Pragmatic Dogma: Understanding the Ideological Continuities in Iran's Response to the Charlie Hebdo Attacks

ABSTRACT

Ayatollah Khomeini's 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie cemented Iran's space within Western discourses surrounding blasphemy and Islam. The fatwa has earned its place within the polarizing debate between free speech and religious tolerance, which fundamentally serves the political ambitions of those involved. This article therefore argues that, in order to understand accusations of blasphemy in Iran, one must address the political concerns in which the accusation takes place since these reveal Iran's tendency towards pragmatic dogma – the practice of meeting the needs of the state in a way that accords with its religious ideology. The responses of Iranian officials to the Charlie Hebdo killings in 2015 provide a useful case study for the analysis of this pragmatic dogma, since the Islamic Republic pursued a different approach to the Charlie Hebdo “blasphemy” from that which it had followed with Rushdie. Instead of condoning the killings, Iran's political and religious elite chose to condemn the actions of both the cartoonists and the gunmen, without outlining a punishment. The article will argue that this case demonstrates many of the continuing themes in Iran's approach to blasphemy, since the Charlie Hebdo cartoons have largely been used to reinforce the Islamic Republic's overall worldview.     

Religion and local politics in Southern Europe: a research agenda

This article brings to a conclusion the series of three special sections published in 2015 and 2016 by Religion, State and Society on ‘Religion and local politics in southern Europe’. We set up a research agenda on the interactions between religion and local politics in Southern Europe. In doing so, we focus on the localisation of religion, including religious debates, and on the impact of the recent economic crisis. More specifically, we address the local as a contested concept, the multilevel governance of religion as a scalar opportunity structure – in relation to the transnational dimension of religious actors – the effects of such changes in the welfare landscape and the impact of the economic crisis on the activities and strategies of religious actors in Southern Europe. Our research agenda focuses on the interactions between two main dimensions: the territorial impact of political and economic changes, and the multiscalar schemes of territorial governance.     

A Realistic Vision? Roberto Unger on Law and Politics

This paper considers Roberto Unger's views on legal reasoning. His account is defended against two misplaced attacks. The first critique is by Emilios Christodoulidis. Using the language of systems theory, Christodoulidis contends that Unger's programme of democratic experimentalism cannot be achieved through law, as the constitutive structure of the legal system is immune to politics. Christodoulidis accuses Unger of attempting to reduce law to politics. It will be argued, however, that Unger does no such thing. The second attack holds that Unger's criticisms of objectivism apply to his own democratic vision and that, as a result, he cannot promote this vision without self-contradiction. Again, it will be argued that this criticism rests on a misunderstanding of Unger's views. The paper concludes with a tentative objection to the substantive proposals of Unger's work, suggesting that they ought to be replaced by a pluralist account of value. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Community psychology and politics

If community psychology is to profit from its experience to develop an accurate and consistent theory of the effect on individuals of societal pressures, it will need to review reflexively its own position in relation to politics and empowerment. Despite an inspirational and at times positively grandiose rhetoric, psychologists are in fact in no particularly powerful position to influence the factors which cause personal distress, and should not, through a pretence of therapeutic potency, ‘psychologize’ the notion of ‘empowerment’ and reinforce therapeutic ideals which are in fact destructively normative. Without attempting to appropriate politics, community psychology can, however, offer an essentially scientific analysis of power and distress, which may have therapeutically ‘demystifying’ qualities as well as important political implications for the wider society.     

United we stand? The educational implications of the politics of difference

This paper attempts to follow the changes in the concept state over the last two hundred years, by tracing changes in the aims of public education. Four major stages are identified. The first is characterized by the establishment of the nation-state, when a national and civic education are fused together. The second is marked by the erosion of the identity between state and nation, and by attempts to prevent this process through the development of contradictory educational strategies: neutral civic education and nation building through the mechanism of the melting pot. At the third stage, despite the above-mentioned efforts, the awakening of national minorities demanding special national education sharpens the distinction between civic and national education. This leads to the last stage, the politics of difference, when the nationally homogenous nation-state is replaced by a consciously heterogenous state. Such a state can grant all its members equal civil and national rights only if it endorses traditional liberal values. Hence, despite the fact they firmly criticize liberalism and attempt to revive particular national education supporters of the politics of difference cannot deny that liberal values and civic education offer the best protection for their own ends.     

