The Rhetorical Superiority of Poor Economics

2020 ◽  
pp. 227-255
Author(s):  
Agnès Labrousse
Keyword(s):  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Rational Discourse ◽  
Good Will ◽  
Blind Spots

This textual analysis highlights the rhetorical prowess of Poor Economics and argues that it is part of the puzzling success of RCTs in economics. It shows how Banerjee and Duflo combine effectively (1) logos (rational discourse, figures, extensive use of numbers), (2) pathos (striking anecdotes to move the reader, personified figures) and (3) ethos (the narrators exhibit wisdom, excellence, and good will). Despite their explicit discard of anecdotes, the authors make ubiquitous use of them. This becomes less paradoxical when considering their manifold persuasive functions. Anecdotes additionally have an understated but inchoate heuristic role. This chapter also scrutinizes two impactful rhetorical schemes: the sensible middle ground between two extremes, and the rhetoric of small measures producing big effects, which magnifies the micro and minimizes the macro. This canny, partly manipulative, rhetoric should not overshadow the thinness of its storytelling and the extent of blind spots in RCTs revealed by what is out-of-discourse.

Self-preservation and sociology’s modern moral personality: Dual structure in Durkheim’s Suicide

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-456
Author(s):  
Feiyu Sun
Keyword(s):  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
Chinese Mainland ◽  
Chinese Version ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Conscious Choice ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Moral Condition ◽  
Definition Of

According to Durkheim, suicide means a conscious choice of death. The only opposite of death is being, and there is no middle ground in between. Therefore, when Durkheim discusses suicide, he certainly touches on the issue of living, or a choice of self-preservation, in a cryptical way, as well. This veiled discussion has been unacknowledged by Chinese mainland sociology because the widely adopted Chinese version of Durkheim’s Suicide loses most of the textual evidence of this clue in its translation. This paper offers a textual analysis of Durkheim’s Suicide based on that textual evidence. Durkheim treats different types of suicide as extreme forms of different types of morals, and, in many places, he asks under what kind of moral condition one can achieve self-preservation. This paper argues that there is an inner connection between Durkheim’s definitions of three types of suicide and his definition of sociology. As a social scientist who studies morality, he sees sociology as the expression of a particular modern morality, the same kind of moral condition that he calls for in his book. This paper shows that for Durkheim, this moral entity signifies for self-preservation both for the modern individual and for sociology.

Civilizational mnemonics and the longue durée: The Bulgarian case

2022 ◽  
pp. 175069802110665
Author(s):  
Dafina Nedelcheva ◽  
Daniel Levy
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Memory Politics ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Longue Duree ◽  
Longue Durée ◽  
Blind Spots

Constructivist assumptions have dominated the field of memory studies, producing an avalanche of case studies focusing on the instrumental and expedient factors shaping memory politics. However, this constructivist bias has also yielded new blind spots. For one, it tends to privilege “events” and “contingencies” over the longue durée of a particular memory configuration. Two, it remains caught in a binary juxtaposition with some states adopting globally circulating mnemonic scripts, signaling universal aspirations, while other states pursue nation-centric approaches. To overcome these blind spots (and binaries), we propose two interrelated conceptual moves: first, we are taking the importance of enduring memory figurations into consideration. Second, we expand the nation-state focus by introducing the notion of “civilizational mnemonics,” which does not replace national memories, but frequently underwrites them. Bulgarian memory politics, our test case, is part of a complex nexus of imperial legacies and post-colonial discourses. Bulgaria has been a middle ground, accommodating competing imperial projects—Ottoman, Russian, and Western. These intersections allow us to draw general inferences about mnemonic tropes and their enduring salience.

Dementia and driving: What are the psychologist's ethical blind spots?

