The Rhetoric of Institutionalism: Thorstein Veblen’s Irony

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 253-274
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Economic Structure ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Business Culture ◽  
Thorstein Veblen ◽  
Leisure Class ◽  
Proper Distance ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status

The article centers on the rhetoric of Thorstein Veblen, who combined economic, sociological and anthropological approaches in an organic way. The paper emphasizes the importance and heuristic significance of Veblen’s use of the trope of irony. An ironic stance buttresses his critique of the status quo and promotes an understanding of the socio-economic structure as complex, controversial and sometimes absurd. The article highlights the examples and themes that Veblen described with recourse to irony. Irony accompanies his criticism of the status quo, and it appears in his account of such phenomena as the leisure class, business culture, higher education, modern Western civilization as epitomized by America, and in his exposure of the postulates and hidden ideologies of mainstream economics.The author shows that Veblen’s followers took his irony as an idiosyncrasy typical for someone descended from Norwegian farmers, while the tropes themselves were usually unfavorably contrasted with serious research, i.e. that side of his heritage was regarded as a caprice that interfered with later recognition of Veblen’s merit. The article intends to demonstrate exactly the opposite by calling attention to irony in the social sciences and showing its significance for them. Irony as a negative and multifaceted characterization of reality better reflects the phenomena themselves with their inherent paradoxes and complexity. Irony assists us in keeping a proper distance from the intensity of a description and in revealing socio-economic processes with all their dynamics and contradictions. It is the ironic that makes Veblen’s heritage relevant after all.

Towards an African Qur'anic Hermeneutics

2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-76
Author(s):  
Michael Mumisa
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Sacred Texts ◽  
Christian Perspective ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Status ◽  
African Perspective

The 20th century has been witness to great developments in theology, philosophy of language and the social sciences. Postmodernism has emerged as an influential philosophical thought. All of these 20th century phenomena have influenced how people approach sacred texts and how they comprehend and interpret them. Muslims have not been immune to these developments, and accordingly there has been a realisation among Muslim theorists that the existing interpretations of the Qur'an and Sunnah (imitado Muhammadi) may be limited and not able to suffice the needs of a changing world. The Islamic world has also been rapidly expanding to incorporate races, cultures and environments of various kinds. Consequently, racial and cultural problems have emerged causing a great need among progressive Muslims, particularly the youth, women, people of colour, and other concerned Muslims for a re-reading of the sacred texts so that they become existentially meaningful in the here and now. Such a reading will have to take into consideration differences of perspective and social location. Although this article proposes an African Qur'anic hermeneutics within the liberative discourse, it is not necessarily proposing an African Muslim perspective of liberation since there can be no such a thing as an ‘African perspective’, ‘feminist perspective’ or even ‘Christian perspective’ of liberation. By confirming the ‘us’ versus ‘them’, or dominant versus ‘other’ in the liberation process, it serves to confirm the status quo which we seek to change.

scholarly journals Hear my screams: An auto-ethnographic account of the police

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 205979911988427
Author(s):  
Aliraza Javaid
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Male Rape ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Personal Reflections ◽  
The Way

Other writers, notably police researchers, infrequently discuss the problems and difficulties that they encounter in and outside of fieldwork when doing research on the police. In this article, I piece together some critical and personal reflections of researching the police to provide nuanced information that can help other writers to learn from my own experiences of researching the police and also help them to navigate their own experiences of working with the police for research purposes. These reflections of mine emanate from fieldwork notes and my research diary. I use Ahmed’s The Promise of Happiness as a lens to theorise and make sense of such experiences, understanding how my presence gets in the way of the happiness of others because of my affiliation to sexual violence work. By naming a problem, rape as a problem, I became the problem. The article outlines some of the chief ethical, personal and pragmatic issues that can surface when researching the police. For example, I frequently encountered interrogative questions whereby officers questioned my sexuality, asking ‘are you gay?’ I became a nuisance for the police, a problem by highlighting the issue of male rape as a problem given that it challenges the status quo of normative heterosexuality. I argue that, doing research on the police, which can involve sensitive and challenging work that affects one emotionally, socially and physically, impacts not only the officers being interviewed, but also the researchers themselves. The latter group should be identified much more readily than seems to be the case in the social sciences.

scholarly journals The Changing Face of Qualitative Inquiry

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 160940692090993 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janice Morse
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Qualitative Methods ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
International Institute ◽  
Methodological Development ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status

When examining the changes in society and the concomitant changes in research methods in the last century, unquestionably qualitative inquiry has been superseded by quantitative methods and had to work to find its niche in the social sciences. Here, I explore the push factors that have made space for the establishment and legitimization of qualitative inquiry. I discuss what we are doing well in qualitative methods, then examine the status quo—present worries, concerns, and future trends. I present three major problems that need attention, critique, and resolution in qualitative methods to further strengthen our foothold as we move forward. Methodological development is one of the primary purposes of the International Institute of Qualitative Methods (IIQM). In closing, I examine the role of the IIQM in the global development of qualitative methods.

scholarly journals Analysis and Solution of the Problems in the Distribution of Suning Tesco

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Canlong Lin ◽  
Jinghui Zhu ◽  
Jianhua Peng
Keyword(s):  
Economic Structure ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Core Component ◽  
Logistics System ◽  
Existing Problems ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status

