DOCSLIB.ORG

Religion & Democracy

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Religion & Democracy Dædalus Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Summer 2020 Religion & Democracy Robert Audi, guest editor with Kent Greenawalt Samuel Freeman · Paul Weithman Cathleen Kaveny · David E. Campbell Stephanie Collins · Winfried Löffler Lorenzo Zucca · T. Jeremy Gunn Jonathan A. Jacobs · Colleen Murphy John E. Hare Dædalus Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences “Religion & Democracy” Volume 149, Number 3; Summer 2020 Robert Audi, Guest Editor Phyllis S. Bendell, Managing Editor and Director of Publications Peter Walton, Associate Editor Heather M. Struntz, Assistant Editor Committee on Studies and Publications John Mark Hansen, Chair; Rosina Bierbaum, Johanna Drucker, Gerald Early, Carol Gluck, Linda Greenhouse, John Hildebrand, Philip Khoury, Arthur Kleinman, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Alan I. Leshner, Rose McDermott, Michael S. McPherson, Frances McCall Rosenbluth, Scott D. Sagan, Nancy C. Andrews (ex officio), David W. Oxtoby (ex officio), Diane P. Wood (ex officio) Inside front cover: Howard Chandler Christy’s painting of the signing of the United States Constitution was commissioned in 1939 as part of the congressional observance of the Constitution’s sesquicentennial. Completed in 1940, the 20-by-30-foot framed oil-on-canvas scene is among the best known images in the United States Capitol. Contents 5 Religion & Democracy: Interactions, Tensions, Possibilities Robert Audi 25 Democracy & Religion: Some Variations & Hard Questions Kent Greenawalt 37 Democracy, Religion & Public Reason Samuel Freeman 59 Liberalism & Deferential Treatment Paul Weithman 72 The Ironies of the New Religious Liberty Litigation Cathleen Kaveny 87 The Perils of Politicized Religion David E. Campbell 105 Are Organizations’ Religious Exemptions Democratically Defensible? Stephanie Collins 119 Secular Reasons for Confessional Religious Education in Public Schools Winfried Löffler 135 Conscience, Truth & Action Lorenzo Zucca 148 Do Human Rights Have a Secular, Individualistic & Anti-Islamic Bias? T. Jeremy Gunn 170 Judaism, Pluralism & Public Reason Jonathan A. Jacobs 185 Religion & Transitional Justice Colleen Murphy 201 Patriotism & Moral Theology John E. Hare Dædalus Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Nineteenth-century depiction of a Roman mosaic labyrinth, now lost, found in Villa di Diomede, Pompeii Dædalus was founded in 1955 and established as a quarterly in 1958. The journal’s namesake was renowned in ancient Greece as an inventor, scientist, and unriddler of riddles. Its emblem, a maze seen from above, symbolizes the aspiration of its founders to “lift each of us above his cell in the labyrinth of learning in order that he may see the entire structure as if from above, where each separate part loses its comfortable separateness.” The American Academy of Arts & Sciences, like its journal, brings together distinguished individuals from every field of human endeavor. It was chartered in 1780 as a forum “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” Now in its third century, the Academy, with its more than five thousand members, continues to provide intellectual leadership to meet the critical chal- lenges facing our world. Dædalus Summer 2020 Claims for missing issues will be honored free Issued as Volume 149, Number 3 of charge if made within three months of the publication date of the issue. Claims may be © 2020 by the American Academy submitted to [email protected]. Members of Arts & Sciences. of the American Academy please direct all Editorial offices:Dædalus , American Academy questions and claims to [email protected]. of Arts & Sciences, 136 Irving Street, Cambridge Advertising and mailing-list inquiries may MA 02138. Phone: 617 576 5085. Fax: 617 576 5088. be addressed to Marketing Department, MIT Email: [email protected]. Press Journals, One Rogers Street, Cambridge Library of Congress Catalog No. 12-30299. MA 02142-1209. Phone: 617 253 2866. Fax: 617 253 1709. Email: [email protected]. Dædalus publishes by invitation only and assumes no responsibility for unsolicited man- To request permission to photocopy or repro- uscripts. The views expressed are those of the duce content from Dædalus, please complete an author(s) of each essay, and not necessarily online request form at http://www.mitpress of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. journals.org/rights_permission, or contact the Permissions Manager at MIT Press Journals, One Dædalus (ISSN 0011-5266; E-ISSN 1548-6192) is Rogers Street, Cambridge MA 02142-1209. Fax: published quarterly (winter, spring, summer, 617 253 1709. Email: [email protected]. fall) by The MIT Press, One Rogers Street, Cambridge ma 02142-1209, for the American Corporations and academic institutions with Academy of Arts & Sciences. An electronic full- valid photocopying and/or digital licenses with text version of Dædalus is available from The the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) may