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher M. Love ◽  
Robert Welsh ◽  
Sheryn Scott ◽  
David Brokaw
Keyword(s):  
Blind Spots

The Role of Muslim Women in Civil Society In Promoting Values and Principles for Building Peace: Action Guide from The Qur’ān

Sains Insani ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-36
Author(s):  
Che Amnah Bahari ◽  
Fatimah Abdullah
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Lifelong Learning ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Analysis Method ◽  
Pluralistic Society ◽  
Women And Children

The whole world, the Muslim in particular has witnessed conflicts in different areas, which have hindered the developmental efforts of the nations concerned. It should be learned that most victims of these conflicts are women and children. This article attempts to elaborate the role of Muslims Women as a crucial segment in civil society in initiating peace building through nurturing process. It maintains that the adoption of the principles and values derived from the Qur’ān and Sunnah of the Prophet is necessary as a process of lifelong learning.  Those identified values constituted the framework of this article and it adopts the textual analysis method.   This article concludes that through the implementation of those values and frameworks for peace building, women as one of the important segments of civil society are able to play significant role towards initiating peace building and promoting peaceful co-existence in pluralistic society. Abstrak: Dunia Islam khususnya telah menyaksikan konflik di pelbagai daerah yang berbeza. Konflik ini telah menghalang usaha kearah pembangunan Kawasan yang berkenaan. Kebanyakan mangsa konflik ini adalah wanita dan kanak-kanak. Artikel ini cuba untuk menghuraikan peranan wanita Islam sebagai segmen penting dalam masyarakat madani dalam membangun proses kedamaian dengan mendidik dan memupuk prinsip dan nilai murni janaan al-Qur’an. Penggunaan prinsip dan nilai yang dikutip dari ayat-ayat Qur'an dan hadis Rasulullah adalah keperluan yang mendesak sebagai wadah bagi proses pembelajaran sepanjang hayat. Nilai-nilai yang dikenal pasti merupakan rangka kerja artikel ini, dan metod yang dirujuk adalah analisis teks. Artikel ini menyimpulkan bahawa melalui pelaksanaan nilai-nilai dan kerangka kerja Islam bagi proses kedamaian, wanita Islam dalam masyarakat madani mampu memainkan peranan penting dalam memulakan pembinaan keamanan dan menggalakkan kehidupan yang harmonis, sejahtera dan saling bantu membantu dalam masyarakat majmuk.

Fighting words: a corpus analysis of gender representations in sports reportage

Corpora ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura L. Aull ◽  
David West Brown
Keyword(s):  
Women Athletes ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Gender Representations ◽  
Sports Media

In this study, we explore linguistic constructions of gender in US sports reportage concerning two related basketball altercations: the Pacers–Pistons NBA fight in 2004 and the Shock–Sparks WNBA fight in 2008. We use a combined corpus and qualitative textual analysis to investigate coverage from the days immediately following the fights and to compare that coverage to sports reportage more generally. Our analysis reveals key differences in narrative focus; for example, that NBA coverage is most interested in blame assignation in the isolated event, while WNBA coverage concerns gender and the league writ large. Such patterns, which are realised linguistically in both explicit and implicit ways, contribute to the ‘othering’ of women and women athletes in the increasingly important sports-media-commercial complex.

Curb Cuts: Crip Displacements and El Edificio de Enfrente

Somatechnics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-215
Author(s):  
Robert McRuer
Keyword(s):  
Mexico City ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Spatial Politics ◽  
Cultural System ◽  
Good Will ◽  
British Embassy ◽  
The Uk

Theorists of neoliberalism have placed dispossession and displacement at the centre of their analyses of the workings of contemporary global capitalism. Disability, however, has not figured centrally into these analyses. This essay attends to what might be comprehended as the crip echoes generated by dispossession, displacement, and a global austerity politics. Centring on British-Mexican relations during a moment of austerity in the UK and gentrification in Mexico City, the essay identifies both the voices of disability that are recognized by and made useful for neoliberalism as well as those shut down or displaced by this dominant economic and cultural system. The spatial politics of austerity in the UK have generated a range of punishing, anti-disabled policies such as the so-called ‘Bedroom Tax.’ The essay critiques such policies (and spatial politics) by particularly focusing on two events from 2013: a British embassy good will event exporting British access to Mexico City and an installation of photographs by Livia Radwanski. Radwanski's photos of the redevelopment of a Mexico City neighbourhood (and the displacement of poor people living in the neighbourhood) are examined in order to attend to the ways in which disability might productively haunt an age of austerity, dispossession, and displacement.

American Loses Chinese Good Will

1949 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 37-45
Author(s):  
Dorothy Borg
Keyword(s):  
Good Will
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