Soviet patriotism in a comparative perspective: a passion for oxymora

The official patriotic narrative that emerged in the USSR during the Stalin period shows the continuity of imperial models that served to constitute “love of the fatherland”. This article presents several concepts about the formation of imperial patriotism prevalent in the course of history; it identifies tendencies of interaction between cultural tradition and foreign models. It also shows the principal possibility of combining patriotism with other forms of unifying and mobilizing discourses. The official patriotic discourse of the Stalin era is analyzed as an eclectic ideological construct that, to a large extent, relied on the tradition of imperial patriotic education. The constants distinguishing Russian-Soviet patriotism include the representation of Russia’s imperial past, viewing the question of a multi-national state through the paradigm of the empire’s “civilizing mission”, and patriotism as an integral part of public political education. Some of the elements fundamental for Soviet “love of the fatherland” are preserved in modern Russian patriotism as for instance in the form of “Soviet” nostalgia or representations of militant “statehood”.     

Controlling the Past to Control the Future: Christian Nationalism and Mandatory Patriotic Education in Public Schools

Recent debates about whether educators should teach America's racist history have sparked activism and legislation to ensure students are taught American history in such a way that promotes “patriotism,” amplifying cherished national myths, emphasizing American exceptionalism, and erasing negative historical facts. Building on insights from both social dominance theory and Christian nationalism research, we propose Christian nationalism combines legitimizing myths that whitewash America's past with authoritarian impulses and thus seeks to enforce “patriotic” content in public school classrooms. We also theorize this connection varies across racial, partisan, and ideological identities. Data from a nationally-representative survey of Americans affirm Christian nationalism is by far the leading predictor Americans believe “We should require public school teachers to teach history in a way that promotes patriotism.” This association is consistent across race (possibly due to divergent meanings of both “Christian nationalism” and “patriotism” across groups), but varies by partisanship and ideological identity for whites. Specifically, Christian nationalism brings whites who identify with the ideological and political left into complete alignment with their conservative counterparts who are already more likely to support mandatory patriotic education. Our findings provide critical context for ongoing battles over public-school curricula and education's role in perpetuating social privilege.     

Wittgenstein’s Peculiar Use of “Internal Relation” in Aspect-Seeing

“Internal relation” is a significant term in both Wittgenstein’s early and later philosophy. The term is used in relation to many problems, including our topic here, “aspect-seeing.” Some scholars have attempted to present a persuasive interpretation of this terminology; however, Wittgenstein’s remarks on “aspect-seeing” somehow thwart their approaches. The obstacle lies in the relata involved: Which terms are connected by an internal relation in the perception of an aspect? In this paper, I review the existing interpretations and present two proposals, one of which is conservative and the other slightly more radical. I argue that Wittgenstein makes divergent use of the distinction between “internal/external relations,” and that this may reveal the potential ambiguities of the words “internal” and “relation.”     

Of Innocence and Experience: Commentary on Paper by Stuart A. Pizer

In providing the background to a pivotal session, Stuart Pizer reveals his clinical work as an unsupervised neophyte, prior to his own analysis and analytic training. These early therapeutic efforts were flawed, leaving Pizer at times “grimacing with mortification 26 years after the fact.” But they were also extraordinarily helpful to the patient. Schaffer discusses the challenge of supervising similarly talented beginners: how does one teach psychoanalysis without desiccating a treatment? How does one teach a relational approach, with no “basic model” and few rules, to a beginning analyst infused with an unformulated, yet often passionate, sense of what is “curative”? Pizer recognizes that were he to meet the same patient today, he would not conduct the same treatment. Now trained and analyzed, not to mention more cautious and “worldweary,” Pizer would not do what he did then. But what if he were the supervisor then? Schaffer concludes her discussion by asking Pizer how he, now a seasoned analyst, would supervise his early therapist self.     

