Modern Predicament Research Articles

The Drama of History: Ibsen, Hegel, Nietzsche

The Drama of History: Ibsen, Hegel, Nietzsche

Michael Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge as a Work of Alchemy in the Jungian Sense

Abstract A climactic moment appears in Michael Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge when he describes the modern predicament of humanity as a second ejection from paradise triggered by the uneasy discovery that our knowledge cannot be justified objectively. Polanyi’s philosophy is a response to the cataclysmic consequences of this second fall from grace. It seeks to establish a “balance of mind” that yields neither to the Scylla of objectivism nor the Charybdis of nihilism. Such themes are reminiscent of Jungian psychology and the process of individuation, yet there is no evidence that Polanyi appreciated this. That he nevertheless employs metaphors and ideas suggestive of the psychical transformations recorded by alchemists is telling. It raises the possibility that while his work is evidently concerned with epistemology, it is, at another level, a highly sophisticated depiction of psychological growth—both for Polanyi, and for anyone who accepts his invitation to join the opus.

The Past and Future of Procedure Scholarship

Written for a symposium honoring Steve Burbank’s contributions to procedure scholarship, this Essay takes Geoff Hazard’s monograph, Research in Civil Procedure, as its point of departure. Hazard was remarkably prescient in forecasting our modern predicament, posing timeless questions about the role of history and doctrine, the emphasis on normative claims and law reform, the centrality of legal theory, and the rise of empirical and other discipline-based scholarship. After surveying the challenges facing legal scholars, procedural and otherwise, the Essay concludes with a note of appreciation for Burbank’s ability to couple a command of doctrinal nuance with sophisticated empirics in crafting a powerful account of the variegated institutions of procedural law reform.

Female Authorship in Modern Fiction: Stevie Smith’s Novel on Yellow Paper (1936) and the History of Fictional Women Writers

This article reads Stevie Smith’s Novel on Yellow Paper in the context of modernist literary authorship and against the historical background of scenarios of female authorship in British fiction. It focuses on strategies of women’s writing as embodied in Smith’s protagonist, Pompey Casmilus. In a period in which the category of “woman writer” was firmly associated with middlebrow sentimentality, Smith explores formal and material constraints on women as authors of fiction. In its diagnosis of the publishing world, the segregation of readerly tastes, and the constraints of established generic forms, Novel on Yellow Paper confronts the modern(ist) predicament of female authorship in novel ways.

Eric Oberle. Theodor Adorno and the Century of Negative Identity.

While the topic of Eric Oberle’s Theodor Adorno and the Century of Negative Identity is not new, his approach and its results feel revelatory—and I am very self-consciously using the word “feel.” I’m not sure if I’ve ever read as moving a book on the history and development of critical theory. It’s not just that Oberle writes with great pathos for those of us willing to see the modern predicament of identity that Adorno uncovered but it’s also the fact that Oberle wants to look at so much more than the implications of Adorno’s ideas for reason. Thus, this is a book focused more on the reasoning subject than it is on the objects of reasoning itself, although the book recognizes how the two are dialectically entwined. To be a philosophical subject, defining ourselves in relation to the objects with which we interact, is to experience life as a process...

The Void of God, or The Paradox of the Pious Atheism: From Scholem to Derrida

My essay will take as its point of departure the paragraph from Gershom Scholem’s “Reflections on Jewish Theology,” in which he depicts the modern religious experience as the one of the "void of God" or as "pious atheism". I will first argue that the "void of God" cannot be reduced to atheistic non-belief in the presence of God. Then, I will demonstrate the further development of the Scholemian notion of the ‘pious atheism’ in Derrida, especially in his Lurianic treatment of Angelus Silesius, whose modern mysticism emerges in Derrida’s reading as the ‘almost-atheism’ (presque-atheisme). The interesting feature of this development is that, while for Scholem, the ‘void of God’ is a predominantly negative experience, for Derrida, it becomes an affirmative model of modern – not just Jewish, but more generally, Abrahamic – religiosity which, on the one hand, touches upon atheistic non-belief in the divine presence here and now, yet, on the other, still insists on commemorating the ‘withdrawn God’ through his ‘traces.’ What, therefore, for Scholem, constitutes the ultimate cry of despair, best embodied in Kafka’s work – for Derrida, reveals the more positive face of the modern predicament in which God has absented himself in order to make room for the creaturely reality. And while Scholem envisages redemption as the full restoration of the divine presence – Derrida redefines redemption as the ‘pious’ work of deconstruction to be undertaken in the ‘almost-atheistic’ condition of irreversible separation between God and the world.

