The Dilemmas of a Search for Cultural Synthesis

A Portrait of Cemil Meriç as a Conservative Intellectual

Bibliographic Data

ID6094416
AuthorsD Köksal (0009-0008-3246-5968, Bogaziçi University, corresponding author)
Year1999
Volume21
Pages79-101
Publication date1999-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Perspectives on Turkey (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0896-6346 • E-ISSN: 1305-3299
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0896634600006397
OpenAlexW2479616171
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited3

The altered psychological environment demanded a shift in emphasis from a pure critique of traditions to a critique of traditions coupled with a critique of modernity.Ashis Nandy, Traditions, Tyranny and UtopiasModern conservatism, at least in its philosophical form, is a child of what it attacks—modernity. If the central ethos of modernity is a belief in the plasticity of society and the individual, the central ethos of conservatism is a belief in the sanctity of community, kinship, tradition. Modernity's fascination with the new is matched by conservatism's defense of past tradition. It is on the priority of a past order bequeathed by history, and its traditional institutions, that the conservatives base their critique of modernity. The modernist idea that societies can be shaped, molded, and steered in new directions, and that individuals can direct their own destinies, finds its counterpart in conservative thought in the rediscovery of the past-its institutions, values, themes, structures

Aesthetics · Conservatism · Epistemology · Ethos · Kinship · Modernity · Order (exchange · Political science · Sociology · Anthropology · Law · Philosophy · Turkey's Politics and Society

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