Arguments and Aspects in Political Discourse in Ethnic Conflicts in Europe

Ten characteristics of the patterns of ethnic conflict in Europe—the way they are reflected in media and culture. They serve as the key to conceptual understanding of the nature of confrontation, aggression in communication in the public sphere in Europe at present, and erosion of democratic values

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Rousseau and the Tragic Desire for Unity

In “A Tragic Desire: Rousseau and the Modern Democratic Project,” Alice Ormiston brings to the fore a figure often neglected in contemporary political theory and that, as the title foreshadows, is Jean-Jacques Rousseau. First, Ormiston—animated by the task of the intellectual historian—traces to Rousseau the discovery of a fundamental clash at the heart of the modern subject, which is that between nature and abstract reason. Such tension, Ormiston claims, has influenced, or is present in, subsequent thinkers like Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. Rousseau identifies the clash between nature and reason, and eyeing man’s primitive condition with nostalgia and viewing his modern condition with contempt, he is seeking to resolve such contention in his works.

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Should Middle East Religious-Minority Refugees Be Prioritized?

President Trump’s executive order on refugees has been widely, and rightly, criticized on policy and moral grounds. But while criticism of the executive order is indeed proper and necessary, one aspect of the new policy, namely, the prioritization of claims of religious persecution by religious minorities in refugee applications, which has received wide criticism, should in fact be hardly controversial. Critics of the measure have rejected it on both moral grounds—it discriminates based on one’s faith, as well as on practical ones—the perception of such bias toward Christians by the United States would impact the U.S. negatively and may harm those very same Christian communities in the region, who will be viewed as Western agents. These concerns are of course hardly new.

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The 2017 Telos Conference in New York: Kenneth Anderson on Asymmetrical Warfare in the Post–New World Order World

At the 2017 Telos-Paul Piccone Institute Conference, held this past weekend in New York City, Kenneth Anderson delivered a keynote address entitled “Situating Asymmetrical Warfare among Forms of Emerging Conflict in the Post–New World Order World.” We are delighted to present the full video of the address here.

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The 2017 Telos Conference in New York: Steven Metz on Future Conflict and the Conceptual Prison of Asymmetry

At the 2017 Telos-Paul Piccone Institute Conference, held this past weekend in New York City, Steven Metz delivered a keynote address entitled “Future Conflict and the Conceptual Prison of Asymmetry.” We are delighted to present the full video of the address below.

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Ecological Finitude as Ontological Finitude: Radical Hope in the Anthropocene

The vulnerability we confront in the Anthropocene is what Jonathan Lear has called ontological vulnerability: the possible collapse of our world, that is, the collapse of the taken-for-granted way of life that guides and orients us in our everyday practices. In this paper, we take up Lear’s claim that in the face of the impending collapse of one’s world, a peculiar form of hope, radical hope, is called for. According Lear, radical hope means holding on to a “commitment only to the bare possibility that, from this disaster something good will emerge.”

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