COVID – 19: A Critical Ontology of the present1

COVID-19 has crowned a number of other disasters (wildfires in Australia, Desert Locusts in Kenya, an imminent WWIII merging Iran and the US), causing panic to click into place and horror to become our global predicament, making us realize that we live in the illusion of the permanence of things, of mastery, and of immortality. People’s turning to social media for trans-local news on COVID-19 has stirred great ire in the world. This led to the proliferation of dark images that associate the viral catastrophe with the end as we know it. To problematize the idea of the apocalypse (or the end) this paper speaks of three moments of survival in human existence: the beneath, the behind and the beyond. We argue that the apocalyptic nature of the pandemic and its global horrorism are part of a congeries of apocalyptic simulations that have always been part of the narrative with which we try to define ourexistence on earth. This paper masks itself against perfunctory examinations of the term apocalypse, and offers instead an understanding that runs along the lines of its Greek etymological sense as apokalyptein (revelation). It offers what Foucault calls an ontology of the present, that interrogates the history of COVID -19 with an emphasis neither on its origin nor on its telos. As beyondists, the COVID-19 catastrophe has revealed to us that 1) we have ‘access to knowledge beyond knowledge’ (see Gumpert 2012), and therefore that 2) our modern predicament is not very modern. The end, (not) to be sure, has been lived and relived in the boundary between reality and simulation. After all, the end of something comprises the beginning (in reverse) of that which “endeth”, throwing the beyond, behind and beneath in the Ferris wheel of epistemological and existential entanglement.

Foucault and Weber on Leadership and the Modern Subject

I propose in this paper that Foucault’s interest in parrhesia as a “technique of the self,” particularly in his reading of Cynic parrhesia, can be fruitfully taken as an exemplar for new political thought on leadership. I make my case by comparing parrhesia with Weber’s charisma, which is the only force Weber allows for inserting new valuations into traditional and rational-legal legitimate dominations. I propose that charisma and parrhesia not only share several key characteristics, but express an overabundance of identities. Although it is rarely acknowledged, I propose that this should hardly be surprising given Foucault’s longstanding interest in Weber’s work. Foucault’s governmentality can be productively set next to Weber’s psycho-sociology of modern man, Menschentum, to reveal the parallel courses taken by these two thinkers on the modern predicament. Both share a critical curiosity – one that revolves around Kant’s presentation in “What is Enlightenment?” – about life, and about seeing how we have come to be how we are as a philosophical problem. Yet, even with all of their parallels, particularly on the subject of leadership, the staggering difference between Foucault and Weber is that while Weber approached charisma as a possible therapy to the problem of the Menschentum being unable to derive new valuations from his rational-legal calculations, Foucault approached parrhesia by looking for techniques for confronting disciplined and biopolitical subjects within society with dangerous truths. Whereas conventional wisdom may presume that it is at such points as Weber’s charismatic leadership that Weber and Foucault would part ways, careful study shows that leadership is a point of connection between these two thinkers.

Subjective temporal well-being: Defining, measuring, and applying a new concept

Time scarcity has become part and parcel of our modern predicament, with individuals' temporal experiences emerging as a central factor for their wellbeing. Despite the widespread experience of time-related problems, however, no comprehensive method to measure the subjective temporal dimensions of this experience have been generally accepted. This article seeks to take a step in addressing this gap by introducing a new concept called Temporal Well-being. In the first part of the article, the new concept is defined in its two fundamental dimensions, anchoring it to the experience of a level of perceived time pressure and a level of satisfaction with how one's time is spent. Next, the concept is subjected to an empirical examination using a data-set consisting of 1,000 Swedish respondents. The concept is related to other, existing measures of well-being, and the particular characteristics of individuals found in the present research to have especially high and low temporal well-being are mapped. The concept of Subjective Temporal Well-being is proposed to provide a comprehensible and tangible angle for the study of key dimensions of people's everyday lives, which in some cases can be more suitable than the notion of overall well-being. Finally, the implications of the new concept are explored in terms of its possible applications in statistical surveys and its usefulness for academic research.