re - MIT Press. Sub scription and address changes produce content from Dædalus under the terms should be addressed­­ to MIT Press Journals Cus- of their license. Please go to www.copyright tomer Service, One Rogers Street, Cambridge .com; CCC, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers MA MA 02142-1209. Phone: 617 253 2889; U.S./ 01923. Canada 800 207 8354. Fax: 617 577 1545. Email: Printed in the United States by The Sheridan [email protected]. Press, 450 Fame Avenue, Hanover PA 17331. Subscription rates: Electronic only for non- Newsstand distribution by TNG, 1955 Lake member individuals–$53; institutions–$175. Park Drive, Ste. 400, Smyrna GA 30080. Canadians add 5% GST. Print and electronic for nonmember individuals–$59; institutions– Postmaster: Send address changes to Dædalus, $219. Canadians add 5% GST. Outside the One Rogers Street, Cambridge MA 02142-1209. United States and Canada add $24 for postage Periodicals postage paid at Boston MA and at and handling. Prices subject to change with- additional mailing offices. out notice. Institutional subscriptions are on The typeface is Cycles, designed by Sumner a volume-year basis. All other subscriptions Stone at the Stone Type Foundry of Guinda begin with the next available issue. CA. Each size of Cycles has been sep arately Single issues: $15 for individuals; $38 for designed in the tradition of metal types. institutions. Outside the United States and Canada, add $6 per issue for postage and han- dling. Prices subject to change without notice. Religion & Democracy: Interactions, Tensions, Possibilities Robert Audi uch of the world is seeing conflict between people whose views per­ mit basing political actions and lawmaking on religious convictions M and people whose democratic values oppose this. Democratic societ­ ies are in principle open to the free exercise of religion and, in constitution, they are characteristically pluralistic in both culture and religion. Religions are highly variable in their stance toward government, but many of the world’s most popu­ lous religions, including Christianity and Islam, are commonly taken to embody standards of conduct, such as certain prohibitions, that cannot be endorsed by democratic governments committed to preserving liberty for the religious and the nonreligious alike. The present age is seeing much discussion of just how far re­ ligious liberty should extend in democratic societies and just what role religion should play in the conduct of citizens. The most prominent range of problems concerning the tensions between re­ ligion–or certain religions or interpretations thereof–and democracy are insti­ tutional. They concern the relations that do or should obtain between “church” and state: between religious institutions or organized religious groups and govern­ ment or its agencies. Institutional matters, however, are not the only ones impor­ tant for understanding the relation between religion and democracy. Ethics and po­ litical theory also extend to standards appropriate to the conduct of individual cit­ izens. Here the ethics of citizenship, as it is now sometimes called, focuses on how individual citizens should understand the role, in civic affairs, of religious convic­ tions, especially their own convictions about how human life should be lived. This concerns not only deciding what to support by one’s votes and public advocacy, but also how to conduct civic discourse. The essays in this issue of Dædalus–most of them based on contributions to a seminar sponsored by the Australian Catholic University in March of 2019–address both institutional questions concerning re­ ligion and democracy and the ethics of citizenship as bearing on how individuals, religious or not, may best regard their role in the political system in which they live. n entire book could be devoted to conceptual exploration of either de­ mocracy or religion. None of the essays in this issue undertakes that task, A but all of them implicitly conceive religion in a way that avoids narrow­ © 2020 by Robert Audi https://doi.org/10.1162/DAED_a_01800 5 Religion & Democracy: Interactions, Tensions, Possibilities ness. For instance, none of the authors assumes that a religion must be theistic or that a democracy must use a particular system for selecting government officials. This is appropriate, and here the explorations of religion in relation to democra­ cy apply to all the commonly accepted instances of both religion and democracy. One minimal assumption about democracy shared by the authors is that the term properly
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Markets Not Capitalism Explores the Gap Between Radically Freed Markets and the Capitalist-Controlled Markets That Prevail Today
