The Politics of Moral Patience

Abstract

Pluralistic societies perpetually seek for ways to get along, given the reality of that pluralism. That search generates pluralistic responses which include forbearance, concord, tolerance, radical democracy, among many others. This paper begins to explore the putatively rich notion of moral patience as a way of being in the world as Christians; moral patience as a way of living with the ‘‘other’’ without reducing the importance of the Christian faith and practice; moral patience as a way of setting the stage for living with long-term difference but without terminal division; moral patience not just as a way of taking a long time to make decisions, but as the finding of a way forward and getting on with life without first coming to some form of unified resolution. Specifically, my purpose is to argue that moral patience creates time and space for the Christian community to develop an ethic of discipleship; i.e. a politics that finds its source in the patience of God, in the imitation of Jesus Christ, and in the power of the Spirit. Such moral patience acts as a sort of political and ethical capacity, and encourages us to believe that because God has time, we also have time — to listen, to be vulnerable, to engage in important conflicts without becoming violent, to refuse to be driven by the speed that society seeks to impose on us, and to resist the notion that the world and other people are directly in our control — indeed to resist the notion that we are radically autonomous individual entities. The paper concludes with a brief glance at how the Christian practice of moral patience might shape work in a number of fields of moral inquiry.     

Orthodox violence: “Critique of Violence” and Walter Benjamin's Jewish political theology

This paper deals with the role of Judaism in Walter Benjamin's famous 1921 essay on violence and law, Zur Kritik der Gewalt. Despite the intense attention devoted to this essay, the role of Jewish myth in it has not yet been thoroughly explained. This study contends that the association between what Benjamin termed revolutionary violence and the Jewish messianic tradition, which plays a central role in the evaluation of Benjamin's text, is far more problematic than has hitherto been assumed, and poses a serious challenge, which has not been fully examined in its historical context. Second, this essay claims that the subversive elements that many have supposedly found in Benjamin's text and the attempts to link these elements to messianic traditions are also unconvincing. Third, the paper contextualizes Benjamin's thought within the framework of the Jewish political–theological debate of the period. It contends that Benjamin's theory of law and justice should be understood not as a revolutionary, anti-republican text, as has been generally accepted, but as a secularized conservative orthodox one. In doing so, it seeks to shed light not only on Benjamin's early thinking and its influences, but also on the neglected element of Jewish orthodoxy within the broader topic of political theology.     

Carlylean Sentiment and the Platonic Triad in Anne of Green Gables

Humor in Anne of Green Gables serves the novel’s realism, establishing the perspective of a child. The humanistic humor and overblown, imaginative realism in Montgomery’s work is both a burlesque on Romantic attitudes and a vehicle for her social outlook, an outlook which is decidedly conservative. Like Thomas Carlyle in Past and Present, Montgomery creates in Avonlea an idealized past that serves (in part) as a moral standard from which she can gauge modernity. Anne’s optimism, her “ambitions,” humanizes Marilla’s Calvinism, Marilla’s tendency toward emotional austerity. But from the mid-point of the novel onwards, the humor is made increasingly at Anne’s expense as Montgomery satirizes Romantic pretensions and steers her heroine away from the extremes of childhood into an adult sense of individual balance and duty.     

Relational alterity: Constructing dungan (hui), uygur,and Kazakh identities across china,central Asia,and Turkey

Reaching wide and diverse audiences, magic lantern shows and postcards played an important role in the dissemination of visual knowledge of other cultures in the British colonial era. Fakirs were a popular subject of postcards and lantern slides representing India. This reflected the official attention paid to religious ascetics who were seen as representative of everything that was problematic and in need of improvement in the country in colonial texts. Images of fakirs stood in a tradition of the representation of the “type”. However, following Barthes, it is important to analyse the connection between image and text. Lantern shows came with readings, which were more often preserved than images, but specific examples of images and texts together are taken from Harold Mackinder's and John Stoddard's lectures on India. The lectures are evidently anchored in the colonial discourse, while the images of postcards and slides evade the boundaries set by the text.     

