Raymond Williams's "structure of feeling" and the problem of democratic values in Britain, 1938-1961

This article traces a history of the literary critic and theorist Raymond Williams’s idea of the “structure of feeling”, the formation of which is situated within debates about the place of artistic and moral values in democratic politics during the 1940s and 1950s. It demonstrates that the “structure of feeling” was intended to circumvent an equation of collective normative legislation with totalitarianism in the early cultural Cold War, by conceiving the definition of values as a process upon which all individuals in a society were always, necessarily, engaged. In articulating this quasi-democratic account of the production of artistic and moral standards, Williams also sought to escape the various theories of “minority culture” that dominated literary and cultural criticism in mid-century Britain. However, his concept of the “structure of feeling” required him to maintain a privileged role for artistic and intellectual arbiters, which constrained his vision of a properly democratic culture. In conclusion, the article argues that the problem of “democratic values” that Williams addressed in his work of the 1950s was a major factor in the marginalization or exclusion of moral criticism from political argument in Britain after 1945, and suggests that this passage of intellectual history may therefore be of considerable importance to contemporary debates about the lineages and reform of, in a broad sense, neoliberal political economy

Responsible Innovation for Decent Nonliberal Peoples: A Dilemma?

It is hard to disagree with the idea of responsible innovation (henceforth, RI), as it enables policy-makers, scientists, technology developers, and the public to better understand and respond to the social, ethical, and policy challenges raised by new and emerging technologies. RI has gained prominence in policy agenda in Europe and the United States over the last few years. And, along with its rising importance in policy-making, there is also a burgeoning research literature on the topic. Given the historical context of which RI emerges, it should not be surprising that the current discourse on RI is predominantly based on liberal democratic values. Yet, the bias towards liberal democratic values will inevitably limit the discussion of RI, especially in the cases where liberal democratic values are not taken for granted. As such, there is an urgent need to return to the normative foundation of RI, and to explore the notion of ‘responsible innovation’ from nonliberal democratic perspectives. Against this background, this paper seeks to demonstrate the problematic consequences of RI solely grounded on or justified by liberal democratic values. This paper will cast the argument in the form of a dilemma to be labelled as The Decent Nonliberal Peoples’ Dilemma and use it to illustrate the problems of the Western bias

Locking Out the Mother Corp: Nationalism and Popular Imaginings of Public Service Broadcasting in the Print News Media

Early promoters of public-service broadcasting (PSB) in Canada emphasized its democratic and nationalist merit. Of these twin pillars, only nationalism appears to still be standing. In this article, the author surveys the vision of PSB that emerged in the national English-language print media during the 2005 CBC/Radio-Canada lockout and suggests that our peculiar brand of multicultural nationalism (which underestimates the divisions within civil society) has subsumed democratic values. Yet, she argues democratic principles—particularly those of access, participation, and publicness—are critically important to defending the relevance of PSB in the current environment of seemingly endless media choices and borderless technology

Majority View Republican and Democratic Parties As Divided, Want Both to Be More Moderate; Trump and Partisanship Most Important Problems Facing Country 11/28/17

The vast majority of New Hampshire residents view the Republican Party as divided, while a smaller majority see the Democratic Party as divided. Slightly more Granite Staters say the Democratic Party represents their values well, while members of both parties are divided on whether they would like their party officials to be more moderate or more ideologically-driven. Residents have disparate opinions on the most important problem facing the country and most frequently mention political matters such as the President, partisanship, and division

Imbedding Christian Values in the Public Education Setting: Creating a Democratic Classroom Environment

This article supports the need for Christian education in the sustainment of democracy and discusses the opportunity for Christian values to be implicitly imbedded into classroom through the creation of a democratic forum. This nation was founded on Christian principles. While the basis of today’s public education setting includes a basic understanding of the core skills (reading, writing and basic arithmetic), these skills alone are not enough for a student to achieve success. A student must also learn, through the education and spiritual process, courage, confidence and life skills in order to survive in today’s society. Furthermore, the ability to apply the core skills is necessary in order for an individual to fully achieve his or her potential. Through education and spirituality, an individual undergoes a transformation, gaining an understanding and appreciation of the world