A Not-So Distant Mirror : The Modern Predicament in the Early Twentieth Century

This paper aims to show that the early twentieth century exemplified and revealed the nature of the modern predicament. And this predicament, for reasons that will appear later, can first be defined as a constant and deeply set tension, forcing European minds to waver between a tendency towards nihilism and the utopian expectation of perfecting society into an earthly paradise. The First World War did in fact provide a clear demonstration of the Western propensity for mass destruction, and D....

Marketplace or public arena? truth and policymaking in democracy

The lecture looks at the problem of democratic legitimacy. It concentrates on the eroding reliability of contemporary, democratic policymaking, which is involved in a conflict between two different formulas of legitimacy – the logic of self-regulation, originating in the notion of the market and the idea of public judgment, and the logic of public debate. It begins by posing the following question: is democratic policymaking based on reliable ‘truths’ that can ensure a sense of purpose and security, or is it involved in a drama of contingent, petty manoeuvring? However, the focus of this lecture is not on day-to-day practical matters. It is intended to embrace the cultural and philosophical premises of current political dilemmas. Political matters are connected to more fundamental questions, referring to the predicament of late modernity.

EXISTENTIALISM IN INDIAN ENGLISH NOVEL

Existentialism in Indian English Novel has its roots in western philosophy. Since our civilization has been heading towards westernization, and the life of man has been tending towards modernization. It has become inevitable for man to ask himself who he is and what his relation is to the physical and social world. The modern Indian is surrounded by the forces which are commanded and controlled by existentialist dilemmas. Modern fictional hero is a split-personality or a tortured individual through whose mind the novelist points out the social or national or human conditions. Modern heroes are not only emotionally wronged but also shaken at the existential level. The problems of existence are too wide to be managed by the modern man. The modern novel portrays outsiders, foreigners, who are empty in feelings, or incapable of communication, or unable to relate themselves meaningfully to the surroundings. Thus modern’s fiction in English reflects modern human predicament; life surrounded by forces of anxiety.

"What Are Poets For?"

PoetryI, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond allthis fiddle.Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt it, one discovers init after all, a place genuine.Hands that can grasp, eyesthat can dilate, hair that can riseif it must, these things are important not because ahigh-sounding interpretation can be put upon them butbecausethey areuseful. When they become so derivative as to becomeunintelligible,the same thing may be said all of us, that wedo not admire whatwe cannot understand: batholding on upside down or quest of something toeat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolfundera tree, immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse thatfeels aflea, base-ball fan, statistician-nor is it validto discriminate against 'business documents andschool-books'; all these phenomena are important. One mustmake a distinctionhowever: when dragged into prominence by half poets, theresult is not poetry,nor till poets among us can be'literalists of imagination'-aboveinsolence and triviality and can presentfor inspection, 'imaginary gardens with real toads them',shallwe haveit. In meantime, if you demand on one hand,the raw material of poetry inall its rawness andthat which is on other handgenuine, you are interested poetry.(M. Moore)1. Wozu Dichter durftiger Zeit?Wozu Dichter durftiger Zeit? asks Holderlin his 1800-1801 elegy Brot und Wein. The very fact that poet finds himself posing question already betrays historical predicament of modernity which poetic activity and poetic language are no longer, as ancient Greek naturally and immediately flowing from things themselves, from proximity of gods to-and even unity with-the natural and human world (Brot und Wein, 5). In fact, poet self-doubtingly raises question is poet feels that as a poet he has too late. The ancient times belong to a long-gone, irretrievable past, gods are once and all removed from disillusioned human and if they have not entirely disappeared they do live in another world, poet is alone (ohne Genossen). In fracture that is modernity poet's question arises: why then and be a poet times? Poets seem to be the holy priests of god's wine (Weingott), who wandered from land to land holy night (Brot und Wein, 7). This is poet's friend Heinze suggests. Poets are those mortals pursue fugitive gods wherever this pursuit takes them: a chase from land to land but always darkness of night-albeit a holy one.1Holderlin's question is raised again 1946 by Heidegger. Other, indeed much darker and much more troubled times hover over question at this juncture. Now interrogation is further removed from poet. In fact, it does not come from poet himself but from philosopher. If question still expresses a (self-) doubt it is doubt of philosopher now turns to poet a possible salvation, possibility that a new beginning of philosophical thinking itself be revealed to him by poet. This is, effect, way which Holderlin's poetry has opened path Heidegger's new way of philosophizing beyond strictures of metaphysics and contemporary phenomenology. It follows that now question does not regard only what for (wozu) of poetry but also and first place identification of those poets whom question may be seen to concern (let's name then poets in-and of-our destitute time, poets may save us; is Rilke one of them, and way, namely, how is his poetry related to destitution of time? …

