Modern Political Ideologies Research Articles

THE PHENOMENON OF RESENTMENT IN CULTURE: NIETZSCHE, SCHELER, FUKUYAMA

The article delves into the concept of ressentiment within the context of phenomenology and its profound impact on the formation of moral values and socio-cultural dynamics. Drawing on the ideas of Max Scheler, which are partially rooted in Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy and extended through Francis Fukuyama’s works, the paper explores how ressentiment serves as a critical factor in transforming various spheres of human social activity. The article identifies ressentiment as a driving force behind the crisis of humanistic ideals and examineі its pervasive effect on contemporary values. It emphasizes the importance of understanding this phenomenon in shaping socio-cultural dynamics, particularly in relation to moral-legal perceptions and the collective shifts in society’s values. By examining the internal conflict experienced by individuals influenced by ressentiment, the article sheds light on its role in moral conflicts and social tensions. Furthermore, the work underscores the relevance of Scheler’s phenomenology and Fukuyama’s exploration of identity politics in addressing the challenges posed by ressentiment. It highlights the need to grasp ressentiment not merely as a sociological phenomenon but as a complex psychological experience with deep social implications. The study also opens avenues for future research into how ressentiment influences modern political ideologies and cultural narratives, impacting both individual identities and collective consciousness. Additionally, the article discusses the implications of ressentiment in the digital age, where social media amplifies these sentiments, further polarizing societies and intensifying identity-based conflicts. By providing a focused and nuanced analysis of ressentiment, the article emphasizes its significance in the evolution and transformation of cultural and moral values in the modern world, making it a crucial topic for ongoing philosophical inquiry. This exploration is essential for understanding the roots of contemporary societal divisions and offers insights into potential pathways for addressing these deep-seated issues.

Contextual disparities of “happiness” in Korean and Chinese: A quantitative analysis of “행복” and “幸福”

This study investigates the contextual disparities in the meanings of the Korean Hanja word “행복 [hɛŋbok]” and the Chinese Hanzi word “幸福 [ɕiŋ51 fu35],” both conceptualized similarly to “happiness” in English. Utilizing computational linguistics methodologies, we analyzed 192,249 instances of “행복” from the Modu Corpus and 324,585 instances of “幸福” from the CCL Corpus, employing collocation, bi-gram, and tri-gram techniques. Our analysis reveals that these words embody distinct cultural, social, and political dimensions in their respective contexts. Korean usage of “행복” shows a strong association with community well-being, social infrastructure, and educational development. Frequently co-occurring terms include “가족” (family), “교육” (education), and “사회” (society), reflecting deep-rooted Confucian values. Conversely, Chinese usage of “幸福” emphasizes national prosperity, collective harmony, and individual life quality. Common collocates include “国家” (country), “人民” (people), and “生活” (life), influenced by traditional philosophies and modern political ideologies. The research highlights significant differences in how happiness is conceptualized in relation to government policies. Korean contexts focus on specific quality-of-life improvements, evident in phrases like “행복 주택” (happiness housing) and “행복 도시” (happiness city). Chinese contexts stress the link between national development and individual well-being, as seen in expressions like “人民幸福” (people’s happiness) and “幸福生活” (happy life). These findings underscore the complex interplay between personal fulfillment and social responsibility in East Asian cultures. Our study demonstrates the effectiveness of computational linguistics in analyzing complex cultural concepts, while also revealing limitations in capturing individual subjective experiences. It contributes to contrastive lexicography between Korean and Chinese, offering insights for cross-cultural communication and policymaking in social well-being initiatives.

Godse's Gandhi and Gandhi's Truth

This essay considers the representation of Gandhi in the detailed statement given to the court by his assassin, Nathuram Godse, in 1948. It discusses how Gandhi was perceived by those who wished to re-create Hinduism as a modern political ideology. Juxtaposing the views of Godse and his political mentor, V. D. Savarkar, with those of Gandhi, the essay focuses on the overdetermined invisibility or illegibility of Gandhi's conceptions of truth, religion, and political community in the discourse of the Hindu right. A bleak realization regarding the contemporary extent of this illegibility drives this essay. While the radically egalitarian potential of Gandhi's language has not been substantively inherited by any significant group in the political sphere today, Godse's language has found many heirs in India as well as in other countries.

