Public Spirit Research Articles

The constitution of political contention: The case of protests and riots at the turn of the 19th century

How is political contention constituted as an intelligible political practice, distinct from mere social disorders? This article gets at the question by analysing the relation between protests and riots at the turn of the 19th century in England. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s discussion of visibilities and post-foundational political theory, it contrasts the 1760s Wilkes and Liberty agitations with that of the London Corresponding Society in the 1790s. It articulates two ways of configuring the relation and constituting political contention in the self-governing practices of contentious actors. In the first case, political contention is an exercise of public spirit that may include riots and is opposed to passivity or factional interest. In the second, it is a process of public inquiry premised on a constitutive exclusion of riots. The comparison reveals how the emergence of protest politics also resulted in a new way of delineating and constituting political contention. In this way, it offers a new perspective on the contemporary constitution of political contention.

Социодизайн российского менталитета как организационный принцип государственности: синтез страноведческого и хронологического подходов

The sociodesign of the Russian mentality as an organizational principle of the statehood in the history of Russia is briefly outlined, the synthesis of the country specific and chronological approaches is carried out through the prism of producing a person, society, and the state under the influence of natural and climatic factors, internal processes and geopolitical problems using the methodology of complex science and text visualization.
 The matrix structure and functional connections of the individual’s and people’s mentality components are presented, indicators of the mentality manifestation and evaluation are disclosed, such as: archetypes of the unconscious and meaning-life orientations, social actions, public consciousness formation, national spirit and historical memory.
 From the standpoint of the country specific and chronological approach, the general characteristics of the Russian mentality are considered, which are superimposed on the psychological characteristics of various groups and specific individuals’ mentality, which can lead to forming a single national spirit associated with the specifics of national psychology if people have a national idea. As an organizational integrative principle of the statehood Russian people’s mentality is considered as a synergetic noospheric symbiosis of the individuals’ mentality of the Russian society.

The Bible and Musical Postmodernism

The paper examines formal changes of traditional church music in postmodernism: the choice of brief passages in the Bible characterised by soul searching (Jesus musing on his destiny, experiencing confusion about his purpose and mission), heroic acts (Esther and Judith saving the Jewish people), self-sacrifice and moral fables rather than key chapters of dogmatic stringency. Characteristic of postmodernist aesthetics are the combination of high and low art, fragmentation, and hybridity. Music rooted in the Bible draws on heterogeneous sources, such as medieval religious mysteries (the Wakefield Mysteries), jazz, folk music (Celtic, Far Eastern or East European, as in James MacMillan’s Seven Last Words from the Cross, 1994) quasi ancient music (actually a pastiche, as in Howard Goodall’s The Beautitudes, 2009). The sacramental atmosphere is lost in a narrative about a tamed and belittled Jesus figure: The Boy (1977) by David Palmer, or El Niňo (2000) by John Adams. These compositions at the turn of the millennium are belated and sublimated echoes of the rock operas of the ’70s, which carried with them intimations of politics (as in Yale Marshall’s The Business of Good Government, 1970), disseminating concern for the public spirit, care for the wretched of the earth, support for the hippie movement and ideology (especially Lloyd-Weber’s Jesus Christ Superstar).

Redesigning What is National: The Politics of Education and the New Moral Education Initiative in Globalizing Japan

ABSTRACT In December 2006, the Japanese Diet passed a revision of the Fundamental Law of Education (FLE), which aimed at teaching a sense of community and patriotic feelings among school children. This move is a clear departure from the long-standing norm in Japan’s post-war education policy in which democratic control and egalitarianism were the two primary principles. As the new FLE emphasizes the importance of love of country, how could the principle be potentially embodied in the contents of teaching materials for moral education? This exploratory study questions how such principles might be embedded in the contents of teaching materials for moral education. There are two analytical foci of this study. First, through the analysis of a supplementary moral reader, Watashitachi no Dōtoku (Our Morals), directly written, commissioned, and distributed by the Ministry of Education (2014–2017/2018), this study reveals how the three underlying themes of the Revised FLE, including patriotism, public spirit, and international cooperation, are projected on the contents and narratives of Our Morals. Second, this intended image of Japan in Our Morals (concretized by the Ministry of Education) is also scrutinized against the backdrop of Japan’s contemporary multicultural challenges. This study attempts to encapsulate the manifestation of the government’s intentions observable in Our Morals and the findings of this study thus highlight the political (rather than educational/pedagogical) significance of Our Morals.

