Releasing Masculinity for a More Just World: Lessons on How to “Be Water” in Hong Kong

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Charlie Yi Zhang

This article develops a feminist reading of the biographical action series featuring Ip Man, the Wing Chun grand master lionized for mentoring Bruce Lee, as a set of culturally inflected practices in order to probe the sociohistorical structure that embeds and overdetermines these productions and allows for new, subversive potentialities. Building upon situated engagement, my analysis traces how the hypermasculine violent yanggang aesthetic tradition takes on new life by reclaiming women's voices in the Ip Man film franchise. I also identify the ways in which this filmic remaking of Ip's life story builds an alternative embodiment that unsettles musculature as the ground of colonialist/nationalist dominance and lays the basis for a new horizon of justice encapsulated by the flexible and elastic “Be Water” sensibility. As human beings are facing the common threat posed by prevailing toxic masculinity, these lessons, I argue, are crucial for us to find a path through the turbulence and build a more peaceful world.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 59-68
Author(s):  
Peter Takáč

AbstractLookism is a term used to describe discrimination based on the physical appearance of a person. We suppose that the social impact of lookism is a philosophical issue, because, from this perspective, attractive people have an advantage over others. The first line of our argumentation involves the issue of lookism as a global ethical and aesthetical phenomenon. A person’s attractiveness has a significant impact on the social and public status of this individual. The common view in society is that it is good to be more attractive and healthier. This concept generates several ethical questions about human aesthetical identity, health, authenticity, and integrity in society. It seems that this unequal treatment causes discrimination, diminishes self-confidence, and lowers the chance of a job or social enforcement for many human beings. Currently, aesthetic improvements are being made through plastic surgery. There is no place on the human body that we cannot improve with plastic surgery or aesthetic medicine. We should not forget that it may result in the problem of elitism, in dividing people into primary and secondary categories. The second line of our argumentation involves a particular case of lookism: Melanie Gaydos. A woman that is considered to be a model with a unique look.


1988 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-246
Author(s):  
Mohammad A. Siddiqui

IntroductionCommunication today is increasingly seen as a process through whichthe exchange and sharing of meaning is made possible. Commtinication asa subject of scientific inquiry is not unique to the field of mass communication.Mathematicians, engineers, sociologists, psychologists, political scientists,anthropologists, and speech communicators have been taking an interest inthe study of communication. This is not surprising because communicationis the basic social process of human beings. Although communication hasgrown into a well developed field of study, Muslim scholars have rdrely hcusedon the study of communication. Thus, a brief introduction to the widely usedcommunication concepts and a framework for the study of communicationwithin the context of this paper is provided.In 1909, Charles Cooley defined communication from a sociologicalperspective as:The mechanism through which human relations exist and develop -all the symbols of mind, together with the means of conveyingthem through space and preserving them in time. It includes theexpression of the face, attitude and gesture, the tones of the voice,words, writing, printing, railways, telegraph, and whatever elsemay be the latest achievement in the conquest of space and time.In 1949, two engineers, Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, definedcommunication in a broader sense to include all procedures:By which one mind may affect another. This, of course, involvesnot only written and oral speeches, but also music, the pictorialarts, the theater, the ballet, and, in kct, all human behavior.Harold Lasswell, a political scientist, defines communication simply as:A convenient way to describe the act of communication is to answerthe following question: Who, says what, in which channel, towhom, with what effect?S.S. Stevens, a behavioral psychologist, defines the act of communication as:Communication occurs when some environmental disturbance (thestimulus) impinges on an organism and the organism doessomething about it (makes a discriminatory response) . . . Themessage that gets no response is not a commnication.Social psychologist Theodore Newcomb assumes that:In any communication situation, at least two persons will becommunicating about a common object or topic. A major functionof communication is to enable them to maintain simultaneousorientation toward one another and toward the common object ofcommunication.Wilbur Schramm, a pioneer in American mass communication research,provides this definition:When we communicate we are trying to share information, anidea, or an attitude. Communication always requires threeelements-the source, the message, and the destination (thereceiver).


Author(s):  
David Matzko McCarthy

This essay considers the modern tradition of Catholic social teaching (CST). CST finds its roots in the biblical, patristic, and medieval periods, but was inaugurated in particular by Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum novarum (1891) and has been sustained by a range of papal encyclicals and conciliar documents since. The documents of CST emphasize that human beings are created for mutual cooperation and a pursuit of common good in social, economic, and political life. The essay considers first CST’s developing account of how social relations may be governed by Christian charity. It then considers the nature of property within economic relations as conceived within CST. The final section considers CST’s reflections on political life, which is understood as primarily personal and dependent on relations of mutual rights and responsibilities that are directed to the common good.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-82
Author(s):  
Gabriel F. Y. Tsang

Masculinity, in Lacan’s sense, is an imagination. To specifically theorise Chinese masculinity, Kam Louie examined the elements of wen (cultural attainment) and wu (martial valour) rendered through historical or artistic images, and Song Geng and Derek Hird guide the discussions about Chinese manhood represented in everyday life. With a Marxist perspective, Lo Kwai Cheung illustrated the dissolvability of Chinese masculinity under international capitalism. With reference to Aristotle, it is supposed that Chinese masculinity, similar to ‘tragicity’ in nature, can be represented through imitating actions and hence be perceived. Based on Aristotle’s understanding, we can regard actions as ‘iterable’ media (like Derrida’s understanding of written texts) which engender performances according to the genealogy of quantitative mimesis. Integrating theoretical discussions with a chronological approach, my full paper will go through following points in order to summarise the changes in Hong Kong crime films from the post-Bruce Lee era to the 2000s: (1) Hong Kong crime film inherited the martial side of masculinity from action films and became a popular genre since A Better Tomorrow was well received in the mid-1980s. (2) Many directors diversified the interpretation of crime in the late 1980s and the 1990s, but remained a focus on the strength, nimbleness and boldness of men. (3) After the decline of Hong Kong film industry for several years, Infernal Affairs’s success renewed the representation of manhood. (4) From the 2000s to now, male characters in crime films are preferably intelligent and wisely-romantic, like the fragile scholar in ancient China. (5) While globalisation seems to be eliminating the Chineseness of Chinese masculinity, I argue that geographical specificity and different speed of cultural development lead to the impossibility of synchronic masculine similarity. (6) Through a brief discussion concerning Hollywood’s adaptation of Hong Kong films, I argue that local masculinity is not transformable.  