Reforms of Public Sector Enterprises

The term ‘liberalism’ firstly developed in the 19th century in the west. In the present day, liberalism is the widely regarded as one of the most influential modern political ideologies. The term was first used by in foreign countries with a negative connection. It was aggressively used to refer to people with radical opinion. It soon lost its negative meaning and became a respectable political label. Most people would now like to called “liberal”, which implies, “to be open minded; generous, tolerant and prepared to sacrifice self-interest for the public good. Beginning with the basic ideology of liberalism and the extent of power intervention of state in terms of economic, political control and development in recent times has made a major come back in the form of neo-liberalism to influence the future course of human development over the past two hundred years.

Hassan Al-Banna and His Modern Political Islam

Since the foundation of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, the movement has had a formidable political perspective combined with Islamic teachings. Regrettably, a critical aspect of political Islam rarely occurs or is inadequately addressed in Egyptian politics. The collapse of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt had, of course, influenced the Islamist movements around the globe. It also highlighted the battle between modern political Islam and the state. Egypt, however, is the most influential Islamic country worldwide, but it is also an unacceptable state for Islamist movements and political Islam. Thus, this paper politically investigates to understand what Hassan al-Banna founds in modern political Islam? And it answers a fundamental question; why political Islam has failed in Egypt, albeit the Muslim Brotherhood has been practising politics for more than 90 years. The paper ascertained that modern political Islam had failed due to the failure of the Muslim Brotherhood, not the structure and context of modern political Islam ideology.

ПОЛИТИКА И ИДЕОЛОГИЯ В ВОСПРИЯТИИ СТАРШЕКЛАССНИКОВ

The article presents the results of an empirical research: an expert survey of teachers of history and social studies in schools in the Ulyanovsk region and an online survey of high school students in grades 9-11. The school at present, due to the lack of a significant part of the humanitarian subjects in higher education, lays the foundations for the political and ideological identification of young people. Therefore, the purpose of our study was to study students’ ideas about politics and modern political ideologies. The article concludes that there is a lack of practical extracurricular activities to involve high school students in social and political activities at school and at the local level, and as a result, we can observe the lack of formation of the political identity of school graduates as an integral part of the civic identification of young people.

Теоретичний вимір дослідження ідеологічного чинника світових політичних процесів

The authors attempt to conceptualize approaches to determining the nature and place of political ideology, its main social functions, as well as the structural levels of functioning of political doctrines. Among the main functions of political ideology authors considers the following: uniting society around certain values, the function of legitimizing political power, mobilizing people to solve problems of social development, the function of social depreciation, which is the ability to interpret social reality and reduce tensions in conflict between people’s needs and the real possibilities for their satisfaction. The authors singled out the following levels of functioning of political doctrines in the structure of political ideology: the first level – theoretical and conceptual; the second is a program-political, and the third is an actualized level of political ideology. Political ideology itself, according to the authors, is a product of modernization, because in traditional society, nothing like ideology in the modern sense of the word did not exist. Considering the approach to ways and means of resolving conflicts, as well as taking into account the vision of economic development, the views of leading theorists on ideological currents were outlined. Thus, two large groups of ideologies were considered: moderate and radical. The moderate ideologies include all three so-called "big" ideologies of our time: liberal, conservative, and socialist. Political radicalism, in turn, is divided into two types – right and left. The views of theorists on the beliefs that underlie the system of ideological values of modern political ideologies are systematized. Such ideological values determine the content of political activity. The authors note that ideology is a tool for constructing the basic mechanisms of political behavior, becomes a conscious or unconscious altered view in order to justify political domination, helping to mobilize the masses and manipulate human behavior.

