Realm Of Freedom Research Articles

The Structural Control of Labor and Leisure of Working Fathers in Taiwan: A Dialectical View on the Realm of Freedom

Through in-depth interviews, this qualitative study used a critical approach to explore the perceived freedom of working fathers in pursuing leisure activities. Interviews were conducted with 15 Taiwanese working fathers from various occupations about their leisure experiences, constraints, and what leisure means to them. From the results, three themes emerged: (1) work-life imbalance of working fathers, (2) the famine of free time, and (3) freedom through leisure. Despite differences in occupations and economic status, most interviewees suffered from time famine. The relationship between work and leisure is a dynamic interplay of opposing forces. Leisure value is not a universal concept. Leisure must be understood as multiple structures, interpreted differently by people in different contexts. The results also showed that absolute freedom is an unreachable goal under Taiwan’s capitalist system. These issues are discussed in Taiwan’s social, cultural, and economic contexts from working fathers’ perspectives on leisure.

The state of kurdish language through public policies in Turkey after 1980

Making of public policies is a process through which the state determines relevant topics for the sake of its citizens and implements them. In Turkey, the public policies about Kurdish language after 1980 are outstanding such that the actors of coup d’état eagerly embraced the former idea of nation state which theoretically requires one common language in the borders of the given country. In parallel with this notion, the soldiers, who are the impeccable followers of Kemalist idea, put much pressure on local languages in Turkey, especially Kurdish language. They made some laws and forbade other languages than Turkish. But later, the conservative governments reigned in Turkey which had different ideas about this topic. As they got the opportunities, they made use of them so as to improve the situation for that language. The conservative governments handled this topic in the realm of freedom and human rights and created different public policies, so the adventure of Kurdish Language followed a much different track under different governments. This is a qualitative study, and the data were compiled from the related literature and evaluated accordingly.

Brain Magnet: Research Triangle Park and the Idea of the Idea Economy

Brain Magnet: Research Triangle Park and the Idea of the Idea Economy

Reading between Freedom and Necessity

Mostly the culture of literacy has taken shape within a realm of freedom, seemingly distant from the needs of the body and the demands of sustenance. At the same time, the world represented within so much of the world’s narrative, both truth and fiction, has been saturated in struggle and deprivation. This article tries to make some sense of this juxtaposition, freedom on one side and necessity on the other: in particular, the pull of past or residual forms of unfreedom in the sphere of literary representation, within and against new or emerging expressions of emancipation, themselves accompanied or countered in modern times by ever-novel styles of exploitation

The Post-Soviet School of Critical Marxism (PSSCM): Particular Characteristics, Main Tendencies, and Its Place in the System of Marxist Studies in Post-Soviet Russia

The author characterizes the main stages in the rise of the Post-Soviet School of Critical Marxism (PSSCM) and highlights its most important features, distinguishing it from other tendencies of Marxist thought in Russia. The latter include the orthodox version of Marxism, the social democratic tendency, and the ‘Russophile’ tendency. In contrast to these trends, the PSSCM is oriented toward elaboration of a dialectical materialist methodology; toward development of creative Soviet and world traditions in the study of social alienation and de-alienation; toward the critical use of Marx and his followers’ achievements with the aim of developing the main elements of the ‘Capital’ of the 21st century; and toward studying the prospects for the future ‘realm of freedom’ (Marx) as the dialectical sublation not only of capitalism, but also of the entire system of relations of social alienation in the context of facing the contemporary global problems. A feature of the article is its extensive bibliography of works by Russian Marxists.

Творческий человек в экономике будущего

The article shows that in the economy of the future, the dominant position of creative activity will be more and more prominent. The attributes of creative activity are highlighted. Moreover, the author argues the thesis about the need of developing a space in which intellectual private property is initially supplemented, and then replaced by the everyone’s ownership of everything; equal access to personal development resources (education, etc.), cultural benefits is ensured; the idea of the importance of advancing the development of the public sector is being elaborated on. The author also shows that in the modern economy, which is defined in the article as late capitalism, creative activity is inconsistently associated with the relations of hiring and bending the creator to market conditions. The contradiction of the two principles that are characteristic of every creative worker acting in modern conditions both as a homo creator and as a homo economicus is discussed. It is shown that creative workers employed in the public sector are gradually forming a new social stratum - the socialitat. The expediency of carrying out deep reforms at the starting point, and further qualitative changes in the economy, aimed at the birth of the «realm of freedom», the relations in which remove the boundaries of the development of creative activity generated by socio-economic alienation, is substantiated. In conclusion, the question is raised whether a society dominated by creative activity will become qualitatively different not only from capitalism, but also from any other socio-economic system of the past.