    individualist anarchism against bosses, inequality, corporate power, and structural poverty Edited by Gary Chartier & Charles W. Johnson Individualist anarchists believe in mutual exchange, not economic privilege. They believe in freed markets, not capitalism. They defend a distinctive response to the challenges of ending global capitalism and achieving social justice: eliminate the political privileges that prop up capitalists. Massive concentrations of wealth, rigid economic hierarchies, and unsustainable modes of production are not the results of the market form, but of markets deformed and rigged by a network of state-secured controls and privileges to the business class. Markets Not Capitalism explores the gap between radically freed markets and the capitalist-controlled markets that prevail today. It explains how liberating market exchange from state capitalist privilege can abolish structural poverty, help working people take control over the conditions of their labor, and redistribute wealth and social power. Featuring discussions of socialism, capitalism, markets, ownership, labor struggle, grassroots privatization, intellectual property, health care, racism, sexism, and environmental issues, this unique collection brings together classic essays by Cleyre, and such contemporary innovators as Kevin Carson and Roderick Long. It introduces an eye-opening approach to radical social thought, rooted equally in libertarian socialism and market anarchism. “We on the left need a good shake to get us thinking, and these arguments for market anarchism do the job in lively and thoughtful fashion.” – Alexander Cockburn, editor and publisher, Counterpunch “Anarchy is not chaos; nor is it violence. This rich and provocative gathering of essays by anarchists past and present imagines society unburdened by state, markets un-warped by capitalism.
    [Show full text]
  • Anarchism and Religion
    Anarchism and Religion Nicolas Walter 1991 For the present purpose, anarchism is defined as the political and social ideology which argues that human groups can and should exist without instituted authority, and especially as the historical anarchist movement of the past two hundred years; and religion is defined as the belief in the existence and significance of supernatural being(s), and especially as the prevailing Judaeo-Christian systemof the past two thousand years. My subject is the question: Is there a necessary connection between the two and, if so, what is it? The possible answers are as follows: there may be no connection, if beliefs about human society and the nature of the universe are quite independent; there may be a connection, if such beliefs are interdependent; and, if there is a connection, it may be either positive, if anarchism and religion reinforce each other, or negative, if anarchism and religion contradict each other. The general assumption is that there is a negative connection logical, because divine andhuman authority reflect each other; and psychological, because the rejection of human and divine authority, of political and religious orthodoxy, reflect each other. Thus the French Encyclopdie Anarchiste (1932) included an article on Atheism by Gustave Brocher: ‘An anarchist, who wants no all-powerful master on earth, no authoritarian government, must necessarily reject the idea of an omnipotent power to whom everything must be subjected; if he is consistent, he must declare himself an atheist.’ And the centenary issue of the British anarchist paper Freedom (October 1986) contained an article by Barbara Smoker (president of the National Secular Society) entitled ‘Anarchism implies Atheism’.
    [Show full text]
  • Freethought Society, : Civil Action No
    Case 3:15-cv-00833-MEM Document 86 Filed 07/09/18 Page 1 of 34 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MIDDLE DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA NORTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA : FREETHOUGHT SOCIETY, : CIVIL ACTION NO. 3:15-833 Plaintiff : (JUDGE MANNION) v. : COUNTY OF LACKAWANNA : TRANSIT SYSTEM, : Defendant : MEMORANDUM The saying has been around since at least the 1800's: “Never discuss religion or politics with those who hold opinions opposite to yours; they are subjects that heat in handling, until they burn your fingers; . .”1 Even Linus van Pelt has acknowledged: “There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people . religion, politics and the Great Pumpkin!”2 Certainly, topics such as religion and politics have been deemed controversial for ages, but can the government prohibit advertising about such topics in public transit advertising spaces without violating the First Amendment? 115 February 1840, The Corsair, “The Letter Bag of the Great Western,” pg. 775, col. 1. 2PEANUTS by Charles M. Schulz, October 25, 1961. 1 Case 3:15-cv-00833-MEM Document 86 Filed 07/09/18 Page 2 of 34 The First Amendment prohibits the government from “abridging the freedom of speech.” U.S. CONST. AMEND. I. However, courts have differed on how that guarantee applies when private speech occurs on government property. Depending on the forum in which the speech occurs -- a traditional public forum, a designated forum, or a limited (or nonpublic) forum -- private speech is afforded different levels of protection. One particular area that has frustrated the courts is how to distinguish between designated and limited public forums.