编码任务对来源记忆的影响:一项事件相关电位研究

本研究采用ERPs技术,探讨编码任务对来源记忆的影响及其神经机制。在学习阶段,被试进行两种编码操作：匹配判断任务和大小判断任务;在测验阶段,让被试进行来源判断任务。行为结果发现：在编码阶段,匹配判断任务比大小判断任务需要更长的时间;在测验阶段,匹配判断任务在“项目旧/背景旧”和“部分旧”条件的正确率显著高于大小判断任务,匹配判断任务在“项目旧/背景旧”条件的反应时显著短于大小判断任务。测验阶段ERPs结果发现：两种编码任务的新旧效应在200~700ms均有较广泛的头皮分布,而在700~1100ms呈前额皮层最大化分布;匹配判断任务的新旧效应比大小判断任务更大,表现在600~700ms的FPz电极以及700~800ms的Pz、P4电极。由此可见,在来源记忆中,编码任务影响来源记忆,主要表现在后部顶区位置;晚期前额皮层新旧效应不受任务难度因素的影响。     

The Role of Fear in Our Love of God: A Lutheran Perspective

Abstract : Lutheran Christians in particular have been taught in the Catechism to “fear and love God.” This article questions the assumption that in a contemporary context, fear and love can helpfully co‐exist, examining the different ways in which “fear of God” is a challenging concept for twenty‐first‐century Christians to understand. The article concludes with suggestions for how “fear of God” might be re‐interpreted and re‐articulated in a constructive way, leading to a more meaningful Christian life in the world today.     

Practical Conditions for Revealing Kabbalistic Knowledge

In this lecture, given on 17 June 2004, the author describes the conditions for proper disclosure of the wisdom of Kabbalah. He explains that today everyone is entitled and indeed is required to know about its true meaning. Expounding on the three past bans—“no need to disclose,” “impossible to disclose,” and “the Creator's personal secret”—Makaron demonstrates why today they have been (at least partially) lifted.     

Spiritual Experiences of War Veterans Who Suffer from Combat-Related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: A Qualitative Study

Recognition of the spiritual experiences of patients with post-traumatic stress disorder may be helpful in their rehabilitation. Accordingly, the present study has been carried out to determine the spiritual experiences of Iranian Muslim warriors who suffer from the previously mentioned disorder. In this qualitative study, 22 patients were selected using an objective-based sampling method and underwent an individual, semi-structured thorough interview. The data were analyzed using content analysis. The spiritual experiences of the participants were divided into two main categories as follows: (1) religious attitude consisting of three sub-categories known as “religious beliefs,” “religious sentiments,” and “religious behaviors” and (2) a national sensibility that includes the two sub-categories of “patriotism” and “proud” of being injured for my homeland. The analysis of the participants’ spiritual experiences showed that their specific religious orientation and feelings of nationalism assisted with their improved ability to cope with the consequences of their disorder. Therefore, it is recommended that caregivers use patients’ spiritual values to help them cope more efficiently.     

DISCRIMINATING ALTRUISMS

Reliable Darwinian theory shows that pure altruism cannot persist and expand over time. All higher organisms show inheritable patterns of caring and discrimination. The principal forms of discriminating altruisms among human beings are individualism (different from egoism), familialism, cronyism, tribalism, and patriotism. The promiscuous altruism called “universalism” cannot endure in the face of inescapable competition. Information can be promiscuously shared, but not so matter and energy without evoking the tragedy of the commons. Universalism is not recommendable even as an ideal. Survival now requires the creation of an intellectual base for a new patriotism.     

U.S. Patriotism and Ideologies of Group Dominance: A Tale of Asymmetry

Abstract

Using a random sample (N = 405) of White and Latino Americans from Los Angeles County, the authors explored whether there is an asymmetrical relationship between U.S. patriotism and two different dimensions of social dominance orientation: group antiegalitarianism and group dominance. Although there was no evidence of asymmetry in the relationship between U.S. patriotism and group antiegalitarianism, there was evidence of consistent asymmetry in the relationship between U.S. patriotism and group dominance. Among Whites (the dominant North American ethnic group) and depending on demographic variables such as age, education, income, and gender, the greater the respondents' tendency to subordinate “inferior groups,” the greater their level of U.S. patriotism. In contrast, among Latino Americans (the major subordinate group in Southern California), the opposite trend was found. Here, higher levels of group dominance orientation were associated with lower levels of U.S. patriotism. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Order of strokes writing as a cue for retrieval in reading chinese characters

