DOCSLIB.ORG

Autobiosophy

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Autobiosophy AUTOBIOSOPHY AUTOBIOSOPHY Copyright © Nahum Mandel 2001 All Rights Reserved No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by photocopying or bay any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage or retrieved systems, without permission in writing from the copyright owner of this book. Email: [email protected] ISBN 0-75411-393-0 First Edition: 2001 by MINERVA PRESS, London, England ttp://www.gaash.co.il/!nahummandel/autobiosophy.htm l Other book by Nahum Mandel: MISCHAK IELADIM? (Children’s Game?) 2003, in Hebrew, by Yad Yaari, Guivat Haviva, Israel Virtual Version Edition Dedication I dedicate this book to you, Shoshanah – my spouse, life comrade, guide, and supervisor, you who did not believe that I was able to write it. I would never have had a better reason to complete my task than the ambition to prove you wrong. I love you, Shoshanna. Acknowledgements My thanks go to my cousin Arnaldo Mandel, Professor of Mathematics of USP (University of São Paulo, Brazil), who scrutinized the manuscript for scientific discrepancies ...and found plenty of them; to Motty Perel, my cousin in Toronto, Canada, who analyzed with care and observed with good will; to Tally, his daughter, an English teacher, who improved the synthesis and to my friend Zwi Shua, a scholar in Judaism, who helped me to find the precise Biblical and Talmudic quotations. To Leony Goldenberg, a painter in Gaash, for the caricature on the front cover, inspired by Auguste Rodin’s sculpture, ‘The Thinker’. To my good friends, Naomi Cohen, a young and talented editor, and Joseph Galpaz, a critic without tricks, who did much good work. To my exacting editor at Minerva-Press, whose watchfulness saved me from unforgivable lapses. Their help was very meaningfully: since they corrected my manuscript and translated my English into English English, I have begun to understand what I meant to say. Contents INTRODUCTION I The Book's conception. Why a dog chases its tail. Reflections on Kibbutz. Bibliography. The writer. 1. EDEN WITHOUT ANGELS OF MONEYLESS MILLIONAIRES 19 What is a Kibbutz? A brief dissertation about its development. The Kibbutz’s sine qua non factor. 2. TRIBAL ROOTS ARE DEEP 31 A brief ethno-anthropologic adventure. trivial information – without sensational revelations – about what a Tribe is. The Past – a key to understand the Present and guess the Future. 3. ORGANIZATION SCHEME OF THE KIBBUTZ 71 Dichotomic Kibbutz apparatus. How does the Kibbutz function? A discussion upon individual's involvement with the whole community, and the eternal conflict hierarchy vs. democracy. 4. KIBBUTZ – DEMOCRACY SOCIETY LTD. 97 Eight random criteria for Democracy applied to the Kibbutz. 5. WHY DO WE DO WHAT WE DO? 109 Saladlogy (a fine mixture of bits of sociology, anthropology, psychology, etymology, etc.) to confront the work problem. Why work? 6. MEN & ANIMALS, TABOO & MORALITY 123 A pseudo-anthropological discussion on social organization of men and animals. Entrance into a jungle, which exit is not yet known. 7. PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE 147 Education – an attempt of the past to tame the present. Is a person really able to become himself? 8. TO BE OR NO TO BE A JEW? 155 Jew – a privilege, a curse, or a problem? 9. WHAT IS NATURAL IN NATURE 191 Rights and duties. Laws, rules and Regulations. Why human is not natural, and natural not human? Nature – a perfectly organized anarchy. Humanity, a confused disorganized humanarchy. 10. GOD AND MY GRANDMA’S WHEELS 229 Is the future rememberable? 11. DETERMINISM AND RESPONSIBILITY 249 Who is guilty? If my mother could program a cake, why can’t we program the world peace? Can we remember the future? To whom does destiny belong? 12. TRAGEDY AND DEATH AS EDUCATIONAL SOURCES 271 Death factor in life. Veneration of the past. 13. ZIONISISM AND THE NATIONAL QUESTION 305 A preliminary discussion for preparing the field. Conquests and reconquests – in the past, in present, and in the future Zionism – a racist movement? Why only Judaism has a Zionism? Zionism and its Siamese brother, the Messianism. 14. SOCIALISM VS CAPITALISM = NONSENSE 345 Is banana the contrary of guitar? Why democracy married capitalism, and not socialism? Communism – the highest, or the lowest stage of humanity? 15. TELL ME WHERE YOU RESIDE – I WILL TELL YOU WHO ARE YOU 367 My house - my Fortress, or my Prison? 