Becoming-Religion:Re-/thinking Religion with A. N. Whitehead and Keiji Nishitani

For Whitehead and Nishitani, a rethinking of religion necessitates a rethinking of the metaphysics that underlie one’s concept of religion. The dynamism of religion is unveiled only within the metaphysical grounding of an ontology that accommodates the philosophical preference of “becoming” as an ultimate category of reality. The novelty of Whitehead’s theory of religion lies in the process metaphysics that it presupposes. For him, religion, like the whole of reality, is inherently developing and evolving. What Nishitani offers is a rethinking of Western understanding of religion by way of an Asian speculative approach grounded in Zen Buddhism. He argues that Western religion, particularly Christianity and Judaism, has succumbed to the modern predicament of nihilism, or relative nothingness. He radicalizes this same nihility towards absolute nothingness (śūnyatā). For both Whitehead and Nishitani, despite the distortion of religion by religious fundamentalists, genuine religion consolidates and points a society towards its real destiny. However, the realization of religion’s role necessitates reflexivity on its own inherent dynamism.

Jejuri: A Pilgrimage into the Past and the Present

Arun Kolhatkar’s Jejuri is probably the only book of Indian poetry in English in recent times that has some claims of be considered as a possible commonwealth classic. Though it was first published in 1954 in the Opinion Literary Quarterly, it caught the attention of the critical world only it was awarded the Commonwealth Literary Prize of 1977.It has been hailed since then as the most extraordinary book of poems. It gives us a symbolic picture of modern predicament. The subject of Kolatkar’s sequence of poems is religion, and the relation between religion and culture. Kolatkar’s attitude is very different from treatments of the same them in modern Europe and America. The difference is not ideological; it arises out of an entirely distinct climate of sensibility. Kolatkar’s poetic mind, enlivened though it may be by irony and irreverence, remains paradoxically a combination of the negatively dark and even the joyous. It represents in the final analysis a modern adjustment (present) to an accepted tradition (past). Unlike some Western work, it is not nor an attempt to construct something in a godless universe.

Behold the raking geison: the new Acropolis Museum and its context-free archaeologies

In December 1834 Athens became the capital city of the newly founded Hellenic Kingdom. King Otto, the Bavarian prince whose political and cultural initiative shaped much of what modern Greece is today, sought to design the new city inspired by the heavily idealised model of Classical Hellas (see Bastea 2000). The emerging capital was from the outset conceived as aheterotopiaof Hellenism, a Foucauldian 'other space' devoted to Western Classicism in view of the Classical ruins it preserved. The Acropolis became, naturally, the focal point of this effort. At the same time, however, and as Greek nationalist strategies were beginning to unfold, Classical antiquity became a disputedtopos,a cultural identity of sorts contested between Greece on the one hand and the 'Western world' on the other (see Yalouri 2001: 77–100). Archaeological sites thus became disputed spaces, claimed by various interested parties of national or supra-national authority wishing to impose their own views on how they should be managed — and to what ends (Loukaki 2008). The Acropolis was duly cleansed from any non-Classical antiquities and began to be constructed as an authentic Classical space, anationalproject still in progress. As Artemis Leontis has argued in her discussion of Greece as a heterotopic 'culture of ruins', the Acropolis of Athens, now repossessed by architectural renovation and scholarly interest, functions'as a symbol not of Greece's ancient glory but of its modern predicament'(Leontis 1995: 40–66; see also McNeal 1991; Hamilakis 2007: 85–99).

