In this chapter, I explain why cultural preservation is important, and in particular, why it is important enough to justify immigration restrictions. I also attempt to explain why one rarely encounters this type of argument in philosophy.

Traditional Qiang culture is the sum of all civilizations created by Qiang people in the long historical development of the national minority, and is an important component of Chinese civilization. However, traditional Qiang culture suffered from the attack of the great 5.12 Wenchuan Earthquake in the more and more vigorous process of industralization and globalization nowadays. Based on difficulties and problems encountered in post-disaster reconstruction for cultural preservation and development, this article takes into an overall consideration of Qiang (...) traditional cultural preservation and post-disaster reconstruction, protection of nonphysical cultural heritage and national cultural resources, tries to explore the principle, approach and method of traditional Qiang cultural preservation and development and attempts to present the current situation and analyze problems, and accordingly puts forward some countermeasures, measures and specific projects with the features of scientificalness, maneuverability and development. (shrink)

Multiculturalism is, by this point, a well-worn topic in social and political philosophy. Still, in what follows, I hope to usefully contribute to the philosophical discussion of multiculturalism by asking and trying to answer some foundational questions about the practical significance of cultural membership. Specifically, I want to investigate the normative concerns associated with the goal of preserving culture. In the first part of this article, I raise questions about the ethics of cultural preservation. Is it a (...) permissible or impermissible goal? If it is permissible, is it obligatory or at least praiseworthy? Does it even make sense to treat the fact that something is part of your culture as the primary reason for valuing or doing it? To what extent should the idea of preserving your culture be seen as in conflict with the valuable orientation of being open to learning from all cultures?In the second part, I consider the politics of cultural preservation, a topic that political p .. (shrink)

In light of social change and rapid technological improvement, "Cultural Heritage and Moral Obligations: A Philosophical Inquiry into Preservation and Innovation" sets out to investigate the ethical aspects of cultural heritage. This investigation explores the value of cultural legacy as a storehouse of human knowledge, identity, and community while recognising its enormous influence on the construction of both personal and societal narratives. It recognises the difficulties presented by the needs of development and the demands of respecting (...) the past as it makes its way through the conflict between innovation and preservation. The research study used smart PLS software and generated descriptive statistic, correlation coefficient, and the smart PLS Algorithm model between the cultural heritage and moral obligations. The research also describes the relation between preservation and innovation. Using meticulous scrutiny, it illuminates the ethical duties that are intrinsic to the conservation of cultural heritage, advocating for sophisticated comprehensions and moral structures that give precedence to inclusion, fairness, and justice. In the end, this investigation advocates for a future in which the diversity and complexity of human culture are honored, conserved, and treasured for all eternity, encouraging contemplation on our relationships with the past and our obligations to future generations. Overall, the research found that the philosophical investigation of "Cultural Heritage and Moral Obligations" provides a basis for tackling current issues and cultivating long-term strategies for cultural heritage innovation and preservation in a variety of domains and settings. Stakeholders may preserve the history of humanity for future generations and support the principles of inclusion, fairness, and justice by incorporating ethical concerns into decision-making processes. (shrink)

Effective stakeholder engagement and inclusive governance are essential for effective and equitable ocean management. However, few cross-national studies have been conducted to examine how stakeholders’ economic and cultural benefit perceptions influence their support level for policies focused on ocean preservation. The current study aims to fill this gap by employing the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 709 stakeholders from 42 countries, a part of the MaCoBioS project funded by the European Commission H2020. We found (...) that economic and cultural benefit perceptions are generally negatively associated with the policy support level. Regarding economic aspects, stakeholders considering transportation and shipping, renewable energy generation, and oil and gas provision as the most crucial benefits their countries’ oceans provide tend to obtain less support for policies focusing on ocean preservation. Meanwhile, for cultural aspects, perceiving recreation and tourism, aesthetic pleasure, mental health and well-being support, and sense of identity provision as the most important benefits provided by the country’s ocean are negatively associated with the policy support level. The perceived economic, cultural, and environmental tradeoffs when supporting policies focused on ocean preservation were discussed. Recommendations for improving the effective management of multi-use marine space are also provided to reduce the perceived competing interests among stakeholders. (shrink)

This paper presents a review of articles on cultural, ethical, and religious perspectives on environmental preservation. Globally, the negative effects of the current environmental crisis on people's lives and livelihoods cannot be disputed. The mismanagement of the environment has resulted in extreme climate changes currently faced by the world. The situation has prompted environmentalists, governments, and other stakeholders to seek plausible ways of mitigating and preserving the environment for current and future generations. Through a review of some existing (...) literature, this paper affirms the important role that culture, ethics, and religion play in environmental preservation strategies. (shrink)