Yahoo and Democracy on the Internet

This article examines the French court order requiring Yahoo to prevent French Internet users from accessing images of Nazi memorabilia available for auction on the company\u27s American web site. The article uses the French case to challenge the popular belief that an entirely borderless Internet favors democratic values. The article starts from the premise that while the Internet enables actors to reach a geographically dispersed audience, the Internet should not change the accountability of those actors for their conduct within national borders. The article shows that Yahoo\u27s extensive business in France justifies the application of France\u27s democratically chosen law and argues that the decision has important normative implications for pluralistic democracy on the global network. Namely, the decision promotes technical changes in the Internet architecture that empower democratic states to be able to enforce their freely chosen public policies within their territories. At the same time, the infrastructure changes will not enhance the ability of non-democratic states to pursue repressive policies within their territories in violation of international law. The article shows the French decision as a maturing of the Internet regulatory framework and argues that the policy rules embedded in the technical infrastructure must recognize values adopted by different states and must not be dictated by technical elites

Local values in local political culture and democracy; A review of hermeneutics among local elites

The reforms provided space for local elites, both traditionally based (Bangsawan) and political elites (Bureaucrats-Politicians) to contest in the arena of local democracy. It is in this arena that the value of the political culture of local elites is tested whether it can strengthen democracy or on the contrary weaken democracy in the midst of the process towards its death.(Ziblatt, 2019) where democracy, which actually places the people as the main focal point, becomes "blunted" by political oligarchy and personal elite domination (Fatah & Deni, 2019).(Fatah & Deni, 2019). Using Gadamer's Phenomenological and Hermeneutic Methods, this research analyses the actions of local elites in interpreting the local values of Jou Se Ngofa Ngare in the 2020 Ternate City Regional Election Arena. This research aims to find the meaning of Jou Se Ngofa Ngare local values in strengthening the cultural values of local politics and democracy. The results of the study revealed that [1] The meaning of local values in local political culture and democratic values is interpreted by local elites through the process of history, pre-understanding (prejudice), tradition and value authority of leaders (Sultan / Kolano) and cultural symbols [2] The stronger the meaning and application of local values, the stronger the meaning and application of the relationship between leaders (Jou) and the people (Ngofa Ngare) in strengthening local political culture and democratic valu

Articulation of Plural Values in Deliberative Monetary Valuation: Beyond Preference Economisation and Moralisation

The use of deliberative methods to assess environmental values in monetary terms has been motivated by the potential for small group discussion to help with preference formation and the inclusion of non-economic values. In this review, two broad approaches are identified: preference economisation and preference moralisation. The former is analytical, concentrates upon issues of poor respondent cognition and produces a narrow conception of value linked to utilitarianism. The latter emphasises political legitimacy, appeals to community values and tends to privilege arguments made in the public interest. Both approaches are shown to embrace forms of value convergence which undermine the prospects for value pluralism. As a result exclusion and predefinition of values dominates current practice. In order to maintain democratic credentials, the importance attributed to monetary value needs to be left as an open question to be addressed as part of a process determining an ‘agreement to pay’. To this end we identify a discourse-based approach as a third way consistent with the democratic and value plural potential of deliberative monetary valuation.environmental valuation; deliberation; stated preferences; democracy; willingness to pay; value pluralism

Quark masses and mixing angles in heterotic orbifold models

We study systematically the possibility for realizing realistic values of quark mass ratios $m_c/m_t$ and $m_s/m_b$ and the mixing angle $V_{cb}$ by using only renormalizable Yukawa couplings derived from heterotic orbifold models. We assume one pair of up and down sector Higgs fields. We show realistic examples including hierarchical and democratic forms of Yukawa matrices.Comment: 16 pages, late