Papers by Ronald Sundstrom
American Philosophical Quarterly, Sep 30, 2023
Critical philosophy of race, 2014
Businesses and Government Organizations need to exchange documents to execute transactions with t... more Businesses and Government Organizations need to exchange documents to execute transactions with the parties they trade or collaborate with. Providing the interoperability of electronic documents exchanged has been a huge challenge: Several domain specific standards have appeared such as RosettaNet Business Documents (Electronic Components,
American Philosophical Quarterly, Sep 30, 2023
Perspectives on Politics, 2021
embodiment of the whole people, can find intolerable. In short, the more technocratic the regime,... more embodiment of the whole people, can find intolerable. In short, the more technocratic the regime, the less populistwhich puts into question whether the combination of technocracy and populism can be sustained and extended beyond the cases Bickerton and Invernizzi Accetti adduce. Does the "new logic" of politics that the authors find in Western Europe apply to democracy in other parts of the world? Pure cases may be hard to find. If Bolsonaro's Brazil, Modi's India, and Trump's America exemplify the logic of technopopulism, they might be hybrid cases, where the old cleavages of region, religion, and class remain relevant. Does technocracy amplify the threat that populism poses to the rule of law and constitutional democracy, or does it temper it? Will democracy elsewhere betray the tendencies of democracy in Western Europe? This study puts these questions at the center of comparative politics as well as political theory. This is interpretive political science at its best: it combines conceptual innovation, a deep familiarity with historical cases and the details of contemporary politics, and normative urgency. Bickerton and Invernizzi Accetti's book is essential for those who wish to understand democracy and populism in Western Europe and the fate of democracy everywhere.
Philosophy & Geography, Feb 1, 2003
Radical Philosophy Review, 2006
Critical philosophy of race, Mar 1, 2016
Philosophy & Geography, Feb 1, 2004
Peace Review, Dec 1, 2006
Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf ... more Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article maybe used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution , reselling , loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Philosophia Africana, 2001
A CNNIUSATodaylGaliup poll taken a few days after 9111 showed that 58 percent of Americans backed... more A CNNIUSATodaylGaliup poll taken a few days after 9111 showed that 58 percent of Americans backed intensive security checks for Arabs, including those who were U.S. citizens, 49 percent favored special identification cards for "such people," and 32 percent supported "special surveillance" for them. And as a great civil libertarian friend of mine admitted quietly to me a few days after 9/1 I, the public safety eclipsed civilliberties in that moment of crises. In response, I thought to myself sadly, he, a white man, so easily surrendered what he thought to be someone else's civil rights for his peace of mind. I could understand, but can never accept my dear friend's bargain. Today, encouragingly, the press has taken an increasingly critical stance on the Bush administration's "war on terrorism" and a USA TodaylCNNIGaliup Poll conducted in September 2002 showed that 62 percent of those surveyed said govemment efforts to thwart terrorism should not violate basic civil liberties, even as the Attorney General has pursued and was granted by the courts in November 2002 expanded use of wiretaps and email monitoring, and the administration has begun to investigate Iraqis and Iraqi Americans in preparation for its war on Iraq. "We, the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union," establish military tribunals, enabled by executive fiat, that escape the protection of the Constitution, and through a U.S.A. Patriot Act (2001), ordain increased surveillance and expand the ability of govemment to conduct secret searches, give the attomey general and secretary of state the power to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations and deport any noncitizen who belongs to them, enable investigations of American citizens for "intelligence" purposes, and allow for the indefinite detention of noncitizens whom the attomey general deems dangerous to the national security. The press agreed to restrict our freedom of speech to avoid giving comfort to the enemy, and citizens scolded professors who were critical of the war and disciplined Muslims (and Sikhs) and Arabs and West, Central, and South Asians for their religious practice, dress, speech, and appearance. As Attorney General John Ashcroft told Congress in December 200 1, "those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty.. .only aid terrorists." "We, the People," established, in the days following Pearl Harbor, martial law in Hawaii and military zones in the Western Defense Command, and through an executive order enabled the removal and detention of citizen and noncitizen alike, depriving them of the Constitution's protection because of "military necessity." We learned later that surveillance of, and plans for Japanese Americans anticipated December 7, 1941, by about twenty-five years. And besides the selective detention in Hawaii and mass removal and detention along the West Coast, the U.S. deported undesirable aliens and administered a program of citizenship renunciation and "repatriation" after Japan's surrender. The affected people responded to their exclusion from the American community in related ways. Japanese Americans were advised to "speak American, think American, even dream American." They avoided gathering in groups, burned their flags, letters, and pictures, and destroyed their Japanese record albums. They were urged to volunteer for public work projects, donate blood, and contribute to the war effort. A few put up signs in their windows declaring, "I Am an American," and some Chinese Americans wore badges that pleaded, "Chinese please, not Japanese." Muslims and Sikhs, Arab and West, Central, and South Asian Americans faced the hard choice of attending or avoiding their mosque or gurdwara, of wearing a hajib or sari, of gathering in groups that might call attention to themselves.
