Climate change poses an existential threat to human rights

It’s obvious climate change is a human rights issue. Less obvious is that saying so doesn’t necessarily help much, and indeed exposes the limitations of rights advocacy in achieving systemic economic reform

The No Self View and the Meaning of Life

Several philosophers, both in Buddhist and Western philosophy, claim that the self does not exist. The no-self view may, at first glance, appear to be a reason to believe that life is meaningless. In the present article, I argue indirectly in favor of the no-self view by showing that it does not entail that life is meaningless. I then examine Buddhism and argue, further, that the no-self view may even be construed as partially grounding an account of the meaning of life

Fear appeal construction in the Daily Mail Online:a critical discourse analysis of ‘Prime Minister Corbyn and the 1000 days that destroyed Britain’

The rhetorical fear appeal is a technique of political communication that seeks to elicit an emotional response in receivers with the intention of provoking them to political action desired by the rhetor. This paper examines a single example of fear appeal construction in the British press, the Mail Online’s ‘Prime Minister Corbyn and the 1000 days that Destroyed Britain’ (2015), through analysis of its use of two defining political myths, a conservative myth of declinism, and the utopia/anti-utopia binary myth. I firstly examine the origins and contemporary uses of fear appeals as techniques of political persuasion, before going on to examine how these are constructed. I then go on to analyse the Mail Online article’s use of these two powerful political myths, one, declinism, which I argue is utilised descriptively for the purposes of discourse construction, and the other, utopia/anti-utopia, which is utilised instructively. Finally, I propose a method of analysis combining recent approaches to the critical discourse analysis of myth with the cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion drawn from social psychology, in order to show how the Mail Online article is constructed as a discursive fear appeal

Testing the securitization paradigm of the so-called Copenhagen school in the case study of europe migrant crisis in 2015

Migration is an international phenomenon and contentious concept. Although people have been moving by political, economic and cultural motivations since the beginning of the human history; particularly recently, migration fuels traditional fears over national and societal security. Because, migration, a normal or typical political issue can be altered to a security threat by repetitive and successful speech acts. This fact has often been referred to as ‘the securitization of migration’, which means the presentation of migration as a security threat. In this regard, the arrival of more than one million refugees to the EU in 2015 -Migrant (Refugee) Crisis- constitutes an important milestone. The starting point of this study is to depict “How the securitization process of the ‘Migrant Crisis’ was operated”. It will be in charge of defining not only the key-concepts, such as “securitization move” and “securitization”, but also of what are the success criteria are. According to this study, securitizing actors and their speech acts have opened the way for the success of securitization by providing the perfect ground for altering the question of Migrants into a survival issue. To analyze the characteristics and the implications of securitizing the migration issue within the EU, this article primarily engages with the theoretical approach developed by the so-called Copenhagen School, which outlines how issues become threats those need to be handled by extra-ordinary measures.La migración es un fenómeno internacional y un concepto polémico. Aunque las personas se han trasladado por motivos políticos, económicos o culturales a lo largo de los siglos; la migración alimenta en la actualidad antiguos temores sobre seguridad nacional y social. Dado que la migración, un problema político normal, puede transformarse en amenaza de seguridad por cómo se habla de él -actos de habla-.Este hecho se ha denominado a menudo como "la seguritización de la migración"; es decir, el considerar la migración como una amenaza existencial. En este sentido, la llegada de más de un millón de refugiados a la UE en 2015, la crisis de los inmigrantes (refugiados), constituye un hito importante. El punto de partida de este estudio es describir "Cómo se llevó a cabo el proceso de seguritización de la 'Crisis Migratoria'". Se tratará de definir no solo conceptos claves, como "seguritización" y "acto de habla", sino también cuáles son los criterios que contribuyen a construir con éxito dicha seguritización. Según el presente estudio, actores securitizadores y sus actos de habla han abierto el camino para su triunfo, al proporcionar el terreno perfecto para transformar la cuestión de los migrantes en una cuestión de supervivencia. Para analizar las características y las implicaciones de la seguritización de la cuestión migratoria dentro de la UE, este trabajo aborda principalmente el enfoque teórico desarrollado por la llamada Escuela de Copenhague, que describe cómo los problemas se convierten en amenazas que deben manejarse con medidas extraordinarias

From Yeezus to Pablo: An Existential Theology between God, Blackness, and Being

Kanye West has transformed and transfigured from a young rapper representing the Southside of Chicago, to an icon, a rap genius, a god. His persona has continually evolved from his arrival on the Hip Hop scene, leading to his emergence as, Yeezus. This essay argues for an investigation of Kanye’s theological claims through the lens of his own body, particularly the balance between how he conveys what it is like to be a black man in an American culture plagued by racism and the potential of the black body to assert its incarnate godlikeness in his music. In addition, this essay explores West’s newest record, The Life of Pablo, and its implications for Yeezus. The results of the study highlight Kanye’s evolution—somewhere between Yeezus, black god, new slave, and now, Pablo (Paul). I argue that Yeezus represents a deification and The Life of Pablo is a de-deification, as communicated in the words of Kanye himself

Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Program and Implications for US National Security.

This article analyzes Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and the characteristics of the environment in which the program is nested. These characteristics include Pakistan’s history of internal and external instability; nuclear saber rattling during crises; support for Islamic terrorism in order to advance state goals; indigenous production of many elements of its nuclear forces; possession of delivery and command and control systems with destabilizing characteristics; and finally, nuclear doctrine that appears to advocate first use of nuclear weapons. The article argues that the characteristics of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program generate threats to US national security interests. The article examines six interrelated and synergistic challenges for US national security: first, Pakistan is engaged in an arms race in Southwest Asia that has negative implications for Pakistan’s stability; second, the threat of nuclear proliferation from Pakistan continues; third, Pakistan’s arsenal characteristics make accidental and/or unauthorized nuclear war more likely; fourth, there is an ongoing possibility of war with India; fifth, Islamist influence is spreading through key sectors of Pakistani society; and finally, there is an increasing danger of state failure in Pakistan

The Emotional Impact of Evil: Philosophical Reflections on Existential Problems

In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky illustrates that encounters with evil do not solely impact agents’ beliefs about God (or God’s existence). Evil impacts people on an emotional level as well. Authors like Hasker and van Inwagen sometimes identify the emotional impact of evil with the “existential” problem of evil. For better or worse, the existential version of the problem is often set aside in contemporary philosophical discussions. In this essay, I rely on Robert Roberts’ account of emotions as “concern-based construals” to show that theistic philosophers can effectively address the existential problem (and so, the problem should not be set aside). In fact, addressing the emotional impact of evil is crucial, I argue, given that resolving just the impact of evil on agents’ beliefs about God constitutes an incomplete response to the problem of evil

Securitization and the construction of security

Those interested in the construction of security in contemporary international politics have increasingly turned to the conceptual framework of `securitization'. This article argues that while an important and innovative contribution, the securitization framework is problematically narrow in three senses. First, the form of act constructing security is defined narrowly, with the focus on the speech of dominant actors. Second, the context of the act is defined narrowly, with the focus only on the moment of intervention. Finally, the framework of securitization is narrow in the sense that the nature of the act is defined solely in terms of the designation of threats. In outlining this critique, the article points to possibilities for developing the framework further as well as for the need for those applying it to recognize both limits of their claims and the normative implications of their analysis. I conclude by pointing to how the framework might fit within a research agenda concerned with the broader construction of security