Confucianism and Philosophy of a Shared-Future Global Community in an Inter-civilisational World Order: Comparative Analysis of Their Relationships and Prospects

The Western-initiating international relations theoretical framework plays a fairly dominant role in analysing and initiating the prospects and scenarios of international order. However, with the peaceful rise of China, whose civlisation sustains almost 5000 years, China is playing a more proactive role in inter-civilisational international order; thus, in-depth explorations into Confucianism as the core element of Han Chinese Civilisation have been resurgent on the world stage, and it is indispensable for relevant scholars, intellectuals and strategists to closely evaluate unexploited implications and demystify the sustainability and intrinsic dynamism of Confucianism-themed Han Chinese Civilisation, and its implicit ties with a comparable philosophical concept of a global community of shared future. Through historical-studies approaches and comparative methodologies, the primary purpose of this paper seeks to crucially investigate a potential relationship between Confucianism and the philosophical concept of a global community of shared future ranging from the perspectives of historical origin, context, substance and so forth. It can be argued that the philosophical standpoint of a community of shared future for humankind bears historical significance and merits that Confucian thoughts somehow generate. This paper of research findings meanwhile predicts that China’s inter-civlisational international engagement as part of China’s soft-power strategy will proceed beyond classical state-based theoretic framework and the Confucian thoughts of the prevalence of public spirit and harmony without homogeneity will grow as an alternative guiding international norm in better services of rebuilding normative, inter-civilisational international order that a global community demands.

The 10th anniversary of the world primary immunodeficiency week: A J Project celebration

The 10^th anniversary of the world primary immunodeficiency week: A J Project celebration

공공성의 공간으로서 ‘교회-되기’를 위하여: 비혼여성 문제를 중심으로

This study is about ‘empowering the church’ as a public domain which indicates that the church is a space of public spirits. The article addresses the problem of the loss of empowerment in the church due to the Christian culture in which the authoritative majority has been dominant, a dynamic which effectively closes the place to others. Korean churches have continuously engendered a family ideology that is influenced by a patriarchal Christian culture. In this situation, the minority groups of the church have been suppressed other groups such as unmarried women by patriarchal oppression. However, understanding this and other groups such as other types of families is necessary because the numbers of diverse types of families, such as a single-parent families, are skyrocketing. Jesus comforted minorities and gave the suppressed women the joy of liberation. Thus, the Ecclesia-Church, which succeeds in embodying the spirit of Jesus Christ, needs to become a public place that gives minorities liberation.<BR> This study aims to restore the spirit of the church as the public domain that helps unmarried women and other minorities to build their genuine identity as members of the church. First, we discuss the authentic meaning of ‘public spirit’ and explore how to recover it. Next, we discover how the today’s churches play a spatial role for minorities, especially unmarried women. Consequently, I hope that this study contributes to restoring Jesus Christ’s gospel offering salvation to minorities, which will, in turn, help to empower the church.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Application of embedded computer and improved genetic algorithm in the strategy of community of human destiny: the development of artificial intelligence in the context of Covid-19.

Through the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, the society has deeply realized the inevitability and necessity of building a community that shares the future of mankind. In the face of severely complex international trends and domestic and international economic conditions, artificial intelligence plays an important auxiliary role in the regular prevention and management of COVID-19. In order to effectively correspond to the formalized extensional prevention and control theory, it is essential to use coordination models, rule systems, prevention and control mechanisms, and governance landscapes to build artificial intelligence corresponding systems. This article uses a basic genetic algorithm to realize the robot path plan. This mainly includes the establishment of environmental models, the discovery of chromosomes and the determination of coding methods, the selection and design of fitness functions, and related designs. This paper proposes a new adaptive adjustment mode based on the basic genetic algorithm, which improves the selection and mutation operation, and improves the optimization efficiency of the genetic algorithm. Building an artificial intelligence response system may face various technical risks and governance dilemmas. Only by improving the rule system of artificial intelligence, creating an epidemic prevention and control ecology, conserving the public spirit of the whole people, strengthening the governance of the source of crisis, and further improving the new momentum of economic and social development and public safety. The modernization of governance capabilities can better respond to the current complex situation.