Abstract

Chinese characters are composed of a number of strokes, varying from 1 to 23. The strokes of each character have to be written in a precise order, which is codified in a number of rules, and which is learned in the process of literacy acquisition. The present study tested the hypothesis that stroke writing order has been coded in memory as an essential component of the orthographic knowledge of a character, and that this specific motor schema is used as a cue in lexical retrieval. In the first experiment reported here, fragments of Chinese characters consisting of “early” or of “late” strokes (namely strokes which are written first or last during writing) were pre-exposed to target characters to be named as fast as possible. The results indicated that “early” strokes were better retrieval cues for character names than “late” strokes. In the second experiment, subjects were requested to make same-different judgements about two characters which had in common either “early” or “late” strokes. Different characters sharing “early” strokes were more frequently erroneously judged as being identical than characters sharing “late” strokes.     

“ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS AN S.S. OFFICER”: THE HOLOCAUST BETWEEN HISTORY AND FICTION IN ELSA MORANTE'S LA STORIA

The twentieth-century Italian Jewish novelist Elsa Morante's La Storia, published in 1974, is rarely included in the canon of Holocaust literature today, yet contains considerable content regarding the Italian experience of the Holocaust. In this essay I examine how Morante's proclaimed artistic principles, in particular her notion of “verità poetica”, “poetic truth”, and “storia”, “history” or “story”, affect her depiction of the Holocaust. I also trace what I term an “anxiety of absence” in La Storia, which I believe explains not only Morante's use of characters who are unreliable witnesses to the Holocaust as it unfolds in Rome, but also explains her ultimate swerve away from her artistic ideals and her problematic use of historical sources.     

“Do I really need it?”: An explorative study of acceptance and usage of in-vehicle technology

The vehicle is increasingly equipped with additional technology assisting and entertaining the driver. To improve the systems and increase their usage, it is important to understand what influences the acceptance of technology in the vehicle. An online survey was conducted assessing which systems drivers own and use in their vehicles today. For the equipped systems, the reasons why N = 304 drivers do not use their in-vehicle technology were qualitatively explored. An inductive content analysis revealed 13 categories in total. The three categories “Need”, “Context and Task”, and “Reliability” were associated with Perceived Usefulness while “Increased Effort” and “Aversion” were associated with Perceived Ease of Use (Venkatesh, 2000). In addition, the influencing factors are further extended with the “Preference for Own Action”, “Distrust”, “Safety”, “Knowledge”, and “Habit”. The findings reveal subjectively important antecedents of the acceptance of in-vehicle technology and provide new insights, especially on usage barriers. An Integrated Acceptance Model (IAM) is derived from the identified categories to inform future research and facilitate a holistic view on factors influencing technology acceptance.     

Atheism,faith, and the social scientific study of religion

The social “scientific”; study of religion originated in atheism and the basic theses pursued today, especially by psychologists and anthropologists, are little changed since they were first proposed by militant opponents of religion in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century. In this essay I trace these links from major scholar to major scholar across the centuries. I then examine the remarkable irony that the recent emergence of a truly scientific approach to religion was accomplished mainly by an influx of “believers”;. I sketch why and how this happened before turning to an assessment of the persistence of atheistic biases. I conclude with suggestions about how a truly scientific study of religion can be pursued by both believers and unbelievers, if not by fanatics of either stripe.     

Business Ethics without Philosophers? Evidence for and Implications of the Shift From Applied Philosophers to Business Scholars on the Editorial Boards of Business Ethics Journals

This article considers the relationship between business ethics and philosophy, specifically in relation to the field and persons working in it. The starting point is a grammatical one: business ethics by the rules of grammar belongs to ethics. In terms of academic disciplines, it belongs to applied ethics, which belongs to ethics, which belongs to practical philosophy, which belongs to philosophy. However, in the field of business ethics today one will seldom meet colleagues from philosophy; instead, they will come from business, applying business studies perspectives, approaches, and increasingly quantitative methods. This article provides empirical evidence that today the three top journals with “business ethics” in their titles (and “awarded” a high impact factor) are mostly run (in terms of their editorial boards) by business scholars with PhDs in business. The article compares the three journals today with their inaugural issues and finds that at their inception all three were run by a majority of philosophers. The article discusses six possible explanations for this shift and provides suggestions for how to bring business ethics back to philosophers (and vice versa).     

