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The philosopher-citizen; A piece by Charles Taylor in honor of Jürgen Habermas’s eightieth birthday (2009) - http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif... - "Jürgen Habermas is an exemplary public intellectual. He has never been content simply with writing, teaching, and discussing philosophy. Unremittingly and with great courage he has intervened in the important debates of our time, for instance in the Historikerstreit within Germany, and more recently in issues to do with the “war on terror,” as well as the future of Europe. One might almost say that theory and practice are organically linked in the thought of Habermas: as a theorist of democracy and of open, undistorted communication, he cannot but intervene when these crucial vales are suppressed or denied, without being untrue to himself. Or in any case, that is the way he lives his philosophy, with a kind of passionate integrity. And it is this courageous and consistent stance which has made a deep impression on... more... - liberal feed

"Fundamentally, I believe in liberal democracy, that it’s the best form of government, and that the world has made moral progress. But that’s a separate question from whether the development of democratic institutions is inevitable and driven by an underlying historical force. I’ve become more skeptical of that latter belief over the years as I’ve become more attentive to the role of accident and contingency. And my current book is about a lot of that. For example: The reason we got to democracy in Europe is the almost accidental survival of a feudal institution — the English parliament — into the modern period. That’s something that didn’t happen in other European countries, and which we therefore can’t take for granted. So, as you see, the normative concern is separate from the empirical question of whether democracy is inevitable." - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

"One of the broad questions I’ve addressed in the book is how did these different societies make an exit out of kinship-based social organization into a modern-based state, with impersonal, centralized administration? Europe in that respect was quite exceptional, because that happened early, and it happened through the agency of the Catholic Church, which changed the rules of... more... - liberal feed

"Many Muslims are especially bothered by evolution. By and large, Islamic culture is creationist, judging by a 2008 survey about evolution in six Muslim countries: Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Turkey. On average, only about 15 percent of the respondents in five of those countries considered evolution to be "true" or "probably true." In the sixth country, Kazakhstan, roughly one-third of the respondents accepted evolution, but an equal number also said they had "never thought about it." In some Muslim countries, evolution simply doesn't appear in science textbooks. "Evolution isn't on the top list of priorities," Dajani, of Hashemite University, says. "When people are thinking about what they're going to eat tomorrow, evolution is a luxury." This rejection of evolution has a lot in common with American creationism, but there are also key differences. Young Earth Creationism, which claims that the earth is 10,000 years old (or younger), is virtually absent in the Islamic world. Muslims generally accept the earth's being 4.5 billion years old." - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

"Guiderdoni and Dallal also criticize an intellectual movement that calls for a specifically "Islamic science." This phrase was coined by the influential philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a native of Iran who teaches Islamic studies at George Washington University. His effort to unify science and religion harks back to the philosophers of Islam's golden age, but Nasr also dismisses... more... - liberal feed

"With the second anniversary of Iran’s Green Movement earlier this week, it’s worth keeping track of the cruel litany of bloodshed and oppression that the regime continues to carry out against its own people....The Iranian regime is not only brutally suppressing the democratic aspirations of its own people, but it is now actively helping the Syrian government in its murderous campaign against its citizenry as well. When will the international community—from China and Russia, who keep offering the regime diplomatic cover, to Turkey, India, and many Western companies, who continue to make money in Iran and find clever ways to bypass U.N. sanctions—say enough is enough? When will they assert vigorously that governments like Iran, Syria, and Libya, governments that so egregiously trample upon the democratic rights of their people, have no place in the international community?" - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