Prolonged conflict on the southern Thailand border still continues, especially in four provinces – Pattani, Yala, Narathivat, and Satun. These four provinces are the home base of the Malay-Muslim community. However, conflicts have almost never occurred in the province of Phattalung, particularly in the region called ‘Two Religion Community Life’. This is because people can find solutions to every problem using cultural negotiation. This research aims to describe the results of cultural negotiation and social learning between Muslims and (...) Buddhists in solving daily life problems. The most important data collection techniques are in-depth interviews and observations. There are five critical informants chosen purposively: Islamic and Buddhist religious leaders, community leaders, school principals, and community members in the Tamot and Khaocan regions. The results found that there are several forms of cultural negotiation in Phattalung, including annual ritual prayers conducted together by Muslims and Buddhists, agreement on how to slaughter animals to be served during ceremonies, tradition of food bartering, and agreement on animal caring. Furthermore, social learning to preserve the results of the negotiations is carried out through the establishment of voluntary medical groups whose members consist of young men and women from the Muslim and the Buddhist community, sports and arts activities, commemorations of national holidays, and conducting annual religious rituals at the same place and time. This study also found four important aspects to strengthen the social learning in multireligious society – moderate values derived from their respective religious teachings, moderate values taught by the country, the existence of trust among citizens, and win-win solutions to the emerging problems. Contribution: This research promotes the world that there is a heterogeneous religious community in the Phattalung province, Thailand which has a building construction of tolerance and harmony of locality namely the ‘Two Religion Community Life’ by preserving the cultural negotiation values through social learning. (shrink)

The interest individuals have in the preservation of their culture raises various difficulties pertaining to the meaning of this interest, its justification, and its normative implications. In this Paper, I wish to make several comments on these issues and the relationships between them. I will discuss the meaning of the interest individuals have in the preservation of their culture and the justification of this interest by referring to Margalit and Halbertal’s article “Liberalism and the Right to Culture.” I (...) will then comment on the classification of cultural preservation rights by referring to Kymlicka’s notions of poly-ethnic rights, self-government rights and representation rights. I will conclude with questions concerning the justification of some particular rights to cultural preservation by resorting to Brian Barry’s discussion of Québec language rights and some examples of Israel’s immigration policies. (shrink)

For centuries, heirloom rice varieties have been grown on the terraces of the Cordillera Mountains of Luzon, Philippines, terroirs known for their significant historical, cultural, and aesthetic values. However, heritage heirloom rice farming is gradually being abandoned, mainly because of its lower productivity and the struggle of the sector to create a sustainable niche market for heirloom rice by branding its cultural, social, and nutritional values. We propose several demand-side intervention strategies for the valorization of heirloom rice. To (...) support the development of a segmented marketing strategy for heritage farming, we provide evidence on urban consumers’ willingness to purchase heirloom rice. We interviewed 500 urban consumers from Metro Manila in July–August 2015, who placed a purchasing bid on a kilogram of heirloom rice. Consumers’ bids averaged PHP 72.61 kg−1, which is less than half its current market price. This explains why heirloom rice struggles to gain market share in urban markets in the Philippines. Given this bid price, we estimate a potential market size of PHP 20.3 billion that could be created for heirloom rice and tapped into by heritage farmers. Findings further indicate that women, business owners, and consumers who buy packaged rice and eat pigmented rice are willing to pay more for heirloom rice. Finally, our evidence suggests that proper information framing will be necessary to create demand and support the valorization of heirloom rice to preserve cultural heritage and in situ biodiversity of rice landraces in the Philippines. (shrink)

For many Christian ethicists the language of individualism serves as a philosophical short-hand for an atomistic and anti-social existence which refuses the invitation of a common life with others. Is this negative description deserved? This article undertakes a close reading of the categories of the individual and the person in order to formulate a theologically affirmative account of certain liberal strands of social and political individualism. In an effort to ground this project, dialogue is initiated with the Quaker theological tradition. (...) Through a close engagement with early Quaker accounts of community, selfhood and conversion, the discussion retrieves a social and teleological model of individuality which challenges key suppositions of individualism’s contemporary critics. This article concludes by considering ways in which Quaker formations of the individual can assist the Church in the task of faithfully engaging with liberal societies. (shrink)

Libertarian philosopher Michael Huemer has argued recently that there is a prima facie right to immigrate, and, moreover, that concerns people have about the effects of immigration are not strong enough to neutralize or override this prima facie right. In this paper, I focus on one particular concern that Huemer deems insufficiently strong to neutralize or override the prima facie right to immigrate, namely, the concern that unrestricted immigration poses a threat to one’s culture. I argue that Huemer fails to (...) show that the concern is insufficiently strong. (shrink)

