Abolishing Freedom
Abolishing Freedom

Author: Frank Ruda

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2016-05-01

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0803288808

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Pushing back against the contemporary myth that freedom from oppression is freedom of choice, Frank Ruda resuscitates a fundamental lesson from the history of philosophical rationalism: a proper concept of freedom can arise only from a defense of absolute necessity, utter determinism, and predestination. Abolishing Freedom demonstrates how the greatest philosophers of the rationalist tradition and even their theological predecessors—Luther, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Freud—defended not only freedom but also predestination and divine providence. By systematically investigating this mostly overlooked and seemingly paradoxical fact, Ruda demonstrates how real freedom conceptually presupposes the assumption that the worst has always already happened; in short, fatalism. In this brisk and witty interrogation of freedom, Ruda argues that only rationalist fatalism can cure the contemporary sickness whose paradoxical name today is freedom.

Abolishing Freedom
Abolishing Freedom

Author: Frank Ruda

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 0803288786

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Pushing back against the contemporary myth that freedom from oppression is freedom of choice, Frank Ruda resuscitates a fundamental lesson from the history of philosophical rationalism: a proper concept of freedom can arise only from a defense of absolute necessity, utter determinism, and predestination. Abolishing Freedom demonstrates how the greatest philosophers of the rationalist tradition and even their theological predecessors--Luther, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Freud--defended not only freedom but also predestination and divine providence. By systematically investigating this mostly overlooked and seemingly paradoxical fact, Ruda demonstrates how real freedom conceptually presupposes the assumption that the worst has always already happened; in short, fatalism. In this brisk and witty interrogation of freedom, Ruda argues that only rationalist fatalism can cure the contemporary sickness whose paradoxical name today is freedom.

Abolish Silicon Valley
Abolish Silicon Valley

Author: Wendy Liu

Publisher: Watkins Media Limited

Published: 2020-04-14

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 1912248719

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Former insider turned critic Wendy Liu busts the myths of the tech industry, and offers a galvanising argument for why and how we must reclaim technology's potential for the public good. Former insider turned critic Wendy Liu busts the myths of the tech industry, and offers a galvanising argument for why and how we must reclaim technology's potential for the public good. "Lucid, probing and urgent. Wendy Liu manages to be both optimistic about the emancipatory potential of tech and scathing about the industry that has harnessed it for bleak and self-serving ends." -- Naomi Klein, author of On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal "An inspiring memoir manifesto...Technologists all over the world are realizing that no amount of code can substitute for political engagement. Liu's memoir is a road map for that journey of realization." -- Cory Doctorow, author of Radicalized and Little Brother Innovation. Meritocracy. The possibility of overnight success. What's not to love about Silicon Valley? These days, it's hard to be unambiguously optimistic about the growth-at-all-costs ethos of the tech industry. Public opinion is souring in the wake of revelations about Cambridge Analytica, Theranos, and the workplace conditions of Amazon workers or Uber drivers. It's becoming clear that the tech industry's promised "innovation" is neither sustainable nor always desirable. Abolish Silicon Valley is both a heartfelt personal story about the wasteful inequality of Silicon Valley, and a rallying call to engage in the radical politics needed to upend the status quo. Going beyond the idiosyncrasies of the individual founders and companies that characterise the industry today, Wendy Liu delves into the structural factors of the economy that gave rise to Silicon Valley as we know it. Ultimately, she proposes a more radical way of developing technology, where innovation is conducted for the benefit of society at large, and not just to enrich a select few.

Forging Freedom
Forging Freedom

Author: Gary B. Nash

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9780674309333

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This book is the first to trace the fortunes of the earliest large free black community in the U.S. Nash shows how black Philadelphians struggled to shape a family life, gain occupational competence, organize churches, establish social networks, advance cultural institutions, educate their children, and train leaders who would help abolish slavery.

Against Borders
Against Borders

Author: Gracie Mae Bradley

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2022-07-19

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 1839761954

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A powerful manifesto for a world without borders from two immigration policy experts and activists Borders harm all of us: they must be abolished. Borders divide workers and families, fuel racial division, and reinforce global disparities. They encourage the expansion of technologies of surveillance and control, which impact migrants and citizens both. Bradley and de Noronha tell what should by now be a simple truth: borders are not only at the edges of national territory, in airports, or at border walls. Borders are everyday and everywhere; they follow people around and get between us, and disrupt our collective safety, freedom and flourishing. Against Borders is a passionate manifesto for border abolition, arguing that we must transform society and our relationships to one another, and build a world in which everyone has the freedom to move and to stay.

The Amazing Grace of Freedom
The Amazing Grace of Freedom

Author: Ted Baehr

Publisher: New Leaf Press (AR)

Published: 2007-01-01

Total Pages: 143

ISBN-13: 0892216735

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The story of making the movie Amazing Grace and the history of William Wilberforce. The book will have stills from the movie

Reading Hegel
Reading Hegel

Author: Slavoj Zizek

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2021-11-30

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 1509545913

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A spirit is haunting contemporary thought – the spirit of Hegel. All the powers of academia have entered into a holy alliance to exorcize this spirit: Vitalists and Eschatologists, Transcendental Pragmatists and Speculative Realists, Historical Materialists and even ‘liberal Hegelians’. Which of these groups has not been denounced as metaphysically Hegelian by its opponents? And which has not hurled back the branding reproach of Hegelian metaphysics in its turn? Progressives, liberals and reactionaries alike receive this condemnation. In light of this situation, it is high time that true Hegelians should openly admit their allegiance and, without obfuscation, express the importance and validity of Hegelianism to the contemporary intellectual scene. To this end, a small group of Hegelians of different nationalities have assembled to sketch the following book – a book which addresses a number of pressing issues that a contemporary reading of Hegel allows a new perspective on: our relation to the future, our relation to nature and our relation to the absolute.

Affluence and Freedom
Affluence and Freedom

Author: Pierre Charbonnier

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2021-06-22

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 1509543732

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In this pathbreaking book, Pierre Charbonnier opens up a new intellectual terrain: an environmental history of political ideas. His aim is not to locate the seeds of ecological thought in the history of political ideas as others have done, but rather to show that all political ideas, whether or not they endorse ecological ideals, are informed by a certain conception of our relationship to the Earth and to our environment. The fundamental political categories of modernity were founded on the idea that we could improve on nature, that we could exert a decisive victory over its excesses and claim unlimited access to earthly resources. In this way, modern thinkers imagined a political society of free individuals, equal and prosperous, alongside the development of industry geared towards progress and liberated from the Earth’s shackles. Yet this pact between democracy and growth has now been called into question by climate change and the environmental crisis. It is therefore our duty today to rethink political emancipation, bearing in mind that this can no longer draw on the prospect of infinite growth promised by industrial capitalism. Ecology must draw on the power harnessed by nineteenth-century socialism to respond to the massive impact of industrialization, but it must also rethink the imperative to offer protection to society by taking account of the solidarity of social groups and their conditions in a world transformed by climate change. This timely and original work of social and political theory will be of interest to a wide readership in politics, sociology, environmental studies and the social sciences and humanities generally.