Judith N. Shklar on disobedience and obligation in a “society of strangers”

Judith N. Shklar on disobedience and obligation in a “society of strangers”

Av denna världen?

This article deals with the theological concept "Kingdom of God" in pre-1848 German political thought, more specifically in the texts of three political authors of the era: Wilhelm Weitling, Friedrich Julius Stahl, and Karl Theodor Welcker. The article is located in the nexus between theology and history of political thought, and has three main aims: First, in a gen­eral sense, it discusses and applies Amos Funkenstein's idea of laymen theology and Jan-Werner Müller's notion of in-between figures. Second, using these, it gives an example how theology has been an active language in the formation of modern political thought, more specifically the modern political ideologies of liberalism, socialism, and conservatism. Third, it tries to complement existing studies of temporality and theology in the mod­ern period, most notably the work of Jayne Svenungsson. Methodologically, in focusing and historicizing one specific concept, it connects to the theories of Reinhart Koselleck. The article shows how the Kingdom of God was differently conceived by authors of different political positions, but, more importantly, discusses how it became an active theological concept, used by laymen, in a political context obsessed with questions of historical change, the possibility of societal perfection, and the role of Christianity in the world.

Etruscan Orientalization

Abstract The terms ‘orientalizing’ and ‘orientalization’ have been employed to describe an art historical style, historical period, and process of cultural interaction between East and West within the early first-millennium BCE Mediterranean. With particular focus on Etruria and Italy, this historiography explores the Orientalist framework at the heart of ‘orientalizing’ terms while outlining how modern political movements and ideologies of nationalism and colonialism have influenced interpretations of ‘orientalizing.’ By showing the political viewpoints underlying the origins of the term and the ways in which these positions have continued to shape modern interpretations of the effects of eastern imported objects, ideas, and practices in Etruria, this work argues that the term ‘orientalizing’ should no longer be used. Instead, the period should be fit into existing chronological periodizations, and the process of cultural change should be interrogated outside of an Orientalist discourse.

The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought, i: The Nineteenth Century; ii: The Twentieth Century. Edited by Warren Breckman and Peter E. Gordon

It is sometimes said that the names of almost all modern political ideologies are formed by words that end in ‘-ism’. The observation applies to the titles of twelve of the twenty chapters of this impressive two-volume history of modern European thought that cover the nineteenth century (think of idealism, romanticism, scepticism, utilitarianism, positivism, liberalism, socialism, conservatism, Darwinism, historicism, nihilism, pessimism, or radicalism). It has much less salience when it comes to the twenty-one chapters that deal with the twentieth century, where the titles of only four chapters contain such words (existentialism, totalitarianism, structuralism, and poststructuralism). This could mean that the twentieth century really did see the end of ideology. It could, however, also mean that twentieth-century European thought continued to remain deeply in thrall to the intellectual life of the nineteenth century, or simply that the initial premise is false. Whatever the case, it certainly does not mean that several significant themes or subjects simply fell through the editorial net. This is as comprehensive a collection of authoritative essays as could be wished for, written by an experienced and able group of contributors, and giving its readers a range of opportunities to acquire new knowledge, make new connections between different topics, or come across new ways of thinking about apparently well-worn subjects. However, readers of French Studies will still have to work quite hard to pick up connections between topics that are often widely dispersed over several different chapters. Socialism, for example, can be followed from its beginnings in France, as described in Gareth Stedman Jones’s wide-ranging chapter, to its appearances in chapters by Mary Pickering on positivism, Claudia Verhoeven on radicalism at the end of the nineteenth century, Erica Benner on nationalist thought, or Jennifer Pitts on ideas of empire, and through to Martin Jay’s excellent essay on sociology and the heroism of modern life and Hagen Schulz-Forberg’s fascinating chapter on modern economic thought and the ‘good society’ in volume ii. The same type of extended thread can be followed in such thinkers as Rousseau, Kant, or Hegel, whose ideas echoed down the ages and were given a proliferating range of sometimes incompatible evaluations as they did so (compare, for example, the descriptions of Kant in Nicholas Halmi’s chapter on European Romanticism in volume i to Joel Isaac’s informative chapter on analytic philosophy in volume ii). Although some subjects — like the state, law, and money — have not attracted as much attention in these two volumes as they were given in the period that they cover, and the ideas of some individuals — such as Victor Hugo on the aesthetics of ugliness, Jules Michelet on Giambattista Vico and his legacy, or Georg Lukács on the political significance of the historical novel — could have been given more prominence, this is a formidable and readable collection that will certainly stand the test of time.

