Radical Rejection Research Articles

“He Who Leaves the Old Way for the New, Knows What He Leaves, but Does Not Know What He Will Find”: Traditionalism, Zero-Sum Thinking, and Imagined Future

The radical rejection of the liberal political movements of the 1960s and 1970s by conservative politicians has been a core aspect of conservative politics. In fact, the youth movements of the 1960s broadened the goals of the labor and civil rights movement, also dealing with pacifism, ecologism, promotion of a new sexuality, new rights for women, and different sexual identities foreshadowing a revolutionary future for Western societies. It has been referred to as the silent revolution to define this movement of social change that began more than half a century ago. However, the reaction to the changes promoted by this movement since the 1980s has led to a cultural backlash. Fear of diversity, immigration, and economic and ecological crises has thus been the trigger for the new conservatism and populism. Everything produced by globalization has been considered decadent and immoral compared to a great and glorious past. The fortunes of the new populist parties in this sense are based on a traditionalist ideology that is not new at all, however. This article shows from a historical perspective how the idea of a threatening future found in the contemporary populist right is a radical conservative tendency that recurs throughout human history. In the article, an attempt will be made to define the culture and psychology of this conservative rejection of the future. Finally, possible solutions will be described in order to imagine a positive idea of the future.

Cultural code as the quintessence of spiritual values of the nation: markers of transformation of ideological paradigms

Relevance. The relevance of the study is mainly driven by the active transformation of the cultural map of the world, and the shift in cultural paradigms, which also results in new understandings of the "cultural code" for each nation. Juncture periods, marked by military clashes and political and economic crises, are always particularly fruitful for the transformation processes of the cultural sphere, principally the "cultural code", which is the core of the essence of any nation. Purpose. The purpose of this study is to trace these transformations and analyse their nature and causes. Methodology. Comprehensive, historical, comparative, and cross-cultural methods were used to achieve the goal. Results. The "culture code" has been studied by researchers from various disciplines for more than half a century and always remains topical, as the question of a nation's self-determination, its self-identification under the new reality, is always at the top of the agenda. "Cultural code" is defined primarily as a universal key to understanding the spiritual essence of a nation, the quintessence of its moral and aesthetic norms and attitudes, a concentrated knowledge of its cultural nature shaped by art, tradition, language, and morality. Conclusions. Comparative analysis, however, seemingly a-priori impossible, is still interesting and useful for understanding the nature and character of a nation. Among the prerequisites are, first of all, political events provoking a change in the hierarchy of values, new vectors of the process of cultural synthesis, new favourites on the cultural map of the world, leading to the loss of the identity of the nation in case of its susceptibility to external factors or to isolation in case of radical rejection of external influences.

Acca soror: Queer kinship, female homosociality, and the Amazon-huntress band in Latin literature

Despite the modern association of ancient Amazons and Diana’s huntresses with lesbianism, scholarly accounts of these groups as they appear in ancient Greek and Roman literature have rarely adverted to any hints of homoeroticism. This article re-examines several narratives concerning Amazons and huntresses in Latin literature (including Camilla in Vergil’s Aeneid and Phaedra in Seneca’s eponymous tragedy) from the perspective of queer kinship and female homosociality, demonstrating the ways in which these characters subvert traditional norms of kinship and femininity, replacing patriarchal control with female sodality, often imaged as a “sister” relationship. It suggests that, even if we do not interpret these intense homosocial bonds as erotic, we can nonetheless perceive a more radical rejection of social norms that transcends genital sexuality and merits the label of “queerness”, insofar as queerness can be defined as a resistance to normativity.

‘Mamie Djihad’: constructing and disciplining the abject other in everyday narratives

This article uses the trial of Christine Rivière, dubbed ‘Mamie Djihad’, sentenced to 10 years in prison for terrorism-related activities on her return from the Islamic State (IS) Caliphate, as a case study to explore the conceptualisation of IS returnees in everyday narratives in France. It employs Critical Discourse Analysis to investigate how online news users represented her, the extent to which they endorsed or challenged the official discourse that has securitised the repatriation issue and what their stance reveals about their conception of countering violent extremism. It contends that an extreme form of enemy penology underpins their approach to IS returnees. Drawing on Kristeva’s concept of the abject (1982), it will first demonstrate how gender, religion, class, and nationality intersected to exclude Rivière from the nation. It will then show how her radical rejection justified extreme solutions to neutralise her based on unfettered state power, punitive retaliatory justice, and Islamophobia, with far-reaching consequences. This study contributes to making sense of the discursive environment related to the repatriation of IS-related nationals beyond elite and media discourses.

