DOCSLIB.ORG

Jänos Szabö* After September 11: Challenges and Trends of Response in Domestic and International Institutions

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Jänos Szabö* After September 11: Challenges and Trends of Response in Domestic and International Institutions Südosteuropa , 50. Jg., 10-12/2001 Jänos Szabö* After September 11: Challenges and Trends of Response in Domestic and International Institutions Comparative Analysis of the Counter-Terrorism Measures Taken by Advanced Democracies "If the commoner falling in love with his own market achievements leaves the guarantees of his own security far behind he will have to return for them sooner or later." (Emerson) Some general political science relevance of the September 11 shock The September 11 terrorist attacks - as it read in the western press - took secret services, law enforcement agencies and armies aback. It was proved that the Western World grew indolent - at least from military and security policy aspects. Security policy did not respond in time to the terrorist threat and the institutions of defense, not so much in the field of theory and strategy than in practice, in­ credibly fell behind in the adaptation to the new hierarchy of security challenges. Four years ago, when Hungary was getting prepared for its NATO accession, one of the most important elements of the persuasion campaign was the claim that the Alliance was not preparing for a new war, but secures the defense of the member states against the new challenges of security policy primarily against ter­ rorism. For the citizens, however, September 11 indicated that although the gen­ eral defense strategy of the alliance is correct the substantial changes are consid­ erably burdened by the inertia of practice. While terrorist threat, migration, or­ ganized crime, development and management of low-intensity local conflicts are growing into fashionable topics the practice is dominated by forces and means (shaped for the possible conflicts in the previous bipolar world order) and this also refers to the levels of the actual organizational elements, resource distribution and interest enforcement activity too. The rearrangement of forces and resources in accordance with the new prior­ ity of threats is slower than necessary. Since the cessation of the bipolar world structure the efficiency of defense policy decision-making and execution mecha­ nism and the new harmony between defense budgets and military-industrial inter­ ests have been criticized the most vehemently this time. Out of all the players perhaps it was the military that responded the best of all to the changes, by Prof. Dr. Jänos Szabö, Director, Office for Strategic and Defense Studies, Budapest After September 11: Challenges and Trends of Response 503 working out the NATO Modernization Program and the new strategy draft, but due to the specified counteractions the practice is characterized by slow-motion processes. Under the influence of terrorist acts the situation is noticeably chang­ ing and the transformation must be accelerating in all probability: thus the Ameri­ can missile defense umbrella was replaced by ways of defense that can be used in operations incomparable with traditional or nuclear warfare. Now the responsibility of politicians and decision-makers both for absence of early warning information on the potential terrorist attacks and for the fact that neither the armed forces nor the law-enforcement agencies were at their best is increasingly scrutinized in public. However, the responsibility of political and governmental decision-makers is not limitless; the most important tasks of the past decades were the modernization, stabilization, and operation of western-type civilian control. This allows the armed forces to ensure the defense and security of the people of a country without posing a threat to society or turning into an in­ dependent power center. In Hungary this control is exercised by the constituents every four years directly and between two elections by defense politicians and media guarantee the control. Until September 11 the frequently asked questions were: What do armed forces spend their budget on? Is it necessary to spend so very much on the armed forces? There were extreme opinions (even in Hungary) questioning the necessity of maintaining armed forces at all. Since September 11 the importance of state providing security, including armed forces and law en­ forcement agencies, has significantly increased. Ambitions to professionalism came into prominence which is well illustrated by the fact that in the United States marketable-regarded security services like airport security and baggage control were retaken by federal agencies almost immediately after the terrorist attacks. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon also mark the end of an idyllic combination of security, welfare growth and post-modern constitution­ ality as the right to liberty achieved in western societies are forced to compromise and a part of them have to be temporarily suspended. As there are no "standard operational procedures" for the new conflict situation, at the beginning tightening the existing though liberal regulations was the only way of improving the sense of security receiving high priority at an incredibly high speed. This could be experi­ enced in the United States right at the airports where the rather formal inquiries were replaced by extreme security measures. It was allowed to shoot down civil planes if they were to be used for terrorist acts and the citizens did not protest as these measures significantly increased their sense of security. The rules of tapping telephones and surveillance were also eased and this measure did not trigger off a huge wave of protest either. Holding in respect to the sensitivity human rights this liberalization was adopted only for four years which clearly indicates that the de­ cision-makers are fully aware of the unprecedented infringement of liberties. September 11 is a tremendous trial of the multicultural global western world order. There is