16. WOMEN VS. MEN, OR WOMEN & MEN 377 Sex, a conflict or a bridge? Homus feminis lupus. Which sex is strongest? Has the difference a solution? 17. SHARING A CAVE WITH A TIGER 397 Why cheese does not love me. Who are my friends. Loneliness in multitude. Fellowship, Friendship, and Community. 18. MY SYMPHONY 415 What can I say that I did not say until now? INTRODUCTION: The thought of an Agnostic Jew AUTOBIOSOPHY The thought of an Agnostic Jew INTRODUCTION The book's conception. Why a dog chases its tail. Reflections on Kibbutz. Bibliography. The writer. The Book's Conception I am a Jew. Personally, this statement has no greater importance to me than the assertion that I have blue eyes. Ultimately, it would not have affected my life had it not been for an incident that I experienced on my first day at primary school. I was only seven years old. Some children waited for me on the corner and accused me of killing Jesus. I swore that I did not know what they were talking about and that I never killed anyone – all in vain... They beat me up and tore my new white shirt. I wonder how it was that children, whom had never met me before, knew things about me, since I did not even know myself that I was a Jew! I was certainly the first Jew they had ever seen, since my family was the only Jewish one in town. When my parents emigrated from Poland in 1929 with my sister and me, they settled in a place far away in the hinterland of São Paulo, a state in Brazil. At home, we spoke Yiddish and every Friday evening my mother covered her head with a kerchief and blessed candles while murmuring strange words. I thought then that at home all children spoke Yiddish with their parents and that on Friday evenings all mothers cover their heads with a kerchief to bless candles, murmuring strange words. (Later I learned that she was reciting by heart prayers in Hebrew.) The traumatic experience that revealed me my Jewish identity marks the exact moment when I began to ‘write’ this book: I asked then my first philosophic why. Even if my great- great-great-great-(and so on)-grandfather killed Jesus, why was I to blame? The persistent search for an answer to this question, - VII - INTRODUCTION: The thought of an Agnostic Jew and others that arose in the meantime brought me to Israel and to the kibbutz. Even here, I met with human behavior that I tried to analyze and understand, but could not accept. This book sums up my confrontations with such conflicts, defines my attitudes, and attempts conclusions based on deep reflection or intuitive inspiration. The book I allude to is really two books. Some time ago I completed the first one, Children’s Game?, which tells the events that led me to my Jewishness, to my Zionism, to Israel and to the kibbutz. It relates historical events I participated in, or witnessed, until 1951. Being an autobiographical narration and testimony, it is of course personal, subjective. This present book, its natural continuation and completion1, is an approach to social problems and conflicts in my territory (my kibbutz, my country, and the world in which I live). However, this time I write as an extra actor, an observer. For this reason, in this book I attempted to be objective, ‘scientific’, and more impersonal. Force of the Written Word In 1977, I sent an article to Ha'shavua, the internal bulletin of our Kibbutz Federation. I complained in it that twenty years after the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party (1956), where Khruschev had denounced Stalin’s crimes, the leaders of Mapam, our party in Israel, had not yet expressed a single sentence of protest against the annihilation of Jewish culture in the USSR. The discussion whether or not to publish my article (one of these leaders vetoed it!) caused the collective resignation of the editorial board. An ad hoc committee appointed to deal with this crisis suggested the abolition of censorship in our press. The principle was officially adopted and the bulletin reappeared after a one- month strike. The article that provoked this affair, the most effective thing I have ever written, was never published. Later in the same year (1971), the same bulletin published another letter of mine protesting that some people occupied indeterminable jobs transforming them into little dictators in self-made kingdoms. I proposed rotation; a limitation on the 1 This book, a logical continuation of my previous book (Child’s Play?) is also an autobiography, but of my thought instead of my life. Therefore