Purpose: Despite various comparative studies in the field of cultural heritage protection in the world, there is still a significant lack of comparative research on policies related to the legal system of countries' governance. The purpose of this study is to address the comparative policies in Iran and Italy, with a particular focus on the results of the executive experiences of two different types of policies in the cities of Oroumieh (North-West of Iran) and Turin (in North-West of Italy). (...) Design/methodology/approach: Utilising the comparative, analytical, bibliographic and descriptive historical research methodology, which is based on the study of the local, national and international comprehensive review of regulations and policy-making of cultural heritage preservation policies in Iran and Italy. In this research, the related documents in three languages (Persian, Italian and English) have been examined to compare profoundly and comprehensively the policies and regulations adopted in these two countries to be able to analyze the national and transnational regulations and local policies in the cultural heritage sector. Findings: In addition to many cultural similarities and numerous commonalities, especially in the multiplicity of urban cultural heritage in historical centers, the results suggest that the legislation structure in Iran is much more centralized than in Italy. Also, the findings suggest that Italy focuses on aligning its previously centralized national legislative system in line with contemporary European heritage and preservation policies. Originality/value: The paper outlines how to use historical and cultural similarities through comparative study to benefit the experiences of two historical countries in urban heritage conservation and policy-making part despite their differences. (shrink)

As an instrument of preserving the cultural memory of a community, the literary canon is usually a highly stable structure in its core elements. However, with the advent of the Communist regime after the Second World War, the Romanian literary canon underwent a drastic process of reconstruction. As early as the 1940s, what was euphemistically dubbed “revisiting our cultural heritage” actually equated to a radical revision—a purge of the literary canon through the fi lter of Marxism-Leninism. Not only (...) writers of literature, but literary critics themselves were subjected to this process. In this paper, I aim to discuss the role played by literary critics active during Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej’s regime in rehabilitating their predecessors. My focus will be on the press debate surrounding Titu Maiorescu’s rehabilitation in 1963. (shrink)

Although a supposed right to preserve culture is frequently invoked in normative debates, philosophical literature has produced scarcely any attempt to treat it as a particular claim that differs from other cultural rights and, for that reason, is in need of a particular justification. Only by clarifying the content and the normative reasons underlying the supposed right, however, is it possible to evaluate the numerous political claims that have been based on it, ranging from the protection of minorities to (...) restrictions on immigration into nation states. This article argues that the right to preserve culture should be seen as the right of a cultural group to enjoy the framework conditions and to enact supporting political measures that make it likely that its culture will continue to exist through an authentic and continuous path of development. Although some of the possible justifications of that supposed right fail, there is an approach that makes it at least plausible that the right to preserve culture is justified within certain limits. (shrink)

The Department of Religious Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine is among the institutions of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, which must develop proposals aimed at preservation, reproduction and protection of the historical and cultural environment in Kyiv, in particular, measures to promote the preservation of cultural heritage objects, including and those who are in the possession or use of religious communities.

The article studies the Jewish cemetery which provides a significant amount of historical information about various aspects of the life of the Jewish community which have long been out of focus. The objective of the research lies in proving the relevance of marginal culturally significant objects in the context of postmodern philosophy, as well as explaining and analyzing the compositional ways and peculiarities of plastic images of the facades of the gravestones in Kremenets, one of the Volyn areas of the (...) Jewish culture in the 18th century – the early 19th century. The article focuses on the most common method of studying the monuments of Jewish gravestone epigraphy. The methodology of the research is based on the regionalist approaches to the problem and the application of culturological, retrospective comparative-historical methods and the use of critical analysis. For the first time, the artistic and style peculiarities of the memorial plastic arts of Jewish cemetery in Kremenets are analysed and the historical factors that influenced them are explicated. It was proved that the historical and cultural value of the Jewish necropolis in Kremenets lies in its originality. The cemetery is one of the oldest in Europe and contains unique information on the history, customs and culture of the Jewish people. It can become a promising object of visit for postmodern consumers, interested in unpopular and marginal tourist artefacts. (shrink)

Cultural rights of minority groups are recognized in international human rights law. These rights include the right of minority groups to adopt various measures to protect their cultural identity, which may include closure of the group’s community from outsiders. The state in which such groups reside has a concurrent duty to respect these rights and sometimes even to take positive measures to ensure their implementation. The consideration of demographic factors, then, is regarded as legitimate when designed to protect (...) minority groups. The rights of majority groups, on the other hand, are often ensured by the mere fact that they constitute a majority within the state and as such do not require special measures. This state of affairs is challenged, however, in face of mass immigration that could change the relation existing between majority and minority groups within the state. Under these circumstances, does a majority have the right to preserve its own culture through an immigration policy that takes into account demographic factors? I argue that the duty of states under international human rights law to protect rights of minority groups might serve as an incentive to restrict immigration endangering the character of the state. This character—the state’s public culture—is the outcome of collective preferences of the majority of its citizens, which is assumed ought to be respected. (shrink)

This article draws together research from various sub-disciplines of philosophy to offer an overview of recent philosophical work on the ethics of historic preservation. I discuss how philosophers writing about art, culture, and the environment have appealed to historical significance in crafting arguments about the preservation of objects, practices, and places. By demonstrating how it relates to core themes in moral and political philosophy, I argue that historic preservation is essentially concerned with ethical issues.