    [Show full text]
  • Contesting Tradition and Combating Intolerance a History of Free Thought in Kansas
    University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Fall 2000 Contesting Tradition And Combating Intolerance A History Of Free thought In Kansas Aaron K. Ketchell University of Kansas, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Ketchell, Aaron K., "Contesting Tradition And Combating Intolerance A History Of Free thought In Kansas" (2000). Great Plains Quarterly. 2129. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2129 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. CONTESTING TRADITION AND COMBATING INTOLERANCE A HISTORY OF FREETHOUGHT IN KANSAS AARON K. KETCHELL Diversity is the hallmark of freethought in Although the attitudes of freethinkers toward Kansas, for freethinkers were never a homoge­ religion are the primary concern of this essay, neous body. The movement was not only reli­ it must be remembered that freethinkers had gious, or for that matter, antireligious, different ideas about what the movement although the majority of social and political meant and that opposition to organized reli­ issues that it addressed had religious ground­ gion was only one, but a crucial element of the ing. No one specific organized group domi­ freethought agenda. nated historical Kansas freethinking. Instead, In order to understand the history of individuals in the form of editors of various freethought in Kansas one must first define newspapers, journals, and book series became the movement and its ideology.
    [Show full text]
  • Charlotte Wilson, the ''Woman Question'', and the Meanings of Anarchist Socialism in Late Victorian Radicalism
    IRSH, Page 1 of 34. doi:10.1017/S0020859011000757 r 2011 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis Charlotte Wilson, the ‘‘Woman Question’’, and the Meanings of Anarchist Socialism in Late Victorian Radicalism S USAN H INELY Department of History, State University of New York at Stony Brook E-mail: [email protected] SUMMARY: Recent literature on radical movements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has re-cast this period as a key stage of contemporary globali- zation, one in which ideological formulations and radical alliances were fluid and did not fall neatly into the categories traditionally assigned by political history. The following analysis of Charlotte Wilson’s anarchist political ideas and activism in late Victorian Britain is an intervention in this new historiography that both supports the thesis of global ideological heterogeneity and supplements it by revealing the challenge to sexual hierarchy that coursed through many of these radical cross- currents. The unexpected alliances Wilson formed in pursuit of her understanding of anarchist socialism underscore the protean nature of radical politics but also show an over-arching consensus that united these disparate groups, a common vision of the socialist future in which the fundamental but oppositional values of self and society would merge. This consensus arguably allowed Wilson’s gendered definition of anarchism to adapt to new terms as she and other socialist women pursued their radical vision as activists in the pre-war women’s movement. INTRODUCTION London in the last decades of the nineteenth century was a global crossroads and political haven for a large number of radical activists and theorists, many of whom were identified with the anarchist school of socialist thought.
    [Show full text]
  • Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia V. Chester County
    Louisiana Law Review Volume 65 | Number 1 Fall 2004 Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia v. Chester County: The esirD ability of a De Minimis Exception to the Supreme Court's Establishment Clause Jurisprudence Michael L. DeShazo Repository Citation Michael L. DeShazo, Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia v. Chester County: The Desirability of a De Minimis Exception to the Supreme Court's Establishment Clause Jurisprudence, 65 La. L. Rev. (2004) Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/lalrev/vol65/iss1/15 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews and Journals at LSU Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Louisiana Law Review by an authorized editor of LSU Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia v. Chester County: The Desirability of a De Minimis Exception to the Supreme Court's Establishment Clause Jurisprudence In Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia v. Chester County, the Third Circuit upheld the constitutionality of a display of the Ten Commandments on the facade of the Chester County, Pennsylvania courthouse. The court held that the County's refusal to take down the plaque was not motivated by a desire to endorse religion, but rather by a desire to "preserve a longstanding plaque." It also stated that the plaque was not a "real threat" to separation of church and state, thus invoking the spirit of the legal maxim "de minimis non curat lex" or "the law does not bother with trifles." This article examines the Freethought decision and concludes that it reached an incorrect result by misapplying both tests used by courts to decide Establishment Clause cases.