Wordsworth, Fox, and a Poet’s Public Spirit

Abstract Wordsworth’s major poetry—Lyrical Ballads (1798, 1800, 1802), The Prelude [1805], and Poems, in Two Volumes (1807)—has a rich critical heritage of political readings. This essay concerns itself with a similar but different theme: Wordsworth’s attitude towards a politician, and politicians generally, during his writing prime. From 1801 to 1806 Wordsworth corresponded with, met, and wrote poetry about the Whig statesman Charles James Fox, and in the same period he developed a civic sense of his own vocation. I argue that this engagement with Fox is an underappreciated source of what T. S. Eliot calls Wordsworth’s ‘public spirit’, a spirit which grew in conflict with the tendency of politicians in Britain and France to judge ‘men in bodies, and in classes, and accordingly to contemplate them in that relation’. The essay begins with an analysis of Wordsworth’s 1801 letter to Fox, before moving to consider Fox’s lukewarm reply and its basis in unpublished correspondence. It then explores the confident Miltonic poet who emerges in Wordsworth’s ‘Sonnets Dedicated to Liberty’, before finally considering accounts of the two men meeting in 1806, and the elegy Wordsworth wrote on Fox’s death in the same year. Attention to Wordsworth’s relationship with Fox allows focus to move away from how and why the poet’s politics changed in these five years, and on to his consistently held, revolutionary, and influential notion that poetry could provide an alternative means of animating politics.

Creating Public Value: The Core Idea of Strategic Management in Government

Creating Public Value: The Core Idea of Strategic Management in Government

Soon the Recovery will Likely be the Rule and Death will be an Exception in COVID-19

Since the cluster of cases of SARS-CoV-2 first reported in December 2019, the number of COIVD-19 cases have rapidly been increasing and deaths too but cumulative percentage of deaths have been decreasing since the April 2020 both worldwide and South Asian countries. Knowing the number of reported deaths during a period of the pandemic is not enough but knowing the number of excess deaths in a given population over the time may carry weight which is yet to be known globally. Also, the COVID-19 pandemic may lead to increased deaths from some other communicable diseases such as TB, dengue, and fewer deaths from some other causes such as road accidents. Hence, both reported mortality figures and excess mortality figures are required to understand the death toll of the pandemic COVID-19. Around one third patients are asymptomatic transmitting infection and among symptomatic, 80% mild to moderate disease managed as outpatients in home isolation; 15% develop lower respiratory tract infection require hospitalization and recover; 3-5% require intensive care and may need ventilator support and 0.5-1% of patients will die. We are of the opinion that in case of COVID-19, soon the recovery will likely be the rule and death will be an exception and our opinion is based on the facts of better understanding of COVID-19 infection and disease and its prevention, control and supportive treatment strategy even in absence efficacious vaccine for prevention and effective medicine for cure and prophylaxis. The condition is that if continue to follow non-pharmacological interventions for containment and mitigation with true public health spirit. &#x0D;

God, King, Fatherland – and Elections. The Introduction of the Municipal Self-Government in Prussia in 1808 Seen Through the Perspective of the Protestant Sermon

Introduction. The current study focuses on a number of sermons preached by the Prussian Protestant ministers on the occasion of the first municipal elections in Prussia in 1809–1810. The paper seeks to show that the Prussian Protestant clergy supported the introduction of the municipal self-government and inspired the population to take part in elections. Methods. The paper presents a case study dealing with the problem of the interaction between religious and political spheres in the early nineteenth century. This gives rise to the interdisciplinary approach adoptedin the current study. Analysis. Prussian Protestant preachers combined religious symbols with liberal vocabulary advancing the thesis that a good Christian is an honest citizen. The sermons abounded in such terms as “public spirit”, “civic responsibility” or “love of the Fatherland”. God was directly involved in the earthly politics since the municipal self-government was regarded as a divine gift from heaven. The Holy Spirit was thought to be present at municipal elections watching over the minds and the hearts of citizens. Prussian Monarch Frederick William III was stylized in the sermons as a typical “citizen King” who respected the rights of his subjects. The Prussian Kingdom was imagined as a big family with the King as the Father of the nation, the Prussians being his grown-up children. The introduction of the municipal self-government was thus described as “coming of age” of the Prussian people. Conclusion. The case study of the Protestant clergy supporting the liberal reforms conducted by the Prussian government proves that modernization did not always mean secularization.

