Life And Political Reality
Life And Political Reality

Author: Shahidul Zahir

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2022-01-21

Total Pages: 129

ISBN-13: 935489237X

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Haunting and apocalyptic ... a literature of the future - SIDDHARTHA DEB Arresting ... they amplify our sense of what fiction can do - AMIT CHAUDHURI In these novellas the political is the personal is the intimate is the lyrical is the ironic is the universal ... Unforgettable - JERRY PINTO Born in 1953 in Old Dhaka, Shahidul Zahir published only six works in his short life - but these are some of the most unique and powerful works of fiction to have come out of the subcontinent. With his own particular blend of surrealism, folklore, oral storytelling traditions, magic realism, a searing understanding of social and political reality, and rare clarity of vision, he created a truly extraordinary oeuvre. Life and Political Reality is the work that established his reputation and granted him cult status in Bangladesh. It examines the 1971 war and its aftermath; a treatise on liberation, and the destruction of the idealism and spirit of post-war Bangladesh, told in a single, corrosive, stream-of-consciousness paragraph. Abu Ibrahim's Death is a quieter companion novella, but one that is equally concerned with idealism and compromise, as it studies with deep empathy and nuance the fall of its titular protagonist. Together, these two novellas make for a superb introduction to a truly brilliant shooting star in the literary firmament of Bangladesh and the world.

Political Illusion and Reality
Political Illusion and Reality

Author: David W. Gill

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2018-09-27

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 1532649061

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Are all governments—east and west, Muslim and secular, authoritarian and constitutional, Republican and Democratic—fundamentally the same, all of them under the extraordinary, growing power of “technique” and bureaucracy? Is all politics, then, just an illusory affair of lies, deception, propaganda, partisan passions, and chaos on the surface of government and party? In his vast and penetrating writings, Bordeaux sociologist Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) points in those directions. Political Illusion and Reality is a collection of twenty-three essays on Ellul’s political thought. Veteran as well as younger Ellul scholars, political leaders, activists, and pastors, discuss aspects of Ellul’s thought as they relate to their own fields of study and political experience. Beginning with his 1936 essay “Fascism, Son of Liberalism,” translated and published here in English for the first time, Ellul and these authors will provoke readers to think some new thoughts about politics and government, and think more deeply about the main issues we face in our politically divided and troubled times.

Reality Television and Arab Politics
Reality Television and Arab Politics

Author: Marwan M. Kraidy

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 0521769191

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This book analyzes how reality television fuelled heated polemics over cultural authenticity, gender relations, and political participation in the Middle East.

The Reality Game
The Reality Game

Author: Samuel Woolley

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 2020-01-07

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1541768248

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Fake news posts and Twitter trolls were just the beginning. What will happen when misinformation moves from our social media feeds into our everyday lives? Online disinformation stormed our political process in 2016 and has only worsened since. Yet as Samuel Woolley shows in this urgent book, it may pale in comparison to what's to come: humanlike automated voice systems, machine learning, "deepfake" AI-edited videos and images, interactive memes, virtual reality, and more. These technologies have the power not just to manipulate our politics, but to make us doubt our eyes and ears and even feelings. Deeply researched and compellingly written, The Reality Game describes the profound impact these technologies will have on our lives. Each new invention built without regard for its consequences edges us further into this digital dystopia. Yet Woolley does not despair. Instead, he argues pointedly for a new culture of innovation, one built around accountability and especially transparency. With social media dragging us into a never-ending culture war, we must learn to stop fighting and instead prevent future manipulation. This book shows how we can use our new tools not to control people but to empower them.

The Varieties of Political Experience in Eighteenth-Century America
The Varieties of Political Experience in Eighteenth-Century America

Author: Richard R. Beeman

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2015-05-05

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 0812201213

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On the eve of the American Revolution there existed throughout the British-American colonial world a variety of contradictory expectations about the political process. Not only was there disagreement over the responsibilities of voters and candidates, confusion extended beyond elections to the relationship between elected officials and the populations they served. So varied were people's expectations that it is impossible to talk about a single American political culture in this period. In The Varieties of Political Experience in Eighteenth-Century America, Richard R. Beeman offers an ambitious overview of political life in pre-Revolutionary America. Ranging from Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania to the backcountry regions of the South, the Mid-Atlantic, and northern New England, Beeman uncovers an extraordinary diversity of political belief and practice. In so doing, he closes the gap between eighteenth-century political rhetoric and reality. Political life in eighteenth-century America, Beeman demonstrates, was diffuse and fragmented, with America's British subjects and their leaders often speaking different political dialects altogether. Although the majority of people living in America before the Revolution would not have used the term "democracy," important changes were underway that made it increasingly difficult for political leaders to ignore "popular pressures." As the author shows in a final chapter on the Revolution, those popular pressures, once unleashed, were difficult to contain and drove the colonies slowly and unevenly toward a democratic form of government. Synthesizing a wide range of primary and secondary sources, Beeman offers a coherent account of the way politics actually worked in this formative time for American political culture.