ABSTRACT Logistics is the 'third party profit source' of the enterprise. At the end of the logistics, the distribution is the core component of the logistics system. It is an important part of the business activities. It is an important part of the enterprise's business activities. It is important to optimize the economic structure, save the social labor and give full play to the logistics function. To a great effect. This article is mainly based on Suning Tesco distribution as the research object, according to the Suning Tesco distribution of the status quo to determine its problems. The analysis of the existing problems and put forward targeted recommendations, so that Suning Tesco distribution can be further optimized.

scholarly journals The scope and limits of combatting violent extremism in the United Kingdom

2021 ◽  
pp. 155-174
Author(s):  
Tahir Abbas
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Social Engineering ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Political Resistance ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
Violent Extremism ◽  
The Status ◽  
British Muslims

This article situates the debate on the United Kingdom’s Prevent policy in the broader framework of the global paradigm for countering violent extremism (CVE), which appeared at the end of 2015. It argues that omission of a nuanced focus on the social, cultural, economic, and political characteristics of radicalised people has led to a tendency to introduce blanket measures which, inadvertently and indirectly, have had harmful results. Moreover, although Prevent has been the fundamental element of the British government’s counterterrorist strategy since 2006, it confuses legitimate political resistance of young British Muslims with signs of violent extremism, thus giving credence to the argument that Prevent is a form of social engineering which, in the last instance, pacifies resistance by reaffirming the status quo in the country’s domestic and foreign policy.

scholarly journals Tragedy and social drama in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
AWEJ-tls for Translation & Literary Studies ◽  
Tahar Bayouli ◽  
Imed Sammali
Keyword(s):  
Social Protest ◽  
Social Drama ◽  
Dramatic Form ◽  
Genre Classification ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Death Of A Salesman

This paper examines the issue of genre classification in Death of a Salesman by focusing on the dialectic relation at the heart of the play’s structure between tragedy and social drama. It argues that the tragic resolution brought to the theme of social protest and the characterization of the protagonist is what gives the play its unique place as the quintessential modern tragedy. It is concluded that tragedy and the social theme are not mutually destructive in Death of a Salesman as some critics stated. Rather, they are combined to make an intense dramatic treatment of the modern American individual’s most pressing issues. Without being constrained by prescriptive standardized rules, Miller produced a dramatic form that rightly claims the status of what can be labeled a modern tragedy, appealing to modern audiences as rarely any other modern play did.

scholarly journals Realizing the transformative potential of conservation through the social sciences, arts and humanities

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Bennett ◽  
Robin Roth
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Conservation Practices ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Conservation Actions

Conservation actions most often occur in peopled seascapes and landscapes. As a result, conservation decisions cannot rely solely on evidence from the natural sciences, but must also be guided by the social sciences, the arts and the humanities. However, we are concerned that too much of the current attention is on research that serves an instrumental purpose, by which we mean that the social sciences are used to justify and promote status quo conservation practices. The reasons for engaging the social sciences, as well as the arts and the humanities, go well beyond making conservation more effective. In this editorial, we briefly reflect on how expanding the types of social science research and the contributions of the arts and the humanities can help to achieve the transformative potential of conservation.

scholarly journals O ENSINO E A PESQUISA SOBRE POLÍTICA EXTERNA NO CAMPO DAS RELAÇÕES INTERNACIONAIS DO BRASIL

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Aurélio Pimenta de Faria
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Graduate Programs ◽  
Fourth Section ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Status ◽  
Theses And Dissertations

The purpose of this article is to analyze teaching and research on foreign policy in Brazil in the last two decades. The first section discusses how the main narratives about the evolution of International Relations in Brazil, considered as an area of knowledge, depict the place that has been designed, in the same area, to the study of foreign policy. The second section is devoted to an assessment of the status of foreign policy in IR teaching in the country, both at undergraduate and scricto sensu graduate programs. There is also a mapping and characterization of theses and dissertations which had foreign policy as object. The third section assesses the space given to studies on foreign policy in three academic forums nationwide, namely: the meetings of ABRI (Brazilian Association of International Relations), the ABCP (Brazilian Association of Political Science) and ANPOCS (National Association of Graduate Programs and Research in Social Sciences). In the fourth section there is a mapping and characterization of the published articles on foreign policy between 1990 and 2010, in the following IR Brazilian journals: Cena Internacional, Contexto Internacional, Política Externa and Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional. At last, the fifth and final section seeks to assess briefly the importance that comparative studies have in the sub-area of foreign policy in the country. The final considerations make a general assessment of the empirical research presented in the previous sections.

Leftover Men and Masculine Grievance: Making Sense of Rural Migrant Men’s Emotional Hardships

NAN Nü ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-162
Author(s):  
Wanning Sun
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Masculine Identity ◽  
Rural Migrants ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Rural Migrant ◽  
The Social ◽  
Marriage Partner ◽  
The Status ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract The social problem of “leftover men” among the most marginalized members of China’s rural migrant population has become widely known, but how these rural migrants themselves talk about and make sense of their failures to secure a marriage partner is relatively less understood. Answering this question may also shed light on how socioeconomic marginalization makes an impact on rural migrant men’s masculine identity. This paper is a longitudinal study of a cohort of unmarried rural migrant men born in the 1980s. This study shows that the emotional experience of cohort members is marked by a mixture of persistent feelings of loneliness, bitterness, and dissatisfaction with the status quo of their lives, and a quiet yearning for the possibility – however remote – of “finding someone” in the future. The paper also points to “masculine grievance” as a useful concept for understanding how unmarried migrant men rationalize their emotional hardships.

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