Battleground of Humanisms: How Väinö Linna’s Under the North Star United What Liberalism, Socialism, and Fascism Tore Apart

ABSTRACT In the contest between the three major modern political ideologies—liberalism, socialism, and fascism—the Nordic countries found a middle way with social democracy. For over four decades, Finland remained a class-divided anomaly after the failed socialist revolution in 1918 and fascist rebellion in the 1930s. Väinö Linna’s Under the North Star trilogy (1959–62), one of history’s most directly influential literary works, helped the Finns come to terms with their painful past, which enabled them to rejoin the Nordic path of social togetherness. By drawing on Yuval Noah Harari’s work on the history of human ideologies, my analysis of Linna’s trilogy suggests that insights from works of fiction that help societies unite may also prove useful for meeting the challenges we are expected to face in the present century, as we move toward a posthumanist era.

Sport, British national identities and the land: reflections on primordialism

The paper begins by outlining the key elements of the primordial approach to nations and nationalism central to which is the belief that national attachments and relations can be attributed to criteria that are perceived to be objective – language, ethnicity, geography – and which are likely to predate the emergence of the modern nation state and of nationalism as a modern political ideology. Although the approach is widely regarded with suspicion, evoking as it does the Nazi ideals of blood and soil, it nevertheless represents a valuable analytical tool for understanding the emotional attachment which many nationalists have to their natural landscape, whether real and imagined. Following a preliminary discussion of primordial theories of the nation, the paper then explains the two slightly different methodological approaches that have been used to examine two case studies which we argue demonstrate the value of a certain type of primordial perspective. Drawing upon autobiographies and biographies of former rugby union players from the Scottish border region, the first of these case studies examines the relationship between landscape, rugby union and culture in a unique part of the nation, not only in relation to its landscape, its most popular sport and the relationship between the two but also in terms of what it means to be Scottish. The second case study examines the relationship between sport, place and national identity in the industrial towns and cities of the English Midlands, drawing upon contemporary literature which discusses these concepts as defined by primordial ties to the land. Novels examined include Anthony Cartwright’s Heartland and Iron Towns.

The Impact of the Ukrainian Factor Over the Political Elite and the Civil Society of Transdniestria

There are studied political, social and other grounds of formation of the Transdniestrian political elite and civil society as self-sustained political phenomena. These institutes have been developing not isolatedly but in the framework of those political processes that were typical for the region during the period of its establishment and existence in different social and political conditions. There are summarized and analyzed different aspects of the Ukrainian factor impact over these processes as by direct influence of the Ukrainian political elite and civil society, as well as in the context of ideological concepts formulated in the Ukrainian political discourse during a long period of time. Concrete methods of the Ukrainian political class impact over the Transdniestrian political elite and civil society are also presented. A very special activity of the Ukrainian side could be seen up to 2014, when the Transdniestrian political elite had been considered in Kiev as an independent subject with its own interests that in its turn determined the choice of certain forms of impact. Direct inter-elite communication used to be one of the most meaningful forms of such impact, that allowed to identify the sides’ interests and to find mutually acceptable decisions on the highest and high levels. Since 2014 the situation has changed dramatically. The Ukrainian political elite refuses to recognize the Transdniestrian political elite’s status of a separate (independent) subject and considers it to be a tool for the Russia’s interests’ implementation. There appears a special role of the border factor as of a key resource for pressure over the Transdniestrian political elite, its business interests, options for traffic etc. The same way the Ukrainian side minimized contacts with the Transdniestrian civil society. But at the same time Ukrainians keep for themselves the option for monitoring the Transdniestrian political system. In the Ukrainian political narrative there appears a contradiction, when the Ukrainian political authorities can’t use a symbolic potential of a number of Transdniestrian locations, actual for the modern political ideology of Ukraine only because that these locations are situated on the territory controlled by the Transdniestrian political elite whilst Ukrainians avoid any contacts with the latter.

