The Philosophy of the Journal
We currently face a critical juncture in history in which the political agenda is in serious need of reconceptualisation and rearticulation, to support the significant achievements that structure the architecture of our liberties, civilities and wellbeing against monumental challenges and dangers. Significant developments such as political and state violence, detention without trial, the removal of suspects from jurisdictions that provide protections of fundamental rights, use of evidence obtained through torture, mass compulsory drugging, mass incarceration, wrongful child removal by the state and the expansion of security powers and surveillance, are reversing a thousand years of Human and Civil Rights protections and all this in a context of economic chaos and decline. These examples constitute nothing less than the dismemberment of the fundamental principles of civilization. It is therefore vital for academics, thinkers, campaigners and others who seek to participate in the democratic process to have access to a forum that is open to incorporating their concerns, ideas, initiatives and proposals and is able to accept controversy, debate and critical thinking. Philosophy has a duty to confront threats to our liberties, civilities and treasured lifestyles. All disciplines have evolved from the one unifying transdiscipline of philosophy, and argument and critique is the duty that all disciplines have inherited from their philosophical origins. Argument and critique is the essential prerequisite of appropriate actions. Hence, argument and critique is the unifying focus of our journal. Whereas academic journals have previously tended to be organized along subject or geographical lines, Argument & Critique [A&C] is organized around Libertarianism. The journal aims to stimulate debate and critical thinking around controversial topics. We hope to contribute to the Libertarian agenda across a broad front of popular issues. We are open access, meaning that readers have free access to academic papers and no fees are charged to authors. Open access sits coherently with the journal’s Libertarian philosophy. We are entirely non- profit making. Managing Editor The Managing Editor of the journal is Dr Lynne Wrennall who is the Executive Director, International Public Health Research Group, Liverpool John Moores University, UK. argumentandcritique@Outlook.com http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/HSS/114932.htm Responsibilities of the Managing Editor: The Managing Editor is responsible for the administration of all articles through the review process to publishing, ensuring timely processing of the articles, commissioning staff as needed. Responsible for publicity and reputation of the journal. She is also responsible for maintaining financial records relevant to the journal. Please send correspondence to: Dr Lynne Wrennall, Managing Editor, Argument and Critique. argumentandcritique@Outlook.com Argument & critique ISSN 2059-7606 |
The Thoughts of Others
I tend to use my page on the journal in a somewhat unstructured way to showcase short writings and artistic works that I feel express the spirit of the journal. These are some of the thoughts of others that express the ideals, insights, feelings and aspirations, that the journal is committed to uphold.
“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men and women— not from men and women who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.” Edward R. Murrow. “Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.” Albert Camus. “Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom… It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out.” David Foster Wallace, This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life “Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.” Satre. At this time, these words unavoidably rise to the occasion: ‘Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.” Dwight D. Eisenhower And of course this is worth remembering: “Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.” Frederick Neitzsche |