Despite differences between Cornel West's prophetic pragmatism and Dewey's pragmatism, they both conceive of “creative democracy” as an ethico-religious ideal. Accordingly, this article examines how Deweyan creative democracy is an ethico-religious ideal, in the sense of being a religious humanist ideal. This article concludes with an explanation of how a contemporary Deweyan democrat living in the United States cannot help but recognize the tragicomic undercurrents of creative democracy.

Any Donquixotism is tragicomic in two respects. First, it worships that which does not at all correspond to its ideals. Second, it struggles against that which does not at all have the traits it hates so much. In both cases what is tragicomic in Donquixotism is the discrepancy between the thought and the fact, the desire and the action. Donquixotism is a life of inner contradiction with reality and with oneself.

Richard Rorty does have something ‘to say to [Black Americans]’ and to their racially conscious nonblack allies in the sense that his understanding of liberalism, his prophecies about the future and his urgent appeals to the American Left all paint a picture of a white middle class fully prepared to make life increasingly miserable for Black Americans unless it is ‘protected from catastrophe’. Rorty hopes that this group will undergo a moral transformation that enables it to see past its narrow (...) group interests, but doubts that it will. He, nevertheless, prescribes a politics of hope and appeasement as a hedge against both despair and backsliding. In so doing, he fails to appreciate the availability and the suitability of an alternative ‘racial realist’ (and tragicomic) posture vis-à-vis American liberalism inspired by thinkers like Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin and Derrick Bell. This alternative enables racially conscious Americans to respond to the intransigence of (certain) white Americans with cunning rather than by escaping into fantasies of a ‘dream country’ unmarked by the damage caused by racism and its long-lingering effects. I uncover and explore this alternative through Rorty’s warnings regarding the white middle class, a somewhat surprising consistency between Rorty’s brand of class politics and Bell’s understanding of ‘racial fortuity’, and, finally, through a development of Bell’s ‘racial realist’ posture combined with Baldwin’s ‘uses of the blues’ resulting in a ‘hard-eyed’ tragicomic sensibility sufficient to effectively pair continued struggle with creative consolation and resilience. (shrink)

Human existence is a reality built on paradoxical structures. Existence takes place in the state of balance between these structures on its ground. Since man is in a constant state of being the states of equilibrium that take place on the ontological ground are constantly pregnant with new states of equilibrium. Whatever the subject of human-related research is to be done, it is necessary to look for a basis in these structures the issue of sin or existential crime is also (...) based on these structures in terms of its ontological background. In our study, the processes by which the rhythm states of the structures in question, which occur in situations of conflict and harmony, produce an unreal existence, that is, existential crime, have been handled. The issue of existential crime is mostly depicted from the perspective of the existentialist approach and in its onto-theological context. The main motive that makes the study important for us is related to the relation of existential crime and/or sin to human existence itself from an existential perspective. While dealing with the issue of existential crime, the picture of the issue has been tried to be presented with a more descriptive method, and various analyzes have been made where necessary. The freedom-destiny paradox has attached the tragic to human existence, and as a result, the sin situation caused by the hopelessness and anxiety in the tragic has been encountered. The dynamic-form conflict has attached the dramatic to human existence, and the sinfulness that seeks pleasure from the meaninglessness and emptiness caused by the pain in the dramatic has emerged. The conflict of individuality-participation, on the other hand, has attached the tragicomic to human existence, and the sinfulness of the ego based on self-deception arising from the identity problem caused by the tragicomic has emerged. The argument that all this is based on and that we want to be seen is that sin does not originate from some superficial motives, but from its dyadic structure, which is the ground of human existence, and on the other hand, an ontological background that expresses necessity for its existence. To sin can make a person guilty, but the existence of the possibility to sin is an existential vacancy that makes man a free being and expresses necessity for the realization of existence. (shrink)

In this contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Comparative Relativisim,” Smith argues that relativism is a chimera, half straw man, half red herring. Over the past century, she shows, objections to the supposed position so named have typically involved either crucially improper paraphrases of general observations of the variability and contingency of human perceptions, interpretations, and judgments or dismaying inferences gratuitously drawn from such observations. More recently, the label relativism has been elicited by the display, especially by anthropologists or historians, (...) of attitudes of epistemic tolerance or efforts at explanatory or evaluative symmetry. Objections here commonly involve mistaken, unwarranted universalizing of those attitudes or recommendations. Purported refutations of what is identified as relativism commonly have no force for alleged relativists because relativism-refuters commonly deploy and depend on the very concepts (e.g., truth and reason) and relations (e.g., between what are referred to as facts and evidence) that are at issue. The result is circular argumentation, intellectual nonengagement, and perfect deadlock. Although there are signs that this tragicomic episode of intellectual history has run its course, two contemporary sites of antirelativist energy are worth noting. One is the claim that so-called cultural relativism is refuted by the existence of cognitive universals. The other is the fear that evaluative symmetry leads to ethically or politically debilitating neutrality. Consideration of the nature of cognitive universals indicates that their existence does not contradict observations of the significance of cultural variability. Consideration of anxieties about the supposed quietistic implications of commitments to epistemic tolerance or symmetry indicates that such anxieties are misplaced. (shrink)

