Violence and Civilization: Gramsci, Machiavelli, and Sorel

Antonio Gramsci’s writings represent a rich repository for re-thinking the meanings of violence in relation to the political and the ethical in our present conjuncture. Despite a tendency in some quarters to reduce Gramsci’s concept of hegemony to a theory of consent, his Prison Notebooks exhibit a deep concern with the ‘armour of coercion’. Thus, in his reflections on Niccolò Machiavelli’s Centaur, Gramsci regards this figure as symbolic of a dual perspective, half-animal half-human. For Gramsci, political thought should seek to elaborate the dialectical unity of these two levels: force and consent. This chapter considers the formation of this nexus of violence and civilization in Gramsci’s writings through his encounter with two thinkers, Machiavelli and Georges Sorel. Gramsci takes up Machiavelli’s use of militaristic terminology and the Florentine’s emphasis on the military basis of political struggles, expressed in the semantic field of concepts such as ‘war of manoeuvre’ and ‘war of position’. However, Gramsci balances this tendency with a recognition of the relationship between arms and religion, or, in Benedetto Croce’s ethico-political terms, between the universal (state) and the individual (church). Gramsci also draws vitality for his re-articulation of a historical materialist framework from a second source, Sorel’s Reflections on Violence (1906). Examining Sorel’s distinction between myth (a ‘body of images capable of evoking sentiments’) and Utopia (a ‘deceptive mirage of the future’), I consider Gramsci’s efforts to transform Sorel’s political myth by deploying his own reading of Machiavelli’s Prince. While Gramsci accepts Sorel’s case that only the political myth is able to mobilize the strongest inclinations of a people, to create a violent force that can cleave the social fabric, Gramsci also elaborates a constructive aspect to this process. Finally, I deploy the terms set out by Walter Benjamin in his Critique of Violence to evaluate whether we can describe Gramsci’s destructive/constructive notion of political myth as a form of mythical violence or as a form of divine power

Subalternity and the Mummification of Culture in Gramsci’s “Prison Notebooks”

Gramsci’s concept of mummification is rarely remarked upon in the literature and has not received the systematic treatment afforded to other concepts in his lexicon. Locating the term in the semantic field of subalternity, this article explores the connection between mummification and passivity. The origins and development of the concept of mummification are traced in Gramsci’s thought, suggesting an important role in explaining the passive constitution of the subaltern. Mummification describes an embalming process through which certain forms of culture, positive and legitimate when created, become degenerate through a process of repetition in changed circumstances. The dual nature of mummification is examined, imposed from above through strategies of dispersion wrought by the dominant groups, or emerging from below through the ‘intellectual laziness’ characteristic of ‘Lorianism’. The different terrains upon which the term is used in the Prison Notebooks are analysed (parties, social groups, common sense, culture), proposing that these aspects of mummification are ultimately ‘translatable’ aspects of a unitary phenomenon. It is argued that the concept of mummification helps to articulate the intimate relationship between the dialectical poles of hegemony and subalternity in Gramsci’s thought. The concept is able to perform a critical function by making an incision between forms of culture that are historically opportune and those that are anachronistic, the reactionary form of the ‘living dead’. In our crisis-ridden situation, of zombie banks and vampire capital, this study of mummification is a timely consideration of the Sardinian thinker’s contribution to these themes of political monstrosity

Measurement of beam losses at the australian synchrotron

The unprecedented requirements that new machines are setting on their diagnostic systems is leading to the development of new generation of devices with large dynamic range, sensitivity and time resolution. Beam loss detection is particularly challenging due to the large extension of new facilities that need to be covered with localized detector. Candidates to mitigate this problem consist of systems in which the sensitive part of the radiation detectors can be extended over long distance of beam lines. In this document we study the feasibility of a BLM system based on optical f ber as an active detector for an electron storage ring. The Australian Synchrotron (AS) comprises a 216 m ring that stores electrons up to 3 GeV. The Accelerator has recently claimed the world record ultra low transverse emittance (below pm rad) and its surroundings are rich in synchrotron radiation. Therefore, the AS provides beam conditions very similar to those expected in the CLIC/ILC damping rings. A qualitative benchmark of beam losses in a damping ring-like environment is presented here. A wide range of beam loss rates can be achieved by modifying three beam parameters strongly correlated to the beam lifetime: bunch charge (with a variation range between 1 uA and 10 mA), horizontal/vertical coupling and of dynamic aperture. The controlled beam losses are observed by means of the Cherenkov light produced in a 365 μ m core Silica f ber. The output light is coupled to different type of photo sensors namely: Metal Semiconductor Metal (MSM), Multi Pixel Photon Counters (MPPCs), standard PhotoMulTiplier (PMT) tubes, Avalanche Photo- Diodes (APD) and PIN diodes. A detailed comparison of the sensitivities and time resolution obtained with the different read-outs are discussed in this contribution