much at stake: will the community of the developed industrial de­ mocracies box itself up or will it preserve its openness by transforming its defense policy and security policy system in order to guarantee its citizens' security. It 504 Jänos Szabö would be premature to answer which version gets the upper end but it should be hoped for the latter. If the near future were shaped in accordance with the more favorable scenario it would not be necessary to worry about a significant and long-term limitation of liberties as society has its own defense mechanisms and human rights organizations and other NGO's will definitely send their warnings which can hardly be ignored by any decision-maker. More than a decade ago, when the breakup of bipolarity generated huge de­ bates among experts of conflict theory it became clear for everyone that what had begun was nothing less than a historic experiment with the disintegration of a large-scale destructive global conflict (Nuclear World War) into many minor con­ flicts in order to manage and resolve them separately. Meanwhile it became clear that these conflicts are not under total control either as they tend to slip out of our hands and live their own lives. Moreover, new conflicts emerged that had not been taken into account before. As for military activities the general ideas were that, especially in the time of mass armies, they were phenomena focused on an exceptional period of time (a war) thus in peacetime it remains latent that is concentrating mainly on prepara­ tion and readiness. By today, however, it has turned out that if the objective is the stabilization of the peace of the world or at least that of Europe - or the peace of post-industrial developed democracies, to be even more exact - these military ac­ tivities should be permanent and omnipresent in order to secure this peace. That is military capabilities active only in exceptional, emergency situations were re­ placed by another, a day-to-day type of very diffuse military activities remaking and exceeding national frameworks. This is the change of paradigm that results from the studying of conflicts and the demand for crisis management making up an inseparable part of the new paradigms in itself. It can be stated that a complete change of the defense structure is in progress and the September 11 shock had a decisive influence of the entire system of institutions. Within it functions, institu­ tionalized roles are changing moving towards fundamentally new threat priorities. Alas, these organizational structures still have an excessive inertia and an intol­ erably high level of potential moment of inertia. In short: it is still impossible to respond to the challenges of a changing world, as required by the dynamically changing security necessities. In this field a shift of the adaptive military structures towards multiplicity can be seen. In regions where peace should be preserved or maintained peacekeeping operations will dominate and classic armed combat capabilities should remain "on standby" in a way. In other regions of the world where peace should not only be kept but also enforced in low-intensity (or not so very low-intensity) combat op­ erations classical military forces should be involved in the processes at a level ac­ cording to the requirements of the particular tactical-strategic indications. In ac­ cordance with this, modem and post-modem societies are always forced to face the task of a permanent modification of the distribution of resources in their defense budget. It is still not clear whether the modification of defense resources will be executed on the basis of the relatively simple public opinion approach or the very complex political approach or the also fairly sophisticated professional After September 11: Challenges and Trends of Response 505 requirements. The problem is not easy to solve. In the decision-making process the intentions or articulated requirements of the military technocracy should pass through the filter of logocracy, democracy and bureaucracy and only then a deci­ sion can be made. The decisions then have to be tested in practice and the feed­ back of the results should involve every factor in the process (political and mili­ tary decision-makers) in order to allow them to "see what they have done".
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The New Age Under Orage
    THE NEW AGE UNDER ORAGE CHAPTERS IN ENGLISH CULTURAL HISTORY by WALLACE MARTIN MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS BARNES & NOBLE, INC., NEW YORK Frontispiece A. R. ORAGE © 1967 Wallace Martin All rights reserved MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS 316-324 Oxford Road, Manchester 13, England U.S.A. BARNES & NOBLE, INC. 105 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10003 Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd, Frome and London This digital edition has been produced by the Modernist Journals Project with the permission of Wallace T. Martin, granted on 28 July 1999. Users may download and reproduce any of these pages, provided that proper credit is given the author and the Project. FOR MY PARENTS CONTENTS PART ONE. ORIGINS Page I. Introduction: The New Age and its Contemporaries 1 II. The Purchase of The New Age 17 III. Orage’s Editorial Methods 32 PART TWO. ‘THE NEW AGE’, 1908-1910: LITERARY REALISM AND THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION IV. The ‘New Drama’ 61 V. The Realistic Novel 81 VI. The Rejection of Realism 108 PART THREE. 1911-1914: NEW DIRECTIONS VII. Contributors and Contents 120 VIII. The Cultural Awakening 128 IX. The Origins of Imagism 145 X. Other Movements 182 PART FOUR. 1915-1918: THE SEARCH FOR VALUES XI. Guild Socialism 193 XII. A Conservative Philosophy 212 XIII. Orage’s Literary Criticism 235 PART FIVE. 1919-1922: SOCIAL CREDIT AND MYSTICISM XIV. The Economic Crisis 266 XV. Orage’s Religious Quest 284 Appendix: Contributors to The New Age 295 Index 297 vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS A. R. Orage Frontispiece 1 * Tom Titt: Mr G. Bernard Shaw 25 2 * Tom Titt: Mr G.