Cultural taboos and their sanctionshave helped to check abuse of the environmentat least among the local people. The disregardfor these traditional checks and balancesespecially among Christians has adverselyaffected their enforcement at this time. Theenvironment and culture preservation inAwka-South were investigated. The faithfulobservance of the traditional laws in the studyarea was attributed to the fact that Awka-Southarea had remained occupied by the same peoplefor centuries. The study showed that thepreserved forests and their shrines in Nibotown have largely remained intact. (...) In Nisetown, however, with nine shrines still inexistence, the rules have relaxed a little,mainly because they embraced modernization. Inthis town, the fringes of the forests may beused for farming but no felling of trees wouldbe allowed. The ``god'' of the shrine in Obunaguvillage was much revered until the advent ofChristianity. This religion has had an erodingeffect on the taboos, which were put in placeto protect their forests and streams. Theabandonment of traditional cultural practicesis doing harm that goes beyond the abrogationof traditional cultural practices to seriousthreat to natural environmental structures. Thecultures of the different tribes in Nigerianeed to be revisited for evaluation and studiesto enable their integration into modernpractices that will make the environment moresustainable. This will be more productive thanthe unilateral introduction of programs,execution, and maintenance methods that arecompletely new, or in many cases run contraryto the cultural practices of the local peopleand tribes of Nigeria. (shrink)

In the Netherlands, the policy of supporting the efforts of ethnic-cultural minorities to express and preserve their cultural distinctiveness, is nowadays considered as problematic because it might interfere with their integration into the wider society. The primary aim is now to reduce these groups' unemployment rate and to stimulate their participation in the wider society. In this article I consider how the notion of the intrinsic value of cultures, if sensible, might affect the policy regarding ethnic-cultural minorities. (...) I develop a theory of intrinsic value of culture, as an analogy of the theory of intrinsic value of non-human natural entities. My conclusion is that the dominant cultural group in the Netherlands should preserve clearly deviant minority cultures which have considerable intrinsic value. (shrink)

Our culture of appreciation of old buildings today is a product of the heritage culture of the eighteenth-century Central European upper class. While we find it pleasant and historically informative to have buildings well preserved, we find the absence of critical questioning of the practice surprisingly absent, although we observe an increasing number of academic discussions in the field of heritage studies, informed by decolonisation, climate change activism, and sustainability issues. Critical artistic practices have too been venturing into heritage and (...) memory politics. The extensive costs of preserving old architecture raise eyebrows mainly only in the far- and alt-right circles, but as late reactions by parts of the global community, such as the attacks on statues as part of the Black Lives Matter movement, signal, there might be a change coming regarding our relationship to the built material past. We offer a reading of the history of the phenomenon, which will make it easier to, first, see it as an ethnic and class construct, and then sketch out a new perspective on its metaphysics, from memory to identity, to discourse. We include voices external to the world of heritage­­ – one that is still run by a privileged group that often claims to speak for others, and whose aims and practices are often, at least for now, accepted by others. We then proceed to discuss what kind of a role a curatorial approach could have in questioning and rethinking the idea of preserving. (shrink)

The subject of our article is the identification of cultural codes of Eastern European shtetl towns in the play by Grigory Gorin "Memorial Prayer", the libretto of which was written by the author based on the works of the famous Yiddish writer Sholom Aleichem. The author of the article describes the history and conditions of localization of Jewish culture in Eastern Europe and the Russian Empire, the peculiarities of its transformation, the tragic history of the Jewish theater in the (...) first third of the twentieth century. After the disappearance of the towns and the disuse of the Yiddish language, the preservation of the history of the characteristic everyday and philosophical way of life of the shtetls became the goal of museum figures, historians, writers, playwrights, and artists. In the work, using the example of Tevye the milkman, his family and environment, characteristic images of the inhabitants of small towns, their habitat, types of thinking and actions are revealed. The article uses the methods of historicism in the retrospective of the culture of Shtetl towns, the method of analysis in the identification of Shtetl archetypes, the method of synthesis in the generalization of a set of characteristic cultural codes. The main conclusions of the study are: 1. Eastern European Jewish shtetl towns are small urban-type settlements with a predominantly Jewish population, whose unique culture was determined by the Jewish faith, everyday and religious traditions, the Yiddish language, as well as the localization of residence in a small area. 2. During the period of large-scale social upheavals of the early twentieth century and the subsequent expansion beyond the boundaries of the towns, their unique culture became a mythologeme, the foundation for writers, artists, musicians, and theater figures who emerged from it. One of the milestones in the preservation of this culture was the Jewish theater GOSET, whose existence was tragically cut short in the middle of the twentieth century. 3. The play "Memorial Prayer", written by Grigory Gorin based on the works of Sholem Aleichem and staged at the Lenkom Theater by Mark Zakharov, became the quintessence of the characteristic images of the shtetl, and at the same time the revival of authentic Jewish culture. The author's special contribution is to highlight in the play the images-the archetypes of the Shtetl, which have become cultural markers, or codes of Jewish Yiddish culture. (shrink)

