Reflections on the New Pessimism

Worldview ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 19 (9) ◽  
pp. 18-21
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Hurn
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Underdeveloped Countries ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
Zero Sum ◽  
Industrial Societies ◽  
Total Wealth

About thirty years ago behavioral scientists introduced the idea of a “zero-sum” game. Poker, chess, and football—these were “zerosum” games. Winning the game implied that someone else lost; an advantage for one party was necessarily a disadvantage for another. At that time the “zero-sum” analogy was not applied to societies as a whole. If the middle class increased its wealth, this did not imply that the resources of the lower class were decreased. The success of Western industrial societies did not necessarily imply the poverty of underdeveloped countries. The total wealth of the planet could expand; the extension of rights to blacks and other minorities did not necessarily undermine the position of the majority. These were the guiding assumptions of liberals in the sixties.But today these assumptions are under attack. The metaphor of the “zero-sum” game is now thought to describe societies as a whole.

Who is Rational?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Ben Prestel
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Urban Change ◽  
Social Formation ◽  
Court Records ◽  
Local Newspapers ◽  
Dynamic Transformation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Recent Emergence

Beginning around 1860, authors in the Egyptian capital portrayed Cairo’s changing cityscape and the recent emergence of local newspapers in terms of their impact on rationality (‘aql). In their descriptions, these contemporaries depicted rationality as an education of the heart that especially enabled men from the middle class to control their bodies and passions. The chapter shows that Cairo’s transformation was, however, not always associated with rising rationality by drawing on a different set of sources. Police and court records from the 1860s and 1870s demonstrate that contemporaries also described processes of urban change as a danger to the “honor” of lower-class women. Like the debates in Berlin, emotional practices in Cairo thus served as a way to address the social formation of the Egyptian capital during a time of dynamic transformation.

Social Class and Ethnicity Effects on Clinical Judgments

1978 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph D. Norman ◽  
Ricardo Martinez
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Treatment Recommendations ◽  
Clinical Judgments ◽  
Involuntary Hospitalization ◽  
Professional Help ◽  
Class Bias ◽  
Psychotic Behavior

To resolve conflict between earlier studies finding contradictory recommendations on need for professional help of middle- vs lower-class persons given normal, neurotic, and psychotic behavior descriptions, and to explore ethnicity effects, 92 students (70 Anglo, 22 Chicano) rated fictitious biographical vignettes. A pro-middle-class bias was found consistent with Routh and King's study but inconsistent with that by Schofield and Oakes. Also contrary to the latter, treatment recommendations agreed with ratings. Ethnicity bias appeared, since Anglos recommended Chicanos more often for involuntary hospitalization. Inconsistency between the two earlier studies results from a methodological variation, discussed in this study.

Sex-Role Preference and Parental Imitation within Groups of Middle-Class Whites and Lower-Class Blacks

1972 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 651-654 ◽  
Author(s):  
William D. Ward
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Sex Role ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Black Children ◽  
Black Girls ◽  
Second Grade ◽  
Black Boys ◽  
White Children ◽  
White Girls ◽  
Role Preference

32 second-grade children were assessed on measures of sex-role preference and parental imitation. The middle-class white boys were more masculine in preference than the middle-class white girls were feminine ( t = 3.43, p < .01), and lower-class black girls tended to be more mother imitative than the lower-class black boys were father imitative ( r = 2.09, p < .06). No such differences were found in sex-role preference for blacks or in imitation for whites. The results indicated that there was a dominant masculine influence in the development of sex-role preference among middle-class white children and a dominant feminine influence in parental imitation among lower-class black children.

Status Level of Occupations Chosen and Rejected by Middle and Lower Class Boys and Girls

1965 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 301-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward T. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Occupational Choices ◽  
Status Level

The hypothesis that children's occupational choices are superior in status to the occupations they reject was supported by the occupational choices and rejections of 60 middle class boys and 49 girls and 108 lower class boys, but not by those of the 107 lower class girls.

Social-Class Bias in Clinical Judgment and Recommendation for Treatment Using the Biographical Vignette Technique

1975 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leon J. Schofield ◽  
James D. Oakes
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Clinical Judgment ◽  
Mental Hospital ◽  
Emotional Problems ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Class Bias ◽  
The Social ◽  
Psychotic Behavior

An autobiographical vignette technique was used with 14 mental hospital attendants and 14 college students rating the severity of emotional problems and recommending various forms of treatment for fictitious individuals. A social-class bias was observed; the lower-class individuals were seen as having a greater need for help than the middle-class individuals, particularly when both were given descriptions of psychotic behavior. However, the recommendation of treatment was not affected by the social class of the individuals. The results are not consistent with those of a recent study by Routh and King which showed middle-class individuals were rated as having a greater need for help than lower-class individuals using a similar vignette technique.