I have called it Autobiosophy, a word compounded of autos (Greek ‘self’) and bios (Greek ‘life’) and sophos (Greek, ‘skilled; wise, learned’) that is intended to mean ‘autobiography of thought’. All footnotes in this book are the author’s observations. - VIII - INTRODUCTION: The thought of an Agnostic Jew terms that anyone could serve in any influential position. The word ‘rotation’ entered the daily lexicon in our Federation, and a general conference resolved to define the maximum period of terms a person might serve in a leadership capacity. Though immediately applied to all low and intermediate levels, the use of this principle at high levels has been much slower.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Constructing the Witch in Contemporary American Popular Culture
    "SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES": CONSTRUCTING THE WITCH IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE Catherine Armetta Shufelt A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 2007 Committee: Dr. Angela Nelson, Advisor Dr. Andrew M. Schocket Graduate Faculty Representative Dr. Donald McQuarie Dr. Esther Clinton © 2007 Catherine A. Shufelt All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Dr. Angela Nelson, Advisor What is a Witch? Traditional mainstream media images of Witches tell us they are evil “devil worshipping baby killers,” green-skinned hags who fly on brooms, or flaky tree huggers who dance naked in the woods. A variety of mainstream media has worked to support these notions as well as develop new ones. Contemporary American popular culture shows us images of Witches on television shows and in films vanquishing demons, traveling back and forth in time and from one reality to another, speaking with dead relatives, and attending private schools, among other things. None of these mainstream images acknowledge the very real beliefs and traditions of modern Witches and Pagans, or speak to the depth and variety of social, cultural, political, and environmental work being undertaken by Pagan and Wiccan groups and individuals around the world. Utilizing social construction theory, this study examines the “historical process” of the construction of stereotypes surrounding Witches in mainstream American society as well as how groups and individuals who call themselves Pagan and/or Wiccan have utilized the only media technology available to them, the internet, to resist and re- construct these images in order to present more positive images of themselves as well as build community between and among Pagans and nonPagans.
    [Show full text]
  • Umi-Uta-1189.Pdf (299.6Kb)
    PARTICIPATION, IDENTITY, AND SOCIAL SUPPORT IN A SPIRITUAL COMMUNITY by LA DORNA MCGEE Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN SOCIOLOGY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON December 2005 Copyright © by La Dorna McGee 2005 All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my mom who always supported me in my endeavors. I would also like to thank Kathy Rowe, Jane Nicol, and Suzanne Baldon for their support. Lastly, I would like to thank my committee members for their extreme patience and guidance through this process. April 22, 2005 iii ABSTRACT PARTICIPATION, IDENTITY, AND SOCIAL SUPPORT IN A SPIRITUAL COMMUNITY Publication No. ______ La Dorna McGee, M.A. The University of Texas at Arlington, 2005 Supervising Professor: Frank Weed Paganism is a loosely organized community whose religious ideology incorporates the immanence of Deity. As a religious association with an ideology different from traditional Judeo-Christian faiths, members are often labeled as deviant and subjected to various negative sanctions. By relying on survey data collected on April 9-12, 1996 and in depth personal interviews collected on October 10-13, 1996, this study presents a model that best describes and explains acceptance and participation in Pagan spiritualism. This study identifies three characteristics associated with positive ratings of childhood religious affiliation (church disaffection, family closeness, and iv membership role), three characteristics associated with feelings of belonging to the Pagan community (church disaffection, social support, and participation), and finally examines a member’s disclosure of their Pagan identity as being a function of occupational prestige, weighing the costs of negative sanctions versus the Pagan value of openly expressing a Pagan identity, and self-efficacy.