Konstruksi Nalar Teologi Politik Fundamentalisme Islam dalam Perspektif Epistemologi Bayani Muhammad Abid Al-Jabiri

The political theology of Islamic fundamentalism is a religious-political movement that wants the total application of Islamic teachings in the political system and at the same time rejects all modern political ideologies. Meanwhile, bayani epistemology is one of the epistemological concepts found by al-Jabiri in expressing Arabic-Islamic reasoning based on holy texts, as well as being the basis for criticism of the tendency of textual epistemology in the tradition of Islamic historical literature. Therefore, research on the logical construction of Islamic fundamentalism political theology from the perspective of Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri's bayani epistemology is very relevant. The method used in this research is the literature review method of al-Jabiri's thinking with critical analysis. The results of this study: first, the method of thinking of Islamic fundamentalism political theology is based on text (nash) or literalism-takfirism. They make holy texts (al-Qur'an and Sunnah) as the only basis for knowledge to arrive at the truth. Their way of thinking revolves around the problem of the concept of text, namely the relationship between lafadz and meaning, Uṣūl and furu ', as well as the position of the text between substance and accident. Second, the bayani dimension really colors the political theology of Islamic fundamentalism, which is textualistic and rejects all other epistemologies such as irfani and burhani. Based on textual reasoning, the theological reasoning of Islamic fundamentalism rests on three elements; (1) The dichotomous-dialectical paradigm, which sees everything in two opposing poles, such as black-and-white, right-wrong, and good-bad. (2) Islamic reasoning, which is politically-theocentric, namely a thought that understands that Islam and the state are integral and Islamic law must be applied in the divine political order. (3) Political jihad as Jihād fī Sabīlillāh, the jihad referred to here is war, both mental and physical. Jihad must be carried out to fight for an Islamic state as well as to fight against the enemies of Islam, both from within and from outside. This jihad is political in nature, but because it is based on religion, this jihad is considered as Jihād fī Sabīlillāh, which is a form of struggle in the path of Allah.

Piracy, Pillage and Plunder in Antiquity: Appropriation and the Ancient World (Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies) ed. by R.J. Evans, M. De Marre