Sex Differences in Rotary Pursuit Performance of Young Children: A Follow-up

1968 ◽  
Vol 26 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1199-1202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen H. Davol ◽  
Susan L. Breakell
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Grade Level ◽  
Rest Period ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Rotary Pursuit

A 30-rpm or a 45-rpm rotary pursuit task was given to 72 boys and 72 girls from Grades 1 to 5 of a lower-class and a middle-class school; each S was given 5 125-sec. trials with a 1-min. rest period between trials. Analyses of time-on-target showed a different pattern of results for each school. No significant sex differences were found except through interaction with sex of E. Level of performance was determined primarily by speed of rotation and grade level of S, but there was a lag in performance of Ss from the first two grades of the lower-class school.

scholarly journals POLITICAL ABSTENTION IN THE INDIAN MIDDLE CLASS, THE RISE OF POPULISM AND THE REINFORCEMENT OF RENT

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arkaprabha Pal
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Religious Fundamentalism ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Political Relationships ◽  
Urban Indian ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Major Section

The Indian middle class witnessed a reconfiguration in its composition after the failure of the secular nationalists in their method of development and redistribution of resources. This reconfiguration used cultural and religious fundamentalism in the form of Hindutva as its instrument to assert their right to access the resources and strive towards a non-State centric redistribution. However, this new middle class, which was mainly conversing in the vernacular and had its base in the smaller urban areas, was also faced with the assertion of the lower class identarian groups. In such a situation, a large section of the urban Indian middle class shied away from taking part in the electoral process citing moral crises of the corrupt secular English speaking elite on one hand and the lowly criminal nature of the lower class political assertion on the other. Taking hints from the works of Christophe Jaffrelot, I would try to argue in this paper, that non-participation of a major section of the urban middle class was a manifestation of securing the rechanneled and partially redistributed rent legitimised through the instrument of Hindutva. This has led to increased persona-centric populist narratives from the mid-1990s to the present times with efforts to undermine parliamentary democracy (which is associated as an institiution of the immoral secular nationalists). This in turn, I would try to argue by the end of this paper, has again assisted in concretising the very rent-seeking practices and patron-client political relationships that the new middle class had initially opposed to rise to political prominence throughout the late 1970s and 1980s

scholarly journals ASYMPTOMATIC BACTERIURIA

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (01) ◽  
pp. 115-118
Author(s):  
Anam Zulfiqar ◽  
Sadaf Zulfiqar ◽  
Shahana Rahat
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Urine Sample ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Asymptomatic Bacteriuria ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Hospital Laboratory ◽  
Pregnant Females ◽  
Regular Screening ◽  
Upper Middle Class

Objectives: To record the rate of asymptomatic bacteriuria in pregnant females.Period: November 2015 to February 2016. Settings: Holy Family Hospital, Rawalpindi.Material & Methods: 200 pregnant females for regular pre-natal visits during 2nd and 3rdtrimester of pregnancy between 18-50 years of age were included. Sterile bottles were used tocollect the urine sample from the patients and sent to the hospital laboratory for the evaluationof asymptomatic bacteriuria in pregnant females. Results: We recorded most of the casesbetween 18-30 years of age i.e. 56%(n=112) whereas 44%(n=88) were between 31-50 yearsof age, mean+sd: 28.76+5.42 years. Frequency of asymptomatic bacteriuria was recordedin 22%(n=44). We found 21(23.86%) out of 88 cases had lower class, 15(23.44%) out of 64cases had middle class, 7(17.95%) out of 39 cases had upper middle class while 1(11.11%)out of 9 cases had higher class. Conclusion: Asymptomatic bacteriuria is not an uncommoncomplication during pregnancy, however, regular screening may help to prevent and reducethis morbidity at early stage.

Class, Crime, and Cannibalism in The String of Pearls; or, The Demon Barber as Bourgeois Bogeyman

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-131
Author(s):  
Leah Richards
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Class Conflict ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Cultural Resonance ◽  
String Of Pearls

Although the tale of Sweeney Todd is one with significant cultural resonance, little has been written about the text itself, The String of Pearls. This article argues that the text engages with anxieties about class conflict through a narrative that enacts exaggerated versions of various interactions. In the nineteenth century, critics objected to the cheap fiction pejoratively known as penny dreadfuls, asserting that the genre’s exciting tales of bloodshed, villainy, and mayhem would seduce readers to lives of debauchery and crime, but I argue that this concern about cheap fiction was not for the preservation of the souls of the poor and working classes but rather for the preservation of the middle classes' own corporeal bodies and the system that privileged and protected them. While there is no question that the narrative enacts extreme manifestations of problems facing the urban poor—among them, contaminated or even poisonous foodstuffs and the perils of urban anonymity—it also features an intractable and rapacious lower class and a subversion of the master-servant dynamic on which the comforts of the middle class were constructed, and so, in addition to adventure, detection, and young love, The String of Pearls offers a dark revenge fantasy of class-based violence that the middle-class critics of the penny dreadful were perhaps justified in fearing. tl;dr: Eat the Rich!

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