scholarly journals The Difference States Make: Democracy, Identity, and the American City

2003 ◽  
Vol 97 (4) ◽  
pp. 501-514 ◽  
Author(s):  
CLARISSA RILE HAYWARD
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
American City ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Identity And Difference

Most contemporary theorizing that addresses questions of democracy and difference is framed by broadly constructivist claims. Yet when it comes to thinking about democratic state intervention into social relations of difference, political theorists tend to stress reactive strategies, overlooking the role that democratic states play in helping shape and reinforce social definitions of difference. Exploring the case of the construction of racialized difference in the American city, the author makes the case that arguments for tolerating, for recognizing, and for deliberating across extant differences are insufficiently attentive to the role states play in making difference. Institutional efforts to deal with difference democratically should target the points at which it gets produced, aiming not simply to modify the effects of social definitions of identity and difference—but to democratize the processes through which these are defined and redefined.

scholarly journals Socio-cultural interpretation of the phenomenon of laughter in 'The Joker' (2019): Interpretation of the Western civilization man

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 1364-1390
Author(s):  
Zoran Nedeljković
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Homeless People ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Cultural Interpretation ◽  
The World ◽  
University Professor ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Impact

The author has given a socio-cultural interpretation of the phenomenon of laughter in the film "The Joker" (Todd, Phillips, 2019) as an individual as well as a social phenomenon of Western civilization. He considers the difference between the concepts of utopia, dystopia and utopistics as a possible solution to the problem that would avoid an optimistic and pessimistic view of the future of humanity. The author seeks a civilization parallel between the fictional world of film and the cultural elements of today. The necrophilic atmosphere of Gotham City is strikingly reminiscent of the spiritual lethargy that characterizes the postmodern metropolises of the 21st century. The fate of the film's protagonist could afflict any individual on our planet if they came to the realization that they are a personality, that they have created themselves, and that on their own spiritual skin they have felt the misunderstanding of others who do not wish to stand out from the crowd. The author notes that many protesters against the governing structures of the oligarchy of states around the world have identified themselves in their protest with the Joker, an anti-hero who in a century of tolerance defends with laughter when he feels that his existence is threatened. In this film, the Joker is the personification of a diseased society. Todd Philips' work is an attempt to draw attention to the fact that the stratification of the human community can lead to the breakdown of social relations, however much the governing establishment's media seek to entertain and laugh at masses of proletarians and homeless people without a cultural identity through entertainment shows. The impact of the film, as a work of art, was visible immediately after its broadcast in public. The failed clown Joker could not cure himself with laughter because his laughing was "crying upside down" out of despair that was contrary to the hope of a man who could seek the meaning of his life in two Christian virtues: faith and love. However, the author of this text offers a solution by reminding of the way of life of a specific person, which would save the world from moral panic. He introduces us to a man with an accomplished existence of being a clown and a university professor at the same time - E. Kiphard (1923-2010), who lived to help fellow men with a mission to treat people with laughter rather than to defend them with the Joker's unnatural and contagious laughter of an anti-utopian resident.

scholarly journals Perfectionism and endorsement constraint

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-104
Author(s):  
Michal Sládecek
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Good Life ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
State Action ◽  
State Coercion ◽  
The Difference

The article deals with Hurka?s critique of Kymlicka and Arneson?s critique of Dworkin on endorsement constraint thesis, according to which a person cannot have a valuable life if values are imposed on her - primarily by state action - overriding her preferences and convictions on the good life. This thesis has often been identified with neutral liberalism and counterposed to perfectionism. The text argues against Hurka?s and Arneson?s argument that mild coercion and paternalistic reduction of trivial, bad or worthless options can indeed bring about a more valuable life. Their argument does not acknowledge adequately the difference between coercion from a person?s immediate social environment and state coercion, which are not equally legitimate. My critique, however, does not exclude the legitimacy of perfectionistic measures, as a person could accept as justified state intervention concerning the support of particular values or goods, while at the same time not endorsing those values and goods. Not all endorsed goods or activities should be treated equally, as more relevant and valuable ones can be legitimately supported by particular policy.

Analyzing Gender Segregation in Comuting

2011 ◽  
pp. 25-30
Author(s):  
Leena Ghoshal ◽  
Katia Passerini
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Gender Segregation ◽  
Male Dominance ◽  
It Industry ◽  
Female Participation ◽  
The World ◽  
Computing Industry ◽  
Technical Advances ◽  
The Difference

Gender appears to be a fundamental category for ordering and classifying social relations in the world (Evans, 1994). The first thing we are told about a newborn is whether it is a boy or a girl. Gender as defined by Acker, (1992, p. 250) is a “patterned, socially produced distinction between female and male, feminine and masculine” and is a key concept for understanding the degree of male and female participation in any field, including information systems. This review aims at developing an understanding of some of the reasons that underlie (a) the gender segregation that exists within the broad, interrelated fields of computing (information systems (IS), information technology (IT), and computer science (CS)) and (b) the declining levels of female participation in the computing industry across the continents. The three computing disciplines (IS, IT, CS) and the computing profession clearly appear gender segregated, with a male dominance at all levels. As Booth (1999) noted, while one of the first software ever written for a machine was produced by a woman—Ada Lovelace in 1840, it is a male, Charles Babbage—the inventor of the difference calculating machine—that is generally accepted as the founding father of computing. Booth concludes: “And that, in microcosm, has been how the IT industry developed over the next 160 years—a combination of rapid technical advances leading to skills crisis while half the nation’s workforce has been routinely overlooked” (p. 47).