    [Show full text]
  • Linguistic Scepticism in Mauthner's Philosophy
    LiberaPisano Misunderstanding Metaphors: Linguistic ScepticisminMauthner’s Philosophy Nous sommes tous dans un désert. Personne ne comprend personne. Gustave Flaubert¹ This essayisanoverview of Fritz Mauthner’slinguistic scepticism, which, in my view, represents apowerful hermeneutic category of philosophical doubts about the com- municative,epistemological, and ontological value of language. In order to shed light on the main features of Mauthner’sthought, Idrawattention to his long-stand- ing dialogue with both the sceptical tradition and philosophyoflanguage. This con- tribution has nine short sections: the first has an introductory function and illus- tratesseveral aspectsoflinguistic scepticism in the history of philosophy; the second offers acontextualisation of Mauthner’sphilosophyoflanguage; the remain- der present abroad examination of the main features of Mauthner’sthought as fol- lows: the impossibility of knowledge that stems from aradicalisationofempiricism; the coincidencebetween wordand thought,thinkingand speaking;the notion of use, the relevanceoflinguistic habits,and the utopia of communication; the decep- tive metaphors at the root of an epoché of meaning;the new task of philosophyasan exercise of liberation against the limits of language; the controversial relationship between Judaism and scepticism; and the mystical silence as an extreme conse- quence of his thought.² Mauthnerturns scepticism into aform of life and philosophy into acritique of language, and he inauguratesanew approach that is traceable in manyGerman—Jewish
    [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]
  • The President's
    ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: The President’s Pen: A Literary History of American Presidential Autobiographies Allen Fletcher Cole, Doctor of Philosophy, 2010 Dissertation directed by: Professor Robert Levine, Department of English Approximately half of American presidents have produced either a full or partial narrative record of their lives, and recent presidential autobiographies have been released to full-scale media attention. Yet, despite the genre’s familiarity, there has been no comprehensive analysis of this set of presidential autobiographies. The goal of this project is to examine a selected number of presidential memoirs in order to chart the development of this genre. Aside from considering the merits of the individual texts through extended readings, this dissertation will trace the history of the publication, marketing, and reception of these texts. In addition, it will trace the formal changes and development of the presidential memoir in the context of the changing relationships between the president and the American people, popular conceptions of public and private, and the confluence of politics and celebrity. In order to achieve these goals, the dissertation is arranged chronologically and centers on selected texts that mark the genre’s evolution. The first chapters are devoted to the earliest presidential autobiographies, those of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe. These three works demonstrate a careful delineation between public and private and ostensibly serve public ends. The second chapter focuses on books by James Buchanan and Ulysses Grant, both of whom sought to market their life narratives in order to reach the broadest possible audience. The third chapter takes up the autobiographies of Theodore Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge, two presidents who used the expansion of technology to project carefully constructed public characters to the American electorate.