Epistemic media and critical knowledge about the self: Thinking about algorithms with Habermas

This article explores the ontology of personal knowledge that algorithms on digital media create by locating it on two axes: historical and theoretical. Digital platforms continue a long history of epistemic media—media forms and practices, which not only communicate knowledge, but also create knowledge. As epistemic media allowed a new way to know the world, they also facilitated a new way of knowing the self. This historical perspective also underscores a key difference of digital platforms from previous epistemic media: their exclusion of self-reflection from the creation of knowledge about the self. To evaluate the ramifications of that omission, I use Habermas’s theory of knowledge, which distinguishes critical knowledge from other types of knowledge, and sees it as corresponding with a human interest in emancipation. Critical knowledge about the self, as exemplified by psychoanalysis, must involve self-reflection. As the self gains critical knowledge, deciphering the conditions under which positivist and hermeneutic knowledges are valid, it is also able to transform them and expand its realm of freedom, or subjectivity. As digital media subverts this process by demoting self-reflection, it also undermines subjectivity.

Darko Suvin, Communism, Poetry: Communicating Vessels

Abstract Darko Suvin's Communism, Poetry: Communicating Vessels teases out the dialectical connection between poetry and revolution. The book is comprised of an amalgam of essays and poems that constitute a “series of epistemological probes.” In their totality, they inform as a book-length essay on the politics of form that focuses on equally revolutionary ways of knowing and being in the terrible world of the present and of anticipating what is to be done to break through the conditions of exploitation and terror and into the realm of Freedom.

IPO Essay

The article examines the status of the IPO essay, starting from the thesis that the essay is a neutral form that does not favour or disadvantage any particular group of students and that allows everyone complete freedom of writing. The discussion yields two findings: firstly, the essay is not a neutral form, since students are required to adhere to specific rules in their writing. The basic regulations governing the essay are contained in the IPO Statute in the form of criteria of evaluation. Further provisions are laid down in the IPO Essay Guide. The Guide specifies in greater detail what is expected of students in their essay writing; however, these specifications seem to be one-dimensional. The article seeks to propose a more complex understanding of the philosophical essay based on various essay writing guides which focus on the essay as representing not merely a form of knowledge examination, but also a school of thought and a realm of freedom. Thus, the second conclusion arising from the article is the thesis that the philosophical essay is by essence linked to the freedom of the subject; however, this is not a complete freedom, but one that should be regarded as relating to philosophical socialisation and qualification.

Sebastian's Space and Forms

A strong message that mathematics revealed in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries is that geometry and space can be the realm of freedom and imagination, abstraction and rigor. An example of this message lies in the infinite variety of forms of mathematical inspiration that the Mexican sculptor Sebastian invented, rediscovered and used throughout all his artistic activity.

Movement toward Freedom: Myth and Reality

The problem of freedom is researched in various ways by the religions of the world, by the scientific theories and by the mythological consciousness of people. The article pays great attention to the myth and its influence on the realm of freedom and on our interpretation of reality. The author understands a myth as a certain free fiction of a man in order to interpret reality in his own way and sometimes to create his own artistic image of the world. Often the myth stimulates the ability of the imagination and thus it participates in the creation and existence of personality. It is argued that the traces of the myth can be found in most ways of orientation in the material and ideal worlds as well as in the systems of human interests and relationships, in the original human desire of freedom. The problem of freedom is central to all human history. Freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, political freedoms - one can name a large number of different freedoms, but the freedom of creativity should be considered as principal freedom. It should be noted also the freedom of thought, which can lead a cognizing person beyond the worlds of substances and energies, to the place where the Eternal Creator should abide. As the world religions believe, we inherit the capacity for creativity and self-knowledge from God. The very same creative freedom exists historically. Freedom of thought is accompanied by spontaneity and mystery. Spontaneity of consciousness and freedom of creativity create a system of meanings that determine the course of human history, while history is perceived by an observer as a completely unique, cognizable phenomenon.