A derivation of Maxwell’s equations using the Heaviside notation

Maxwell's four differential equations describing electromagnetism are among the most famous equations in science. Feynman said that they provide four of the seven fundamental laws of classical physics. In this paper, we derive Maxwell's equations using a well-established approach for deriving time-dependent differential equations from static laws. The derivation uses the standard Heaviside notation. It assumes conservation of charge and that Coulomb's law of electrostatics and Ampere's law of magnetostatics are both correct as a function of time when they are limited to describing a local system. It is analogous to deriving the differential equation of motion for sound, assuming conservation of mass, Newton's second law of motion and that Hooke's static law of elasticity holds for a system in local equilibrium. This work demonstrates that it is the conservation of charge that couples time-varying E-fields and B-fields and that Faraday's Law can be derived without any relativistic assumptions about Lorentz invariance. It also widens the choice of axioms, or starting points, for understanding electromagnetism

Pedigree analysis of Czech Holstein calves with schistosoma reflexum

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Schistosoma reflexum (SR) is congenital syndrome briefly characterized by visceral eventration, severe dorsoflexion and ankylosis of the spine and arthrogryposis. A genetic etiology has been proposed, but conclusive evidence has not yet been provided.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Pedigree analysis was carried out in 29 cases of SR in Czech Holsteins and Holstein crosses. Genetic relationship was evaluated and inbreeding coefficients calculated. Pedigrees of 15 Czech Holsteins fathering non-SR affected calves were used for comparison.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Twenty-one cases occurred in one pedigree founded by three sires while three SR calves occurred in another pedigree with a common grandfather. The sex ratio between affected males and females was 11:6. Affected calves shared common ancestors different from those shared by the unaffected calves. The inbreeding coefficient in the SR affected calves was not increased compared to unaffected calves.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The findings are consistent with SR being inherited autosomal recessively. Further studies are however needed to confirm this and therefore a breeding trial is recommended where a suspected heterozygous sire is mated to closely related females.</p

Complex-Distance Potential Theory and Hyperbolic Equations

An extension of potential theory in R^n is obtained by continuing the Euclidean distance function holomorphically to C^n. The resulting Newtonian potential is generated by an extended source distribution D(z) in C^n whose restriction to R^n is the delta function. This provides a natural model for extended particles in physics. In C^n, interpreted as complex spacetime, D(z) acts as a propagator generating solutions of the wave equation from their initial values. This gives a new connection between elliptic and hyperbolic equations that does not assume analyticity of the Cauchy data. Generalized to Clifford analysis, it induces a similar connection between solutions of elliptic and hyperbolic Dirac equations. There is a natural application to the time-dependent, inhomogeneous Dirac and Maxwell equations, and the `electromagnetic wavelets' introduced previously are an example.Comment: 25 pages, submited to Proceedings of 5th Intern. Conf. on Clifford Algebras, Ixtapa, June 24 - July 4, 199

On products of long cycles: short cycle dependence and separation probabilities

We present various results on multiplying cycles in the symmetric group. One result is a generalisation of the following theorem of Boccara (1980): the number of ways of writing an odd permutation in the symmetric group on n symbols as a product of an n-cycle and an (n - 1)-cycle is independent of the permutation chosen. We give a number of different approaches of our generalisation. One partial proof uses an inductive method which we also apply to other problems. In particular, we give a formula for the distribution of the number of cycles over all products of cycles of fixed lengths. Another application is related to the recent notion of separation probabilities for permutations introduced by Bernardi, Du, Morales and Stanley (2014)