Social and Political Freedom: a Pastoral Theological Perspective—Part II
As noted in part I of this paper (published in the June 2021 issue of Pastoral Psychology), freedom is typically framed in terms of justice, equality, rights, reason, and agency. In this second part, I describe social and political freedom from the perspective of care and faith. I first discuss brie...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Springer Science Business Media B. V.
2021
|
| In: |
Pastoral psychology
Year: 2021, Volume: 70, Issue: 5, Pages: 487-505 |
| Further subjects: | B
Space of appearances
B Psychosocial development B Faith B Freedom B Care |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | As noted in part I of this paper (published in the June 2021 issue of Pastoral Psychology), freedom is typically framed in terms of justice, equality, rights, reason, and agency. In this second part, I describe social and political freedom from the perspective of care and faith. I first discuss briefly what I mean by care and faith. Once this is accomplished, I begin with a description of the pre-political space or communicative space of the parent-child interaction. This is a necessary step in distinguishing between two related but distinct concepts, namely, social and political freedom. I contend that the parent’s social freedom is expressed in their care of the child, which includes the parent’s recognition of the infant as a person and, correspondingly, the parent’s decision to limit themself for the sake of addressing the needs of the child. Parental care or attunement fosters a communicative space of trust wherein the child obtains a sense of self-esteem, self-respect, and self-confidence and nascent agency in asserting their needs and desires—a proto-social freedom. Included here is a brief discussion of the process of bridging the proto-social freedom experienced in the pre-political, communicative space of a good-enough family to the capacity for and experiences of social-political freedom in the larger world. I conclude by addressing questions regarding the relation between the pre-political space of the family and the larger political-public spaces. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1573-6679 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Pastoral psychology
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s11089-021-00969-y |