Modern Slavery and Freedom: Exploring Contradictions through Labour Scandals in the Thai Fisheries

AbstractThis paper examines the modern anti‐slavery movement through the lens of the slavery scandal in Thailand’s fisheries sector. The slavery framing provoked a response on the part of governments, corporations and NGOs that produced improvements in working conditions. Nevertheless, we argue that while the slavery framing was effective in drawing attention and resources to solidarity groups, it provided a poor guide to action because of how it resolves complex and embodied relations of freedom and unfreedom into a simplified opposition that can be used to justify capitalism as the realm of freedom—rather than a cause of unfree labour or slavery. The Work in Fishing Convention (ILO C‐188) has provided a guide for laws and regulations intended to improve working conditions in industrial fishing in Thailand and elsewhere, but it does not address slavery or human trafficking. It also frames work in fisheries as exceptional, and thus allows for working conditions that would be considered unacceptable on land. We suggest that critical scholars be cautious about working with a slavery framing, and that they might want to engage with working conditions in ways that start less with questions of unfree labour, and more with how capitalist labour practices can be constrained.

Is there enough leisure time? Leisure studies, work-life balance, the realm of necessity and the realm of freedom

ABSTRACTIn economically advanced countries in recent years, working hours of many full-time employees have been static or increasing and there has been talk of people suffering from a “time squeeze”. Researchers in the field of leisure studies have not featured strongly in debates surrounding this issue, having generally shown little interest in the work-leisure time relationships since the 1970s, being preoccupied instead with leisure activity, meaning and experience. However, calls for reduced working hours have been forthcoming from other sources, such as feminists, economists, critical theorists and environmentalists. In this paper it is proposed that leisure studies scholars re-engage with this issue using the Marxian concepts of the “realm of necessity” and the “realm of freedom” as an analytical device.

Heidegger’s Critique of Causal Explanation in Relation to Psychotherapy. Critical Sketches on Heidegger’s “Zollikon Seminars”

The article represents a critical re-evaluation of the contribution to psychiatry and psychotherapy made by Heidegger. The author gives a detailed analysis of “Zollikon Seminars”, placing emphasis on Heideggerian concept of the human being in the first part of the article. According to Heidegger, the human being is not just present in the world, but he is present in the world along with other beings, he exists in indissociability with things, with the world. The existence of the human being, but not its interpretation, which reduces the concept of the human being to thinking, consciousness or instinct, represents the starting point of his philosophical inquiry. But that, which ever-already is, needs to be given an opportunity to show itself. Therefore, the matter of the causal explanation, given with a view to psychotherapy became one of the focal points for “Zollikon Seminars”. The second part of the article is devoted to critique of Freud, delivered by Heidegger, which clarified Heidegger’s approach to the existence of the human being through the striking antithesis of causality and motivation and critique of the causal explanation. The third part of the article comprises a reference to psychopathology and the practice of psychiatry, which, according to our reckoning, Heidegger has elided in his reflections. It is fair to assume that, if Heidegger gave consideration to the uniqueness of the psychopathology practice, which its phenomena appear in, with regard to the causal explanation, his intuition on this subject, concerning a radical distinction between the realm of freedom and the realm of causality, could take a different direction. Having examined the critique, delivered by him, more intently, we are able to say that Heidegger, despite his innovative approach, still, did not take into consideration a number of problems, being present in the practice of psychotherapy and psychiatry. Nevertheless, the importance of Heideggerian approach resides primarily in a fact that Heidegger, for his part, insisted on the “productive meeting” of philosophers and psychiatrists, meant to amend understanding of the practice of psychiatry. An opportunity to combine the causal and the hermeneutic approaches in psychiatry was not considered by Heidegger, although, it seems to us, it is exactly the practice of psychiatry, which the “meeting” of the causal theory and philosophy can become really potentially productive and “stimulating” in.

