The Deepening Darkness

The Deepening Darkness
Author: Carol Gilligan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2008-11-10
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1139475223

Why is America again unjustly at war? Why is its politics distorted by wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage? Why is anti-Semitism still so powerfully resurgent? Such contradictions within democracies arise from a patriarchal psychology still alive in our personal and political lives in tension with the equal voice that is the basis of democracy. This book joins a psychological approach with a political-theoretical one that traces both this psychology (based on loss in intimate life) and resistance to it (based on the love of equals) to the Roman Republic and Empire and to three Latin masterpieces: Virgil's Aeneid, Apuleius's The Golden Ass, and Augustine's Confessions. In addition, this book explains many other aspects of our present situation including why movements of ethical resistance are often accompanied by a freeing of sexuality and why we are witnessing an aggressive fundamentalism at home and abroad.

The Peculiar Democracy

The Peculiar Democracy
Author: Wallace Hettle
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2001
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780820322827

Too often, Wallace Hettle points out, studies of politics in the nineteenth-century South reinforce a view of the Democratic Party that is frozen in time on the eve of Fort Sumter--a deceptively high point of white racial solidarity. Avoiding such a "Civil War synthesis," The Peculiar Democracy illuminates the link between the Jacksonian political culture that dominated antebellum debate and the notorious infighting of the Confederacy. Hettle shows that war was the greatest test of populist Democratic Party rhetoric that emphasized the shared interests of white men, slaveholder and nonslaveholder alike. The Peculiar Democracy analyzes antebellum politics in terms of the connections between slavery, manhood, and the legacies of Jefferson and Jackson. It then looks at the secession crisis through the anxieties felt by Democratic politicians who claimed concern for the interests of both slaveholders and nonslaveholders. At the heart of the book is a collective biography of five individuals whose stories highlight the limitations of democratic political culture in a society dominated by the "peculiar institution." Through narratives informed by recent scholarship on gender, honor, class, and the law, Hettle profiles South Carolina's Francis W. Pickens, Georgia's Joseph Brown, Alabama's Jeremiah Clemens, Virginia's John Rutherfoord, and Mississippi's Jefferson Davis. The Civil War stories presented in The Peculiar Democracy illuminate the political and sometimes personal tragedy of men torn between a political culture based on egalitarian rhetoric and the wartime imperatives to defend slavery.

Fundamentalism in American Religion and Law

Fundamentalism in American Religion and Law
Author: David A. J. Richards
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2010-03-15
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1139484133

Why, from Reagan to George Bush, have fundamentalists in religion and in law (originalists) exercised such political power and influence in the United States? Why has the Republican Party forged an ideology of judicial appointments (originalism) hostile to abortion and gay rights? Why and how did Barack Obama distinguish himself among Democratic candidates not only by his opposition to the Iraq war but by his opposition to originalism? This book argues that fundamentalism in both religion and law threatens democratic values and draws its appeal from a patriarchal psychology still alive in our personal and political lives and at threat from the constitutional developments since the 1960s. The argument analyzes this psychology (based on traumatic loss in intimate life) and resistance to it (based on the love of equals). Obama's resistance to originalism arises from his developmental history as a democratic, as opposed to patriarchal, man who resists the patriarchal demands on men and women that originalism enforces - in particular, the patriarchal love laws that tell people who and how and how much they may love.

The Rhetoric of Manhood

The Rhetoric of Manhood
Author: Joseph Roisman
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2005-02-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780520931138

The concept of manhood was immensely important in ancient Athens, shaping its political, social, legal, and ethical systems. This book, a groundbreaking study of manhood in fourth-century Athens, is the first to provide a comprehensive examination of notions about masculinity found in the Attic orators, who represent one of the most important sources for understanding the social history of this period. While previous studies have assumed a uniform ideology about manhood, Joseph Roisman finds that Athenians had quite varied opinions about what constituted manly values and conduct. He situates the evidence for ideas about manhood found in the Attic orators in its historical, ideological, and theoretical contexts to explore various manifestations of Athenian masculinity as well as the rhetoric that both articulated and questioned it. Roisman focuses on topics such as the nexus between manhood and age; on Athenian men in their roles as family members, friends, and lovers; on the concept of masculine shame; on relations between social and economic status and manhood; on manhood in the military and politics; on the manly virtue of self-control; and on what men feared.