The formation of ‘gong-yi’ in modern China: A philological perspective

The Chinese term ‘ gong-yi’ (公益), which is usually translated as ‘philanthropy’ or ‘public interest’ in English, has long been regarded as a new modern concept which originated from Japan in the early 20th century. This study, however, finds that it appeared in China no later than the middle of the Qing Dynasty. At that time, its usage had three major meanings: economic benefits; national interests; and local public affairs. The ‘national interest’ meaning of the term was most likely introduced into Japan and was brought back into China in the late 19th century along with the new thinking of the Meiji Restoration. ‘ Gong-yi’, with its newly coined meaning, was used as an ideological term to express ideas about reformation in early 20th century China. It was in this capacity that the Chinese ‘ gong-yi’ was swiftly popularized and often referred to the reformation as national interest. At the same time, the denotation of ‘ gong-yi’ was sometimes ambiguous, wavering between ‘the nation’ and ‘the local’. It reflected the volatile conflict between the state and the local over legitimate control of ‘public’ resources in a transitional period. In my view, the question of to what extent this interlock between the emergence of modern ‘ gong-yi’ and the nation’s modern transition might have shaped the historical formation of Chinese citizenship yields insights for the investigation of the nature of Chinese philanthropy and its essence in the public spirit.

Education, Commerce, and Public Spirit: Craig Smith's Study of Adam Ferguson

Education, Commerce, and Public Spirit: Craig Smith's Study of Adam Ferguson

The National Library of Lithuania: Lively, innovative and creative

We live in a constantly transforming society, and, therefore, the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, which celebrated its centenary last year, is also constantly transforming. By adapting to constant change, we continue our core mission, which in today’s digital age is to preserve and manage what has been created in this country over the centuries. We are actively developing a unique library model, live library. In other words, it is the living space of living people. Our field of activity is very wide. We are not only the custodians of the national documentary treasure but also a cultural institution, open to all, a scientific library and a parliamentary library that cultivates community, public spirit and democracy. Never before has the National Library been as popular, needed and even as fashionable as it is today. We work to meet the professional, intellectual and spiritual needs of today’s people, whether they are library visitors, readers, employees, partners or just those who want to improve themselves.

Social capital and public willingness to cooperate with the police in China

Purpose Public cooperation with the police is of great significance in the maintenance of social security and social harmony, but studies investigating the mechanisms of public cooperation with the police in China are scarce. Using survey data obtained from Xiamen, China, the purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of social capital on willingness to cooperate with the police and their mediating mechanisms. Design/methodology/approach Data with 938 respondents were used in this study. Ordinary least squares regression models were used to test the influence of social capital on the willingness of the Chinese public to cooperate with the police and its mediating mechanisms. Findings The results show that associational life participation, social trust and neighborhood cohesion can all enhance public willingness to cooperate with the police by cultivating public spirit or trust in government, whereas participation in community collective resistance is negatively correlated with willingness to cooperate with the police. Theoretical explanations are offered to understand different effects of social capital elements on public cooperation with the police, and possible ways to foster such cooperation are discussed. Originality/value This paper takes the lead in examining the effects of social capital on willingness to cooperate with the police and their mediating mechanisms in China.

Pediatric directors' perception of clinical research education in Japan.

Pediatric clinical research in Japan has declined recently, and a new policy requiring manuscripts of residents for the pediatric board examination was established in 2017. However, pediatric faculties appear to be confused about research education in residencies. Questionnaires on research activities in residencies were distributed during the spring of 2018 to 500 pediatric directors in all educational hospitals in Japan. We collected data and performed statistical analyses: principal component analysis, multivariate analysis of variance, and multiple comparisons. We received 252 (50.4%) responses and analyzed 243 (61 academic hospitals, 27 children's hospitals, 151 community hospitals, and 4 unknown). About 137 (56.4%) of them supported the new policy. There were three main contentious points on attitudes to pediatric research among respondents: passion for research, particularity about disease research, and public spirit. There was a difference in passion for research between academics and non-academics. A difference in pride in particular research was observed between PhDs and MDs. Differences in public spirit were not associated with scholarly degrees or hospital type. To promote research education in residencies, pediatric faculties should confirm and share the aim that pediatricians should be scientific physicians with a research mentality developed through research activities and should notice social problems. Through research education, pediatric residents could approach the five outcomes for pediatricians provided by the Japan Pediatric Society: being general physicians, child healthcare supporters, advocates for children, scholars, and professionals.