Arguments for the preservation of culture are based on an extremely problematic essentialist conception of culture as a fixed entity. The inadequacy of the essentialist conception has received increasing recognition, but an adequate positive conception has yet to take its place. This essay reframes the debate about cultural preservation by proposing a new conception of culture as conversation. The new conception acknowledges the fluidity and internal contestation that occurs within actual cultures, and the agency of a culture’s (...) members in creating, transmitting and revising that culture. We make this new conception our basis for proposing that a proper concern for the value of a culture should be realized in enabling its members to sustain it, not to preserve some pre-existing essence. Adopting this more viable notion of culture also changes our conception of what needs to be done to sustain it, and allows us to acknowledge and better deal with the complex arguments for and against sustaining culture. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The article is devoted to an important area of scientific research related to the history and culture of Yakutia. Written monuments of historical and cultural heritage, along with material ones, occupy their permanent place. The solution to the problem of their preservation and interpretation is inextricably linked with publishing activities – modern technical capabilities increase its effectiveness. In the article we study the existing experience in this field by the example of the publication of Russian cursive sources of (...) the XVII century about the history of Yakutia, as well as cultural heritage. The object of the study is the historical and cultural heritage of Yakutia. The subject of the study ate the samples in various forms. The research summarized the experience of publishing historical and cultural heritage monuments on the example of Russian cursive documents of the XVII century about Yakutia, as well as the works of the first Yakut composer M.N. Zhirkov. Since they are of great value as samples of archival documents reflecting regional specifics, we have carried out work to determine their historical significance for the culture of Yakutia. In this article, based on an assessment of the internal content of the collections considered as examples and the quality of their publication, recommendations have been developed to improve further work in this direction. Undoubtedly, further work should be continued to identify such written monuments that require special storage and interpretation, have great historical and cultural value for the Yakut people, as well as transfer to modern media of this information, taking into account the necessary publication rules. For the first time, the question of creating a pan-Yakut electronic database of written monuments of historical and cultural heritage of Yakutia was raised. (shrink)

What makes fast, cumulative cultural evolution work? Where did it come from? Why is it the sole preserve of humans? We set out a self-assembly hypothesis: cultural evolution evolved culturally. We present an evolutionary account that shows this hypothesis to be coherent, plausible, and worthy of further investigation. It has the following steps: (0) in common with other animals, early hominins had significant capacity for social learning; (1) knowledge and skills learned by offspring from their parents began to (...) spread because bearers had more offspring, a process we call CS1 (or Cultural Selection 1); (2) CS1 shaped attentional learning biases; (3) these attentional biases were augmented by explicit learning biases (judgements about what should be copied from whom). Explicit learning biases enabled (4) the high-fidelity, exclusive copying required for fast cultural accumulation of knowledge and skills by a process we call CS2 (or Cultural Selection 2), and (5) the emergence of cognitive processes such as imitation, mindreading and metacognition – ‘cognitive gadgets’ specialised for cultural learning. This self-assembly hypothesis is consistent with archaeological evidence that the stone tools used by early hominins were not dependent on fast, cumulative cultural evolution, and suggests new priorities for research on ‘animal culture’. (shrink)

A Rural Sanctuary is defined as an area where farming activity creates habitats for a diverse assemblage of species that find a broad spectrum of resources along the season. A Rural Sanctuary is proposed as a new model of land management to protect nature inside a framework of cultural identity and agro-forestry sustainability. A Rural Sanctuary has a dual mission: to provide immaterial and material resources for people, and to guarantee living spaces to a large assemblage of species. A (...) Rural Sanctuary represents an ecosemiotic agency in which human eco-fields and animal eco-fields interact. This reflects a model that is rooted in the Mediterranean region, where for long time people and nature have harmoniously lived in strict contact and inter-dependence. An example of a Rural Sanctuary from this region is proposed to demonstrate the amazing diversity of living beings observed on only few hectares of farmland. A Rural Sanctuary offers possibilities to educate people about a more sustainable approach to nature, and it represents a unique place to investigate animal perception. Finally, between the different approach to certify the validity of a Rural Sanctuary, sound recording is suggested as one of the less invasive methods for ecological investigation and long-term monitoring. (shrink)