Author(s):  
Sivayogana R. ◽  
Madhu R. ◽  
Ramesh A. ◽  
Dhanalakshmi U. R.

<p class="abstract"><strong>Background:</strong> Deep mycoses which<strong> </strong>includes subcutaneous mycoses and systemic mycoses, accounts for about 1% of the all the fungal infections seen in human beings. Though rare, these infections assume significance due to the increased morbidity and mortality associated with them. The objective of the study was to study the incidence, clinical presentation, aetiological agents and histopathological findings of deep mycoses in patients attending the mycology section, department of dermatology of a tertiary centre in Chennai.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Methods:</strong> All Patients with clinical suspicion of deep mycoses who presented to mycology section during the period from November 2015 to September 2016 were screened. The samples from these patients were subjected to direct microscopy by potassium hydroxide wet mount, culture and histopathology.<strong></strong></p><p class="abstract"><strong>Results:</strong> Among the 8250 patients who attended mycology OPD, 41 patients (0.5%) had deep mycoses. The commonly affected age group was 41-50 yrs (29.7%). Males (73.2%) were predominantly affected. Of the 41 patients, 26.8% were immunocompromised. 37 patients (90.2%) had subcutaneous infection and 4 (9.8%) had opportunistic mycoses. Mycetoma (43.2%) was the most common subcutaneous mycoses. Mucormycosis (75%) and aspergillosis (25%) were the opportunistic mycoses observed. KOH positivity was 100%, while culture positivity was 65.7%. <em>Madurella mycetomatis,</em> <em>Phialophora verrucosa</em>, <em>Rhizopus arrhizus</em> and <em>Aspergillus fumigatus</em> were the common organisms isolated in this study.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Conclusions:</strong> Mycetoma is the most common subcutaneous mycoses in this part of India. Eumycetoma is more common than actinomycetoma. Phaeohyphomycosis is on the rise. Simple KOH examination would pave way for an early diagnosis and prompt treatment of deep mycoses.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajay Agarwal

The bloom of COVID19 has resulted in the explosion of ripple pollens which have severely affected the world community in the terms of their multi-axial impact. These pollens, despite being indistinguishable, have a varied set of characteristics in terms of their origin and contribution towards the overall declining homeostasis of human beings. The most prominent of these pollens are misinformation. Various studies have been conducted, performed, and stochastically replicated to build ML-based models to accurately detect misinformation and its variates on the common modalities of spread. However, the recent independent analysis conducted on the prior studies reveals how the current fact-checking systems fail and fall flat in fulfilling any practical demands that the misinfodemic of COVID19 brought for us. While the scientific community broadly accepts the pandemic-like resemblance of the rampant misinformation spread, we must also make sure that our response to the same is multi-faceted, interdisciplinary, and doesn't stand restricted. As crucial it is to chart the features of misinformation spread, it is also important to understand why it spreads in the first place? Our paper deals with the latter question through a game-theory-based approach. We implement a game with two social media users or players who aim at increasing their outreach on their social media handles whilst spreading misinformation knowingly. We take five independent parameters from 100 Twitter handles that have shared misinformation during the period of COVID19. Twitter was chosen as it is a prominent social media platform accredited to the major modality for misinformation spread. The outreach increment on the user’s Twitter handles was measured using various features provided by Twitter- number of comments, number of retweets, and number of likes. Later, using a computational neuroscientific approach, we map each of these features with the type of neural system they trigger in a person’s brain. This helps in understanding how misinformation whilst being used as an intentional decoy to increase outreach on social media, also, affects the human social cognition system eliciting pseudo-responses that weren’t intended otherwise leading to realizing possible neuroscientific correlation as to how spreading misinformation on social media intentionally/unintentionally becomes a strategic maneuver to increased reach and possibly a false sense of accomplishment.


2021 ◽  
pp. 39-44
Author(s):  
Mwahib Sayed Ahmed Aldosh

Objective: Coronavirus (Covid 19) is a dangerous viral disease that principally targets the respiratory system of human beings. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the significant effects resulting from Covid19 using radiologic CT scanning technology. Methods: The recent study was conducted in order to evaluate covid19 among the local public. The sample size for this study consisted of two hundred and thirty (230) patients diagnosed with coronavirus and underwent a chest computed tomography scan. The study was conducted at Najran city, between the period from September to December 2020. Results: The results showed that it is possible to diagnose the complications of coronavirus that affects the respiratory tract in an accurate manner using chest CT imaging and the main results revealed that coronavirus COVID-19 affected all, but males more than female. (50-60) Age group was the big distribution while acute respiratory failure is the most common clinical etiology. The CT scan findings revealed that bilateral pneumonia was the common complication with a high incidence rate of 32% percent and blood coagulation achieved 5% percent as the minimum distribution result. Conclusion: The sensitivity of the CT scans in assessing COVID-19 was significantly high, it has the efficiency to assess complications of COVID-19 in an accurate manner, and therefore it has been proposed to use CT scan as a complementary method in covid-19 diagnosis. More studies on coronavirus disease were recommended by the author.


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