draws the attention of moral, social, and political philosophy to the idea of integration, an ide... more draws the attention of moral, social, and political philosophy to the idea of integration, an idea that is most often associated with the struggles to desegregate schools and neighborhoods in the years before and after the U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board (Patterson 1997). Her book, The Imperative of Integration, is a remarkable contribution because integration is not frequently mentioned outside of debates in the fields of urban affairs and education policy, and residential integration and segregation are rarely mentioned in academic philosophy.
Philosophy Today, 2016
Comments on Shannon Sullivan's Good White People: The Problem with Middle-Class White Anti-Ra... more Comments on Shannon Sullivan's Good White People: The Problem with Middle-Class White Anti-RacismShannon Sullivan provides a diagnosis for the problems with the social scripts that middle-class, anti-racist white people think make them good, yet which serve to support white privilege and racial domination over non-whites, African Americans in particular, as well as poor whites. She identifies four strands of "white liberal anti-racism" behind this goodness in this order: (1) the abjection of so-called "white-trash" (2) the other-ing of white people's history and ancestry, (3) the idea and ideal of color-blindness-especially in respect to childrearing-and (4) the cultivation of white guilt, shame, and betrayal.In my comments I focus on the strands of (3) color-blindness and then (2) history. For Sullivan, liberal middle-class whites put space between themselves and lower-class whites, who are identified as the believers and practitioners of unreformed, ignorant, and reactionary racial ideas. This is an easy move for liberal middle-class whites, or to adopt Sullivan's phrase, "good white people." After throwing the distant relatives under the bus, or into the red state heaths, good white people put further conceptual distance between themselves and America's racial baggage by denying any connection to, or renouncing identification with, ancestral racism especially as connected with Black American slavery. This conceptual distancing separates them from ugly race-consciousness and sets up their embracing of variations of color-blindness.Sullivan's analysis of color-blindness is interesting because it offers another facet of the idea and ideal, one based on affect rather than narrow legalistic and normative reasoning or ideology, and its criticism adds a further dimension to the objections to color-blindness as an instrument of injustice and as an expression of racist ideology.Good white people adopt the rhetoric of color-blindness because it semantically captures and conceptually justifies their stated desire not "to see" race. Color-blindness is reproduced, as Sullivan explains, through their parenting. The motivation to adopt this rhetoric is straightforward. According to Sullivan: "color blindness can seem like an attractive parenting strategy to non-supremacist white parents. It allows them to avoid clumsy and difficult conversations about race and white domination in which they fear they will say something inadequate, wrong, or harmful . . . about race or racism" (86).There are three problems, according to her analysis, with utilizing color-blind rhetoric and using it as parental technique when dealing with race and racism in family discussions. First, an individual can state a belief in color-blindness while holding racist beliefs, experiencing racial antipathy, or engaging in racist behavior. The idea even in the form of the ideal falls short. Second, color-blindness "implicitly seeks a racially pure space, and thus enacts a form of white domination similar to white supremacy" (86). The white supremacist and the color-blind good white person falsely assume their white subjective position is the universal one and seek to negate non-whiteness, and more often than not, blackness. Third, adoption of color-blindness as a parental strategy forms the racial habit of not-seeing the relevant details of the lives of others. Parents don't really teach their children not to see difference, but rather to superficially see difference, and to not see the suffering and injustices that correlate with ethnic, racial, and class differences.Good white people and good white families, in Sullivan's analysis, take a "strange kind of pride in one's interpersonal cluelessness" (86). This cluelessness is part of the script of being a good white person and is fully consistent with the other principles of racial commonsense-the shifting litany of ideas, stereotypes, practices, and rules about race that guides our interactions-that are evident in the case studies that Sullivan draws upon to illustrate how good white parents politely police racial lines. …