    [Show full text]
  • Functional Literacy in Romania: Between Myth & Reality. Chapter
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 386 350 RC 020 242 AUTHOR Anghel, Florentina TITLE Functional Literacy in Romania: Between Myth & Reality. Chapter 13. PUB DATE 94 NOTE 21p.; In: Alpha 94: Literacy and Cultural Development Strategies in Rural Areas; see RC 020 235. PUB TYPE Information Analyses (070) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Adult Basic Education; Communism; Educational Development; Educational History; Educational Objectives; Elementary Secondary Education; Foreign Countries; *Functional Literacy; Higher Education; *Literacy Education; Political Power; Rural Areas; *Rural Education; Rural Population; *Social Change; *Totalitarianism IDENTIFIERS Bureaucratic Language; *Romania ABSTRACT This chapter reviews the history of literacy training in Romania through the pretotalitarian period (1890-1945) , the totalitarian period (1945-1989), and the posttotalitarian period (1989-present). Current literary development efforts face many challenges including the facts that 592 classrooms do not have indoor plumbing, that more than 1,700 teaching positions in village and commune schools are held by individuals without specialized education, and that 60 percent of functional illiterates live in rural areas. An evaluation of rural literacy training shows that, during the most difficult stage of totalitarianism (1980-1989), great strides were made, including establishing a school in every village, free education for all, access to cultural activities and written information, original cultural productions, and mass cultural demonstrations. However,
    [Show full text]
  • Queerness, Disability, and the Remaking of American Manhood
    Excerpt • Temple University Press Introduction Bodies That Leak American Masculinity and Antiprophylactic Citizenship n July 2013, transgender military intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning was sentenced to thirty-five years in prison after she released thousands of clas- Isified documents to WikiLeaks three years earlier. Among the most signifi- cant records Manning leaked was a video titled “Collateral Murder,” which depicted the U.S. military’s indiscriminate killing of Iraqi civilians during a 2007 airstrike in Baghdad. In leaking sensitive information, Manning was accused of compromising the nation’s defenses, damaging the United States’ global reputation and revealing military tactics that could jeopardize the country’s ability to protect itself against foreign powers. But for Manning, the opposite was true. Understanding the nation’s overdeveloped defenses as a liability rather than a strength, Manning made clear that her primary patri- otic duty was not to help fortify our systems of security but rather to hold the United States accountable to the global community and to its own citizens. Put another way, to spring a “leak” in our nation’s figurative armor may very well have been the only way to participate in the creation of a nation worth defending. Manning’s act of principled dissent—her willingness to compro- mise the “security” of the nation for the sake of the nation—is a provocative example of what I refer to throughout this book as antiprophylactic citizenship. In this model, the nation earns its vitality through an attitude of openness, an embrace of vulnerability, and willingness, when necessary, to revolt. Vulnerable Constitutions argues that one of the central features of antipro- phylactic citizenship is its sustained encounter with queerness and d isability.
    [Show full text]
  • A Call for Rethinking Cultural Studies
    BEYOND CELEBRATION: A CALL FOR RETHINKING CULTURAL STUDIES Carolyn Lea 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. Ellen Berry, Advisor Dr. Nancy C. Patterson Graduate Faculty Representative Dr. Donald McQuarie Dr. Ewart Skinner © 2007 Carolyn Lea All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Dr. Ellen Berry, Advisor This is a polemical dissertation which seeks to serve as an intervention into the theoretical debates and tensions within cultural studies. These debates, which have taken place over the last few decades, have centered on the populist bent within cultural studies, the turn away from the concerns of political economy, and the influence of French theories that emphasize signification, play, and relativism. At stake in these debates is our way of understanding the world and imagining it differently. I argue that the celebratory direction found in much of the work by cultural studies scholars in which resistance, subversion and transgression are located in all things popular has led to an expressivist politics which lacks explanatory power and is symptomatic of a loss of political will. This dissertation critiques three particular directions that exemplify the celebratory turn: claims regarding transgression; claims regarding audience activity; and celebratory accounts of consumption. Chapter one provides an exposition of the debates that have plagued cultural studies, laying the ground for later arguments. Chapter two provides an introduction to reality television which is enlisted as a cultural symptom through which to interrogate weaknesses in theoretical positions (in chapters three through five) adopted by cultural studies scholars and strengths in alternative theoretical legacies.
    [Show full text]
  • The Language of the Polish Political Class
    ANDRZEJ WAŚKIEWICZ University of Warsaw The Language of the Polish Political Class Abstract: This article is about two languages, technocratic and moralising, used by the Polish political class to communicate with, and seduce, citizens. These languages have displaced the proper language of politics, the language of representation, which was only spoken in the early nineteen-nineties when politicians defined themselves as representatives of “ordinary men and women.” The language of representation disappeared in the mid-nineties, as trust in the government waned and the increasingly painful consequences of transformation were exposed. As the first language of politics, technocratic language was used to promise to conduct politics professionally, sensitively and in a non-ideological fashion. In this language “problems” come to the forefront: the citizen “has” these problems, the politician “knows” how to solve them. The government is the first intervening institution which wants to combat social pathologies whereas the good state is merely a “normal” state, an efficient machinery. Moralising language, meanwhile, with its central category of “moral indignation,” connects the governing and the governed on the normative plane. When used by the government, it supplements the technocratic language. When used by the opposition, it questions the technocratic language and serves to stigmatise political adversaries as people who have no principles and no conscience. All in all, the two languages are well-fitted to Poles’ ideas about what politics should be. Their existence is as much a sign of Polish society’s lack of culture and political inactivity as of the crisis of the institution of representation which we are also witnessing in mature democracies.