    [Show full text]
  • Forms of Government (World General Knowledge)
    Forms of Government (World General Knowledge) Anarchism A system that advocates self-governed societies based on voluntary institutions. These are often described as stateless societies, although several authors have defined them more specifically as institutions based on non-hierarchical or free associations. Anarchism holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and/or harmful. Anarchy A society without a publicly enforced government or political authority. Sometimes said to be non-governance; it is a structure which strives for non-hierarchical, voluntary associations among agents. Anarchy is a situation where there is no state. Autocracy Autocracy is a system of government in which supreme power (social and political) is concentrated in the hands of one person or polity, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control Aristocracy Rule by the nobility; a system of governance where political power is in the hands of a small class of privileged individuals who claim a higher birth than the rest of society. Anocracy A regime type where power is not vested in public institutions (as in a normal democracy) but spread amongst elite groups who are constantly competing with each other for power. Adhocracy Rule by a government based on relatively disorganised principles and institutions as compared to a bureaucracy, its exact opposite. Absolute monarchy A traditional and historical system where the monarch exercises ultimate governing Downloaded from www.csstimes.pk | 1 Forms of Government (World General Knowledge) authority as head of state and head of government. Many nations of Europe during the Middle Ages were absolute monarchies.
    [Show full text]
  • PAGANISM a Brief Overview of the History of Paganism the Term Pagan Comes from the Latin Paganus Which Refers to Those Who Lived in the Country
    PAGANISM A brief overview of the history of Paganism The term Pagan comes from the Latin paganus which refers to those who lived in the country. When Christianity began to grow in the Roman Empire, it did so at first primarily in the cities. The people who lived in the country and who continued to believe in “the old ways” came to be known as pagans. Pagans have been broadly defined as anyone involved in any religious act, practice, or ceremony which is not Christian. Jews and Muslims also use the term to refer to anyone outside their religion. Some define paganism as a religion outside of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism; others simply define it as being without a religion. Paganism, however, often is not identified as a traditional religion per se because it does not have any official doctrine; however, it has some common characteristics within its variety of traditions. One of the common beliefs is the divine presence in nature and the reverence for the natural order in life. In the strictest sense, paganism refers to the authentic religions of ancient Greece and Rome and the surrounding areas. The pagans usually had a polytheistic belief in many gods but only one, which represents the chief god and supreme godhead, is chosen to worship. The Renaissance of the 1500s reintroduced the ancient Greek concepts of Paganism. Pagan symbols and traditions entered European art, music, literature, and ethics. The Reformation of the 1600s, however, put a temporary halt to Pagan thinking. Greek and Roman classics, with their focus on Paganism, were accepted again during the Enlightenment of the 1700s.
    [Show full text]
  • Sample File Heavily on Patriotism and National Identity
    Empire Builder Kit Preface ............................................................ 2 Government Type Credits & Legal ................................................ 2 An empire has it rulers. The type of ruler can How to Use ..................................................... 2 often determine the character of a nation. Are Government Types ......................................... 3 they a democratic society that follows the will Simple Ruler Type ....................................... 3 of the people, or are they ruled by a harsh dictator who demand everyone caters to their Expanded Ruler Type .................................. 4 every whim. They could even be ruled by a Also Available ................................................ 10 group of industrialists whose main goal is the acquisition of wealth. Coming Soon ................................................. 10 This part of the Empire Builder kit outlines some of the more common, and not so common, types of ruler or government your empire or country may possess. Although designed with fantasy settings in mind, most of the entries can be used in a sci-fi or other genre of story or game. There are two tables in this publication. One for simple and quick governments and A small disclaimer – A random generator will another that is expanded. Use the first table never be as good as your imagination. Use for when you want a common government this to jump start your own ideas or when you type or a broad description, such as need to fill in the blank. democracy or monarchy. Use the second/expanded table for when you want something that is rare or you want more Sample details,file such as what type of democracy etc. If you need to randomly decide between the two tables, then roll a d20. If you get 1 – 18 then use the simple table, otherwise use the expanded one.