The social epistemologist in search of a position from which to argue

The relevance of Fuller's version of social epistemology to argumentation theory is highlighted, in response to critics who claim that I am not sufficiently critical of the social grounds of knowledge production. Responding to Lyne, I first consider the strengths and weaknesses of relying on economic images to capture the social. Then, I tackle two contrary objections: Brian Baigrie claims social epistemology is not social enough, while Angelo Corlett wonders whether it may be too social. Finally, I counter Malcolm Ashmore, who argues that social epistemology is not sensitive to reflexive implications of its own doctrines. I conclude that a rhetoric needs to be forged that enables those wishing to transform knowledge production to make their case plausibly to those whose behavior needs to be changed most. At the moment, science critics preach to the converted, a fate that the social epistemologist should not wish to share.     

Embodying the psychological attitude: types of consciousness in the transformation of culture

It is time to reclaim C.G. Jung’s vision of psychology as the foundational science upon which all sciences and institutions would be based, and as the discipline, theory, and practice necessary for fostering humanity’s overall psychocultural development. Jung identified eight distinct ‘types’ of consciousness through which humankind engages its emerging psychological attitude. Jung’s view of psychological development as hingeing on the differentiation of function-attitudes provides the means for understanding not only ourselves and each other, but our society as well. This paper offers an example of such an analysis by focusing on the current conflict within American political culture. The goal is as lofty as it is necessary: the operationalization of Jung’s vision of psychology as the powerful influencer of human cultural evolution that it has the potential to be. The immediate goal is to instigate the first step toward this vision of Jung’s ‘complex psychology’ by stimulating conversations among Jungians about how they can foster that vision, leading them towards taking up roles as ‘citizen therapists’, actively involved in their communities in cultivating greater empathy and the withdrawal of projections in the interest of furthering ‘collective consciousness’.     

Clinical experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic

Most of the clinical experiences discussed in this article arose from monthly Zoom meetings at Rome’s Italian Centre of Analytical Psychology (CIPA). We set up a discussion group in April 2020, one month after lockdown began in Italy, and these monthly online meetings continue to this day. All senior analysts and analysts-in-training at Rome’s CIPA, whose backgrounds range from child and adolescent psychotherapy to adult psychotherapy and analysis, to sandplay therapy and medicine and psychiatry, have been participating in these meetings. The group discussions focus on the present time and its impact on us, as well as on our relationships with patients. By further developing these reflections during the lockdown in Italy (9 March - 3 May 2020), it is fair to ask whether a sense of unreality, depersonalization, or derealization has occurred, either in the therapist or patient, and if so, whether it is possible that therapists miss the human contact more than clients. We will mainly refer to clinical and personal experiences as our most precious guidelines.     

Defining and characterizing organizational resilience in elite sport

ObjectivesOrganizational resilience has been investigated in numerous performance contexts outside of sport, with substantial conceptual and operational variance. Given the growing interest in organizational environments in sport, the purpose of the study was to construct a definition of organizational resilience and identify resilient characteristics of elite sport organizations.DesignUsing the Delphi method, 62 expert panelists working in or with elite sport organizations (n = 45) or having academic experience of resilience in various contexts (n = 17), responded to four online iterative surveys over seven months, yielding both quantitative and qualitative data through item responses and accompanying comments. A reflexive thematic analysis of the integrated data was conducted from a critical realist standpoint.ResultsOrganizational resilience was defined as “the dynamic capability of an organization to successfully deal with significant change. It emerges from multi-level (employee, team, and organizational) interacting characteristics and processes which enable an organization to prepare for, adapt to, and learn from significant change”. The five resilient characteristics identified from the analysis were structural clarity, flexible improvement, shared understanding, reciprocal commitment, and operational awareness.ConclusionsBy proposing a definition of organizational resilience which is appropriate to and endorsed by those in elite sport organizations, and identifying resilient characteristics of elite sport organizations, this study provides an important foundation for future research and practice endeavors in this area.