Reviewed by: Piracy, Pillage and Plunder in Antiquity: Appropriation and the Ancient World (Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies) ed. by R.J. Evans, M. De Marre Richard Alston Evans, R.J. and De Marre, M. (edd.) 2020. Piracy, Pillage and Plunder in Antiquity: Appropriation and the Ancient World (Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies). London and New York: Routledge. Pp. xiv + 245. ISBN 978-1-138-34100-5. £115.00. The focus of this collection is elusive. I began with Clifford Ando's introduction (pp. 1-8) and Seth Richardson's essay on Middle Bronze Age Mesopotamia (pp. 9-26) and thought that the book was about bandits and, potentially, pirates. Matthew Trundle (pp. 27-37) provides an essay on mercenary service and Athenian state structures before Richard Evans's treatment of [End Page 268] state finances and raiding with a focus on Syracuse (pp. 38-59). Alex McAuley (pp. 60-83) shifts attention to Seleucid colonisation and issues of identity. Roman Roth's argument follows (pp. 84-96), focusing on coastal colonies as manifestations of Roman naval power and policy. He suggests that pirates lurked in the colonial walls. Aaron Beek (pp. 97-114) considers Rome's habit of calling its enemies 'pirates', seeing them more as mercenaries. This is followed by Stephen Harrison's paper on Tibullus (pp. 115-28), which transitions the volume to a more literary focus, with John Hilton's paper on the rebellious boukoloi in Leucippe and Clitophon (pp. 129-44) and Martine de Marre's consideration of the female Circumcellions, who are in the tradition of morally bad, rural and poor heretics (pp. 145-69). The volume finishes with two papers on reception topics. The first from Eve MacDonald and Sandra Bingham (pp. 170-84) points to tropes of piracy which came to justify imperial expansion in modern North Africa and finally comes Liliana Carrick-Tappeiner's consideration of Classical motifs in the hyper-masculine King Solomon's Mines (pp. 185-202). This shifting focus reflects an essential slipperiness of the subject. The terms 'pirate' or 'bandit' are often applied in modernity and antiquity, but rarely after a carefully consideration of the sociological and political characteristics of the individual or group so labelled. Such terminology is descriptive and invective. One who called Domitian a latro (Plin. Ep. 1.12; Suet. Dom. 12), could not plausibly have been claiming that the Roman emperor conformed to the same sociological categories as the Cilician bandits or the Cretan pirates. But if invective is in play, are we looking principally at elite social discourses tarring the socially and politically marginal with a label reinforcing their externality? For historians of antiquity, the problem is worsened by linguistic issues. Inevitably, we are translating 'bandit' or 'pirate' across multiple languages, sociological settings and moralizing practices. Can the supposed roaming bands of heretics in North Africa be meaningfully compared with Hellenistic mercenaries or Bronze Age herders? Is there anything that connects other than a translated word? Within the comparative historical and anthropological literatures, the category of bandit is not particularly homogeneous. Ando's introductory survey goes back to Brent D. Shaw's work, mostly from the 1980s and 1990s.5 Shaw wrestled with this definitional problem, particularly in his long article on 'Bandits in the Roman Empire', which collated a multiplicity of reports of bandit activity. Lurking behind Shaw's engagement was a cross-disciplinary initiative, 'bandit studies' which drew inspiration from the pioneering work [End Page 269] of Eric Hobsbawm (not in the bibliography here). Hobsbawm invented the terminology of the 'social bandit' drawing on an experience of near contemporary banditry as a form of armed resistance.6 Bandit studies looked to recuperate the stories of low-level, low-class resistance as evidence for mostly agrarian social conflict. For Marxist-inspired historians, the bandit, or the primitive rebel, offered evidence of class struggle before modern political ideology. But as Hobsbawm well knew, the social bandit was not a straightforward figure. In places, the social bandit was mythologized and romanticized. Robin Goodfellow became a very bourgeois bandit in Romantic and modern receptions. In the Mediterranean, the klephts, armatoles, and pallikari of the nineteenth-century Balkans metamorphosed into nationalistic icons, defenders of anti...

Relativita sociálnej spravodlivosti ako základného princípu sociálnej politiky štátu

Each state of Western civilization, which is identified by the boundaries of three basic subsystem – the system approach and value legacy of ancient Greece, Christianity, Christian social teaching, modern and postmodern political ideologies, implements a certain model of social policy. Social justice is one of the main principles of social policy. It is a natural requirement of society, which aims to ensure the good of society on behalf of individuals and various social groups. Social justice is the subjects of research by scientists and theorists in the fields of philosophy, sociology, law, economics, and political science. Its essence is relative and change in the time and space. The main goal of the paper is to identify common intersections of individual scientific disciplines with a view to social justice. Presented contribution is a part of solution of Project VEGA 1/0290/20 – Sociálna spravodlivosť a starobné dôchodkové sporenie v Slovenskej republike