"In einer Demokratie sind Bürger einzig den Gesetzen unterworfen, die sie sich nach einem demokratischen Verfahren gegeben haben. Dieses Verfahren verdankt seine legitimierende Kraft der Beteiligung aller Bürger an den politischen Entscheidungsprozessen und der Verkoppelung von (erforderlichenfalls qualifizierten) Mehrheitsentscheidungen mit einer deliberativen Meinungsbildung. So soll eine aktive Bürgergesellschaft über den Staat auf ihre eigenen Existenzbedingungen einwirken. Und weil das einen entsprechenden Spielraum für die politische Gestaltung der Lebensverhältnisse voraussetzt, besteht zwischen Volks- und Staatensouveränität ein begrifflicher Zusammenhang. Schränkt das politisch ungesteuerte Komplexitätswachstum der Weltgesellschaft den Handlungsspielraum der Nationalstaaten immer weiter ein, ergibt sich die Forderung, die politischen Handlungsfähigkeiten über nationale Grenzen hinaus zu erweitern, aus dem normativen Sinn der Demokratie selber." - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

"Hat das selbst erst einmal aufgehört, an die Mauer zu hämmern und auf Resonanz zu lauschen, verwandelt sich ihm die Pink-Frage „Is There Anybody Out There?!“ rasch in die von Taylor selbst aus einem anderen Popsong zitierte und probehalber sogar nach dessen Interpretin als „Peggy Lee-Achse“ bezeichnete Frage: „Is that all there is?!“ Ist das alles, was da ist?! Das Verstummen der Welt für die inneren „Ohren“ der Subjekte könnte, so die Befürchtung, eine nicht-intendierte, paradoxe Nebenfolge des modernen Autonomie-, Effizienz- und Selbstwirksamkeitsstrebens sein. Diese Angst kommt in Rousseaus Entfremdungsdiagnose der „Eigenliebe“ ebenso zum Ausdruck wie in Marx’ Entfremdungskonzept (und überhaupt in der ihm folgenden Tradition der Entfremdungstheoretiker), aber sie scheint ebenso deutlich auch in Webers „Entzauberungsnarration“, in Lukacs’ Verdinglichungsvorstellung oder in Adornos Konzeption der total werdenden instrumentellen Vernunft mitzuschwingen, und vermutlich ist sie sogar... more... - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

"Many Christians—including many of the best Biblical scholars—do not believe that the Bible predicts a historical rapture. Even those who accept the traditional doctrine of a Second Coming of Christ, preceding the end of the world, often reject the idea of a taking up of the saved into heaven, followed by a period of dreadful tribulations on Earth for those who are left behind. Among believers themselves, a historical rapture is at best a highly controversial interpretation, not an objectively established certainty. The case against Camping was this: His subjective certainty about the rapture required objectively good reasons to expect its occurrence; he provided no such reasons, so his claim was not worthy of belief. Christians who believe in a temporally unspecified rapture agree with this argument. But the same argument undermines their own belief in the rapture. It’s not just that “no one knows the day and hour” of the rapture. No one knows that it is going to happen at all." - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

Abstract: This article analyzes the major characteristics of modernity, of modern civilization; the major analytical approaches related to the major social structures and the contemporary state. The core of this analysis is the notion of multiple modernities. This idea assumes that the best way to understand the contemporary world is for modernity to be seen as a story of continual formation, constitution, reconstitution and development of multiple, changing and often contested and conflicting modernities. - liberal feed

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"Habermas builds his argument in his lecture by criticizing Carl Schmitt's notion of "the political." Schmitt believed that the twentieth century rise of liberalism and its attendant emphasis on normative democratic will-formation effectively negated genuine politics. In contrast, Schmitt wanted a return to a sovereign state power, exercised not through reason but primarily through a charismatic leader. (Thus, in a way, Schmitt's dismissal of public deliberation plays for Habermas the role that Lippmann did for Dewey.) This sovereign form of power embodies in an authentic way the religious roots of all political authority. Like Rawls, Habermas thinks that in modernity politics did in fact migrate from the sovereign to civil society, which now functions on the basis of the public use of reason. But he thinks civil society should nonetheless refer to religious sources if they are "translated" in a way secular persons can understand. Habermas is concerned that this ought not, however, to... more... - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

See my post on Habermas-Dustdar exchange: http://friendfeed.com/liberal... - liberal feed

