A preliminary set of thoughts on the elusive notion of power - both as an expression of agency, and as a reflection of structure, concluding with an appeal to the primacy of Love...
Monday, April 25, 2016
Approaching Definitions - What are the 'Left' and the 'Right'?
In this video, we consider the notions of the 'Left' and the 'Right' as poles of the political spectrum, briefly recapitulating the history of the terms in this sense, and considering their implications of political and economic matters...
Approaching Definitions - What is the State?
In this consideration, we look to the distinction between the 'government' and the 'State', cashing out some of the implications in that distinction, and how the notion of the State as constitutive of a society's or group's identity gives rise to serious questions...
Approaching Definitions - What is Religion?
Here we look at the notion of religion, understanding a religion as a cultural or symbolic framework or set of practices, ideas, etc. that aims to orient the human person and species within the broader cosmic or universal context: the consequences are several, including that it recasts certain aspects of the scientific project itself as having a deeply religious ground, and its renders the relationship of the religious and the political as a close one...
Approaching Definitions - What is Science?
In this meditation upon science, we point to certain crucial distinctions, such as that between science as a methodology, as opposed to science as a body of theory, noting that efforts to the contrary notwithstanding, it is an all but inevitably political practice.
Approaching Definitions - What is Gender?
In this reflection, we briefly recapitulate the broadly accepted notion that sex is a reflection of biology, gender social construction, but turn quickly to the suggestion of Judith Butler that even this seemingly uncontroversial couching of the matter is problematic. Perhaps the body itself is far more the outcome of a constructed process than is immediately obvious? Certainly, turning our thoughts in the direction of this analysis, we are led to look at identity itself in a different, dramatically different light.
Approaching Definitions - What is Race?
Here, we offer some thoughts on the notion of race. We investigate the measure to which race is a social construction serving to conceal relations of power, rather than a category rooted in any 'intrinsic' or 'biologically determined' reality. In the latter connection, we allude to the manner in which an appeal to 'scientific' or 'scientistic' vocabulary often serves to conceal and distract from the injustices created by racial division, pointing to the need to consider more carefully what is intended by 'scientific discourse'. We look also at the analogous dynamics which arise in connection with ethnicity, and draw somewhat on the analysis of Franz Fanon.
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