Disarming Manhood

Disarming Manhood
Author: David A. J. Richards
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2005
Genre: Feminist theory
ISBN: 0804010749

Masculine codes of honor and dominance often are expressed in acts of violence, including war and terrorism. In Disarming Manhood: Roots of Ethical Resistance, David A.J. Richards examines the lives of five famous men—great leaders and crusaders—who actively resisted violence and presented their causes with more humane alternatives. Richards argues that Winston Churchill, William Lloyd Garrison, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Leo Tolstoy shared a psychology whose nonviolent roots were deeply influenced by a loving, maternalistic ethos deeply influenced by the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Drawing upon psychology, history, political theory, and literature, Richards threads a connection between these leaders and the maternal figures who profoundly shaped their responses to conflict. Their lives and work underscore how the outlook of maternal care givers and women enables some men to resist the violent responses characteristic of traditional manhood. The voice of nonviolent masculinity has empowered important democratic movements of ethical transformation, including civil disobedience in South Africa, India, and the United States. Disarming Manhood demonstrates that as Churchill, Garrison, Gandhi, King, and Tolstoy carried out their various missions they were galvanized by teachings whose ethical foundations rejected unjust violence and favored peaceful alternatives. Accessibly written and free of jargon, Disarming Manhood's exploration of human nature and maternal bonds will interest a wide audience as it furthers the understanding of human nature itself and contributes to the fields of developmental psychology and feminist scholarship.

Boys’ Secrets and Men’s Loves:

Boys’ Secrets and Men’s Loves:
Author: David A.J. Richards
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2019-06-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1796037265

Boys’ Secrets and Men’s Loves is the memoir of a law professor who has written over twenty books on the basic rights of American constitutionalism. He has been a prominent advocate of gay rights and feminism, which joins men and women in resistance. A gay man born into an Italian American family in New Jersey, he relates in this book his own experience on how the initiation of boys into patriarchy inflicts trauma, leading them to mindlessly accept patriarchal codes of masculinity, and how (through art, philosophy, and experience—including mutual love) he and others (straight and gay men) come to join women in resisting patriarchy through the discovery of how deeply it harms men as well as women.

The Ashgate Research Companion to Contemporary Religion and Sexuality

The Ashgate Research Companion to Contemporary Religion and Sexuality
Author: Andrew K.T. Yip
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2016-04-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1317043847

The Ashgate Research Companion to Contemporary Religion and Sexuality provides academics and students with a comprehensive and authoritative state-of-the-art review of current research in the area of sexuality and religion, broadly defined. This collection of expert essays offers an inter-disciplinary study of the important aspects of sexuality and religion, calling upon sociological, cultural, historical and theological contributions to an under-researched subject. The Companion focuses on the exploration of diverse religious faiths, spiritualities, and sexualities with contributions that embrace many contrasting approaches related to the contemporary context. By adopting a truly inter-disciplinary and multi-dimensional perspective, the Companion embraces the complexities of both sexuality and religion. Aimed primarily at a readership with specialist interest in both, The Ashgate Research Companion to Contemporary Religion and Sexuality offers an innovative and refreshing analysis of key theoretical and empirical issues in an increasingly relevant and expanding area of academic interest. The Companion comprises five main thematic sections, each with chapters ranging across a variety of crucial topics traversing various faith traditions. The principal themes are: epistemological and methodological issues; the significance of religious text; institutional religious settings; stability transformation and change; contesting hegemonic structures and discourses. Each section includes four chapters contributed by leading international experts in their respective fields and who are at the cutting-edge of current research. Collectively, they offer an inter-disciplinary and comprehensive survey of sexuality and religion.

Why Love Leads to Justice

Why Love Leads to Justice
Author: David A. J. Richards
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2016
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1107129109

This book tells the stories of notable historical figures whose resistance of patriarchal laws transformed ethical, political, and legal standards.

Resisting Injustice and the Feminist Ethics of Care in the Age of Obama

Resisting Injustice and the Feminist Ethics of Care in the Age of Obama
Author: David A.J. Richards
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2014-02-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1135099693

David A. J. Richards’s Resisting Injustice and The Feminist Ethics of Care in The Age of Obama: "Suddenly,...All The Truth Was Coming Out" builds on his and Carol Gilligan’s The Deepening Darkness to examine the roots of the resistance movements of the 1960s, the political psychology behind contemporary conservatism, and President Obama’s present-day appeal as well as the reasons for the reactionary politics against him. Richards begins by laying out the basics of the ethics of care and proposing an alternative basis for ethics: relationality, which is based in convergent findings in infant research, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology. He critically analyzes patriarchal politics and states that they are rooted in a reactionary psychology that attacks human relationality and ethics. From there, the book examines the 1960s resistance movements and argues that they were fundamentally oriented around challenging patriarchy. Richards asserts that the reactionary politics in America from the 1960s to the present are in service of an American patriarchy threatened by the resistance movements ranging from the 1960s civil rights movements to the present gay rights movement. Reactionary politics intend to marginalize and even reverse the ethical achievements accomplished by resistance movements—creating, in effect, a system of patriarchy hiding in democracy. Richards consequently argues that Obama’s appeal is connected to his challenge to this system of patriarchy and will examine both Obama’s appeal and the reactions against him in light of the 2012 presidential election. This book positions recent American political development in a broad analysis of the role of patriarchy in human oppression throughout history, and argues that a feminist-based ethics of care is necessary to form a more humane and inclusive democratic politics.