Популізм в українській політичній культурі

The paper deals with populism as the phenomenon of political culture in Ukrainian context. The President Election in Ukraine, 2019, has opened the new page in the development of populism not only in Ukraine, but in the world in general. Before that, no political force had won in such a persuasive way. Political analysis and prognoses, proclaimed before the election, look weak today. The paper outlines that populism is homological to democratic foundations of public life, but hypertrophied and unbalanced. It upraises as the reaction on social crisis and challenge to the stable way of life in the presence of political disturbance in different social segments and is connected with the appearance the political leader who uses specific logics of articulation of messages, the shape and the way of their representations to get and keep the political power. Such messages concern the people, like the appeal to it as to the certain integrity; the immediacy of its perception; the adjustment to its demands; the simplification of its view on the public life up to the black and white tones; the offer of the simple and unambiguous decisions. Populism as the phenomenon of political culture provokes the spectrum of ethical problems. Among them such as: manipulation of concepts of the people's internal homogeneity, integrity and moral purity; opposition of the "people" and the "elite" in the terms of good and evil; active use of moral demagogy and the practice of opportunism; cohesion of business and the state, corruption, nepotism; destruction of public spirit; activation of ressentiment and so on. Today S. Žižek mentions culturalization of politics, and many scholars outline correlation of processes in culture and arts and in politics. Also they call contemporary form of populism as postmodern populism. Independent Ukraine is very sensitive to populist challenges. Here postmodern populism and its technologies of the games with reality have won the victory. It is not only the source of new political experience. It creates new political culture here and now, that demands from scholars to comprehend these processes in real time mode. Postmodern populism does not leave the hope for catharsis, for social stress relief. Soaked in laughter, contemporary political culture is ridicule, and it destroys the political space. Sense of unreality and futile strengthens the comprehension of the impossibility to change such order of things on the due one.

School students' greeting behavior and its association with their community attachment and helping behavior

Objectives Many local governments and elementary and junior high schools in Japan have conducted a "greeting campaign". This has been done in order to activate communication among local residents, and to instill public spirit and sociability in students' minds. However, few studies have explored the significance of greeting campaigns. The present study investigates greeting in neighborhoods and its relationship with students' spontaneous greeting behavior. The study also seeks to understand the quantity of greeting in daily life and its association with a student's community attachment and helping behavior.Methods A self-completion questionnaire survey was conducted with 1,346 students studying in the fourth and higher grades at elementary schools, and 1,357 students in the first and second grade at junior high schools. There were 2,692 valid respondents. We performed the following analyses using the data of elementary school students and junior high school students separately. A partial correlation analysis was conducted wherein gender and grade were introduced as control variables. This analysis tested the correlation between the frequency of being greeted by surrounding people and the frequency of greeting by students, of their own accord. A path analysis that tested the relationship between students' greeting behavior, their attachment to residential areas, and helping behavior was also conducted.Results The results of the partial correlation analysis revealed that there was a positive correlation between the frequency of being greeted by surrounding people and the frequency of greeting by students, of their own accord, regardless of gender and grade. Moreover, the results of the path analysis revealed that the frequency of being greeted was positively associated with community attachment and that the frequency of students' spontaneous greeting behavior was positively associated not only with community attachment but also with helping behavior. The goodness of model fit was high for both the data of elementary school students as well as the data of junior high school students.Conclusion We found that exchanging greetings with surrounding people in daily life enhanced students' attachment to the community. In particular, we showed that students' spontaneous greeting behavior led to their helping behavior, which supports the significance of recommending greeting at home, school, or in the local community. Since there was a correlation between the frequency of being greeted and the frequency of greeting willingly, we consider that actions of surrounding adults become important to help students acquire spontaneous greeting behavior.

Governing spanish “municipalities of change” through mobilities

Les mesures pour favoriser la marche, la pratique du vélo et l’usage des transports publics au détriment de l’automobile constituent à la fois un vecteur et un révélateur du changement politique local à Madrid, Barcelone et Valence depuis 2015. L’article explore les ressources mobilisées par les élus pour repolitiser la mobilité en la sortant de la sphère technique de la gestion des déplacements. Ce champ d’action se construit autour d’élus dont la posture et les stratégies médiatiques varient fortement. Sans nier les limites (fétichisation du vélo et focalisation sur quelques opérations urbanistiques phares) des pratiques politiques, l’article montre les ruptures mais aussi les effets de continuité avec les programmes des municipalités précédentes. L’étude souligne également que la planification des mobilités, à travers le réordonnancement de l’espace public, illustre et prétend faire advenir le changement politique attendu (pacification des comportements, respect, civisme). Cette forme renouvelée de gouvernance par l’infrastructure induit également des reconfigurations relationnelles profondes dans le système local de la mobilité, entre acteurs publics et privés, mais aussi entre mouvements associatifs en faveur des mobilités nouvelles et groupes d’intérêts encore majoritairement attachés à l’automobile.