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How is it possible to murder a million people one by one? Hatred, fear, madness of one or many people cannot explain it. No one can be so possessed for the months, even years, required for genocides, slavery, deadly economic exploitation, sexual trafficking of children. In The Evil of Banality, Elizabeth Minnich argues for a tragic yet hopeful explanation. “Extensive evil,” her term for systematic horrific harm-doing, is actually carried out, not by psychopaths, but by people like your quiet next door neighbor, your ambitious colleagues. There simply are not enough moral monsters for extensive evil, nor enough saints for extensive good. In periods of extensive evil, people little differe...
A new edition of a widely influential book engages with contemporary critiques of inequality and with recent global events.
Thinking has, for many of us, become as passive as breathing.While it’s essential to our very existence, we devote little energy or time to cultivating it. Thought Work:Thinking, Action, and the Fate of the World challenges us to reinstate the restless, complicated activity of thinking as the heart of all education, life, and work. Our underappreciation of careful thought has crippled our ability to sustain a moral, conscience-driven society, and it now falls to each of us to examine the underlying thought processes that guide our every action. Distinguished philosopher Elizabeth K. Minnich and evaluation studies pioneer Michael Quinn Patton gather a diverse cast of thought leaders to resp...
Privatization has been on the right-wing agenda for years. Health care, schools, Social Security, public lands, the military, prisons—all are considered fair game. Through stories, analysis, impassioned argument—even song lyrics—Si Kahn and Elizabeth Minnich show that corporations are, by their very nature, unable to fulfill effectively what have traditionally been the responsibilities of government. They make a powerful case that the market is not the measure of all things, and that a vital public sector is an indispensable component of a healthy democracy.
Controversy over what role “the great books” should play in college curricula and questions about who defines “the literary canon” are at the forefront of debates in higher education. The Politics of Liberal Education enters this discussion with a sophisticated defense of educational reform in response to attacks by academic traditionalists. The authors here—themselves distinguished scholars and educators—share the belief that American schools, colleges, and universities can do a far better job of educating the nation’s increasingly diverse population and that the liberal arts must play a central role in providing students with the resources they need to meet the challenges of ...
Read a transcript of Amy Goodman's interview with Si and Elizabeth on Democracy Now! A legendary activist and a distinguished public philosopher address a timely but complex issue in a way that is accessible and compelling Evaluates privatization not just economically, but in social, political, and human terms Offers principles and practices for creating alternatives to privatization and strengthening the public sector Privatization has been on the right-wing agenda for years, but now it has the power of the Bush administration behind it. Health care, schools, Social Security, public lands, the military, prisons - all are considered fair game. But does privatization really serve the public g...
Takes an in-depth look at the practice of privatization. The purpose of this book is to present an analysis of privatisation that will help people understand what is happening to them, and what they can do about it. It provides a framework that allows readers to center their thinking in questions of what it means to build a democratic society.
"Examines the work of three nineteenth-century utilitarian feminist philosophers: Catharine Beecher, Frances Wright, and Anna Doyle Wheeler. Focuses on methodological questions in order to recover their philosophy and categorize it as feminist"--Provided by publisher.
A splendid piece of scholarship on a major twentieth-century thinker often overlooked. / This book presents an original scholarly analysis of the work of political theorist Hannah Arendt, focusing on an area hitherto ignored: the ways in which Augustine s thought forms the foundation of Arendt's work. Stephan Kampowski here offers readers a valuable overview of central aspects of Arendt s thought, addressing perennial existential and philosophical questions at the heart of every human being.
At the core of postmodern thought, especially in literary theory, is the belief that such ideals as truth, reason, and objectivity are social constructs that have no universal or trans-historical validity. In exploring this constructivist view, Satya P. Mohanty examines its underlying epistemological claims and their social and political implications. His book points the way toward a critical alternative to the epistemological and cultural relativisms. Mohanty grounds his critique in readings of some of the major figures of postmodernism, including Paul de Man, Louis Althusser, Fredric Jameson, and Jacques Derrida and analyzes the views of Mikhail Bakhtin, C. S. Peirce, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty, particularly their notions of language and referentiality. Mohanty defends a post-positivist realist conception of objectivity as a legitimate ideal of all inquiry. He outlines a realist theory of social identity and multicultural politics which sees radical moral universalism and cultural diversity as complementary—not competing—ideals.