Analysis of the Aft Ballast Pump Onboard the American Civil War-era Submarine H.L. Hunley

Since its discovery and raising offshore of Charleston, Warren Lasch Conservation Center scientists have conducted extensive research on the contents and components of the American Civil War submarine H.L. Hunley, the first successful combat submarine. Recent conservation of the aft ballast pump has led to greater focus on the function and configuration of the ballast system and how it pertains to the submarine's sinking. This article relays the latest interpretation on design and use of the ballast system onboard the Hunley; findings from historical research on the components, operation and design of the aft pump, and avenues for further research. Understanding the ballast system and pump may prove highly relevant in answering questions regarding the loss of the vessel and her crew.     

Maps,Painting and Lies Portraying Napoleon's Battlefields in Northern Italy

A comparison of Giuseppe Bagetti's landscape sketches, watercolours, oil paintings and engravings with contemporary maps and the existing landscape reveals that in the creation of Bagetti's landscapes, narrative played a role that differed in cartographic and artistic representations. The comparison also demonstrates that his images were powerful constructions that were more successful in reflecting a narrative of glorious conquest than was possible through cartography. This paper offers a critical examination of Bagetti's representations of Napoleon's northern Italian campaign, which he sketched and painted between 1802 and 1809. Bagetti's paintings were neither pacifist nor an expression of Piedmontese patriotism but instead were inspired by, and constructed according to, a narrative about the conquest that reflected the views of the French authorities. The narrative found expression in formal written instructions from the central cartographical office in the Dépôt de la guerre, Paris, in verbal and written instructions from Bagetti's immediate superior, Jean François Martinel, and in letters personally addressed to Bagetti from the officer commanding the Dépôt. It is clear from a careful reading of the correspondence and from a comparison of Bagetti's paintings with both the present landscape and maps made at the time that Bagetti's disputes with his supervisors revolved around protecting his artistic integrity and reputation rather than resisting the authority of a foreign regime.     

Bio-archaeological evidence of olive tree (Olea europaea L.) irrigation during the Middle Ages in Southern France and North Eastern Spain

Quantitative eco-anatomical analyses were carried out on charred wood from modern olive trees (Olea europaea L.) in order to quantify influence of irrigation on wood characters and to detect irrigated olive specimens among charcoal assemblages dating back to the Middle Ages.     

Fruits of Lithospermum officinale L. (Boraginaceae) used as an early plant decoration (2500 years BP) in Xinjiang,China

Fruits glued on two wooden tubs were discovered in the Yanghai Tombs of Xinjiang, China. The tombs were built about 2500 years ago. Morphological and anatomical features of fruits show them to be Lithospermum officinale L. The fruits were assembled into obtriangular shapes along the tub mouth. This is a report of people using plant fruits for decorative purposes 2500 years before present.     

雍正、乾隆朝引见绿营武官分析

文章依据雍正、乾隆朝引见绿营武官的履历档案,分析了这一时期绿营武官的籍贯、民族等问题,并比较雍正、乾隆两朝的变化特点。揭示了旗人特别是满人的选官特权在乾隆朝更明显,任职比例大幅攀升,任职层级提高,且多在战略要地任职。陕甘籍官员以功绩、福建籍官员以水师技能也分享了选官特权。乾隆朝武官人事渐显因循化趋势,循资任职比例增多,避籍制度宽松、年龄增大。通过对出兵记录的分析,估算了这一时期出兵西北、西南和台湾的比例。     

The Rolt Memorial Lecture 2015: Defining the Vintage Car: L.T.C. Rolt,the Vintage Sports Car Club and the Rise of Motoring Heritage

This paper examines the role played by the engineering historian, biographer and pioneer of canal and railway preservation, L.T.C. Rolt, in the development of an appreciation of motoring heritage. It concentrates on his involvement with the Vintage Sports Car Club in the 1930s, in which he played a key role in defining what a vintage car was. It examines the way in which this helped develop many of the themes that ran throughout his writing and gave him the practical skills needed in his later campaigning for the preservation of industrial heritage.

It also looks at the way in which Rolt's views on the car's impact mirror those held by others, and at the difficulties this posed to someone who was passionate about engineering and yet was horrified by the consequences of industrialisation. His advocacy of the vintage car was the beginning of his lifelong campaign to uphold craftsmanship and skills and to commemorate the role of the engineer and the craftsman in Britain.