Editorial Foreword

The theme of the 2019 conference of the Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies was crafted with our regretted colleague and distinguished academic Leonidas Donskis. In the meanwhile, conformism seems to have pervaded larger categories of public in East-Central Europe and beyond, and new “illiberal democracies” evolved. A composite of authoritarian leader and godfather have taken the reins of power in the area. Populist parties and movements are on the rise. Resurgent nationalisms are again offered as a substitute to solutions. The refugee crisis lingers on and no common decisions have been adopted within the EU to solve it on the basis of the European values. The EU institutions are in need of reform and decisions on the course of the organization and its future enlargement process are still pending. The conference aimed at analysing two often interrelated phenomena: dissent and conformism. In the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars nationalism and eventually modern political ideologies became the main competitors for power and control in Europe. Nationalisms unleashed the forces of destruction during the world wars while the clash of ideologies set off ahead of the French Revolution shaped the destiny of Europe during the 20th century. Dictatorships and even more so totalitarian regimes required unwavering conformism and full devotedness from their subjects, while encouraging dissent in the competing camp. Conformism has shown many faces from the Antiquity to Contemporary Age, from pretence to obedience, and an individual person could evolve during his/her lifetime between the two extremes. Sometimes, as many dystopian novels reveal, the conformist grows into dissident and even becomes a major target of his/her former patrons. Conversely, former dissidents can return to loyalty, and often the prize to be paid is betrayal of former affined spirits. The archives of Scandinavian, Baltic and Black Sea regions preserve numerous documents of such instances. Conformism can also take the form of what Zygmunt Bauman and Leonidas Donskis called “liquid modernity”, the situation of an individual who flows from one attitude to another, from one perspective to the other, from a set of values to an opposing one: The liquid modern variety of adiaphorization is cut after the pattern of the consumer–commodity relation, and its effectiveness relies on the transplantation of that pattern to interhuman relations. As consumers, we do not swear interminable loyalty to the commodity we seek and purchase in order to satisfy our needs or desires, and we continue to use its services as long as but no longer than it delivers on our expectations – or until we come across another commodity that promises to gratify the same desires more thoroughly than the one we purchased before. All consumer goods, including those described as ‘durable’, are eminently exchangeable and expendable; in consumerist – that is consumption inspired and consumption servicing – culture, the time between purchase and disposal tends to shrink to the degree to which the delights derived from the objects of consumption shift from their use to their appropriation.

The CCF and Canada's Socialist Streak

In the early 20th Century Canada saw the rise of a prominent socialist movement led by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). The CCF's influence on Canadian politics was essential to the creation of Canada's modern political ideology, which can be described as reform liberal. This ideology took hold due to the pressure that the CCF exerted on the two major federal parties, which could both be characterized as classical liberal. Due to the settlement pattern of the prairies and the actions of the federal government in response to the Great Depression, the CCF was able to secure a strong support base that propelled it to federal politics and allowed it to form a provincial government in Saskatchewan. Though it never formed a federal government, the CCF pushed for old age pension, reforms of corporate taxation, and Medicare. As a provincial actor and a "third force" upon the two ruling federal parties, the CCF and its successor the New Democratic Party’s contributions to Canadian identity and policy are beyond dispute.

Edmund Burke, Strauss, and the Straussians

In Natural Right and History, Leo Strauss accused Edmund Burke of being ignorant of the nobility of last-ditch resistance; defending a conception of history that set the path for historicism; and discarding a vision of politics as it ought to be. By separating philosophy from politics, Burke, according to Strauss, helped lay the intellectual foundation for modern political ideologies. While a number of scholars have attempted to vindicate or refute Strauss' criticisms through textual exegesis, my article aims to lay a sharper emphasis on particular historical episodes of Burke's political life in which his political thought and statesmanship calls into question Strauss' interpretations. I argue, moreover, that Burke's legislative activities retain a closer resemblance to Strauss' conception of classical statesmanship than Strauss suggests in Natural Right and History. I conclude by maintaining that Straussian scholars could enrich their framework of the Western canon by giving greater attention to Burke's political thought.