Competitive observance by the Russian Federation and the USA of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty

Introduction. Thе Russian Federation and the USA, being parties to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, in their national legal acts refer to this source. Each of these states recognizes that the 1967 Outer Space regime is to be perfected, while having different legal outer space policy. The USA is a leader of the military outer space infrastructure and of creation national outer space legislation and separate international agreements (“The Artemis Accords”), thus imposing its own track to develop the 1967 Treaty.Materials and methods. This research addresses relevant international documents on international space law as well as acts of national legislation pertaining to the topic. Research results. In modern political conditions the quality of a state defense and its economic development is linked to the efficiency of the outer space infrastructure, including communication and reconnaissance satellites. While the U.S. intends to achieve military supremacy in the outer space, the 1967 Treaty seems to be a barrier to such intention although the U.S. provides its own interpretation of the Treaty. Another significant area of competition between Russia and USA in the outer space legal policy is the observance of the natural resources treaty provisions. According to the USA, a state is entitled unilaterally exploit the space resources, and its persons are entitled to commercial use of such resources based on national law. This position of the United States resulted in creation of its national legislation opportunities for natural resources activities in outer space. The Russian Federation continues to defend multilateral approach to the exploitation of space resources and to call upon strictly observance of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. There are also competitive legal positions of the USA and Russia relating to the notion of “common province of mankind” provided by the 1967 Treaty.The main results. In this context, the paper after providing prolegomena to the competitive principle in international law, suggests some theoretical ideas for perfecting of the legal position of the Russian Federation as a response to the modern outer space legal policy of the USA.Discussion and conclusions. In the legal literature on this issue different views are assessed – from a radical rejection of the US model of behavior and continuation of efforts to strengthen the 1967 Treaty regime, to proposals to adopt a new national Russian legislation providing rights of persons to exploit the natural resources of celestial bodies, thus provid-ing incentives for private investors. This track leads to more competition with the USA, observing at the same time the 1967 Treaty as the “corpus juris specialis”.

‘Vandalizing’ Father Hittite. Karabel, Orientalism and Historiographies

This paper provides a framework to highlight the entanglement of discovery and historiography based on the example of the rock-relief figure of Karabel (Turkey), a pivotal monument to recognize the Hittites and the biblical past. I lay out the common narrative of the re-discovery's story that resemble a hagiography, and I put it into perspective with critiques from post-colonial studies. Due to the ongoing damage at the figure of Karabel, I hypothesize that the one-sided role of the monument in the story of the re-discovery of the Hittites by western scholars is insufficient to avoid the radical rejection of the Karabel relief by some people. This article is theory-in-practice: it highlights some pitfalls and tells a story with more diversity, open thought, and considerations beyond traditional narratives of power in passéist oriental archaeology.

Truth within Reason

It can be seen as a mark against a belief that its causal history be disconnected from the truth. And that idea fits well with the view that discovering that a belief’s causal history is so disconnected itself diminishes its normative status. But this latter view can also be held independently: believing that your belief was influenced by irrelevant factors might be seen as problematic even should it not be seen as in general a mark against a belief that it be caused in one way or another. I pursue a more radical rejection of the role of truth in an adequate understanding of the normative status of belief. If a belief can be perfectly good independently of its connection to the truth, then perhaps it can be perfectly good even for an agent who knows that it is not causally determined by the truth.

Polish autonomous nationalism against the background of social movement theory

Abstract The purpose of this article is to analyze autonomous nationalism as a new social movement. This current of nationalism, which emerged at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, is characterized by a radical rejection of liberal democracy, as well as the ideology of the New Left. As a result of the analysis of the published content, it was possible to conclude that autonomous nationalism is a formula of nationalism as a movement of resistance to the establishment, adapted to the conditions of the 21st century. Economic conditions also influence the success of this social nationalism, which is inspired by the political thought of Otto Strasser. Autonomous nationalism is a novelty on the Polish far right also because of its rejection of Catholicism, as well as the formula of cultural nationalism associated with the national-Catholic current. Instead, a commitment to the ethnic concept of the nation as a ‘community of blood’ is noticeable in the movement under study. This goes hand in hand with the new neopaganism popular in the milieu.