David Haslam and Fiona Haslam, Fat, Gluttony and Sloth: Obesity in Literature, Art and Medicine

Fat, Gluttony and Sloth reflects growing interest in and anxiety about fat in British society, and offers an interesting, if at times frustrating, take on fat and culture from ancient times to the present. Written by a physician and a medical historian, this well-illustrated and clearly written book aims to survey ‘the history and perceptions of obesity; it is not intended to engage with critical theory and analysis. … The intention is to present historical facts and to document historical conceptions and the views and reasoning of important medical figures in order to shed light on modern representations and management of obesity’ (p. 8). Obviously directed at a wider audience than academics, it features a foreword by Ian Banks (a physician specializing in men's health and obesity) imploring all who are truly concerned about fat to ‘read this book, and laugh a little’ (p. viii). The authors' outlook on obesity is clearly laid out in the introduction: from the biomedical perspective that they share, fat ‘is a threat to the individual and to society as a whole’ (p. 4), and readers are reminded of this throughout the book. Through 12 chapters the authors move back and forth across Western history to present the background to our modern predicament, roaming from the Greeks and Romans to contemporary health concerns, discussing along the way ‘freak’ shows, quack medicine, ancient and medieval views of gluttony and sloth, and depictions of fat people in art, literature and film. The authors are at their best when they pursue a given issue in some detail and remain within a given time period. For instance, the chapter on dubious drug treatments is quite interesting and informative. Yet elsewhere retrospective diagnoses abound, and much of the specific historical material is described with little or no attempt at contextualization. Some of this is to be expected in a book that covers so much ground, but mounting example upon example across centuries would give many medical historians pause. The result is an almost encyclopaedic hotchpotch of information pertaining to fat in history, medicine and a variety of media. While this may be a boon to readers wishing for a richly illustrated factual overview of fat in history—which the book accomplishes reasonably well—it may be unsatisfying for those seeking a deep or rigorous engagement with the material.

Virtue Ethics and Modern Society—A Response to the Thesis of the Modern Predicament of Virtue Ethics

The revival of modern Western virtue ethics presents the question of whether or not virtue ethics is appropriate for modern society. Ethicists believe that virtue ethics came from traditional society, to which it conforms so well. The appearance of the market economy and a utilitarian spirit, together with society’s diversification, is a sign that modern society has arrived. This also indicates a transformation in the moral spirit. But modern society has not made virtues less important, and even as modern life has become more diversified, rule-following ethics have taken on even greater importance. Modern ethical life is still the ethical life of individuals whose self-identity contains the identity of moral spirit, and virtues have a very important influence on the self-identical moral characters. Furthermore, modern society, which is centered around utilitarianism, makes it apparent that rules themselves are far from being adequate and virtues are important. Virtues are a moral resource for modern people to resist modern evils.

How Innocent is our Scientific Vocabulary? Rethinking Recent Sociological Conceptualizations of Complex Leisure

More than ever, social scientists have reason to question the assumption that work is the human activity of value and leisure is little more than a respite from work; a way to consume its fruits and prepare for more work. This article compares four conceptualizations of the demanding activities people choose for themselves in their spare time. Each one is based on relatively recent empirical studies and presented to social science with a distinct term: `serious leisure', `specialized play', `edgework', and `consumption within a fantasy enclave'. Any conceptual representation allows certain interpretations of social phenomena and blocks others. In this case, vastly different pictures emerge, depending on the conception chosen. Thus, the major finding of the article is that sociology urgently needs to assess its vocabulary in order to understand how the modern predicament affects men and women in their freest moments.

Review Article on Amos Yong's,The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Possibility of Global Theology

Amos Yong's book is not only a valuable contribution to but also represents an important development in Pentecostal theology. His work brings Pentecostalism into conversation with concerned individuals throughout the world who are dealing with various large scale cultural and social crises. Yong constructs an interpretation of Pentecostalism in response to the predicament of late modernity, which he sees as marked by questions concerning the existence and possibility of experiencing the supernatural, the implied relativism of religious and cultural pluralism, and the autonomy of science and its claims about truth and reality. In this space allotted to me, I do two things: (1) give a brief overview, interspersed with commentary, on the salient features of Yong's book and (2) suggest that the agenda of Pentecostal theology be broadened to include treatment of other global issues such as the globalization of capitalism, mass migration, and war and violence.