    [Show full text]
  • Tocqueville Chapter Craiutu and Holbreich FINAL (February 7, 2015)
    1 To be published in Combining the Spirit of Religion and the Spirit of Liberty: Tocqueville’s Thesis Revisited, ed. Michael Zuckert (University of Chicago Press, 2015) Aurelian Craiutu and Matthew N. Holbreich On Faith and Democracy as a New Form of Religion: A Few Tocquevillian Reflections1 “Faith in common opinion will become a sort of religion whose prophet will be the majority” ~ Tocqueville I. A problem of liberal modernity? Three decades ago, in his influential book After Virtue (1981), Alasdair MacIntyre advanced one of the most trenchant arguments against liberalism that has elicited a wide array of responses and heated debates. The values of economic and political liberalism, he argued, are based on (what he called) an emotivist and relativist culture which uncritically celebrates the total autonomy of the individual will and slowly leads to the gradual but inevitable decomposition of the social fabric. The main culprit, in MacIntyre’s view, is liberal individualism, the dominant doctrine of the last three centuries that shapes our norms and beliefs and has had a strong influence upon our social institutions and values. As society becomes atomized, so the story goes, it eventually turns into a mere “collection of citizens of nowhere,”2 detached from each other and pursuing interests that are often at odds with the common good. “The barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers,” MacIntyre warned his readers, “they have already been governing us for quite some time and it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament.”3 2 MacIntyre’s critique of liberal modernity still resonates today and the debate seems unlikely to be settled anytime soon.
    [Show full text]
  • The RISE of DEMOCRACY REVOLUTION, WAR and TRANSFORMATIONS in INTERNATIONAL POLITICS SINCE 1776
    Macintosh HD:Users:Graham:Public:GRAHAM'S IMAC JOBS:15554 - EUP - HOBSON:HOBSON NEW 9780748692811 PRINT The RISE of DEMOCRACY REVOLUTION, WAR AND TRANSFORMATIONS IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS SINCE 1776 CHRISTOPHER HOBSON Macintosh HD:Users:Graham:Public:GRAHAM'S IMAC JOBS:15554 - EUP - HOBSON:HOBSON NEW 9780748692811 PRINT THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY Macintosh HD:Users:Graham:Public:GRAHAM'S IMAC JOBS:15554 - EUP - HOBSON:HOBSON NEW 9780748692811 PRINT Macintosh HD:Users:Graham:Public:GRAHAM'S IMAC JOBS:15554 - EUP - HOBSON:HOBSON NEW 9780748692811 PRINT THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY Revolution, War and Transformations in International Politics since 1776 Christopher Hobson Macintosh HD:Users:Graham:Public:GRAHAM'S IMAC JOBS:15554 - EUP - HOBSON:HOBSON NEW 9780748692811 PRINT © Christopher Hobson, 2015 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ www.euppublishing.com Typeset in 11 /13pt Monotype Baskerville by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 9281 1 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 9282 8 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 0 7486 9283 5 (epub) The right of Christopher Hobson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). Macintosh HD:Users:Graham:Public:GRAHAM'S IMAC JOBS:15554 - EUP - HOBSON:HOBSON NEW 9780748692811
    [Show full text]
  • Anarchism and Religion
    Anarchism and Religion Nicolas Walter 1991 For the present purpose, anarchism is defined as the political and social ideology which argues that human groups can and should exist without instituted authority, and especially as the historical anarchist movement of the past two hundred years; and religion is defined as the belief in the existence and significance of supernatural being(s), and especially as the prevailing Judaeo-Christian systemof the past two thousand years. My subject is the question: Is there a necessary connection between the two and, if so, what is it? The possible answers are as follows: there may be no connection, if beliefs about human society and the nature of the universe are quite independent; there may be a connection, if such beliefs are interdependent; and, if there is a connection, it may be either positive, if anarchism and religion reinforce each other, or negative, if anarchism and religion contradict each other. The general assumption is that there is a negative connection logical, because divine andhuman authority reflect each other; and psychological, because the rejection of human and divine authority, of political and religious orthodoxy, reflect each other. Thus the French Encyclopdie Anarchiste (1932) included an article on Atheism by Gustave Brocher: ‘An anarchist, who wants no all-powerful master on earth, no authoritarian government, must necessarily reject the idea of an omnipotent power to whom everything must be subjected; if he is consistent, he must declare himself an atheist.’ And the centenary issue of the British anarchist paper Freedom (October 1986) contained an article by Barbara Smoker (president of the National Secular Society) entitled ‘Anarchism implies Atheism’.