Protocol statements, physicalism, and metadata: Otto Neurath on scientific evidence

Otto Neurath's role in the so-called protocol sentence debates is typically framed as primarily an epistemologically radical rejection of empiricist foundationalism. However, less well recognized is that from this debate, Neurath emerges with a conception of protocol statements that functions as a radical reconceptualization of evidence. Whilst recognizably still empiricist, Neurath's conception of evidence breaks with many of the key assumptions that predominate within the empiricist tradition. In rejecting the assumption of an epistemologically privileged relationship between an observer and their own observation reports, Neurath shifts the emphasis onto the importance of contextualizing information that guarantees the stability of observation reports. In so doing, he not only provides a conception of evidence better suited to the actual role of evidence in science, but also anticipates contemporary discussion of the importance of evidential metadata.

Vzťah viny a hriechu v evanjelickej teológii: Bibliografická štúdia Luthera, Schleiermachera a Kierkegaarda

This article deals with three representatives of Reformation theology and their teachings on sin and guilt. Sin is a theological category that expresses the relationship of man coram Deo. Luther’s teaching speaks of sin as a change in one’s status toward radical rejection of trust in God. Guilt is forgiven in the process of salvation, but as it is expressed in Luther’s teaching about simul iustus et peccator, one’s entire life remains to be repentant. In Schleiermacher’s thought, sin is a change in self­-consciousness, and guilt is not greatly emphasised. Kierkegaard presents sin as a change of subject in the individual. Guilt is part of present existence and should be constantly present in genuine repentance. These approaches have in common the avoidance of the moralization of sin.

Questioning and Disputing Vaccination Policies. Scientists and Experts in the Italian Public Debate

Most literature about vaccine hesitancy has been focused on parental attitudes. Less attention has been devoted to both scientists and experts (general practitioners, pediatricians, health care professionals and science journalists) who raise criticism about immunization policies and intervene in the public debate. This consideration aims to balance the current emphasis in the literature on parents’ attitudes about vaccination, offering a complementary angle to reframe and widen the controversy. Focusing on scientists and experts (who can shape and feed parents and people's attitude), an unattended complex picture of multiple attitudes towards vaccines and vaccinations has been discovered through a qualitative content analysis (QCA) of texts (appeared in the Italian press, TV and pop-science books) related to the harsh public debate, held between March 2017 and November 2018, triggered by the legislative proposal of making ten vaccinations mandatory for children. Unlike oversemplications that misleading dichotomies (such as orthodox and heterodox positions, Western science / Western medicine versus alternative medicine) reproduce, the analysis reveals nine different positions along the continuum of immunisation attitudes, ranging from radical acceptance of vaccinations (both compulsory and recommended) to radical rejection, which constitute a fuzzy set. Consequently, a twofold reality emerges: on the surface, the conflict seems between pro-vaxxers versus hesitant, pro-choice and anti-vaxxers; beneath it is amid standardized versus a varieties of contextual and personalised approaches to health.

A Black Manifesto: Ottobah Cugoano's Radical Romanticism

This essay engages with the prophetic language of Black British abolitionist Quobna Ottobah Cugoano (1757–c. 1801) as he condemns the humanitarian abuses of the transatlantic slave trade. By examining the abolitionist polemic Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species (1787), I assert that Cugoano's radical rejection of racial categories models a new way for British Romanticism to account for the broader contribution of Black writers beyond the limits of slavery. By invoking the genealogical theory of monogenesis, Cugoano normalizes Black identity as an expression of shared universal humanity.

Urban Climate Insurgency

Abstract Urban climate insurgency refers to the ensemble of grassroots initiatives aiming to tackle climate change from a radical point of view. Insurgency in this case does not imply violence but rather refers to the radical rejection of the current socioecological system. While explicitly challenging planetary ecocide and climate-change effects, these forms of insurgency target all policies that make the urban condition yet more precarious, demonstrating that climate mobilization is inherently intersectional. The focus here is on the urban dimension of this global climate insurgency that unsettles the dichotomy between rural and urban. It is on the urban terrain, already fissured by racial capitalism but also traversed by antiracist and promigrant movements, that the climate emergency becomes a climate and social justice issue. This introductory essay offers a fresh approach to the new municipalist project and digs into its environmental agenda. From New York to Mälmo, from Rio de Janiero to Istanbul, passing through Jakarta, Bangalore, and Naples, this special issue explores the articulation of radical climate-change politics, the materialization of climate injustices, and grassroots reactions to these injustices in the urban sphere.