scholarly journals From exoticism to diversity: the production of difference in a globalized and fragmented world

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-36
Author(s):  
Michel Nicolau Netto
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
External Space ◽  
Dominant Discourse ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
The 19Th Century

Difference is a social construction, and as such it needs a discourse to produce meaning and be socially effective. As a discourse is always socially and historically grounded, so it is the meaning of difference. This article proposes that the difference in the contemporary world is dominantly articulated in the discourse of diversity, as the discourse of exoticism was the dominant discourse of difference in the 19th Century. This proposal will be proved as I show that, as diversity becomes the appreciated discourse in the present, the exoticism loses its value. Stating that, I will try to understand the conditions of existence of each discourse. I will argue that the exoticism was founded in the 19th century upon three fundaments: imperialism, the idea of progress and nation. They provided the condition for a discourse that based the production of difference on the stable separation of an internal and an external space. After examining the fundaments and their relations with the discourse of exoticism, I will show that the production of difference is no longer based on stable notions of internal and external spaces. Currently, difference is produced on the basis of fragmented and globalized social relations, which requires a discourse flexible enough to cope with these material conditions. The discourse of diversity is this discourse.

Recurrent gestures

Gesture ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-244
Author(s):  
David McNeill
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Real World ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Social ◽  
Inside View ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Social Deixis ◽  
Interior View ◽  
Gesture Production

Abstract Using recurrent gestures as the model, this essay considers how an inside-looking-out view of speech-gesture production reflects the interactive-social exterior. The inside view may appear to ignore the social context of speaking and gesture, but this is far from the truth. What an exterior view sees as important appears in the interior but in a different way. The difference leads to misunderstandings of the interior view and what it does. It is not a substitute for the exterior. It is the interior reflecting the social exterior and shaping it to fit its own demands. Topics are: recurrent gestures; gesture-speech co-expressivity; expunged real-world goals; “in-betweenness”; phenomenological “inhabitance” and material carriers; metaphoricity and imagery; social deixis and social relations; realizations of the self; world-views; and lastly the want of mutual outside and inside intellectual perceptions and what can be done about it.

scholarly journals Noch einmal: Zum Verhältnis von Moralität und Sittlichkeit

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 729-743 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Habermas
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Frankfurt School ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Philosophical Discourse ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Relations Of Power

Abstract Ever since Hegel made poignant the difference between morality and ethical life (“Sittlichkeit”), philosophical discourse in the traditions that developed subsequently, up to and including the Frankfurt school, has oscillated between those poles. This paper starts out with a short exposition of autonomy as one of the few large-scale innovations in the history of philosophy and then proceeds to discuss Hegel’s concept of “Sittlichkeit” and the objections to be raised against it from a Kantian point of view. Political theory, however, has to move beyond pure normativism and consider actual social relations of power, as Marx disclosed. Mapping out this winding trajectory from Kant to Marx provides some perspective that may be illuminating for challenging present-day issues.

Small States, Nationalism and Institutional Capacities: An Explanation of the Difference in Response of Ireland and Denmark to the Financial Crisis

2015 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Campbell ◽  
John A. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Banking Sector ◽  
Financial Burden ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Small States ◽  
2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Liberal Market Economy

AbstractThis paper uses theories of small states (e.g. Katzenstein) and nationalism (e.g. Gellner) to explain why Denmark and Ireland responded to the 2008 financial crisis in different ways. In Denmark, a coordinated market economy with considerable corporatism and state intervention, the private sector shouldered much of the financial burden for rescuing the banking sector. In Ireland, a liberal market economy without much corporatism or state intervention, the state shouldered the burden. The difference stems in large part from the fact that Denmark had comparatively thick institutions and a strong sense of nationalism whereas Ireland did not. Lessons for the theories of small states and nationalism are explored.

The effect of alcohol administration on social behavior of rats with experimental schizophrenia

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (S1) ◽  
pp. S377-S377
Author(s):  
A. Egorov ◽  
E. Kutcher ◽  
N. Chernikova ◽  
M. Dorofeikova
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Male Rats ◽  
Ethanol Administration ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Animal Modeling ◽  
Bottle Test ◽  
Behavioral Parameters ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Competing Interest ◽  
And Control