    [Show full text]
  • Religion and the New Politics
    Religion and the New Politics Edited by Ronald A. Simkins and Zachary B. Smith 5. From the “Culture of Death” to the “Crisis of Liberalism” Recent Shifts in Catholic Politics Kevin P. McCabe, Seton Hall University Abstract This article identifies and assesses some of the shifts that have occurred in conservative Catholic politics in the United States over the last twenty years. For much of the late 1990s and early 2000s, a politics focused on denouncing “the culture of death” predominated in U.S. conservative Catholicism. In recent years, this political and religious framework has lost ground to a politics addressing “the crisis of liberalism.” I examine this new political agenda by looking at two of its leading exponents, journalist Sohrab Ahmari and political theorist Patrick Deneen. The article closes by raising three points for consideration regarding the relationship between the critique of liberalism and the magisterium of the Catholic Church, the place of LGBTQ persons in the critique of liberalism, and what this means for the future of politics in the Church in the United States. Keywords: Roman Catholicism, politics, liberalism, LGBTQ, theology 66 Religion and the New Politics Introduction For much of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the contours of conservative Catholicism in the United States were fairly clear. A “culture war” mentality unified most of the Catholic Right, imbuing the battle against liberal progressives with religious fervor. During these years, the conservative Catholic agenda aligned closely with that of the Republican Party, most notably on social, economic, and military issues. While this arrangement had the appearance of solidity, the religious and political alignments of the Catholic Church in the United States shifted along with the wider changes in the political landscape that culminated in the election of Donald Trump to the presidency in 2016.
    [Show full text]
  • Libertarian Socialism
    Libertarian Socialism PDF generated using the open source mwlib toolkit. See http://code.pediapress.com/ for more information. PDF generated at: Sun, 12 Aug 2012 19:52:27 UTC Contents Articles Libertarian socialism 1 The Venus Project 37 The Zeitgeist Movement 39 References Article Sources and Contributors 42 Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 43 Article Licenses License 44 Libertarian socialism 1 Libertarian socialism Libertarian socialism (sometimes called social anarchism,[1][2] and sometimes left libertarianism)[3][4] is a group of political philosophies that promote a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic society without private property in the means of production. Libertarian socialists believe in converting present-day private productive property into the commons or public goods, while retaining respect for personal property[5]. Libertarian socialism is opposed to coercive forms of social organization. It promotes free association in place of government and opposes the social relations of capitalism, such as wage labor.[6] The term libertarian socialism is used by some socialists to differentiate their philosophy from state socialism[7][8] or by some as a synonym for left anarchism.[1][2][9] Adherents of libertarian socialism assert that a society based on freedom and equality can be achieved through abolishing authoritarian institutions that control certain means of production and subordinate the majority to an owning class or political and economic elite.[10] Libertarian socialism also constitutes a tendency of thought that
    [Show full text]
  • Secularist History: Past Perspectives and Future Prospects
    Nash, D. 2019. Secularist History: Past Perspectives and Future Prospects. Secularism and Nonreligion, 8: 1, pp. 1–9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/snr.113 RESEARCH ARTICLE Secularist History: Past Perspectives and Future Prospects David Nash This article provides a survey of the growth and development of historiography about both Secularism and the wider secular movement since the onset of the nineteenth century. It analyses and highlights the main themes and their advocates as well as suggesting what historiographical developments we might be likely to see in the future. It is a great pleasure to write an opening piece for this last gasp of social history and history from below, then themed issue because it serves to signal the arrival of secu- the Marxism which overshadowed this outlook had little larist history as, at the very least, a sub-discipline of the time for religious radicalism. Writers like Christopher history of ideology and belief. One hesitates to suggest Hill, when he considered the tide of religious discus- that it is an offshoot of religious history, largely because sion unleashed by the English Revolution, was anxious religious history generally ignored its existence for quite to see how these individuals invented species of politi- a sustained period. It was thus frequently relegated to the cal education through their interaction with religious category of apostasy from religion, or instead labelled texts and ideas. Similarly E.P. Thompson was famously with the semi-religious category of doubt. Agnosticism dismissive of Methodism, further adding to the con- was the earnestly church-bound term for the honest ception that any radical historian who interested them- doubting Christian, a flavour of which we can sometimes selves in such things had veered off the beaten path into recapture in the musings of our current Archbishop of a blind and dangerous cul-de-sac.
    [Show full text]