Democracy Archives - Page 15 of 56

Democracy

Alexis de Tocqueville on Democracy and Its Culture

The dangers of a new tyranny of a minority in our time

January 30, 2023 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

On the central problems of race, gender and sexuality, and class, Tocqueville is not the best of guides in considering today’s crisis of democracy in America. Nonetheless, I still think that Tocqueville has much to offer in understanding America and the present crisis in our democracy....

Alexis de Tocqueville on Democracy and Its Culture

Europe & Central Asia

The Art of Misunderstanding

On how to preserve one’s dignity while keeping the attention of western institutions

January 12, 2023 • by Kateryna Botanova

The idea that the purpose of culture is reconciliation confronts Ukrainian cultural activists with a dilemma: how to preserve one’s dignity while keeping the attention of western institutions? ...

Democracy

Can Art Reimagine Freedom of Speech?

Curators Carin Kuoni and Laura Raicovich discuss Studies into Darkness

November 1, 2022 • by Carin Kuoni, Laura Raicovich and Lindsey Scharold

Building up to the Trump presidency in the U.S. and, at the same time, coinciding with the rise of authoritarian regimes in democracies in Europe, Hungary, and Italy years prior to that, it seemed very important to look at the Right and its complete embrace of freedom of speech in ...

Activism

The Art of Contemplating Justice

An excerpt from Studies into Darkness: The Perils and Promise of Free Speech

November 1, 2022 • by Amar Kanwar

When you look at any crime, it is investigated by an agency, the police, or the criminal justice system of any society. The process of justice is based on an investigation that is in turn based on the collection of evidence. Only evidence defined as permissible by law is presented ...

Europe & Central Asia

Life on Earth: Repeating Myself about the Putin Revelation

It is time to rekindle the founders’ hope for the United Nations

October 26, 2022 • by James Carroll

It is time to rekindle the founders’ hope for the United Nations. Like ours can be, that hope first came in the form of determination to push back against the weaponized atom—that General Assembly call in 1946 to reject the nuclear bomb. The 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear ...

Life on Earth: Repeating Myself about the Putin Revelation

Europe & Central Asia

People’s War and Nuclear Fear: The Anti-War Left and Ukraine

A response to James Carroll’s reckoning with peace activism

October 26, 2022 • by Jeremy Varon

America was duty-bound to save Ukrainian lives, if at the expense of Ukraine’s sovereignty. But there is an uncomfortable arrogance to this argument, framed as tough love. Perhaps the Ukrainians themselves should determine what’s worth fighting and dying for, not the U.S....

People’s War and Nuclear Fear: The Anti-War Left and Ukraine

Europe & Central Asia

The Conscience of an Anti-War Activist

In praise of James Carroll

October 25, 2022 • by Randall Kennedy

Prior to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and threats of using nuclear weapons, I had pushed fear of nuclear annihilation to the very edges of my consciousness. James Carroll bids us to recall this fear, to bring it back to the center of our concerns, and to extinguish it through effective action....

Europe & Central Asia

Robert Jay Lifton on Psychic Numbing and the Warning from Ukraine

The renewed threat of nuclear war—and the importance of distinguishing between fear and anxiety

October 25, 2022 • by James Carroll and Robert Jay Lifton

Nuclear complacency is multifaceted. A certain amount of nuclear fear is appropriate to our situation. When we give in to what you’re calling nuclear complacency, it’s because we have insufficient fear of what is actually dangerous....

Robert Jay Lifton on Psychic Numbing and the Warning from Ukraine

Europe & Central Asia

Might the U.S. Military Support Nuclear Disarmament?

Its senior leadership is uniquely positioned in the present moment to pursue a revolutionary possibility

October 24, 2022 • by Robert Edwards

It is often difficult in the moment to recognize when one is at a crossroads. In the 1991 Gulf War, I was a lowly tactical intelligence officer in a parachute infantry regiment of the 82nd Airborne, rolling through the Iraqi desert beneath an air campaign that left smoldering charcoal where ...

Might the U.S. Military Support Nuclear Disarmament?

Latin America & Caribbean

Bolsonaro Shocks the Left in Brazil

Polarization deepens as a populist movement makes unexpected political gains

October 12, 2022 • by Theo Almeida

When Brazilians went to the polls on Sunday, October 2, most observers—and most pollsters—expected that Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the leftist former president, and his Workers’ Party (PT) would decisively defeat his chief opponent, Jair Bolsanaro, the current President from Brazil’s Liberal Party (PL)....

Europe & Central Asia

Part 6: A New Treaty?

Revelations of the War in Ukraine: An anti-war activist’s personal and political reckoning

October 10, 2022 • by James Carroll

In this unprecedented context, a laserlike focus on banning the bomb can be a politically viable process, surpassing the failed efforts of bygone years, and even leading to the broader mitigation of “militarism” toward which peace movements have striven without success....