    [Show full text]
  • Mytho-Historical Narratives and Identity-Discourse in Hungarian
    Social Constructions of the Native Faith: Mytho-historical Narratives and Identity-discourse in Hungarian Neo- paganism by Ádám Kolozsi Submitted to Central European University Nationalism Studies Program In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Advisor: Professor András Kovács CEU eTD Collection Budapest, Hungary 2012 Abstract This thesis provides a detailed examination of the historical roots and national ideologies of contemporary Hungarian native faith movements, focusing specifically on the narrative boundary-setting mechanisms. In my historical research, based on the analysis of primary resources, I am looking for the roots of neo-pagan concepts in Hungary. In the narrative analysis of contemporary neo-pagan discourses, I examine the ethnic myths, historical memories, national ideologies and symbolic boundary-setting mechanisms. The thesis shows that native-faith myths (re)define actual group boundaries and reinforce current group identifications. In this way, neo-pagan nationalism contributes to the reformulation of national ideologies, national sentiments and „groupist‟ ideas. I argue that the public success of native faith ideas is explicable by their fitting to broader group beliefs of contemporary ethno-nationalism. CEU eTD Collection 2 Acknowledgment I would like to thank Professor Vlad Naumescu and Professor Balázs Trencsényi for their help. I wish to thank for Mr. Scott Simpson from the Jagellonian University and Viola Teisenhoffer (‗from the Japanese Garden‘) for their suggestions and for the inspiring discussions about international neo-paganism. I would also like to thank my supervisor, Professor András Kovács for his help and for his direction with this project. CEU eTD Collection 3 Table of Contents I.
    [Show full text]
  • Contemporary Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Europe
    CONTEMPORARY PAGAN AND NATIVE FAITH MOVEMENTS IN EUROPE EASA Series Published in Association with the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) Series Editor: Eeva Berglund, Helsinki University Social anthropology in Europe is growing, and the variety of work being done is expanding. This series is intended to present the best of the work produced by members of the EASA, both in monographs and in edited collections. The studies in this series describe societies, processes, and institutions around the world and are intended for both scholarly and student readerships. 1. LEARNING FIELDS 14. POLICY WORLDS Volume 1 Anthropology and Analysis of Contemporary Educational Histories of European Social Power Anthropology Edited by Cris Shore, Susan Wright and Davide Edited by Dorle Dracklé, Iain R. Edgar and Però Thomas K. Schippers 15. HEADLINES OF NATION, SUBTEXTS 2. LEARNING FIELDS OF CLASS Volume 2 Working Class Populism and the Return of the Current Policies and Practices in European Repressed in Neoliberal Europe Social Anthropology Education Edited by Don Kalb and Gabor Halmai Edited by Dorle Dracklé and Iain R. Edgar 16. ENCOUNTERS OF BODY AND SOUL 3. GRAMMARS OF IDENTITY/ALTERITY IN CONTEMPORARY RELIGIOUS A Structural Approach PRACTICES Edited by Gerd Baumann and Andre Gingrich Anthropological Reflections Edited by Anna Fedele and Ruy Llera Blanes 4. MULTIPLE MEDICAL REALITIES Patients and Healers in Biomedical, Alternative 17. CARING FOR THE ‘HOLY LAND’ and Traditional Medicine Filipina Domestic Workers in Israel Edited by Helle Johannessen and Imre Lázár Claudia Liebelt 5. FRACTURING RESEMBLANCES 18. ORDINARY LIVES AND GRAND Identity and Mimetic Conflict in Melanesia and SCHEMES the West An Anthropology of Everyday Religion Simon Harrison Edited by Samuli Schielke and Liza Debevec 6.