Research indicates the essentiality of dignity as a vital component for quality of life, reconfirming the emphasis on dignity preservation in the international code of nursing ethics. Applying Noblit and Hare’s meta-ethnography, the aim of the study was to develop a theory model by synthesizing 10 qualitative articles from various cultural contexts, exploring nurse and allied healthcare professional perception/practice concerning dignity-preserving dementia care. “Advocating the person’s autonomy and integrity,” which involves “having compassion for the person,” “confirming the person’s (...) worthiness and sense of self,” and “creating a humane and purposeful environment,” was identified as a primary foundation for dignity-preserving dementia care. “Balancing individual choices among persons no longer able to make sound decisions, against the duty of making choices on behalf of the person,” which involves “persuasion” and/or “mild restraint,” was considered a crucial aspect in certain situations. “Sheltering human worth—remembering those who forget” was identified as a comprehensive motive and core value within dignity-preserving dementia care. (shrink)

In this essay I will examine the changing historical relationship between two fundamentally modern concepts: self-preservation and self-ownership. These two concepts have served a dual function in modernity. On the one hand, they are crucial parts of the theoretical underpinning of liberalism: the natural law of self-preservation is the foundation of the rational inclination to form civil society (e.g., Hobbes); and self-ownership provides the foundation for the liberal (i.e., Lockean) notion of private property. But on the other hand, (...) these two concepts serve much more than a theoretical purpose; they also perform a duty in what I would like to call, borrowing Foucault's phrase, a modern technology of the self. At this level, the concepts of self-ownership and self-preservation shape individuals to follow certain routines in their behavior, to treat their bodies in specific ways, to organize their time in a particular fashion. In performing these routines, individuals participate in the collection and dissemination of that knowledge of individual bodies and groups of bodies which, as Foucault and Arendt in their different ways revealed, is endemic to modernity. (shrink)

In this paper, I reinterpret the conflict between rewilders and those who want to preserve traditional agricultural landscapes. By showing that underlying both positions is a common outlook in which nature preservation can be described as a primarily interpretative act geared towards the preservation of meaning by establishing a successful contact with external reality, I hope to refocus the debate away from the current stalemate. Too often, the debate ends in a dispute about what counts as 'real nature'. (...) By interpreting nature preservation - whether it is directed at rewilding or at preserving old agricultural landscapes - as an act that is a response to nature's meanings, we will refocus attention on the real issue underlying preservation: articulating the ways nature is meaningful to us. (shrink)

This article examines the philosophical issues that arise when preserving urban geological sites or urban geosites. These are preserved not only because of their geological value but also because of aesthetic, cultural, and economic reasons. To do so, it examines the geosite constituted by Olot and its surroundings, a city in Spain that extends amid four dormant volcanoes. It explores the metaphysical paradox that these geosites have become what they are due to the preservation of destruction: human-caused interventions, (...) mostly extraction of materials and exploitation of the land, are precisely what made these geosites visible as sites worth preserving and determining their metaphysical status. It further explores the preservation criteria and shows how they have determined the status of the geosite. Second, it shows how in such urban geosites the collapse of two diametrically opposed conceptions of time – the geological eon and the lived human time – occurs. Lastly, it discusses aesthetic aspects of such geosites by considering aesthetic experience as a primarily cognitive endeavor and shows how metaphysical, epistemological, and aesthetic issues of preservation of geosites are inextricably linked. (shrink)

On July 2021, the UK High Court of Justice heard the Case CO/2066/2020 on the application of Heidi Crowter who lives with Down’s syndrome, and Máire Lea-Wilson whose son Aidan has Down’s syndrome. Crowter and Lea-Wilson, with the support of the disability rights campaign, ‘Don’t Screen Us Out’, have been taking legal action against the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (the UK Government) for a review of the 1967 Abortion Act: the removal of section 1(1)(d) making termination (...) of pregnancy lawful for ‘severe’ fetal indications detected after 24 weeks' gestation. On 23 September 2021, the High Court dismissed the claim. This action came at a time when non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) was introduced into the NHS England Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme for the trisomies 21, 13 and 18. The implementation of NIPT has been heavily criticised, in particular by ‘Don’t Screen Us Out’ campaigners, for increasing fetal selection and discrimination of people living with disabilities. The case of Crowter and Lea-Wilson echoes debates in other European countries such as in France and Germany, where the introduction of NIPT in the public healthcare system has provoked equally vehement public reactions and discussions. The comparison between these three countries allows contextualising the public discourses around NIPT and the ground for termination of pregnancy in relation to different socio-cultural and political contexts. We examine how each country, and particularly England, deals with the conflict between the principles of promoting the rights of people living with disabilities and preserving women’s reproductive autonomy. (shrink)