    [Show full text]
  • DIRECTLY-DELIBERATIVE POLYARCHY Joshua Cohen And
    DIRECTLY-DELIBERATIVE POLYARCHY Joshua Cohen and Charles Sabel[1] 1. INTRODUCTION In this essay we defend a form of democracy that we will call "directly- deliberative polyarchy." We argue that it is an attractive kind of radical, participatory democracy with problem-solving capacities useful under current conditions and unavailable to representative systems. In directly deliberative polyarchy, collective decisions are made through public deliberation in arenas open to citizens who use public services, or who are otherwise regulated by public decisions. But in deciding, those citizens must examine their own choices in the light of the relevant deliberations and experiences of others facing similar problems in comparable jurisdictions or subdivisions of government. Ideally, then, directly deliberative polyarchy combines the advantages of local learning and self-government with the advantages (and discipline) of wider social learning and heightened political accountability that result when the outcomes of many concurrent experiments are pooled to permit public scrutiny of the effectiveness of strategies and leaders. One starting point for our argument is a commonplace of contemporary political debate: that current economic and political institutions are not solving problems they are supposed to solve, in areas of employment, economic growth, income security, education, training, environmental regulation, poverty, housing, social service delivery, or even basic personal safety. A second point of departure is the intrinsic appeal of collective decision-making that proceeds through direct participation by and reason-giving between and among free and equal citizens. Directly-deliberative polyarchy is the natural consequence of both beginnings: desirable both in itself and as a problem- solver. That is what we hope to show, or at least make plausible.
    [Show full text]
  • Pyramidal Democracy Marcus J
    Journal of Public Deliberation Volume 5 | Issue 1 Article 8 5-28-2009 Pyramidal Democracy Marcus J. Pivato Trent University, Canada, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd Recommended Citation Pivato, Marcus J. (2009) "Pyramidal Democracy," Journal of Public Deliberation: Vol. 5 : Iss. 1 , Article 8. Available at: https://www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol5/iss1/art8 This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by Public Deliberation. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Public Deliberation by an authorized editor of Public Deliberation. Pyramidal Democracy Abstract I propose a decentralized, multilayered representative democracy, where citizens participate in deliberative policy formation after self-organizing into a pyramidal hierarchy of small groups. Each group elects a delegate, who expresses the deliberative consensus of that group at the next tier of the pyramid. The yp ramid thus acts as a communications network which efficiently aggregates useful information and policy ideas. It is also a powerful meritocratic device, which channels legislative responsibility towards the most committed and competent citizens. This yields a practical implementation of deliberative democracy in a large polity. Acknowledgements I would like to thank David Ballantyne, who first suggested pyramidal democracy to me, participated in many stimulating discussions on the subject, and carefully critiqued several drafts of this paper. In many ways he is the silent co-author of this article. This essay is available in Journal of Public Deliberation: https://www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol5/iss1/art8 Pivato: Pyramidal Democracy ‘Deliberative democracy’ emphasizes the importance of widespread dialogue and deliberation amongst the citizenry as an essential part of the democratic process.1 Such deliberation should have many positive effects.
    [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]
  • Redalyc.Modernity and Capitalism (15 Theses)
    Theomai ISSN: 1666-2830 [email protected] Red Internacional de Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo Argentina Echeverria, Bolivar Modernity and Capitalism (15 Theses) Theomai, núm. 11, 2005 Red Internacional de Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo Buenos Aires, Argentina Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=12420823007 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative Theomai ISSN Impreso: 1666-2830 ISSN Electrónico: 1515-6443 Número 11, Primer Semestre 2005 Estudios sobre Sociedad, Naturaleza y Desarrollo, Argentina. Modernity and Capitalism (15 Theses)(1) Bolivar Echeverria* Translated by Charlotte Broad(2) * Professor at Facultad de Filosofia y Letras - Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. E-mail: [email protected] ¿Por qué la cuerda, entonces, si el aire es tan sencillo? ¿Para qué la cadena, si existe el hierro por sí solo? César Vallejo (3) A century ago, men still thought they were masters of the situation: they thought they (who were already undeniably modern) could do whatever they liked with modernity, either accept it (in whole, in parts or with modifications) or reject it (by closing the door on it or reverting its effects). Their thought sprang from a world in which modernity, though relentlessly pursuing its course, was still some way from achieving planetary reach and could not demonstrate to the collective mind the totalizing range of its aspiration or the radicalism of the changes it was already introducing into human life.
    [Show full text]