Does "Democracy" Still Mean Anything?
(And in Case It Does, What Is It?)
Zygmunt Bauman, Truthout: "Henry A. Giroux wonders how one can possibly explain 'the electoral sweep that just put the most egregious Republican Party candidates back in power?'... One is the successful creation of 'punitive justice and a theatre of cruelty' as the political formula accepted (or at least acceptable) by the majority of Americans. The other is the accelerated pace of 'social amnesia': The most outrageous misdemeanor of the rulers, not so long ago a cause of public outcry, is pushed aside or forgotten altogether in time for the midterm elections. But there is another possibility as well, one that is perhaps too gruesome for the future of democracy to be seriously broached. It is the possibility - nay, the likelihood - that the link between public agenda and private worries, the very hub of the democratic process, has been broken, with each of the two spheres rotating by now in mutually isolated spaces, set in motion by mutually unconnected and un-communicating (though certainly not independent!) factors and mechanisms."
http://www.truth-out.org/zygmunt-bauman-does-democracy-still-mean-anything-and-case-it-does-what-is-it66923
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Republicans
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=punitive+justice
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Henry+A.+Giroux
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Zygmunt+Bauman
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Zygmunt Bauman, Truthout: "Henry A. Giroux wonders how one can possibly explain 'the electoral sweep that just put the most egregious Republican Party candidates back in power?'... One is the successful creation of 'punitive justice and a theatre of cruelty' as the political formula accepted (or at least acceptable) by the majority of Americans. The other is the accelerated pace of 'social amnesia': The most outrageous misdemeanor of the rulers, not so long ago a cause of public outcry, is pushed aside or forgotten altogether in time for the midterm elections. But there is another possibility as well, one that is perhaps too gruesome for the future of democracy to be seriously broached. It is the possibility - nay, the likelihood - that the link between public agenda and private worries, the very hub of the democratic process, has been broken, with each of the two spheres rotating by now in mutually isolated spaces, set in motion by mutually unconnected and un-communicating (though certainly not independent!) factors and mechanisms."
http://www.truth-out.org/zygmunt-bauman-does-democracy-still-mean-anything-and-case-it-does-what-is-it66923
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Republicans
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=punitive+justice
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Henry+A.+Giroux
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Zygmunt+Bauman
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Starmail - 22. Jan, 05:21
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