Culture Society And Democracy

This volume addresses the key question of the intersection of sociology and politics, and asks what a non-Marxist cultural perspective can offer the Left. Written by leading scholars, it develops new conceptions of social critique, new techniques of interpretive analysis, and new concepts for the sociology of democratic practice. It is a volume for the twenty-first-century, where global and local meet, when critical theory must examine its most fundamental presuppositions.

Against the bleak backdrop of pressing issues in today’s world, civil societies remain vibrant, animated by people’s belief that they should and can solve such issues and build a better society. Their imagination of a good society, their understanding of their engagement, and the ways they choose to act constitute the cultural aspect of civil society. Central to this cultural aspect of civil society is the “culture of democracy,” including normative values, individual interpretations, and interaction norms pertaining to features of a democratic society, such as civility, independence, and solidarity. The culture of democracy varies in different contexts and faces challenges, but it shapes civic actions, alters political and social processes, and thus is the soul of modern civil societies. The Culture of Democracy provides the first systematic survey of the cultural sociology of civil society and offers a committed global perspective. It shows that, as everyone is eager to have their voice heard, cultural sociology can serve as an “art of listening,” a thoroughly empirical approach that takes ideas, meanings, and opinions seriously, for people to contemplate significant theoretical and public issues.

This special issue of Public Culture draws on work in anthropology, political theory, and postcolonial studies to propose that democratic strategies and practices in differing countries are affected by their cultures, histories and their reception or resi

The Cynical Society is a study of the political despair and abdication of (individual) responsibility Goldfarb calls cynicism—a central but unexamined aspect of contemporary American political and social life. Goldfarb reveals with vivid strokes how cynicism undermines our capacity to think about society's strengths and weaknesses. Drawing on thinkers from Alexis de Tocqueville to Allan Bloom and on such recent works as Beloved, Bonfire of the Vanities, and Mississippi Burning, The Cynical Society celebrates cultural pluralism's role in democracy.

Many challenges lie ahead in the development of a global information society. Culture and democracy are two areas which may be under particular threat. The book reflects on today's complex and uncertain cultural and democratic developments arising as a result of an increasingly global, technologically-connected world. In particular it focuses on the Internet, examining new metaphors for communication, defining the issues at stake and proposing options, actions and solutions. Among the issues discussed were: multi-cultural developments; cultural sensitivities and the involvement of cultural minorities; generation gaps; gender issues; technology access for the elderly and the disabled; technology transfer.

Can democracy be taught and how? This book examines many examples of educational activities focusing on democracy and citizenship that have been carried out by institutions taking part in UNESCO's Associated Schools Projects in different parts of the world. Readers will find a range of lively and practical examples that are workable even with limited material resources.

Collected essays and talks from one of Britain’s great thinkers, ranging across political and cultural theory Raymond Williams possessed unique authority as Britain’s foremost cultural theorist and public intellectual. Informed by an unparalleled range of reference and the resources of deep personal experience, his life’s work represents a patient, exemplary commitment to the building of a socialist future. This book brings together important early writings including “Culture is Ordinary,” “The British Left,” “Welsh Culture” and “Why Do I Demonstrate?” with major essays and talks of the last decade. It includes work on such central themes as the nature of a democratic culture, the value of community, Green socialism, the nuclear threat, and the relation between the state and the arts. Here too, collected for the first time, are the important later political essays which undertake a thorough revaluation of the principles fundamental to the idea of socialist democracy, and confirm Williams as a shrewd and imaginative political theorist. In a sober yet constructive assessment of the possibilities for socialist advance, Williams—in the face of much recent intellectual fashion—powerfully reasserts his lifelong commitment to “making hope practical, rather than despair convincing.” This valuable collection confirms Raymond Williams as a thinker of rare versatility and one of the outstanding intellectuals of our century.