Critical philosophy of race, 2014
Xenophobia is conceptually distinct from racism. Xenophobia is also distinct from nativism. Furth... more Xenophobia is conceptually distinct from racism. Xenophobia is also distinct from nativism. Furthermore, theories of racism are largely ensconced in nationalized narratives of racism, often influenced by the black-white binary, which obscures xenophobia and shelters it from normative critiques. This paper addresses these claims, arguing for the first and last, and outlining the second. Just as philosophers have recently analyzed the concept of racism, clarifying it and pinpointing why it's immoral and the extent of its moral harm, so we will analyze xenophobia and offer a pluralist account of xenophobia, with important implications for racism. This analysis is guided by the discussion of racism in recent moral philosophy, social ontology, and research in the psychology of racism and implicit attitudes.
Dialogue
D. C. Matthew argues that although integration offers blacks social and economic benefits, it als... more D. C. Matthew argues that although integration offers blacks social and economic benefits, it also creates the conditions for phenotypic devaluation that leads to harm against black self-worth and servile behaviour. Therefore, he advises against integration because the resulting self-worth harms outweigh the benefits of integration. I argue that Matthew's cost-benefit calculation against integration lacks the requisite evidence, and amounts to a luxury belief that will result in more harm. Moreover, his interpretation of behaviour — which he construes as being indicative of a lack of self-worth — is unfounded. Further, his cost-benefit calculation results in socially reactionary sexual policing and ideological purity tests.
Elizabeth Anderson draws the attention of moral, social, and political philosophy to the idea of ... more Elizabeth Anderson draws the attention of moral, social, and political philosophy to the idea of integration, an idea that is most often associated with the struggles to desegregate schools and neighborhoods in the years before and after the U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board. Her book, The Imperative of Integration, is a remarkable contribution because integration is not frequently mentioned outside of debates in the fields of urban affairs and education policy, and residential integration and segregation are rarely mentioned in academic philosophy. There are, however, some concerns with her defense of her defense of integration that do not give enough priority to community agency
Frederick Douglass (1817–1895) argued that newly emancipated black Americans should assimilate in... more Frederick Douglass (1817–1895) argued that newly emancipated black Americans should assimilate into Anglo-American society and culture. Social assimilation would then lead to the entire physical amalgamation of the two groups, and the emergence of a new intermediate group that would be fully American. He, like those who were to follow, was driven by a vision of universal human fraternity in the light of which the varieties of human difference were incidental and far less important than the ethical, religious, and political idea of personhood. Douglass’s version of this vision was formed by natural law theories, and a Protestant Christian conception of universal human fraternity, as it was for much of the abolition movement in the US and Britain. His vision and his fierce commitment to abolitionism, moreover, were characterized by his own experience of slavery. His political and ethical vision, his moral universe, generated his conception of America, his interpretation of the US cons...
Uploads
Papers by Ronald Sundstrom