In recent years, many researchers engaged in diverse areas and approaches of “cultural-historical activity theory” (CHAT) realized an increasing international interest in Lev S. Vygotsky’s, A. N. Leont’ev’s, and A. Luria’s work and its continuations. Not so long ago, Yrjö Engeström noted that the activity approach was still “the best-held secret of academia” (p. 64) and highlighted the “impressive dimension of theorizing behind” it. Certainly, this remark reflects a time when CHAT was off the beaten tracks. But if this (...) situation begins to change today, in which direction will CHAT be heading? Will it continue to be one of those projects “unique for its practical, political, and civic engagement” committed “to ideals of social justice, equality, and social change” as it was in the beginning (Stetsenko & Arievitch, 2004, p. 58)? Although a positive future of CHAT seems to lie ahead, we consider in this article some of the problematics that may challenge all those who want to pass the “impressive dimensions of theorizing” from “insider” circles to a larger audience and from one generation to another as well as encourage newcomers to become part of this tradition through critical engagement in its theory and practice. A key to these engagements, we suggest, is not only the comprehensive empirical and philosophical basis, but also the role of dialectics as both topic and method. Therefore, the challenge for newcomers (as well as for “old-timers”) to take on the tradition of CHAT is not a small one indeed. We assume that a major reason for the increasing interest in CHAT lies in its potential to provide a non-reductionist approach to human development, which is due to its affinity to dialectics; however, the close interrelation to a tradition that reaches back to the theories of Georg W.F. Hegel and Karl Marx, among others, is not the easiest to master. In consideration of these difficulties, the purpose of this article is to investigate how contemporary approaches within CHAT can continue to provide a dialectical framework to preserve and renew the critical intention of this tradition, and how we run the risk of losing this sting. Thereby, we sensitize researchers to the problem of developing a cultural-historical approach within a historical situation that confronts us with new, unanswered questions. In this light, we also problematize the use of scientific language, for it may lead us to speak and argue un-dialectically when in fact we intend or ought to think dialectically. This article seeks to convey insights and arguments of how we can relate our theoretical approaches to a tradition of dialectical thinking and in what ways this is paramount for a critical engagement in theory and practice. In the first part, we therefore discuss not only some major theorems in Hegel’s and Marx’s work but also, and above all, Vygotsky’s way of developing the cultural-historical approach of psychology. Second, we argue that the contemporary, widely known version of CHAT, related to Yrjö Engeström’s theoretical and empirical work, neglects different aspects of dialectical thinking and consequently narrows its potential to a socio-critical approach to societal practice and human development. A crucial question of this scrutiny will be the notion of contradictions and how development is supposed to be achieved. In general, our intention is not only to clarify the role of dialectics as a method for activity theory but also to problematize the role of the subjects of research in CHAT and to confront ourselves with the problems of practicing and developing a critical science in face of a complex and challenging societal world. (shrink)

This article examines the significance of cultural practices related to food and women's role in the formation and continuance of these practices in Gullah communities in the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina. I argue that although food preparation, under pressure of dominant cultural practices, may be viewed as a measure of gender inequality and women's subordination in the household, analysis of the relationship between women and food preparation practices can broaden understanding of the construction and maintenance (...) of tradition in marginalized cultural groups, a neglected aspect of the study of social organization within sociology. The study uses ethnographic data based on field observations and semistructured interviews with 22 women over several visits made between 1989 and 1992. (shrink)

Cultural evolution studies are characterized by the notion that culture evolves accordingly to broadly Darwinian principles. Yet how far the analogy between cultural and genetic evolution should be pushed is open to debate. Here, we examine a recent disagreement that concerns the extent to which cultural transmission should be considered a preservative mechanism allowing selection among different variants, or a transformative process in which individuals recreate variants each time they are transmitted. The latter is associated with the (...) notion of “cultural attraction”. This issue has generated much misunderstanding and confusion. We first clarify the respective positions, noting that there is in fact no substantive incompatibility between cultural attraction and standard cultural evolution approaches, beyond a difference in focus. Whether cultural transmission should be considered a preservative or reconstructive process is ultimately an empirical question, and we examine how both preservative and reconstructive cultural transmission has been studied in recent experimental research in cultural evolution. Finally, we discuss how the relative importance of preservative and reconstructive processes may depend on the granularity of analysis and the domain being studied. (shrink)

