{"id":10057,"date":"2016-11-03T08:08:04","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T15:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=10057"},"modified":"2016-11-03T08:08:04","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T15:08:04","slug":"social-theory-jurgen-habermas-and-the-rise-of-nationalism-in-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/social-theory-jurgen-habermas-and-the-rise-of-nationalism-in-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Theory, Jurgen Habermas, and the Rise of Nationalism in 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jurgen Habermas<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\u8521\u82f1\u6587\u5b98\u65b9\u5143\u9996\u8096\u50cf\u7167\"<\/a>\"Rodrigo_Duterte_and_Laotian_President_Bounnhang_Vorachith_(cropped)\"\"Theresa_May_UK_Home_Office_(cropped)\"<\/a>\"Donald_Trump_August_19,_2015_(cropped)\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Faces of 2016<\/p>\n

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Contemporary Social Theory, In Introduction, Anthony Elliott (2009)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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This book began by telling a story of a young, ethnically Chinese woman who was an American citizen, yet lived in England, worked and France, and had a boyfriend in Finland. This story set the tone for the rest of the book, which often addressed the topic of globalization.<\/p>\n

The concept of globalization (worldwide integration and development) is nothing new. Franz L. Neumann, of the first generation \u201cFrankfurt School\u201d wrote about the momentous political and legal transformations that were happening under globalization.<\/p>\n

His successor, Jurgen Habermas, developed Neumann\u2019s work further. Habermas conceived of a \u201ccosmopolitan global government.\u201d (Loc 4607)<\/p>\n

Habermas states:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fiscal bias for social policies has steadily dwindled, while the state has increasingly lost its capacity to steer the economy via macroeconomic policy. Moreover, the integral force of nationality as a way of life is diminishing, along with the relatively homogenous basis of civil solidarity. \u00a0As nation-states increasingly lose their capacity for action and the stability of their collective identities they will find it more and more difficult to meet the need for self-legitimation.\u201d<\/p>\n

As I read this, I wonder what Habermas thinks of 2016. There are so many places in the world that seems to be running from globalization. Here are some examples:<\/p>\n

The Election of Tsai Ing-wen as the President of Taiwan.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In May of 2016, Tsai Ing-wen was elected as the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Not only is she Taiwan\u2019s first woman president, she is the first non-married president, and the first president who has never held elective office. More importantly, she is the first president of the Republic of China who is not Han Chinese. She is a mix of Hakka and Aboriginal Taiwanese.<\/p>\n

The significance of her election (a landslide with over 25 points above her opponent) is that her party, the Democratic Progressive Party, has taken a strong stand against the People\u2019s Republic of China. This is significant because the Chinese Civil War of the 1950s never really ended. Mainland China continues to state emphatically that Taiwan belongs to them\u2014and that they may take it over by force without notice. More realistically, Taiwan\u2019s economy relies on a lot of contracts with the Mainland. The election of Tsai in Taiwan has caused a new wave of nationalism in Taiwan, even though it could possibly bring economic and political instability, even war.<\/p>\n

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The Election of Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In May of 2016, another nationalistic president was elected. Rodrigo Duterte was elected as the president of the Philippines. Duterte was the first President of the Philippines who came from the island of Mindanao, which is traditionally known for violence brought form by with Muslim Jihadists or Communist Insurgents.<\/p>\n

Duterte won in a landslide, primarily because of his hard stance against drugs. Nicknamed \u201cThe Punisher\u201d by Time Magazine, human rights groups document the killings of over 1,400 drug dealers and drug users by his command, some of them being street children.<\/p>\n

Duterte is an unabashed womanizer was largely criticized for 2016 his comments made in regards to an Australian missionary woman who was gang raped and killed. When he saw how beautiful her corpse was, he stated that he should have been the first to rape her.<\/p>\n

Duterte\u2019s nationalism has been in the news lately, he has made several public statements that he would like to end the Philippines longstanding alliance with the United States. His tirade of curses against President Obama caused the U.S. State Department to cancel upcoming meetings between the two.<\/p>\n

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The Brexit Referendum\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

On the 24th<\/sup> of June, 2016 citizens of Great Britain voted 51.9% in favor of leaving the European Union. There are many political, social, and economic factors that played into this. To this date, the exact consequences of this decision are unclear.<\/p>\n

What is clear is that nationalism among the British people played a major role in this decision. Brexit seemed to be England\u2019s movement away Habermas\u2019 vision of increased globalization.<\/p>\n

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The Rise of Donald J. Trump<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As of this writing, the U.S. Presidential election of 2016 has not happened. No matter who wins, the rise of Donald J. Trump in American politics is something that no one saw coming.<\/p>\n

His announcement to run in 2015 was draped in controversy as he espoused a theory that Mexico was intentionally emptying their prisons to send us their murderers and rapists. For many in the media, his campaign was a circus act, following one outrageous comment after another, wanting to catch his downfall on live television. \u00a0Instead, we watched Trump pull ahead of over a 15 other Republican contenders for the presidency, some with impressive resumes.<\/p>\n

Donald J. Trump has given voice a nationalistic group of Americans who care nothing for political correctness. \u00a0Many of his supporters have been politically inactive. \u00a0This flag-waving, racially insensitive, misogynistic candidate has assembled a coalition who feels that the globalization of the world is leaving them behind. From foreign-trade to immigration, Trump\u2019s supporters do not want a progressive, sensitive leader. They want someone who will fight to rebuild American status quo the past (AKA “Make American Great Again.”)<\/p>\n

While Social Theory was a challenging read, it reminded me of the classis illustration of the pendulum. Just when social theorists have identified a trend, history changes. I am curious what Habermas will write in 2017.<\/p>\n

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The Faces of 2016   Contemporary Social Theory, In Introduction, Anthony Elliott (2009)   This book began by telling a story of a young, ethnically Chinese woman who was an American citizen, yet lived in England, worked and France, and had a boyfriend in Finland. This story set the tone for the rest of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[748,747,719,749],"class_list":["post-10057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brexit","tag-cocanougher","tag-social-theory","tag-trump","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10057\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}