Правовые системы стран тоталитарного социализма: особенности правогенеза и тенденции развития

The essential features of the legal systems of the countries of totalitarian socialism are analyzed, some issues of the formation of the socialist legal system in Russia are investigated, the main approaches to the typology of the legal systems of the countries of totali-tarian socialism are identified: from denial of existence at the present time to recognition as a global legal system. The characteristic features of socialist law are revealed, the close connection between legal genesis and political genesis is noted. The formation of the system of socialist law in Russia was based on a radical rejection of the legislation of the previous era; on the contrary, in some other countries of totalitarian socialism, a gradual change in the regulatory framework is noted. The leading role of ideology in the system of socialist law is characterized, which influenced the content of law, and its forms, and technical and legal features. From the point of view of content, socialist ideology gave rise to a special paradigm of relations in the “personality-state” system, which in one way or another affected all branches of law. The author also draws attention to the specifics of the sources of socialist law, the features of the legal culture of the countries of totalitarian socialism. All of the above allows us to conclude that the socialist legal system exists as an independent one. Despite the reduction in the number of countries included in this legal system after the collapse of the USSR, its preservation is noted, while in its classical form it remained only in the DPRK, other countries should be attributed to the modernized socialist legal system. The transformations concerned mainly socio-economic relations, the main political institutions did not undergo significant changes. An analysis of constitutional legislation and political practice does not indicate a desire to re-build the political and legal system along Western lines.

On Workified Education and the Possibility of Leisure

The article is concerned with the difficulty of providing leisure today with a positive definition that goes beyond merely being a negation of work. I argue that the vague boundaries between work and leisure play into the hands of work – a highly praised activity that is dominant in today’s society. I argue that in such a situation, education as leisure and as good in itself is hard to conceive and sustain. First, I present the concept of leisure in ancient Greece (scholé) as time dedicated to autotelic activities – activities taken for their own good – a definition that remains paradigmatic despite its later impossibility. I then show that once work has transformed from hated to bearable to eventually understood as good from a moral perspective, the concept of leisure has also changed – so much so that its positive definition is no longer available to us. After showing how education is affected by the diffusion of the boundaries between work and leisure, I suggest three possible ways to counter this process: (1) focusing on leisure as resistance to the dominance of work, (2) appealing to the deep connection between leisure and religious worship, and (3) a radical rejection of the concept of “leisurely work” or any other kind of work that is presumed good in itself.

Postgraduate Education System in the Republic of Belarus: Features of Institutionalization and Main Development Trends

The article considers the features of the system of postgraduate education in the Republic of Belarus, the characteristic features of its institutionalization as a level of education and the main trends in its development. It was shown that the transformation of postgraduate education in the post-Soviet period had an evolutionary character and did not lead to a radical rejection of the Soviet model of the two-level stage - graduate and doctoral studies and academic degrees of candidate and doctor of sciences, as happened in Kazakhstan. An analysis of the dynamics of the main indicators of the activities of the republican postgraduate doctoral studies for the period 2015-2019 was carried out. It was determined that the leading positions in the field of training of scientific personnel of higher qualifications belong to organizationsof the Ministry of Education. On the contrary, the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus is losing its leading role in providing personnel for the innovative development of the country’s economy. It was noted that in the system of postgraduate education, imbalances in the industry specialization of students in the republican graduate school and doctoral studies in accordance with the priority areas of science and technology have not been overcome. It was concluded that it is necessary to develop a set of measures aimed at improving the efficiency of the postgraduate education system, expanding the training of scientific personnel of higher qualifications for the development of high-tech industries related to the V and VI technological frameworks of the economy, strengthening cooperative ties between scientific organizations, educational institutions and industrial enterprises in order to solve the problem of staffing organizations of industrial science

Milan Cathedral Project: To the Historiography of the Question

The prehistory of the new Duomo constructed instead of the old Cathedral of Santa Maria Maggiore (winter cathedral) and the Basilica of Santa Tecla (summer cathedral) remains a matter of debate. For a long time historiography attributes the main role in the renovation of the Duomo to the first Duke of Milan, Giangaleazzo Visconti. The first attempts to reassess the contribution of Giangaleazzo to the founding of the cathedral met with radical rejection. The question of the origin of the project itself (whether it was developed by Lombard or foreign engineers), as well as whether it has undergone changes in the initial phases of construction and what this may be due to, remains controversial. The article presents an analysis of the latest historiography on the theme.