Our sense of culture is characteristically meant to displace race, but part of the argument of this essay has been that culture has turned out to be a way of continuing rather than repudiating racial thought. It is only the appeal to race that makes culture an object of affect and that gives notions like losing our culture, preserving it, stealing someone else’s culture, restoring people’s culture to them, and so on, their pathos. Our race identifies the culture to which (...) we have a right, a right that may be violated or defended, repudiated or recovered. Race transforms people who learn to do what we do into the thieves of our culture and people who teach us to do what they do into the destroyers of our culture; it makes assimilation into a kind of betrayal and the refusal to assimilate into a form of heroism. Without race, losing our culture can mean no more than doing things differently from the way we now do them and preserving our culture can mean no more than doing things the same—the melodrama of assimilation disappears.41 If, of course, doing things differently turns out to mean doing them worse, then the change will seem regrettable. But it’s not the loss of our culture that will make it regrettable; it’s the fact that the culture that will then be ours will be worse than the culture that used to be ours. It is, of course, always possible and often likely that things will get worse; abandoning our idea of culture, however, will not make them worse. Walter Benn Michaels is professor of English and the humanities at The Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism and of a monograph on American literature in the Progressive period, forthcoming in the Cambridge History of American Literature. His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry include “Against Theory” and ”Against Theory 2,” both written in collaboration with Steven Knapp. (shrink)

Should we preserve nature or revolt in order to protect “the living” (“le vivant”)? At first sight, this invites a comparison between two ways and means of protecting nature. However, this article will defend the thesis that these two methods of protecting nature do not rest upon the same conception of our position, as human beings, towards the living. Indeed, in the end, we find an underlying opposition between nature, conceived as savage or as radical alterity (often inspired by the (...) culturally loaded notion of wilderness, as found in the politics of preservation of vulnerable natural spaces) and the notion of “the living.” I intend to use the concept of the living in order to emphasize “ordinary nature” and our strong connection with all other living things. This reflection will enable me to defend the connection between the fight for environmental justice (namely revolt or resistance movements on the part of the poorest populations defending their living environment and their resources against an unequal production system) and the struggle for the protection of vulnerable living spaces and species. (shrink)

Background:Dignity experience in the daily lives of people living with dementia is influenced by their relational interactions with others. However, literature reviews show that knowledge concerning crucial interactional qualities, preserving their sense of dignity, is limited.Aim:The aim of this study was to explore and describe crucial qualities of relational interactions preserving dignity experience among people with dementia, while interacting with family, social network, and healthcare professionals.Methodology:The study was founded upon Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, and an exploratory design employing qualitative research interviews (...) was conducted.Participants and research context:A total of 11 individuals diagnosed with mild to moderate dementia, living in their own homes, were recruited from two Hospital Memory Clinics in Norway.Ethical considerations:In recruiting persons with dementia as study participants, sensitivity toward their life history, autonomy, integrity, relationships, and dignity is essential. These standards, and the ethical principles of moral sensitivity to their vulnerability, doing no harm, showing justice, and respecting their personal utility, guided our research.Results:Three main interactional qualities preserving the participants’ dignity experience were found: Experiencing love and confirmation; experiencing social inclusion and fellowship; experiencing humane warmth and understanding within a caring culture, while being met as an equal human being. A total of 10 sub-qualities were identified within these 3 main qualities.Discussion and final considerations:Dignity experience among the participants was preserved when certain interactional qualities were present in their interactions with family, social network, and healthcare professionals. While supporting some of the findings of previous studies, this study adds new knowledge on the subject. Knowledge of relational interactions toward preserving dignity experience should be a fundamental part of future dementia care practice. Based on the results of this study, an empirical–theoretical model was developed for this purpose. (shrink)

Do members of cultural groups have special claims to own or control the products of the cultures to which they belong? Is there something morally wrong with employing artistic styles that are distinctive of a culture to which you do not belong? What is the relationship between cultural heritage and group identity? Is there a coherent and morally acceptable sense of cultural group membership in the first place? Is there a universal human heritage to which everyone has (...) a claim? Questions such as these concern the ethics of cultural heritage (or heritage ethics, for short). This entry seeks to provide an overview of the philosophical work on topics in heritage ethics, as well as introduce readers to some of the most philosophically relevant literature from other disciplines. (shrink)

Despite the closure of virtually all original grindhouse cinemas, ‘grindhouse’ lives on as a conceptual term. This article contends that the prevailing conceptualization of ‘grindhouse’ is problematized by a widening gap between the original grindhouse context (‘past’) and the DVD/home-viewing context (present). Despite fans’ and filmmakers’ desire to preserve this part of exploitation cinema history, the world of the grindhouse is now little more than a blurry set of tall-tales and faded phenomenal experiences, which are subject to present-bias. The continuing (...) usefulness of grindhouse-qua-concept requires that one should pay heed to the contemporary contexts in which ‘grindhouse’ is evoked. (shrink)