[opening paragraph]: Ramachandran and Hirstein claim that ‘peak shift', or exaggeration of salient features, ‘explains not only caricatures but all art.’ I would like to test the peak shift hypothesis in a case that at first glance seems to support it. Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac is the tragicomic tale of a grand poetic wit of Paris in the 17th. century, a noble fighter and master of fencing who loves with all his heart, but feels he is unlovable (...) for one very prominent reason: his wondrously prognathous nose. When a challenger pokes fun at Cyrano's most notable facial feature, the latter contemptuously provides a lesson in satiric exaggeration. (shrink)

How does one categorize Cornel West? He describes himself on multiple occasions as a "neo-Gramscian pragmatist," a "Jesus-centered intellectual bluesman," and a "card-carrying Kierkegaardian—with a strong Chekhovian twist—and a Marxist-informed radical democrat with a tragicomic sense of life." West seems intentionally cagy about being sorted into a particular school of thought. The resources he draws upon are too eclectic and the work he does with them too creative to treat him as a denizen of any one -ism. As he (...) once said in an interview, "I'm less interested in being situated within a philosophical tradition and much more interested in making sense of the world, pulling from whatever intellectual tradition I... (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to revisit Brown as a paradigmatic understanding of social justice and its barriers, by reconsidering Brown in light of the three moral pillars of democracy identified by Cornel West (2004). West maintains that authentic deep democracy is grounded in three fundamental capacities and dispositions, or pillars: (a) Socratic questioning, (b) a prophetic commitment to justice, and (c) tragicomic hope. West's articulation of these pillars constitutes 20 a philosophical framework for the exploration of the (...) basic demands of justice in a democratic society. These moral pillars can also offer useful insights into this phase of living exploration of Brown and its central place in educational studies. (shrink)

The struggle for domination clearly persists in The Homecoming as it does in almost all of Pinter’s works. Because of the vague atmosphere, enigmatic characters, and dark, tragicomic dialogue and action, a single decisive meaning for the play cannot be identified. Many character analyses have been carried out on the play, frequently focusing on Ruth and her decision at the end. Moreover, critics have sought to read the play in the light of psychoanalysis, centering on the characters’ past and (...) complexes. By adding a sociopolitical dimension to purely realistic or symbolic readings, this article attempts to analyze the relationships of domination and servitude between characters at the micro-level of the family structure through Marx’s notions of fetishism in relations between individuals, and commodity fetishism as expounded by Slavoj Žižek. With the help of Žižek’s ideas on ideology, a new layer of sociopolitical signification to the relationships held between characters is added, particularly that between Ruth and the men, which is seen as a parallel to the macro-level fetishized relationships in pre-capitalist societies and commodity fetishism in a capitalist one. (shrink)

This introduction to a special issue of Contemporary Pragmatism about Cornel West argues that he remains, despite his recent self-descriptions, a critical voice within the tradition of pragmatism. West's preoccupation with the tragicomic dimensions of our lives point to resources within the philosophies of pragmatism that have been underdeveloped or simply ignored.

RESUMO Este artigo é oriundo da pesquisa resultante na tese de doutorado Antônio José da Silva: uma dramaturgia de convenções1. No presente texto, discute-se o princípio de carnavalização no teatro ibérico a partir de diferentes perspectivas teóricas, dentre as quais a de Mikhail Bakhtin. Nesse sentido, a partir da descrição da personagem-tipo do gracioso, o criado carnavalizado originalmente inserido no teatro pelos autores do Século de Ouro espanhol, pretende-se problematizar embates de classe e artifícios discursivos da narrativa tragicômica. Tal análise (...) é embasada pela teoria de análise de textos barrocos ibéricos desenvolvidas em Espanha, nos estertores do século XX e no início do XXI, especialmente em Hermenegildo. Desse modo, analisa-se como a personagem-tipo, seja em sua formulação tradicional masculina ou na feminina, como criada, participa das intrigas, de modo a tornar mais contundentes as questões centrais do enredo disparador. Como exemplificação da teoria trabalhada, trazemos a obra do autor português setecentista Antônio José da Silva, Precipício de Faetonte. Nela, é possível perceber a participação dessas personagens baixas entremeando a intriga principal: o que pode ser lido, em nossa perspectiva, como uma forma de carnavalização do teatro ibérico de tal período, dentro da perspectiva bakhtiniana. ABSTRACT This article derives from the research which resulted in the doctoral thesis Antonio Jose da Silva: a dramaturgy made of conventions.1 It discusses the principle of carnivalization in Iberian theatre from different theoretical perspectives, including that of Mikhail Bakhtin. Through an analysis of the stock character of the gracioso, the carnivalized servant figure originally introduced by the dramatists of the Spanish Golden Age, the intention is to problematize the class tensions and discursive artifices of the tragicomic narrative. This analysis is based on the theory for studying Iberian baroque texts developed in Spain at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, and which is particularly present in Hermenegildo. This article therefore examines the ways in which this stock character, either in its traditional male version or as its female counterpart - the maid -, participates in the development of dramatic intrigue, amplifying the impact of the central issues of a given play’s main plot. To demonstrate the aforementioned theory, this article will examine the play Precipício de Faetonte by 18th-century Portuguese playwright Antonio José da Silva. In this work the actions of these low-status characters can be seen to be interwoven with the development of the central intrigue, a fact which, from a Bakhtinian perspective, can be interpreted as a form of carnivalization explored by the Iberian theatre of the period. (shrink)