The Ironies of Freedom

2012-03-15 Political Science

Author : Thu-huong Nguyen-vo
Release : 2012-03-15
Genre : Political Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 211/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis The Ironies of Freedom by : Thu-huong Nguyen-vo

Download or read book The Ironies of Freedom written by Thu-huong Nguyen-vo. This book was released on 2012-03-15. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the late 1980s, Vietnam joined the global economy after decades of war and relative isolation, demonstrating how a former socialist government can adapt to global market forces with their neoliberal emphasis on freedom of choice for entrepreneurs and consumers. The Ironies of Freedom examines an aspect of this new market: commercial sex. Nguyen-vo offers an ambitious analysis of gender and class conflicts surrounding commercial sex as a site of market freedom, governmental intervention, and depictions in popular culture to argue that these practices reveal the paradoxical nature of neoliberalism. What the case of Vietnam highlights is that governing with current neoliberal globalization may and does take paradoxical forms, sustained not by some vestige from times past but by contemporary conditions. Of mutual benefit to both the neoliberal global economy and the ruling party in Vietnam is the use of empirical knowledge and entrepreneurial and consumer's choice differentially among segments of the population to produce different kinds of laborers and consumers for the global market. But also of mutual benefit to both are the police, the prison, and notions of cultural authenticity enabled by a ruling party with well-developed means of coercion from its history. The freedom-unfreedom pair in governance creates a tension in modes of representation conducive to a new genre of sensational social realism in literature and popular films like the 2003 Bar Girls about two women in the sex trade, replete with nudity, booze, drugs, violence, and death. The movie opened in Vietnam with unprecedented box office receipts, blazing a trail for a commercially viable domestic film industry. Combining methods and theories from the social sciences and humanities, Nguyen-vo's analysis relies on fieldwork conducted in Ho Chi Minh City and its vicinity, in-depth interviews with informants, participant observation at selected sites of sexual commerce and governmental intervention, journalistic accounts, and literature and films. This book will appeal to historians and political scientists of Southeast Asia and to scholars of gender and sexuality, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and political theory dealing with neoliberalism.

The Ironies of Freedom

2023-09-27 Political Science

Author : W. Sherman Rogers
Release : 2023-09-27
Genre : Political Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : /5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis The Ironies of Freedom by : W. Sherman Rogers

Download or read book The Ironies of Freedom written by W. Sherman Rogers. This book was released on 2023-09-27. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE IRONIES OF FREEDOM: WHEN PEOPLE USE FREEDOM AS A DEFENSE TO HARM OTHERS AND EVEN THEMSELVES There is no higher value in American politics than freedom. Yet, it is a highly contested concept. Indeed, persons-both individuals and entities-have used freedom and liberty-based arguments to suppress or even destroy the liberty rights of others throughout the history of the United States. These same persons also seem willing to put themselves in harm's way in the name of freedom. They typically base their rationale on individual freedom against government paternalism, personal sovereignty to make final decisions about life and death, and the primacy of individual choice over public needs. Consequently, many tolerate gun violence, an emerging climate disaster, a dangerous reduction in the social safety net, and a host of preventable injuries all in the name of freedom. Sometimes, they base their positions on the right to be free from government regulation. However, on other occasions, they justify policies that may even cause them harm on the freedom to engage in certain activities. Ultimately, only the readers of this book can determine whether they justify their use of freedom and liberty for their positions-with respect to a wide variety of important issues-on tribal instincts and emotions, a reasoned and informed analysis, or some other basis. The author of this book, W. Sherman Rogers, is Professor of Law at the Howard University School of Law. Rogers provides an analysis of these often-contradictory notions of freedom in a wide variety of contexts. Freedom and liberty-based concerns, he notes, are at the root of many of the most contentious and controversial issues of the day. Therefore, Rogers has included a detailed table of contents that allows readers to cherry-pick those topics they find most interesting.

