幾在紐約的公共知識份子: Frank Furedi, Russell Jacoby and Richard Sennett 將於本周末的座談會反思未來.
主題包括:
The market in fear, by Frank Furedi
In a new essay for spiked, Furedi argues: 'In one sense, the term "politics of fear" is a misnomer. Although promoted by parties and advocacy groups, it expresses the renunciation of politics. Unlike the politics of fear pursued by authoritarian regimes and dictatorships, today's politics of fear has no clearly focused objective other than to express claims in a language that enjoys a wider cultural resonance. The distinct feature of our time is not the cultivation of fear but the cultivation of our sense of vulnerability....'Read on
Making possible the impossible, by Russell Jacoby
'History defines the search for the best society and government. It was never an absolute, and was always defined by "the possible". But how does one interpret "the possible"? That is the issue. Possible/impossible are rhetorical and historical terms. I've always liked the line attributed to the great anarchist Bakunin: "I shall continue to be an impossible person as long as those who are now possible remain possible." Today we tend to think very little is possible: to chip away at air pollution, or end one local war. But why? Maybe we have surrendered our thinking and imagining....'
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Fragmented politics, fragmented lives, by Richard Sennett
'The insurgents of my Sixties youth believed that by dismantling institutions we could produce communities: face-to-face relations of trust and solidarity, relations constantly negotiated and renewed, a communal realm in which people became sensitive to one another's needs. This certainly has not happened. The fragmenting of big institutions has left many people's lives in a fragmented state: the places they work more resembling train stations than villages, family life disoriented by the demands of work; migration is the icon of the global age, moving on rather than settling in....' Read on
於紐約的朋友有空不妨參加, 詳情見 Spiked online