Nothing New Under the Sun

Nothing New Under the Sun Gregor Baszak (bio) The Moon over Wapakoneta: Fictions and Science Fictions from Indiana and Beyond Michael Martone Fiction Collective 2 www.fc2.org 182 Pages; Print, $13.55 We truly live in an exciting age. The digital revolution has sparked technological progress on an unprecedented scale. With every new smartphone application, we're coming ever closer to the realization of that old dream of modernity—the emancipation from the confines of the natural world and our ascendancy into the realm of freedom. Not so fast, cautioned economic historian Michael Lind in a 2010 Time Magazine article titled "The Boring Age." So far, the twenty-first century has produced nothing revelatory on the scale of the innovations of the nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth centuries. "In fact, the gadgets of the information age have had nothing like the transformative effects on life and industry that indoor electric lighting, refrigerators, electric and natural gas ovens and indoor plumbing produced in the early to mid-20th century," Lind writes. Thus, his outlook for the future is admittedly boring: the nation state will persist, as will fossil fuels. Advances in biotechnology, however, will allow people to "live longer and healthier lives, and consequently the largest single occupation in 2050 will be—drumroll, please—nursing!" Not excited by this vision? Neither is Lind, yet it reads more realistically than anything cooked up by Mark Zuckerberg and his hoard of epigones in the suburban sprawl outside of San Francisco. Michael Martone's new short story collectionThe Moon Over Wapakoneta is a manifesto of and for the "boring age." What binds together the "Fictions and Science Fictions from Indiana and Beyond," which the book's subtitle promises, is a desire to arrest the march of time. Seconds are made to feel like hours and the hour or two it takes to read the book like an eternity. This is because each of the many, often extremely short, stories is a variation on the same theme, namely whether it's possible to write a story that's "concentrated and condensed into this bite-sized tablet." Elsewhere, we read that "Nothing happens here and yet everything does. There, it happened there, right there as the 'yet,' the fulcrum of the previous sentence, when things, things, turned." The "here" is a version of that border zone between Ohio and Martone's native Indiana. Separated by a mere state line, moving between the states is an instance of time travel, where, depending on the direction of travel, you either gain or lose an hour— and ever so often, an atomic clock throws in a "leap second or two to bring the world up to speed." The book's recurring first-person narrator, of course, never does feel up to speed, and so this technological fix is required to bring him back into synchronicity with the march of time. In the book's title story, he is left to ruminate on the persistent change unfolding all around him, which has led to the colonization of the moon, our satellite companion that had been first stepped on by the Wapakoneta native Neil Armstrong. "Here's to the first man on the moon from the last person on earth," the narrator's melancholy toast goes. Shortly after his famous expedition, Armstrong predicted that moon bases were surely to follow "in our lifetime." Unfortunately, nothing became of his optimistic vision. On the contrary, we are still locked in Cold War-like combat with the former Soviet Union, courtesy of a foreign policy and media apparatus to whom, too, time appears to stand still. In fact, it's plausible to think that the innovations in digital technology we encountered since 1969 have been little more than side effects of the Apollo space program. In other words, today we are riding the dying outliers of the last long wave of economic expansion, not the exciting rapid ones of an incoming new one. In this sense, Martone's often pointless, always boring experiments in metafictional narration are quite symptomatic of our age of stagnation— and deeply affirmative of it. Take what is undoubtedly...

Philosophy of interculturality: philosophy of humanism for our time

ABSTRACTReferring to the philosophical reflection on interculturality as presented by Raúl Fornet-Betancourt, I confront the process of globalization, which is based on a single economy, homogenization of culture, and equalization of differences, with the interculturality that is based on a dialogue and movement toward a union of nations and cultures economically, politically, socially, and spiritually. The starting point of Fornet-Betancourt’s philosophy of interculturality is culture, understood as the realm of freedom, creativity, and realization of each human being. A right to material necessities and economic development represents the precondition for free development, liberation, and realization of every culture, especially the poor. Interculturality is always rooted in a specific context of philosophical thought. Contextualization of the thought does not prevent us from communication and the search for universality, but it teaches us that our search for universality cannot be based on some abstract and formal principles. True universality is based on a historical contextualization of human life in a given culture. Each culture is a micro-universe, which, together with other universes, through interaction creates a macro-universe. By creating conditions of social justice and equality, we guarantee a free interaction of cultures on the one side, and on the other, a mutual transformation of their lifestyles, work, community organization, education, and so forth. The philosophy of interculturality promulgates a debordering process for the cultures to go beyond the borders of globalization homogeneity with its unilateral future based on consumerism and profit, towards a humanity of different and mutually enriching futures.

