The Sense of Existing and its Political Implications: On François Flahault’s ‘General Anthropology'

The radical Conservative Carl Schmitt suggested that ‘one could test all theories of state according to their anthropology and thereby classify these as to whether they consciously or unconsciously presuppose man to be by nature … a dangerous being or not’. But perhaps not all pessimistic images of ‘natural man’ are as readily assignable to a conservative style of thought. Such is the case I suggest with Francois Flahault’s ‘deidealized’ anthropology -- ‘realist’ yet informed by a social-solidarist ethic – which turns on an arresting depiction of human malevolence and its psychological sources. I argue that Flahault’s program might be thought of as contributing to recasting the ethical aspect of realist understandings of political questions. Though not constructed with sovereign statehood in mind, in one respect his moral anthropology echoes the de-sacralized image of the human propounded by the early modern ‘civil-prudential’ sovereignty theorist Samuel Pufendorf, an image which a modern realist ethic of state might do well to incorporate. I show how Flahault uses his moral anthropology to modify the mission of reformist social policy and put a case for seeing his program as a contribution to a civil prudential philosophy of government. Supposing man to be dangerous by nature may not after all be the hallmark of a conservative political stance

Participatory policy making, ethics and the arts

The ethic of community participation is dominatedby the ideal of the self-governing community of reflective citizens. This article suggests the need to focus on some of the more down-to-earth ethical attributes of a responsible participant that tend to be overshadowed by that ideal. The authors look at the disciplinary, rhetorical, and role-specific demands of participatory styles of governance. Implications of this perspective are drawn out in an examination of how the challenges of community participation are or might be played out in an arts policy field that is currently under the sway of neoliberal approaches to government and anti-elitist political challenges to the arts

Citizenship and cultural policy

With the growth of interest in the debates about what culture is, and who 'owns' it, questions of cultural policy have moved to the forefront of wider dicussions of citizenship. This book unpicks the significance of culture for citizenship. Among the topics explored are the strengths and weaknesses of the 'civilizing mission' of museums; the moralism of 'Third Way' politics; the proper base for funding culture and the arts; the impact of globalization on culture and citizenship; the fantasies of freedom in Internet use; the tensions between human rights advocacy and citizenship; and the place of citizen ideals in governance. What emerges is a superb resource for analyzing the meaning of cultural policy in contemporary society. It both summarizes the state of the field and innovates new ways of thinking about culture and citizenship

Impaired skin blood flow response to environmental heating in chronic heart failure

Aims: We examined the thermoregulatory response to heat exposure in patients with chronic heart failure. Methods and results: Skin blood flow (SkBF) was measured in HF subjects and matched controls. Cutaneous vascular conductance (CVC) was calculated from laser-Doppler SkBF and blood pressure. To assess the nitric oxide contribution to thermoregulatory responses, subcutaneous microdialysis membranes were placed beneath the laser-Doppler probes to infuse NG-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester (l-NAME), or Ringer\u27s solution. Core (TC) and skin temperatures (five sites, TSk) were continuously recorded. Subjects were studied during normothermia then at 38°C, 50%RH within a climate chamber. TC and TSk did not differ between HF and controls during normothermia and heating induced similar increases in both groups. During heating, CVC rose in both groups, but significantly less so in HF (HF 43.9±7.8 vs. controls 58.0±7.5% CVCmax, P\u3c0.05). l-NAME attenuated SkBF responses in the control (58.0±7.5 vs. 34.6±5.1% CVCmax, P\u3c0.001) and HF subjects (43.9±7.8 vs. 27.0±2.2% CVCmax, P\u3c0.005), with a larger effect evident in the controls (P\u3c0.05). Conclusion: HF patients exhibit impaired thermoregulatory responses to heat exposure. Lower SkBF in HF, which defends blood pressure during heat exposure, also predisposes these subjects to heat intolerance