Spectacles of Freedom. Performative Practices of the Late Soviet Underground

The article considers the origins and history of performizm in Russian culture. The author broadly understands this phenomenon as the theatricalization of everydayness and historical shifts, expressed in the gap between the lifestyle, aesthetic preferences and cultural norms of the majority, and the performances of otherness. The study centers on the analysis of the forms of creative theatrical productions in the 1960s–80s. By drawing on the works of N. Evreinov, who was the first in Russian culture to develop the principles of the theatricalization of his own life — transgressiveness, outrage, and aesthetic (or simply non-pragmatic) motivations -, the author explores the performative turn in Soviet art and makes a distinction between performances, happenings and performative practices. In the performance, there takes place a rethinking of the relationship between ritual (the sacred) and art (the aesthetic) owing to the modelling of the liminal situation as a process of destruction of sustainable binary oppositions. A demonstrative experience of freedom is characteristic of happenings — the spectacle of freedom generates the effect of a shocking transgression. The author attaches particular importance to the group and individual performative practices. The performance style of theatrical rejection, cultivated among the nonconformists of the late Soviet period, embodied a specific pattern of otherness (The Mitki). The author investigates individual performative projects taking D. A. Prigov and Ven. Erofeev productions as an example. The distance separating the author from his image became the object of original performative practices. The author also emphasizes that contemporaries attributed particular importance to the feature of life-creating projects as the embodiment of freedom with all the dangers. The paper concludes that this freedom is paradoxical. It does not reside in self-expression, as in romanticism or modernism, but in the performance of oneself as another, who, due to the illocutive power of performance, replaces the self with the image of the other. The transgressiveness and redundancy of these performances imply a radical rejection of any stable identity, escaping from any frame, and revealing the relativity of each of them. The article considers the origins and history of performism in Russian culture, beginning with a broad understanding of the phenomenon as the theatricalization of everydayness and historical shifts, expressed in the gap between the lifestyle, aesthetic preferences and cultural norms of the majority and the performances of otherness. The study centers on the analysis of the forms of creative theatrical productions in the 1960s– 80s. Drawing on the works of N. Evreinov, who was the first in Russian culture to develop the principles of theatricalization of his own life — transgressiveness, outrage, and aesthetic (or simply non-pragmatic) motivations, the author explores the performative turn in Soviet art and makes a distinction between performances, happenings and performative practices. In the performance, there takes place a rethinking of the relationship between ritual (the sacred) and art (the aesthetic) owing to the modeling of the liminal situation as a process of destruction of sustainable binary oppositions. Happenings are characterized by a demonstrative experience of freedom is characteristic of happenings — the spectacle of freedom generates the effect of a shocking transgression. The author attaches particular importance to group and individual performative practices. The performance style of theatrical rejection, cultivated among the nonconformists of the late Soviet period, embodied a certain pattern of otherness (The Mitki). The author investigates individual performative projects taking D.A. Prigov and Ven. Erofeev’s productions as an example. The object of individual performative practices was the distance separating the author from his image. The author also emphasizes that contemporaries attributed particular importance to such a characteristic of life-creating projects as the embodiment of «freedom with all the dangers». The paper reaches the conclusion that this freedom is paradoxical, and does not reside in self-expression, as in romanticism or modernism, but in the performance of oneself as another, who, due to the illocutive power of performance, replaces the self with the image of the other. The transgressiveness and redundancy of these performances implies a radical rejection of any stable identity, escaping from any frame, and revealing the relativity of each of them.

The Authority of Evidence-Based Medicine

Evidence-Based Medicine proposed a radical rejection of authority in medicine, replacing the sage with the Randomised Clinical Trial. But EBM has struggled to deal with its own internal paradoxes of authority and evidence, including the challenge of how to develop a coherent philosophy of medical evidence without reliance on expert views of the value of evidence. David Sackett, perhaps the most prominent proponent of EBM, attempted a dramatic gambit to excise authority from Evidence-Based Medicine, but this gambit ultimately fails, leaving EBM's much-touted but undefended Hierarchies of Evidence as a surrogate authority figure in his stead.

1939 Theology to-day

Archbishop William Temple (1881–1944) wrote this article in March 1939 as war was looming. The pacifist movement was strong among younger Christians, and young and old were extremely worried about the rise of fascism. Appeasement or a radical rejection of war were often seen as the Christian options. Temple dissents from both and also from the certainties of (Thomist) natural law theology. His approach is more tentative and based on ‘events’, insisting that ‘[w]e must dig the foundations deeper than we did in pre-war years, or in the inter-war years’. He was the son of Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury (1896–1902), and was successively Bishop of Manchester (1921–29), Archbishop of York (1929–42) and himself Archbishop of Canterbury (1942–44). His Gifford Lectures, Nature, Man and God (1934), Readings in St John’s Gospel (1939) and Christianity and the Social Order (1942) are among his best known writings. Editor.