as the bloody undercurrent to the triumphant discourse of Thailand as the poster child of Cold War U.S. military policies and World Bank/IMF development. On the basis of four years of fieldwork in three different locales in Thailand Klima examines how these gory events articulate with and illustrate Buddhist conceptions of death and funeral exchange (exchange with the spirits of the departed), and constructions of modernity and national identity in Thailand. Part I, The Passed, examines the genealogy of political corpses in the context of the appearance of an event, the protests and killings of May 1992. This event is analyzed as part of the unfolding of progressive politics in Thailand in the confluence of political protest, free markets and images of death in the pro-democracy movement. Part II, Kamma is a commentary on the media relations of shock and remembrance, focused on a powerful analysis of Buddhist meditation on death images and funeral gambling. main theme of this book is exchange. This is a common point of departure for an anthropological account of funeral practices. This is especially true in a Southeast Asian context, where the dead are never simply dead, but whose departed spirits occupy a realm adjoining that of the living, and communicate with it, through ritual and medium possession. In Thailand, as Klima indicates, the Buddhist notion of kamma (the law of cause and effect which rules every unenlightened being) underlies the entire social field. …

Faustʼs Self-Realization from a Buddhist Perspective

The aim of this paper is to investigate the differences between “self- realization” within Christian-western philosophy and Faustʼs self-realization in Goetheʼs tragedy as received and interpreted in a Buddhist society. Further, the article examines in what way the author Goethe shows an ironical and critical attitudes towards Faustʼs life and how can Faust be redeemed from the guilt and set himself free from the “karmaʼs” law of cause and effect.

When Bad Things Happen to Bad People: Liability and Individual Consciousness in "Adam Bede" and "Silas Marner"

A large portion of George Eliot's first full-fledged novel Adam Bede (1859) is devoted to recognizing and adjudicating the ways in which individuals can be held responsible for their actions. It is, perhaps, needless to say that Eliot falls heavily on the side of accountability. The outcomes of the novel's major plot points-Adam's guilt about his father's death, Arthur's carelessness with Hetty, and Hetty's murder of her child-all illustrate one of the novel's underlying premises: people eventually pay for their wrongdoing. Despite its centrality to the plot, however, Eliot's credo of personal responsibility has generally received only glancing critical attention. This apparent lack of interest in debating Eliot's criteria for a liable act (or for retribution) seems to derive from the ease with which the novel makes and unmakes its guilty parties.1 That is, because Eliot presents the reader with a seemingly self-contained and coherent account of the novel's own methods for doling out rewards and punishments, the novel itself licenses an unproblematized critical attitude towards the function of liability. Ultimately, bad actions are punished; characters pay for their moral infractions-through the judicial system, through more local forms of social censure, or by way of internal rituals of self-condemnation. Conversely, good actions are rewarded; virtuous characters get married, prosper, and enjoy the admiration of their communities. The proportionality of these end results helps the reader feel satisfied that the characters got what they deserved. How Eliot administers such doses of moral castigation and approbation, not the logic of liability that underwrites it, has been the focus of critical debate. Critics tend to identify two separate, and seemingly incompatible, projects at work in this novel: first, a depiction of the chain of cause and effect within a social community, and, second, the representation of a moral system that sees beyond the external world of cause and effect in order to identify and punish the perpetrators of wrongdoing. Accordingly, critics have poured their energy into reconciling Eliot's moral commitments with her deterministic or realistic ones. For those concerned with Eliot's desire to depict a world rigorously regulated by laws of cause and effect, the imposition of a moral order at the end of the novel seems to fly in the face of the project. For those who

Legendary Figures: Ancient History in Modern Novels

Legendary Figures examines revolutionary views of the past that have played a crucial role in European and American literature of the last 150 years. Clayton Koelb traces these new approaches to history through an impressive range of novels, from Flaubert's Salammbo to Christa Wolf's Cassandra. Koelb argues that this new sense, which arose in the mid-nineteenth century, gained eloquent expression in Flaubert's writings. What is crucial about the new historical sense is that it views the past as essentially alien and other. The connection between past and present may be powerful, but it is always indirect and difficult to negotiate. As a result, the past seems exotic and unattainable, the object of nostalgia and desire. Koelb distinguishes this sense of history, with its persistent discontinuities between past and present, from the more continuous and progressive views of history of novelists like Sir Walter Scott and such philosophers as Hegel, Marx, and Lukacs. In their writings, history proceeds according to the laws of cause and effect, and each epoch can be understood as both the result of the previous one and the cause of the next. In contrast, the modernist writers that Koelb examines - Flaubert, Pater, Mann, Broch, Wilder, Yourcenar, and Wolf - imagine a past that is mythic and legendary and thus a metaphor for everything distant, complicated, unattainable, and unknowable. Clayton Koelb is Guy B. Johnson Professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is the author of Inventions of Reading: Rhetoric and the Literary Imagination and other books.