“We may be pirates,but we are not protesters”: Identity in the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Radical activist organizations face the complex task of managing their identity so as to draw political attention but also to appear legitimate and thus gain public support. In this article we develop a picture of the identities of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) members, a group mostly known for their direct action against whaling, via a thematic analysis of material from the SSCS website and interviews with SSCS members. In online commentary, founder Captain Paul Watson establishes several deliberately paradoxical notions of who the Sea Shepherds are. We relate these identity statements to interviews with core activists to examine how they manage the identity conflicts resulting from the group identity, such as being seen as “pirates” and “hard lined vegans.” We found that SSCS positions themselves as a diverse and unstructured organization, yet distinctively passionate and willing to take action where others will not. The implications of this research are discussed in relation to the importance of understanding the constraints and conflicts around political activist identities.     

Ethos and identity: Expressions and changes in the Israeli Jewish society

Abstract

A fundamental condition for the evolvement of any society is the development of social identity, which confers a sense of belonging and identification. The meaning of social identity is influenced by the ethos that members of a society share. The ethos consists of shared, central societal beliefs that give the society a dominant orientation and characterize it. The societal beliefs that underlie the ethos can change as a result of new, prolonged experiences of the society. Israeli society presents an example of such a process.

During the years of intractable conflict, Israeli society developed societal beliefs of a conflictive ethos that were conducive to successful coping with the conflictive situation. The ethos included beliefs about the justness of the Jews' goals, about security, and about delegitimising the Arabs, together with motifs of positive self-image, patriotism, unity, and peace. These beliefs characterised Israeli Jewish society and contributed meaning to the Israeli social identity. As the peace process developed, the societal beliefs of the conflictive ethos began to change, at least among part of the society members. But as the violent conflict re-erupted in fall 2000, the ethos of conflict is strengthening its standing in the society. The present paper describes the changes in the conflictive ethos with regard to each of the societal beliefs and discusses the implications of these changes for the meaning of the Israeli Jewish identity. Finally, general conclusions regarding the presented conception of social identity are outlined.     

The end of History or the end of Democracy? National identity and the future of the nation‐state

Two alternative scenarios on the future of the nation state are presented in order to discuss the concepts of national identity as well as of political system legitimacy. At the core is the question to what extent the nation state will become obsolescent if not obsolete as a function of international interdependence. Fukuyama considers national identity a cultural phenomenon alien to democracy as the ultimate form of government. Guéhenno, in contrast, believes that the erosion of the nation state and of national identity will bring about the end of democracy. The disagreement rests on the assumption whether the political systems will be able to retain their autonomy allowing them to maintain or expand individual liberty and collective freedom.     

Introduction

Policy decisions made in the present are typically based only on considerations of short‐range consequences. However, a number of arguments can be made for attending to the long‐range consequences of policies, especially if they have implications for collective survival. Here, my intention is to articulate a way of contemplating the future that is instrumental to any long‐term goal. The approach taken is based upon the idea of promoting the strategic position of the next time period or generation. It is argued that this strategic principle should be accorded priority in all policy decisions with any bearing upon it.     

Philosophy Unbound: The Idea of Global Philosophy

The future of philosophy is moving towards “global philosophy.” The idea of global philosophy is the view that different philosophical approaches may engage more substantially with each other to solve philosophical problems. Most solutions attempt to use only those available resources located within one philosophical tradition. A more promising approach might be to expand the range of available resources to better assist our ability to offer more compelling solutions. This search for new horizons in order to improve our clarity about philosophical issues is at the heart of global philosophy. The idea of global philosophy encourages us to look beyond our traditions to improve our philosophical problem‐solving by our own lights. Global philosophy is a new approach whose time is coming. This essay offers the first account of this approach and an assessment of its future promise.     

The globalization of human rights

The argument of this article is that what I term generic globalization has created unprecedented opportunities for advances in human rights universally, but that the dominant actually existing historical form of globalization – capitalist globalization – undermines these opportunities. Substantively, I argue that taking the globalization of human rights seriously means eliminating the ideological distinction that exists between civil and political rights on the one hand, and economic and social rights on the other. Doing this systematically undermines the three central claims of capitalist globalization – namely, that globalizing corporations are the most efficient and equitable form of production, distribution and exchange; that the transnational capitalist class organizes communities and the global order in the best interests of everyone; and that the culture-ideology of consumerism will satisfy our real needs.     

The political responsibility of bystanders: the case of Mali

It has been a commonplace since the 2012 coup to hear how fragile the Malian democracy had become. Among the many causes is the political role that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have played as a fourth branch of government. As deliberative democratic processes were replaced by a corrupt elite consensus during the past eight years, NGOs assumed an important place in this system. This included humanitarian NGOs. However, these same NGOs until recently were blind to the political impact they were having. This essay suggests one explanation for this blindness and argues for the importance of a conception of humanitarian aid that balances moral responsibility with political responsibility.     

Global basic structure and institutions: The WTO as a practical example

In this article, I discuss the location of the sources of global poverty and injustice. I take it as granted that the members of the globally lowest income group live in unacceptable conditions and suffer from injustice. Yet the source of this injustice is a debatable question. Often the existing global institutions are seen as major causes behind this injustice. By taking the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations as a practical example, I aim to show that blaming the institutions as such can lead to misguided conclusions. The WTO, in fact, is quite just if one merely analyses its institutional structure. I argue that the major source of injustice are rather the prevailing power structures and the conduct of individual governments within this institutional framework, in other words the metaprocedural unfairness in the trade negotiations. I further argue that applications of Rawlsian theory of justice tend to be misleading at the global institutional level, as they focus disproportionately on the institutional structure, and tend to underestimate the relevance of the conduct of governments and the existing power structures, which allow powerful countries to use the institutional framework unjustly in their favour.     

“It’s Like Playing with a Nuclear Bomb”

Abstract

Most observers of the evangelical purity culture situate it within a form of contemporary evangelicalism that prioritizes personal spiritual growth and self-fulfillment. As a result, portrayals of the movement emphasize the therapeutic individualism and optimism of new paradigm spirituality. But the new paradigm does not help us explain the language of spiritual warfare and what Jason Bivins calls a religion of fear within purity rhetoric. Evangelical purity culture is as equally informed by a religion of accommodation and new paradigm spirituality as it is by a religion of fear and the remnants of cold war fundamentalism. This discordance makes sense only when the contemporary purity culture is placed within a broader historical trajectory that marks its genesis in the fundamentalist resurgence of the 1940s, not the 1970s when new paradigm churches first emerged. By examining the seemingly discordant elements of evangelical purity culture, historians are able to recognize the theological and historical continuity between evangelicalism’s religion of fear and religion of accommodation.