Experimental animal modeling of schizophrenia and alcoholism allows understanding the mechanisms of comorbid pathology formation. The aim was to investigate the effect of ethanol administration on social relations in rats with experimental schizophrenia.The study was carried out on 30 Wistar adult male rats aged. After 2 weeks isolation rat social ranks were determined. Alcohol preference was evaluated in the two-bottle test. Schizophrenia was modeled by administering to rats (n = 15) dopamine precursor levodopa-carbidopa (LC) during 5 days each month in four months experiment. The control animals (n = 15) received water. All animals were subjected to intermittent alcoholization throughout the experiment after the introduction of the LC. The behavioral parameters evaluated in the “open field” and “despair” tests.It was found out that the experimental rats who received alcohol did not differ in the number of interactions compared to the rats who received only alcohol. In the rats with experimental schizophrenia a significantly higher social interactions were observed compared to the control group. This is consistent with the results of the clinical studies, which have shown that patients often drink alcohol to relieve anxiety and tension. The two-bottle test has shown the difference between the experimental and control groups only in the first week of the experiment. Apparently, this can be explained by the prolonged isolation. In the despair test, before the alcoholization, the rats with experimental schizophrenia were completely immobilized, compared to the controls. After alcoholization the differences in the despair test were not observed.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

The Social History of confession in the Age of the Reformation

1975 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 21-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Bossy
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Historical Discourse ◽  
Traditional Church ◽  
The Social ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Individual

When I offered to read a paper on this subject, I had a particular hypothesis in mind. I thought—perhaps it would be more honest to say, I hoped—it would be possible to show that, during a period roughly contemporaneous with the Reformation, the practice of the sacrament of penance in the traditional church had undergone a change which was important in itself and of general historical interest. The change, I thought, could roughly be described as a shift from the social to the personal. To be more precise, I thought it possible that, for the average layman, and notably for the average rural layman in the pre-reformation church, the emphasis of the sacrament lay in its providing part of a machinery for the regulation and resolution of offences and conflicts otherwise likely to disturb the peace of a community. The effect of the Counter-Reformation (or whatever one calls it) was, I suspected, to shift the emphasis away from the field of objective social relations and into a field of interiorized discipline for the individual. The hypothesis may be thought an arbitrary one: we can but see. I think it will be admitted that, supposing it turned out to be correct, we should have learnt something worth knowing about the difference between the medieval and the counter-reformation church, and something about the difference between pre- and post-reformation European society. If if did not turn out to be correct, we might nevertheless expect to pick up some useful knowledge about something which is scarcely a staple of current historical discourse, though it threatens to become so.

scholarly journals Legal Regulation, Legal Impact, and Legal Support: An Index of Indeterminacy

2020 ◽  
pp. 46-53
Author(s):  
Onishchenko N. M.
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
Psychological State ◽  
Coherent System ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Regulatory Processes ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Legal Security

Introduction. One of the tasks of the general theory of law is the development of a categorical-conceptual apparatus. All the more, so when it comes to mutually consistent and mutually evolving categories. In our case it is “legal regulation”, “legal influence” and “legal support”. It is clear, that these categories are not synonymous, but it is also clear that they are interdependent in the context of the current regulatory processes. The aim of the article. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the correlation of the categories of “legal regulation”, “legal influence” and “legal support”, to point out their non-identical, but interrelated nature. Results. Modern law in a democratic state is not only directly regulating certain social relations, by fixing in the norms their specific patterns of behavior, rights and obligations of their participants, etc., but also influences their further development, to a certain extent determines the trends of their evolution in the future, thereby ensuring the interests of the subjects of law and the possibility of foreseeing their prospects for their further activity. Legal regulation can be characterized as a special formalized method of state regulation of actions of legal entities in order to direct their behavior in accordance with the interests of citizens, society and the state, it requires a comprehensive study of the relevant constituents in their inseparable interaction, that is, as a coherent system, consisting of certain links that interact and each of them follows from the previous one. Any regulation at the same time is, certainly, a certain influence, but not any influence is a regulation, normalization of social life. Legal influence can be characterized as comprehensive and multifaceted (psychological, state-willed, formal, regulatory, etc.) action of law, and legal regulation is a special action of law, which differs in form and content, which is exercised through the subjective rights and obligations of the subjects of law acting as subjects of specific legal relations. The essence of the category “legal security” must be considered in view of the meaning of the term “security”, the multidimensional meaning of which organically follows from the verb “to provide”, that is, to provide sufficient means for something, to make something real workable, to create the necessary conditions for the implementation of something, to guarantee something. Legal support can be seen as a process that guarantees the effective fulfillment of the objectives of legal regulation; legal support includes not only the relevant legal components, but also specific social factors, circumstances, processes, etc., which mediate the effect of legal rules and constitute a link between law and certain social relations. Conclusions. Legal support includes: 1) legal regulation; 2) legal influence; 3) a set of measures and guarantees that ensure the reality and effectiveness of the implementation of legal rules. Legal support includes a certain set of phenomena accompanying it, which give legal regulation quality of real efficiency, achievement of the last socially useful and significant results. Legal support is impossible without legal regulation and legal influence, which are its original prerequisites or bases. However, legal regulation and legal influence often take place outside the context of legal support (for example, when formally certain relationships are regulated by law, but there is no effectiveness of legal regulation, so the socially beneficial effect to which it was directed is not achieved).

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