"The Green Movement has achieved its goal by gaining the moral high ground, revealing to the world the true face of the Islamic regime, and draining away much of its political legitimacy. Further, it has hastened the end of Khomeinism by exposing the existent political rifts within the Iranian political power. (...) For now, the Green Movement is defining itself democratically by exposing the intellectual weaknesses and political brutalities of the Islamic regime, calling for freedom of political prisoners, and basic human rights. Like the other nonviolent democratic movements in the Middle East, its fundamental demand is non-ideological: dignity. For this reason, like the other movements in the region, it is also largely leaderless. This is both the movement’s strength and weakness. Thus, two years on, the Green Movement is currently in a state of “wait and see,” preparing for the next opportunity to make its presence felt. The ultimate question for Iran is whether the political... more... - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

"It is ironic that institutions like the Vali-ye Faqih, the Sepah, and Basij may be the main obstacles to democratic popular will, but at the same time they are like a glue that hold together a true nest of stinging bees. The fact that these ruling institutions no longer rely on negotiation or compromise with public opinion but only on brute force is a very dangerous sign. Obstinacy, inflexibility, and resorting to brute violence may signal the end of politics and of the possibility of negotiation. Democracy can only proceed through a gradual mobilization of society and the recognition and acknowledgment by all political players of the limits of their power. On the other hand, when brute violence rules anything can happen. We may think Russia, Algeria, Afghanistan in the 1990’s as very different from today’s Iran, but what is common to these disastrous cases is that their states failed to maintain a minimal degree of legitimacy by acting as a glue that holds society together. The... more... - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

"The leadership of the Green Movement, such as it was, made a decision in 2009 that they were going to hollow out the system -- as opposed to confronting it with daily demonstrations -- through defections and pressure on the system. And gradually through such delegitimization, they believed the Islamic Republic would weaken. That's a decision they've made, and to some extent that has been successful. Iran has a presidency that is hobbled and the regime is isolated from its constituents. Nonetheless, the regime remains in power. I can't believe, at the end of the day, that Iran can remain an oasis of autocratic stability in a changing region where the population is becoming much more aware of their rights and are trying to reclaim their rights. I think you can trace the origins of the 'Arab Spring' to June 2009 in Iran, where you had a protest movement with nebulous leadership, that relied on social media to mobilize support. Therefore, what began in Iran, I suspect, will come back to Iran at some point." - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

"Syria is the reason Iran is a Mediterranean power. And what happens in Syria could have a pronounced impact on Iran's foreign policy -- if not domestic stability. Iran is heavily invested in the survival of the Bashar al-Assad regime. And it's been rumored to be involved in advising the Syrian regime how to repress the demonstrations. Iran itself has invested a great deal in trying to... more... - liberal feed

"Instead of which the political elites are burying their heads in the sand. They are unapologetically continuing their elitist project and the disenfranchisement of Europe’s citizens. To date there has not been a single European election in any Member State and hardly any referendum in which decisions have been made about anything other than national matters and tickets. Political parties do, of course, avoid making unpopular issues the subject of discussion. On the one hand this is petty, because the aim of parties must be to win elections. On the other hand, it is by no means a trivial issue as to why European elections have for decades been dominated by subjects and people who are not up for decision at all. The fact that citizens are wrong about the relevance of what goes on in the subjectively remote cities of Brussels and Strasbourg effectively constitutes an obligation to deliver, but one which the political parties persistently escape." - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

"The autocrats succeeded. Throughout the region, there is little in the way of organizations ready and able to step in and move the various countries toward democracy. What we are seeing is a generational change—not, however, as suggested by the coverage in European and North American news outlets, a change governed by the aspirations of a new generation of citizens, internet savvy, pro-Western, and pro-democracy, eager to reject both autocracy and the Islamist alternatives. Rather, the torch is being passed to a younger set of autocrats. Perhaps they will be somewhat kinder to their people than the generation that is fading. Certainly, one can hope they will be less corrupt, and more attentive to the general welfare of the countries they rule. But they will still be autocrats, and those outside the region are going to feel a sense of repetition, as though watching a very familiar movie, over and over again." - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

