The paper demonstrates Plato's efforts to emancipate reason from the influence of mythological tradition developed among others by 'myth-creative' mimetic art that plays at mass audience's heart strings (Plato's 'Ion' is watched by twenty-thousand strong audience). As a result, the sphere of affects were marginalized later on by Christianity. Shakespeare appears here as one of the first liberators of that affective sphere, and as a fighter for artists' dignity, especially theatre artists. Brecht appears as a representative of the next wave of emancipation, who, like Plato before him, tries to empower the public and make him a subject. The theme of an actor and the fight for his dignity is an example of development of the significance of individuality in Europe's history.
The paper identifies four models of social involvement in Kierkegaard’s treatise The Single Individual. These models are embodied in four figures discussed by Kierkegaard: the professional leader of the crowd, the truth-witness, the politician who loves being a human being and loves humankind, and Kierkegaard himself as an author. The paper explores the motives, stances, activities and goals of these figures. It analyses their attitudes to the single individual and the crowd, as well as to politics. The investigation develops against the background of Martin Buber’s claim that Kierkegaard makes a demand on the single individual to withdraw from political life and renounce any ambition to form it.
This paper is an attempt to recompose a theory of the public from the position of sociology. The author seeks inspirational stimuli for such a goal in classic conceptualisations (Dewey, Arendt, Habermas, Fraser). He monitors the development of the concept of “publicness” and the penetration of information technologies into this domain. The author attempts to outline in form hypothesis the mechanism by which an individual becomes part of the public. In conclusion, the author discovers the public as sociability ferment, which is the universal ground for social movements and organized associations of civil society. The author's reasoning is based on the metatheory of the morphogenetic approach.
Based on an ethnographic study of folklore performance in contemporary Slovakia, this paper critically engages with „performance theory”, arguing that sometimes performance can be best understood by looking beyond moments of performance to the long, often arduous work of preparing for performance and reflecting on performances past. The author proposes studying folklore (and art more generally) not only as performance but also as „organization”, that is, as a set of enduring yet always shifting social relations. This approach enables us to see the modes of collectivity that emerge out of the social experience of art and, specifically, folklore.
The paper focuses on the disproportion the author sees in Rorty’s work. While the author prices highly Rorty’s anti-representationalism, he criticizes Rorty’s social and political philosophy, which, in his opinion, is rooted in early modern philosophy. The latter, he argues, emphasizes the dichotomy between subject and object – an approach characteristic for that period. In support of his claiming a big difference between full-fledge pragmatism and purely pragmatic eclecticism, the author compares Rorty’s and Dewey’s works to show that those of Dewey are considerably promising as for as the resolution of the problems of our society and politics.
The paper reflects on the gender specific nature of private and public spheres as discussed in feminist discourses in European and American contexts. Its aim is to explore the potential of the concepts of public and private in analysing the issue of reconciliation of work and family, connected with women’ presence in the public sphere, with the hierarchy between the public and private and with the gender power asymmetry. The public and private as analytical constructs are helpful in moving beyond the individual level and understanding the social-political structure and historical context. These categories characterize different value systems with a hierarchical relation connected with the construction of ‘two genders’ and gendered division of work. The paper also focuses on the concept of women’s emancipation, its justification and understanding of equality, and concrete changes in women’s life. Women’s experience of their ‘double existence’ in the public and private life is thematized as a question of reconciliation of work and family with some period particularities. Differences in forming men’s and women’s identifies during modernity depending on their experience in the two different worlds are shown as relevant.
In 1914 Theodor Haecker presented Kierkegaard to the German-speaking public as a social critic, when he published the translation of a fragment from Kierkegaard’s A Literary Review (1846). The translation inspired several influential authors of the interwar period, who commented on the condition of the society of that time. One of them was Karl Jaspers who believed that Kierkegaard’s views were more relevant in the 20th century than they were in the 19th century. In his work The Spiritual Condition of the Age (1931/1932) Jaspers adopted several motifs from Kierkegaard’s critique of society. In the present paper the author examines thematic points of intersection of Kierkegaard’s reflections on the public and Jaspers’ reflections on the mass. He elucidates also Kierkegaard’s and Jaspers’ views on excellence, envy, levelling and modern media. Both thinkers provide original and incisive analyses of the decadent features of modern society.
The paper deals with relationship between reasonable profit and risk in the provision of public passenger transport. In the first part, the paper analyses requirements for determination of reasonable profit in current time. The paper analyses actual determination of reasonable profit, too. Reasonable profit is often specified as percentage part of the costs. In the second part, there is an analysis of risks which affect reasonable profit. These risks are divided into two basic groups: cost risk and income risk. The paper describes ways of dividing risks between contractual sides. In the last part, the relationship which expresses the functionality between reasonable profit and risk in public passenger transport is discussed.
The authors provide an overview of the relations between terrorist atrocities and media coverage of the said atrocities through the analysis of media content present on Croatian Internet portals and national television in the case of terrorist abduction of a Croatian citizen Tomislav Salopek. The study was conducted via a qualitative discursive analysis. The authors focus on both identifying elements and reasons of the media coverage of that case as well as on their impact on the public. Also, the authors try to emphasise the historically important difference in interpretation of the definition of terrorism, especially in today’s context of advanced media technology and the phenomenon of live reporting on the events. For the purpose of understanding the impact terrorist activities have on government policy and especially on the psychological state of the public and the victims’ families, the authors pay particular attention to the ethical and legal standards when reporting on acts of terrorism.
The study deals with issues of agenda setting and influence of media operating at the local level to serve the public agenda in both theoretical and empirical perspective. The focus is on media, political and public agenda as well as the development of ideas about them. The main goal of the authors was to test hypotheses regarding the ability of media in agenda setting and highlighting certain attributes that influence their interpretation in terms of the public, as well as whether these effects manifest themselves at the local level. As an example, the authors studied the city of Žiar nad Hronom, Slovak Republic, which is also the publisher of the weekly Mestské noviny. They were interested in the function of the local media, especially the periodical, in the process of agenda setting, and their ability to influence public opinion in specific areas. These referred mainly to current and attractive themes form the viewpoint of the public and politicians. Locally, regional media is an essential tool for political communication and public opinion formation in a geographically defined area, and this markedly affects the character of the public agenda in the area in which they operate. Therefore, the authors were more interested in the impacts on the functioning of the media and media production at the local level.
This study maps the state of Jewish monuments and buildings after the Shoah. A number of synagogues and cemeteries in the border region had already been destroyed during the so-called Crystal Night and in the years of existence of the Reich’s Sudeten region. The Jewish monuments and buildings were also devastated on the territory of the Protectorate, where Jewish property was confiscated. After the liberation, it was impossible to solve the problem of the dismal state of the monuments and buildings. The catastrophic situation was made worse by the policy of so-called public interest, which the state organs had already begun to apply during the so-called natural restitutions from 1946 to 1948. After the February Revolution came a phase of open expropriation of church property and property of religious communities. The undignified exploitation of synagogues, devastation and also abolition of Jewish cemeteries and seizure of Jewish real estate continued. By symbolic recodification of meaning and through the physical disappearance of a number of Jewish monuments and buildings from the public space, the last evidences of the multi-cultural of the pre-war Czech space were disappearing. This paper analyses the mechanisms of power, its modes of argumentation, and minority attempts at defence.
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