    [Show full text]
  • Transoceanic Studies Ileana Rodriguez, Series Editor
    Transoceanic Studies Ileana Rodriguez, Series Editor Learning to Unlearn Decolonial Reflections from Eurasia and the Americas Madina V. Tlostanova AND Walter D. Mignolo THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS • COLUMBUS Copyright © 2012 by The Ohio State University. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tlostanova, M. V. (Madina Vladimirovna) Learning to unlearn : decolonial reflections from Eurasia and the Americas / Madina V. Tlo- stanova and Walter D. Mignolo. p. cm. — (Transoceanic studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8142-1188-5 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8142-1188-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8142-9287-7 (cd-rom) 1. Knowledge, Sociology of. 2. Epistemics. 3. Education—Philosophy. 4. Imperialism. 5. Post- colonialism. I. Mignolo, Walter. II. Title. III. Series: Transoceanic studies. BD175.T56 2012 306.4'2—dc23 2011050019 Cover design by Janna Thompson-Chordas Text design by Juliet Williams Type set in Adobe Minion Pro Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.48–1992. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 CONTENts Acknowledgments vii INtrODUCtiON Learning to Unlearn: Thinking Decolonially 1 PART I CHAPter 1 The Logic of Coloniality and the Limits of Postcoloniality: Colonial Studies, Postcoloniality, and Decoloniality 31 CHAPter 2 Theorizing from the Borders; Shifting to the Geo- and Body Politics of Knowledge 60
    [Show full text]
  • ''Christians! Go Home": a Revival of Neo-Paganism Between the Baltic
    www.RodnoVery.ru Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2002 “Christians! Go home”: A Revival of Neo-Paganism between the Baltic Sea and Transcaucasia (An Overview)1 VICTOR A. SHNIRELMAN ABSTRACT A rapid growth of new religious movements, in terms of both their numbers and variability, was a surprising outcome of the move to democracy in post-Soviet societies. One of the movements is Neo-Paganism whose emergence paradoxically coincided with the celebration of the anniversary of the baptism of Rus 1,000 years ago and the birth of Christianity 2,000 years ago. The Neo-Pagan movements challenge Christian values—with regard to ethics, attitude towards the natural environment, view of the past, and approach towards cultural variability. The Neo-Pagan impact on Christianity in the post-Soviet lands is rooted in ethnic nationalism—a common phenomenon at the turn of the 1990s. Neo-pagans are searching for both a primordial past and a pure ethnic culture, which they view as invaluable resources to overcome the hardship and ideological vacuum of the transitional period. However, they do this in various ways and thus, various forms of Neo-Paganism manifest themselves between the Baltic Sea and Transcaucasia. Neo-Paganism—One More Paradox of Globalization The 2,000th anniversary of Christianity is challenged by a paradoxical phenomenon—the revival of paganism. Signicantly, this involves mainly urbanized literate people who have long ago lost their links with traditional peasant culture, commonly considered the last fortress of pre-Christian beliefs. The Neo-Pagan movement has been developing in the West for several decades and has recently begun to conquer the post-Soviet lands.
    [Show full text]
  • V3n12-W33-Dec-1920-Liberator.Pdf
    HOW ART YOUNG SWEPT The best Christmas present you can THE COUNTRY FOR give this year' WARREN G. HARDING An autographed copy of The great inside story of the late Presiden­ tial Campaign will all be told in the next is­ DEBS and the POETS sue of Good Morning. The United States government has an old Good Morning was the first magazine of man in prison in the Federal Penitentiary of national circulation to come out for Hardmg Atlanta. The government regards this old man and Hell. as a common felon, and treats him as such; Well, ain't it Harding? shaves his head, puts a prison suit upon him, feeds him upon prison food, and locks him in a We control the Poor Fish vote. Weare steel-barred cell fourteen consecutive hours out uncompromisingly opposed to everything we of each twenty-four. do not understand. There isn't a doubt that But it appears that there are a great rnnny we did it-and it strikes us funny. people in the United States and other countries who do not regard this old man as a common GOOD MORNING CO., Inc., felon; on the contrary, they regard him as a hero, a martyr even a saint. It appears that the 7 East 15th Street, New York list of these people includes some of the greatest writers and the greatest minds of America and $3.50 for one year's subscription-$l for 3 months. Europe. These persons have been moved to in­ dignation by the treatment of the old man, and they have expressed their indignation.