"EA, from sources on or close to the location of protests, "knows" that there was a significant turnout in Vanak and Vali-e Asr Square. We know that security forces --- police and plainsclothes agents --- swept up someone as soon as they suspected that he/she was involved in the "silent" demonstration. We know that shops and cinemas were closed in the two areas, partly because of the possibility of trouble, partly to prevent people from taking sanctuary. We know that last night many families were desperately trying to get information on those who had disappeared. That knowledge from first-hand sources matches up with other eyewitness accounts that came out last night. "Thousands", with the wide range in that one word, is still the best we can venture. But that does not stop revelations beyond the lack of detail. The assessment of EA staff yesterday morning was that nothing of significance would occur in Tehran. The opposition had been so scattered by imprisonment, house arrests,... more... - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

"I would like to highlight that over the course of the 20th century, when certain Muslim authors decided to translate the word ‘secularism’ into Arabic or other languages which have Arabic roots, such as Persian or Turkish, they opted for a term taken from verse of the Qur’an entitled Al-Muminun (‘the believers’). A verse which, in my view, has not been afforded the attention it deserves, and which refers to a controversy between the Prophet and a small group of people who come to him and say: ‘You talk to us of supernatural realities, of things which we cannot see with our own eyes. All that we can see, the only visible reality for us is that of change, and we know only that we are born, that we live, and that we die”. And so the decision, right from the beginning, to translate ‘secular’ and ‘secularism’ with words taken from this extract immediately created the idea that secularism was something irreconcilably opposed to religion. Naturally, there were some who realised this... more... - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

"Every interpretation raises up the issue of the relation between text and context, and in the case of religious faith, that between revelation and human understanding. It is in the interstices of this relation that human freedom emerges: the freedom of thought and of the free expression of thought. This opening or gap of human freedom inevitably contains within itself the promise of emancipation and democracy. The gap can only be covered over, or attempted to be closed, through autocracy and resort to forceful repression. At least two of the thinkers lifted up in these pages – the Egyptian and the Iranian – have suffered from the iron fist of repression. But the prospect of such repression was forecast by the leading European philosopher of interpretation: Gadamer. As he observed in his Truth and Method, interpretation cannot flourish in a society or regime dominated by autocratic power or a Hobbesian sovereign; as an exercise of free judgment, hermeneutics rather presupposes a... more... - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

"Iranian security officials have used baton charges and tear gas to disperse hundreds of protesters at a silent rally in central Tehran marking the second anniversary of the country's disputed presidential election. Riot police and plainclothes basij militia were deployed in various locations in the capital, arresting at least tens of protesters. Supporters of the opposition green movement marched in groups along Vali-e-Asr street – the city's main commercial thoroughfare and a rallying point for protesters in recent years. A protester told the Guardian that demonstrators mainly marched on the pavement, and – as requested by the organisers – did not shout any anti-regime slogans. "People were pretending that they were in the streets for a walk but it was obvious that they were out in protest to mark the rigged election in 2009," he said. "They were silent but their numbers were ten times more than an ordinary day in Vali-e-Asr street."" - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

"Two years ago today, Iranians cast ballots in a presidential election that would yield violence and change in the Islamic Republic like no vote before it. In an election marred with allegations of blatant fraud, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was given a landslide reelection victory that was hailed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a “divine assessment.” Yet today the testy president and his aides have challenged the power of Ayatollah Khamenei. Conservative rivals now dismiss them as a “deviant current” obsessed with the imminent return of the Shiite messiah. Close aides have been arrested for sorcery and witchcraft, and there is talk that Mr. Ahmadinejad will not survive the rest of his four-year term. The Leader’s deputy representative to the Revolutionary Guard even declared this week that “the current of deviation… is the gravest danger in the history of Shiite Islam.” So while the regime was successful in brutally putting down the largest popular protests since the 1979 Islamic revolution, it appears anything but triumphant today." - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