Losing Reality
Losing Reality

Author: Robert Jay Lifton

Publisher: The New Press

Published: 2019-10-15

Total Pages: 142

ISBN-13: 1620975122

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A definitive account of the psychology of zealotry, from a National Book Award winner and a leading authority on the nature of cults, political absolutism, and mind control In this unique and timely volume Robert Jay Lifton, the National Book Award–winning psychiatrist, historian, and public intellectual proposes a radical idea: that the psychological relationship between extremist political movements and fanatical religious cults may be much closer than anyone thought. Exploring the most extreme manifestations of human zealotry, Lifton highlights an array of leaders—from Mao to Hitler to the Japanese apocalyptic cult leader Shōkō Asahara to Donald Trump—who have sought the control of human minds and the ownership of reality. Lifton has spent decades exploring psychological extremism. His pioneering concept of the "Eight Deadly Sins" of ideological totalism—originally devised to identify "brainwashing" (or "thought reform") in political movements—has been widely quoted in writings about cults, and embraced by members and former members of religious cults seeking to understand their experiences. In Losing Reality Lifton makes clear that the apocalyptic impulse—that of destroying the world in order to remake it in purified form—is not limited to religious groups but is prominent in extremist political movements such as Nazism and Chinese Communism, and also in groups surrounding Donald Trump. Lifton applies his concept of "malignant normality" to Trump's efforts to render his destructive falsehoods a routine part of American life. But Lifton sees the human species as capable of "regaining reality" by means of our "protean" psychological capacities and our ethical and political commitments as "witnessing professionals." Lifton weaves together some of his finest work with extensive new commentary to provide vital understanding of our struggle with mental predators. Losing Reality is a book not only of stunning scholarship, but also of huge relevance for these troubled times.

Is Just War Possible?
Is Just War Possible?

Author: Christopher Finlay

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2018-11-26

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 1509526536

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The idea that war is sometimes justified is deeply embedded in public consciousness. But it is only credible so long as we believe that the ethical standards of just war are in fact realizable in practice. In this engaging book, Christopher Finlay elucidates the assumptions underlying just war theory and defends them from a range of objections, arguing that it is a regrettable but necessary reflection of the moral realities of international politics. Using a range of historical and contemporary examples, he demonstrates the necessity of employing the theory on the basis of careful moral appraisal of real-life political landscapes and striking a balance between theoretical ideals and the practical realities of conflict. This book will be a crucial guide to the complexities of just war theory for all students and scholars of the ethics and political theory of war.

The Syrian War
The Syrian War

Author: Hilly Moodrick-Even Khen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-01-09

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1108487807

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A unique collaboration providing an analysis of the conflict in Syria, focusing on the integration between legal and political studies.

The Role of Pedagogy in Shaping the Socio-Political Reality of Society
The Role of Pedagogy in Shaping the Socio-Political Reality of Society

Author: Leon Miller

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2024-07-11

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1036406962

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This collection of essays highlights education’s role as one of the cornerstone institutions of society, due to the role it plays in human, social, and sustainable development. Thus, this book explains various pedagogical and socio-political prescriptions for improving the conditions of society and, in addition, the human condition. The book emphasizes that the scope of educational activities necessarily includes the relationship between the school and society (i.e., in that the society plays a key role in the continued growth and development of its individual members). In this respect this edited book explains the role of pedagogy in realizing the goal that social action aims to achieve and realizing the highest good possible by means of organized social activity. The achievement of this good is the goal that human social action aims to achieve.

Freedom from Reality
Freedom from Reality

Author: D. C. Schindler

Publisher:

Published: 2019-08-31

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780268102623

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Presents a critique of the deceptive and ultimately self-subverting character of the modern notion of freedom, retrieving an alternative view through a new interpretation of the ancient tradition.