Ironies of Oneness and Difference

2012-09-01 Philosophy

Author : Brook Ziporyn
Release : 2012-09-01
Genre : Philosophy
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 890/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis Ironies of Oneness and Difference by : Brook Ziporyn

Download or read book Ironies of Oneness and Difference written by Brook Ziporyn. This book was released on 2012-09-01. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the development of Chinese thought, highlighting its concern with questions of coherence. Providing a bracing expansion of horizons, this book displays the unsuspected range of human thinking on the most basic categories of experience. The way in which early Chinese thinkers approached concepts such as one and many, sameness and difference, self and other, and internal and external stand in stark contrast to the way parallel concepts entrenched in much of modern thinking developed in Greek and European thought. Brook Ziporyn traces the distinctive and surprising philosophical journeys found in the works of the formative Confucian and Daoist thinkers back to a prevailing set of assumptions that tends to see questions of identity, value, and knowledgethe subject matter of ontology, ethics, and epistemology in other traditionsas all ultimately relating to questions about coherence in one form or another. Mere awareness of how many different ways human beings can think and have thought about these categories is itself a game changer for our own attitudes toward what is thinkable for us. The actual inhabitation and mastery of these alternative modes of thinking is an even greater adventure in intellectual and experiential expansion.

Sex, Economy, Freedom, & Community

2018-12-04 Literary Collections

Author : Wendell Berry
Release : 2018-12-04
Genre : Literary Collections
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 394/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis Sex, Economy, Freedom, & Community by : Wendell Berry

Download or read book Sex, Economy, Freedom, & Community written by Wendell Berry. This book was released on 2018-12-04. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ""Read [him] with pencil in hand, make notes, and hope that somehow our country and the world will soon come to see the truth that is told here."" —The New York Times Book Review In this collection of essays, first published in 1993, Wendell Berry continues his work as one of America's most necessary social commentators. With wisdom and clear, ringing prose, he tackles head–on some of the most difficult problems confronting us near the end of the twentieth century—problems we still face today. Berry elucidates connections between sexual brutality and economic brutality, and the role of art and free speech. He forcefully addresses America's unabashed pursuit of self–liberation, which he says is ""still the strongest force now operating in our society."" As individuals turn away from their community, they conform to a ""rootless and placeless monoculture of commercial expectations and products,"" buying into the very economic system that is destroying the earth, our communities, and all they represent.

The Irony of American History

2010-01-22 History

Author : Reinhold Niebuhr
Release : 2010-01-22
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 996/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis The Irony of American History by : Reinhold Niebuhr

Download or read book The Irony of American History written by Reinhold Niebuhr. This book was released on 2010-01-22. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[Niebuhr] is one of my favorite philosophers. I take away [from his works] the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away . . . the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard.”—President Barack Obama Forged during the tumultuous but triumphant postwar years when America came of age as a world power, The Irony of American History is more relevant now than ever before. Cited by politicians as diverse as Hillary Clinton and John McCain, Niebuhr’s masterpiece on the incongruity between personal ideals and political reality is both an indictment of American moral complacency and a warning against the arrogance of virtue. Impassioned, eloquent, and deeply perceptive, Niebuhr’s wisdom will cause readers to rethink their assumptions about right and wrong, war and peace. “The supreme American theologian of the twentieth century.”—Arthur Schlesinger Jr., New York Times “Niebuhr is important for the left today precisely because he warned about America’s tendency—including the left’s tendency—to do bad things in the name of idealism. His thought offers a much better understanding of where the Bush administration went wrong in Iraq.”—Kevin Mattson, The Good Society “Irony provides the master key to understanding the myths and delusions that underpin American statecraft. . . . The most important book ever written on US foreign policy.”—Andrew J. Bacevich, from the Introduction

Popular eBooks

The Ironies of Freedom

The Ironies of Freedom

Ironies of Oneness and Difference

Sex, Economy, Freedom, & Community

The Irony of American History

You may also like...