A leading Iranian journalist and opposition figure has died of a heart attack after spending 10 days on hunger strike in Tehran's notorious Evin prison. Hoda Saber, a 52-year-old political activist from the opposition Nationalist-Religious movement, was taken to the Modarres hospital in Tehran after suffering a cardiac complication, which his wife told the Guardian was brought on by his hunger strike. Speaking from Tehran, Saber's wife, Farideh Jamshidi, said: "My husband died two days ago, but we were unaware of his death until today when someone in the hospital informed one of our friends. We have received reports that they delayed six hours in transferring him from prison to Modarres hospital. Doctors told us later that they could have saved his life by taking him to the hospital earlier. We were supposed to visit him in the prison tomorrow, and now we have to visit his dead body in the cemetery." - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

"Im Gegensatz zu jenen Tagen hatte die Grüne Bewegung im Sommer 2009 fast gar nichts, vor allem keine Organisation. Stets durften die Iraner unter der Islamischen Republik ungestraft schimpfen, so viel sie wollten, denn es blieb ohne Folgen. Der geringste Versuch jedoch, oppositionelle Strukturen zu schaffen, wurde gnadenlos zerschlagen. Als Folge konnte sich die Grüne Bewegung nur auf spontane Ausbrüche der Unzufriedenheit und des allgemeinen Überdrusses an den Verhältnissen stützen. Die andere Seite, das Regime, hatte für die Konfrontation alles: die Polizei, die Geheimdienste, die regulären Streitkräfte sowie die Parallel-Armee der Pasdaran, der Revolutionsgarden; das Regime hatte die Verwaltung, Fernsehen und Rundfunk, die meisten Zeitungen. Auf der einen Seite waren die Gewehre, auf der anderen nur ohnmächtige Wut. Die Parallelen zwischen der Grünen Bewegung Irans im Sommer 2009 und dem Arabischen Frühling in Ägypten und Tunesien wurden übereilt gezogen. Zwar waren hier wie dort... more... - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

"I would say that the Green Movement does indeed represent a continuation of the century-old struggle of the Iranian people for a prosperous and free nation, but the collective conditions that gave rise to the movement were unique, in that the ruling establishment had never suffered from so many deep and insurmountable crises simultaneously. These conditions have also given the movement some unique characteristics. The Green Movement is not based on the charisma of its leaders or symbols. It is not against or for religion, but rather concerned about its proper role. Most importantly, ideology has lost its place at the table. The movement aspires to address the suppressed and oppressed demands and dreams of the citizens, and as such aspires to give new meaning to citizenship in Iran, meaning that has never existed: One in which all citizens are equal, regardless of their gender, religion, ethnicity, and social class -- one that is worthy of an old nation with a glorious history that has made many contributions to humanity." - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

"I would say there was a lot of initial skepticism by many in the labor movement about the Green Movement, a year and a half, two years ago, though not among our group. From the beginning, we were quite gung-ho. Some of our friends in the labor movement were skeptical because they felt that the Green Movement’s leadership comes from former regime elements, [Mir Hossein] Mousavi and [Mehdi] Karroubi. And anything that smacked of some form of fundamentalist influence was a no-no. But they’ve come to appreciate the necessity of this movement. One reason for that is that these two men and the cadre organizing on their behalf are really paying a heavy price for it. So nobody is saying anymore that this is just theatrical or it’s just an intra-regime struggle, because these guys are literally putting their lives on the line. That’s one factor. Another is the fact that our friends have realized that without political change there can’t be any change for us organizing in the labor movement.... more... - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

