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"Je suis en terrasse": political violence, civilizational politics, and the everyday courage to be
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Browning, Christopher S. (2018) "Je suis en terrasse": political violence, civilizational politics, and the everyday courage to be. Political Psychology, 39 (2). pp. 243-261. doi:10.1111/pops.12432 ISSN 1467-9221.
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Official URL: http://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12432
Abstract
Following the attacks against the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 and the subsequent acts of political violence in Paris the following November a number of memes spread swiftly across social media. Most notable of these were proclamations of Je suis Charlie, Je suis Paris, Je suis en terrasse and tricolorising one’s Facebook profile page. Although there are various ways by which this phenomenon might be explained this paper argues that, at least for some people, they seem to have operated as key mechanisms by which individuals/society sought to re-establish what Tillich calls ‘the courage to be’, and which in more contemporary terminology might be labelled a sense of ontological security – the ability to go on in the face of what would otherwise be debilitating anxieties of existential dread. The paper argues the memes did this through a number of mechanisms. These included, establishing a sense of vicarious identification with the victims; embracing increased levels of danger and seeking to confront the question of mortality head on; reasserting a sense of community and home via the re-instantiation of everyday routines now ascribed with enhanced political and existential significance; and reaffirming a new civilisationally inflected self-narrative.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies | ||||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Charlie Hebdo Attack, Paris, France, 2015, Terrorism -- France -- 21st century, Memes | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Political Psychology | ||||||||
| Publisher: | Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc. | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 1467-9221 | ||||||||
| Official Date: | April 2018 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 39 | ||||||||
| Number: | 2 | ||||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 243-261 | ||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1111/pops.12432 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 24 May 2017 | ||||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 25 May 2017 |
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