Unethical Laws and Lawless Ethics: Right and Virtue in Kant’s Rechtslehre

In this paper, I examine the relation between law and morality within the context of Kant’s late work The Metaphysics of Morals. I argue that Kant’s conception of the law is based on a fundamental distinction between Right and Virtue, which respectively correspond to his legal-political theory and moral philosophy. My analysis is two part: in the first part, I examine the relationship between the Doctrines of Right and Virtue within the Kantian architectonic; in the second, I evaluate two cases of adjudication in the Rechtslehre that exemplify the distinction between law and morality explicated in the preceding section. I begin by showing that Kant’s legal and moral philosophies are normatively distinct, insofar as Right and Virtue belong to incommensurable realms of freedom and necessity. From this distinction, I derive Kant’s conception of the legal state as principally concerned with external freedoms and the preservation of the lawful condition itself. The second part of this paper analyzes Kant’s views on two cases of criminal justice, revealing his prioritization of the political over independent ethical considerations in juridical decision-making. Here, the conceptual barrier between law and morality serves as a caveat against facile recourses to Kantian ethics as means of legitimizing juridico-political decisions.

October and the Theory of Communist Revolution: Social Creativity, Culture and Violence

ABSTRACTOctober 1917 changed the world. The twentieth century became the epoch of socialist revolutions and, as the consequence of their victories and defeats (the paradox!), of the radical social reforms. The epoch of non-linear transformations of capitalism towards socialism and, broader, of the “realm of necessity” towards the “realm of freedom” started. And this is a challenge for all of us: for those who are creating socialist practices, and those who are thinking about socialist theory. This article is devoted to the last challenge and it deals with the most difficult problems of the theory of revolution in general and communist revolution in particular: the dialectic of social creativity and violence, destruction and creation, of political, economic, social changes on one hand; and the rebirth of culture—on another; interrelation of conformists and revolutionaries, and so on.

The realm of freedom in new rural governance: Micro-politics of democracy in Sweden

Voluntary associations are at the heart of Swedish rural policy and strategies for governance as partners in bringing about ‘development from below.’ Examining the implications of this new responsibility being placed on the civil society in new modes of multilevel governance, I ask: do these changes presage greater political space for individuals vis à vis the state or is Swedish rural policy premised on ideas about an institutional context that might be disappearing? In comparative research in rural Sweden, I discuss state and civil-society relations at the macro level in light of the gendered micro-politics of associational life on the ground. Through ethnographic research with people involved in development work of different kinds, I examine how ideas about community associations are used to mobilize rural policy. I analyze its’ political implications and argue for the importance of analyzing macro in relation to the micropolitics on the ground for a better theoretical understanding of democracy and power in rural governance, in particular its gendered implications. I argue that past collaborative relations between the civil society and the state’s administrative apparatuses as well as the current focus of rural policy have enabled the state to hand over service functions to the civil society and diluted their ‘voice,’ incongrously endangering the institutional basis of rural policy itself. Further, attention to the gendered micropolitics of associational life makes apparent cleavages within civil society and its underlying relations of gender and power that challenge current conceptualizations on the neoliberalization of rural policy.

‘The golden era’ of Finnish documentary film financing and production

ABSTRACTThis article outlines trends in Finnish documentary film industry during the so-called golden era of 1990s and early 2000s based on key variables in documentary film financing and production. This period coincides with global documentary financiers increasing market orientation (‘factual turn’, which has largely broken the ties of documentary film production with filmic modes of craftsmanship and public service [Hogarth 2006. Realer than Real: Global Directions in Documentary. Austin: University of Texas Press, 5]. Public service cinema culture was still largely intact in Finland in the early 2000s and is the main reason for the ‘golden era’. The ‘golden era’ would not have been possible without strong domestic public subsidy organizations, The Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture (Audiovisuaalisen kulttuurin edistämiskeskus, or AVEK) and the Finnish Film Foundation (Suomen elokuvasäätiö, or SES). Another crucial factor is that the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) has not given in to the global ‘factual turn’. Finnish documentary filmmakers strongly identify with Aaltonen’s [2006. Todellisuuden vangit vapauden valtakunnassa: Dokumenttielokuva ja sen tekoprosessi [The Prisoners of Reality in the Realm of Freedom: Documentary Film and Its Production Process]. Keuruu: Like, 248] observation that the metanarrative of documentary film is the narrative of itself becoming an art.