    [Show full text]
  • The October 2018 Update Adds Thirty-Seven Articles
    The October 2018 update adds thirty-seven articles (including one reference group article), containing thirty-seven biographies, accompanied by four portrait likenesses. The particular focus is on global lives, and biographies of people connected with communism. The communist lives have been curated by Professor Kevin Morgan of the University of Manchester, whose introduction to them is below. From October 2018, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) offers biographies of 60, 727 men and women who have shaped the British past, contained in 62,993 articles. 11,608 biographies include a portrait image of the subject – researched in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery, London. Introduction to the communist lives Biographies of communists were at one time notoriously thin on the ground and frequently either unreliable or uninformative when one did dig them out. Fundamentally this was all bound up with the political constraints and anathemas of the Cold War period. Crucially, it was therefore only after the fall of the Berlin wall that a wealth of archives and personal testimonies became accessible which allowed the documentation of individual communist lives on a scale that had once seemed inconceivable. As one of the quintessential political movements of the twentieth century, communism drew its recruits from the most disparate social and political environments, with personal costs and compensations which historians are still only beginning to comprehend. Not just in Britain but internationally, biography has become arguably the principal means by which historians have been seeking to unravel the complexity of what so often proved life-changing commitments. It is a pleasure to have this opportunity to have a further cross-section of these lives represented within the ODNB.
    [Show full text]
  • PICK a GOVERNMENT :; a Hybrid
    141 1 old word PICK A GOVERNMENT :; a hybrid noun's en­ ective, and ljeetive; I lich I can PAUL HELLWEG es sion a Northrid~e, California :3 in 1927 =:inc innatus , Living in a democracy, we are pe riodically cur sed ( ble s s ed?) with Trocenia' election year mania. Occas ionally, it all seems to amount to naught, Atlas Index; and people have been heard to ask: II Isn' t there another way?" Of such as Tro­ course there is. Different types of qovernment abound. More than n) both be­ eighty varieties are presented below. As you read through them, per­ ler than a haps youlll find one that sounds a little better than democracy. On the has any other hand, a look at these alternatives might be enough to renew every­ l? one's faith in the electoral process. thousands For the sake of this discussion, I have limited consideration to s Borg­ forms of gove rnment ending in - archy (G reek II arkhos" = rule r) and \.CEINORST. -ocracy (Greek "kratos" = strength, power). Admirers of dynasti­ orne kind of c ism, feudali sm, tr ibalism, and related gove rnments needn I t fear -­ ords, names there are regime s here bound to please anyone. To begin with, my personal favorite is LOGOCRACY, II a community or system of govern­ ment in which words are the ruling power" (OED). ::es lat By The Numbe r s es Ito Everyone knows that a monarchy is a state headed by a single rule r. 'on Lesser- known appellations referring to a specific number of leaders ian are listed here: ,In te r AUTOCRACY, MONOCRACY one ruler .te BIARCHY, DIARCHY (DYARCHY), DUARCHY two rulers :ic TRIARCHY three rulers ne TETRADARCHY (TETRARCHY) four rulers :an PENTA RCHY five ruler s in HEPTARCHY, SEPTARCHY seven rulers ns OCTARCHY ei~ht rulers ns DECARCHY (DEKARCHY, DECADARCHY) ten rulers DODECARCHY twelve rulers ~where? HECATONTARCHY (HECATONARCHY) one hundred rulers 1 scientific lude phras­ Oddly, the term HEXARCHY refers to a group of six states, not a gov­ was so cer­ ernment of six leaders.
    [Show full text]