An Interview with Ramin Jahanbegloo: 'Democracy in Iran' (PDF) - http://www.journalofdemocratic... - Jahanbegloo: "I think that the recent Arab revolts and the recent attempts and efforts for democratization in the Middle East showed us that Iranians, Turks and Arabs could inspire each other in the process of democratization and in the work of their respective civil societies. As such, we are living at a time when authoritarian regimes cannot continue existing in the Middle East and in the Muslim world. I think that the Muslim world has attained a level of political consciousness and political maturity where people could very easily distinguish between what is democracy and what is not democracy." - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

Video: An Interview with Ulrich Beck on "Democratic Theory in 2nd Modernity"- http://www.journalofdemocratic... - liberal feed

Alfred Stepan talks here about the democratic consolidation in the Muslim-majority countries. The conference's program (PDF) - http://www.aucegypt.edu/SiteCol... - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

Fukuyama: "In taking the long view of political development, one thing that comes through fairly clearly is the fact that the evolution of institutions is often the result of contingent, accidental circumstances. In a way, the rule of law is the result of the Catholic Church’s quest for independence in the 11th century. The rise of democracy is due to the survival of feudal institutions in England. Parliamentary government emerged from the need to balance the power of new and old forces. History should give people a better appreciation of the fact that their institutions are the product of a certain amount of luck. Now, I do think that it is also the case that once a certain institutional form proves itself to be stable and powerful and regarded as legitimate, it also tends to spread. That is what has been happening with democracy over the last few years." - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

'Two Concepts of Secularism', by Ramin Jahanbegloo (http://cssaame.dukejournals.org/cgi...). Abstract: "Secularism, for many of us, is not a terra incognita, and yet it is certainly an improperly defined and unexplained concept. For more than 150 years, intellectuals, politicians, and theologians have used secular and secularism in a rather ambiguous way. These terms therefore need to be clarified. The time has come to rethink our whole approach to the question of secularism. Given the inapplicability of the French model of secularism to the Muslim world, it becomes necessary to find a criterion by which state involvement, when it occurs in the domain of religion, can appear to the members of a religious group as both legitimate and fair. The Indian concept of secularism based on the toleration and equal protection of all religious communities without being supportive of any particular religion can supply this criterion. That said, to pursue a secular politics of... more... - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

"Kann es in der Philosophie Paradigmenwechsel à la Kuhn geben? Und lassen sich diese faktisch aufweisen? Aristoteles prägte die Konzeption der Ersten Philosophie, die später mit der Ontologie bzw. der Metaphysik gleichgesetzt wurde und das Seiende als solches thematisiert. Diese Konzeption war dem historischen Paradigmenwechsel im Sinne Kuhns aber gerade entzogen, so daß es heute für viele näher liegt, die Philosophie durch »postmetaphysisches« Denken zu ersetzen. Apel hält dem die These entgegen, daß die Idee der Ersten Philosophie selbst als eine Paradigmenfolge historisch thematisiert werden muß. Sie läßt sich nicht als ein »begrenztes Ganzes« (Wittgenstein) des Seienden von außen objektivieren, sondern nur durch transzendentalpragmatische Reflexion der sprachpragmatischen Bedingungen universaler, intersubjektiver Gültigkeit des philosophischen Denkens rekonstruieren." - liberal feed from Bookmarklet

Vorwort (PDF) - http://www.suhrkamp.de/downloa... - liberal feed

"Whatever the Green movement has, it owes it to its citizen-journalists! However, this is only one part of the issue. The other part is that both the regime and the anti-Green opposition created a massive amount of “counter-news” to fundamentally incapacitate this source of information and make it unimportant. On the other hand, lack of timely training, i.e. citizen-journalists being untrained, made the situation even worse. Nonetheless, some efforts were made to bring in an element of critique of news items and trainings for content production to find its way into social networks. I think a certain collective consciousness has been engendered in social networks which has given credit to citizen productions. However, saying that this has led to chaos, it seems like a defect from an ordinary eye. On the other hand, it is something quite normal. In the shift between one system or period of news and the next system or period, there is always an episode of chaos, confusion or even... more... - liberal feed from Bookmarklet