The Next American Revolution？ Reflections on Gar Alperovitz,What Then Must We Do？

Marx is concerned with theory that not only interprets but also changes the world. A central issue is thus the transition from capitalism to communism, a topic rarely considered by critics of capitalism today. An important exception is Gar Alperovitz, who, although eschewing the word ＂communism,＂ argues that we need ＂a new system＂ and sketches a transition strategy for moving ＂beyond capitalism.＂ This paper elaborates and evaluates this strategy.     

For love or money? The saga of Korean women who provided eggs for embryonic stem cell research

In 2004 and 2005, Woo-Suk Hwang achieved international stardom with publications in Science reporting on successful research involving the creation of stem cells from cloned human embryos. The wonder and success all began to unravel, however, when serious ethical concerns were raised about the source of the eggs for this research. When the egg scandal had completely unfolded, it turned out that many of the women who provided eggs for stem cell research had not provided valid consents and that nearly 75% of the women egg providers had received cash or in-kind payments. Among those who did not receive direct benefits, some cited patriotism as their reason for participating in embryonic stem cell research, hence the question “for love or money?”—namely, patriotism versus payment. This paper summarizes the Hwang debacle with particular attention to the egg scandal and ends with some preliminary thoughts on patriotism as a motive for research participation.     

REIMAGINING DAOIST ALCHEMY,DECOLONIZING TRANSHUMANISM: THE FANTASY OF IMMORTALITY CULTIVATION IN TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY CHINA

This article studies a new fantasy subgenre that emerged in contemporary China, xiuzhen xiaoshuo (immortality cultivation fiction), which builds imaginary worlds around the magical practice of Chinese alchemy and fuses it with science and technology. After the arrival of the modern, Western triad of science, religion, and magic/superstition, alchemical practices of the Daoist tradition were labeled as a “superstition” to be eradicated; however, they persisted and began to flourish within and beyond the realm of fantasy literature in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Immortality cultivation fiction has generated a magical form of transhumanism, which envisions human enhancement through techniques beyond the boundaries of “proper” science and “legitimate” religion. While transhumanism in the Euro-American West is popular among white bourgeoisie males and dominated by tendencies to reaffirm the human subject constructed by excluding the various subhuman others, magical transhumanism in Chinese fantasy explores the possibility of transcending that antagonistic relationship and making a posthuman subject and a utopian world.     

Contra Fraser on Feminism and Neoliberalism

This article is a critical examination of Nancy Fraser's contrast of early second‐wave feminism and contemporary global feminism in “Feminism, Capitalism and the Cunning of History,” (Fraser 2009 ). Fraser contrasts emancipatory early second‐wave feminism, strongly critical of capitalism, with feminism in the age of neoliberalism as being in a “dangerous liaison” with neoliberalism. I argue that Fraser's historical account of 1970s mainstream second‐wave feminism is inaccurate, that it was not generally anti‐capitalist, critical of the welfare system, or challenging the priority of paid labor. I claim Fraser mistakenly takes a minority feminist position as mainstream. I further argue that Fraser's account of feminism today echoes arguments from James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer (2001) to Hester Eisenstein ( 2009 ), but such arguments ignore contemporary feminist minority positions. I challenge Fraser's arguments that feminism legitimates neoliberalism to women, that women's NGOs are simply service‐providers enabling the state to withdraw services, and that criticisms of microcredit lending programs can be generalized into criticisms of women's feminism and women's NGOs today. I argue that these claims are vast over‐generalizations and ignore countertrends. I give empirical evidence to support my objections by considering women's activities in post‐communist European countries, which Fraser discusses.