The Defeat of the Mind examines the opposition to Enlightenment thought from the eighteenth century to the present. Finkielkraut asserts that the ostensibly progressive cast of third world anticolonial and anti-Western sentiment, paradoxically, has its antecedent in Eurocentric sources - chiefly the German romantic concept of the Volksgeist, or spirit of the people. Straightforward and succinct, Finkielkraut draws a line between the idea of culture as an expression of the life of the mind and culture as an expression of national spirit. He deplores the appropriation of the concept of the Volksgeist by ethnic nationalists, who employ the notion in justification of such horrors as the Final Solution in Nazi Germany and the current waves of "ethnic cleansing." Equally worrying, he claims, are the seemingly harmless infusions of the Volksgeist into campaigns for ethnic diversity espoused by some social scientists and third world intellectuals. The Defeat of the Mind questions notions of cultural relativism espoused by such intellectual and political leaders as Claude Levi-Strauss and Frantz Fanon. Finkielkraut points to the United Nations and UNESCO - founded to propagate the universalist ideals of Enlightenment Europe, these organizations have co-opted the notion of cultural relativism to a fault, now speaking on behalf of every ethnic prejudice. "The objective remained the same," Finkielkraut maintains of this shift in ideology, "but to achieve its goal, it was no longer a matter of opening others to reason, but of opening ourselves to the reason of others." Defending values that seem absent from many contemporary frames of reference, the book concludes with a chapter challenging post-modernist thought, for Finkielkraut claims that it equates the value of novels by Flaubert with television movies and lacks concern for the survival of culture and reason.
The well-respected public television journalist presents a series of one-on-one interviews with leading scientists, writers, artists, philosophers, and historians that outline the pressing problems America will face in the future
" Rares sont les livres doués du pouvoir d'inspirer au lecteur cette prise de conscience que l'on appelle un sentiment de révélation ", écrivait WILLIAM STYRON à la parution de The Cunning of Histbry (La Perfidie de l'Histoire).
Western Heritage ; 2,Study Guide, Workbook
The Western Heritage to 1715: Study Guide/workbook
Shares a year's worth of daily readings on topics of popular culture ranging from art and literature to consumer products and sports.
Entellektüelin kutsal kitabı
11 Flaubert and the Aesthetics of the Antibourgeois -- 12 The Apocalyptic Imagination: Nietzsche, Sorel, Schmitt -- 13 The Tragic Liberalism of Isaiah Berlin -- 14 Leo Strauss on Philosophy as a Way of Life -- 15 The Political Teaching of ...
The Open Access version of this book, available at https: //www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351765633, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
How They Changed Our Lives Reader's Digest Association. INSANITY : CONSTRAINTS TO CURES Many cultures once accepted the and to attempt treatment on a rational harmlessly insane as special people , for basis . In 1793 the French doctor ...
Russian Foreign Policy in the Near Abroad and Beyond , 197 Karen Dawisha , Current History , October 1996 . With the collapse of the Soviet empire , questions now arise regarding Russia's relationship with the newly independent states ...