Resisting Complicity

2019 ◽  
pp. 98-119
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Morton
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Philosophical Dialogue ◽  
Unique Position ◽  
Privileged Position ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status

This chapter explores the need for strivers to think about their potential complicity within the social structures that make it hard for others who are disadvantaged to succeed. It argues that strivers are in a unique position to improve those social structures because of the skills and knowledge they acquire on the path upward. The field of philosophy tends to attract those who already have a privileged position in society. Consequently, much of the philosophical dialogue concerning justice centers around work written by White, privileged men, even though this is the population that has the least to lose by maintaining the status quo. The intellectual and creative energy that will drive social change will come from those who have the most to gain from the system changing.

Desperately seeking the good society

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 636-654
Author(s):  
Gill Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Good Society ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Common ◽  
Northern City

Working towards the ‘good society’ is an important aspiration to hold, but equally its subjectivity complicates the realisation for all – each person’s view of what ‘good’ means in relation to society differs. The notion is also open to statutory appropriation and mainstreaming using rhetoric to suggest its centrality to governmental thinking, but the reality reveals policy and practice, which undermines the accomplishment of social justice and thus a good society. This paper seeks to explore this complexity through dissecting the processes of representation of the ‘good society’ in theory and in practice. The paper will argue that the ‘good society’ might be termed a doxic construct. Bourdieu used ‘doxa’ to explain how arbitrariness shapes people’s acceptance of their place in the world, the covert process is ‘internalised’, seemingly objectively, into the ‘social structures and mental structures’, producing a universal and accepted knowledge of something (Bourdieu, 1977 ). The possibility of difference is undermined; thus, the varied needs and contexts of people’s lived realities are consumed within prevailing normative narratives. Foucault (cited in Simon, 1971 : 198) referred to a ‘system of limits’ and Bourdieu (1977: 164) ‘ sense of limits’, both authors will assist in seeking to uncover how such invisible practices limit and constrain the imagining of possibilities beyond the taken-for-granted. The paper argues that community development can be a catalyst to challenge this invisibility by utilising Freire’s ( 1970 ) conscientisation, enabling people to recognise structural oppression to challenge the status quo. This paper will draw on examples offered within a northern city to build on Knight’s, 2015 research, which posed the question ‘[w]hat kind of society do we want?’, identifying, when asked, a hunger for change. The paper explores whether there is a desire to overturn the predominant individualism of the neoliberal era to reignite the notion of the common good.

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.

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.

The Millennial/Gen Z Leftists Are Emerging: Are Sociologists Ready for Them?

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 408-427
Author(s):  
Elaine Bell Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
The Status ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Do So

Sociology is being challenged by the new generation of students and scholars who have another view of society. Millennial/Gen Zs are the most progressive generation since the 1960s. We have had many opportunities to discuss and imagine power, diversity, and social change when we teach them in our classes or attend their campus events. Some Millennial/Gen Z believe, especially those in academia, that social scientists are tied to old theories and ideologies about race and gender, among other inconsistencies. These old ideas do not resonate with their views regarding equity. Millennials are not afraid to challenge the status quo. They do so already by supporting multiple gender and race identities. Several questions come to mind. How do we as sociologists with our sense of history and other issues such as racial and gender inequality help them along the way? Are we ready for this generation? Are they ready for us?

Social Imperialism and Wilhelmine Germany

1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian L. D. Forbes
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Domestic Policy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Democrat ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Interpretive Scheme

In recent times the historiography of the Wilhelmine Reich has clearly reflected the influence of Eckart Kehr and of later historians who have adopted and developed his work. The Rankean dogma of the Primat der Aussenpolitik (primacy of foreign policy) has been replaced by a new slogan, Primat der Innenpolitik (primacy of domestic policy). The resultant interpretive scheme is by now quite familiar. The social structure of the Bismarckean Reich, it is said, was shaken to its foundations by the impact of industrialization. A growing class of industrialists sought to break the power of the feudal agrarian class, and a rapidly developing proletariat threatened to upset the status quo. The internecine struggle between industrialists and agrarians was dangerous for both and for the state, since the final beneficiary might be the proletariat. Consequently agrarians and industrialists closed their ranks against the common social democrat enemy and sought to tame the proletariat, which had grown restive under the impact of the depression, by means of a Weltpolitik which would obviate the effects of the depression, heal the economy, and vindicate the political system responsible for such impressive achievements. Hans-Ulrich Wehler and others call this diversionary strategy against the proletarian threat social imperialism; and this, it is said, is the domestic policy primarily responsible for Wilhelmine imperialism.

Journey through light and darkness: a study of duplication in Shakespeare

1982 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 169
Author(s):  
Aimara Da Cunha Resende
Keyword(s):  
Status Quo ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
Mise En Abyme ◽  
The Tempest ◽  
The Social ◽  
A Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
The Status ◽  
Ideological Stance ◽  
Renaissance Poetics

As Shakespeare matures, his ideological stance changes from that of a writer believing in and backing up the establishment, to that of one who, though deeply aware of man in his human condition, doubts the validity of the status quo. His art then reflects the changes in his stance. At first it tends to present Renaissance poetics, becoming essentially Baroque, in its greatest phase, to move back to more firmly delineated forms and structures, in his last plays. This study of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet and The Tempest aims at presenting some characteristics both of the Renaissance elements in the structure, based on "mise en abyme," and of the Baroque poetics found within this structure. These aspects are viewed against the background of the ideology of Shakespeare's England at the same time that duplication, in Lacan's sense, is analysed and shows to coincide with the support and/or acceptance of the social cannons.

Transcending Oppression And Exploitation: Struggle For Education In Bulosan’s America Is In The Heart And Sudham’s Monsoon Country

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 146
Author(s):  
Kittiphong Praphan
Keyword(s):  
The Philippines ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Diasporic Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Local Officials ◽  
The Voice

<p>Diasporic literature functions as an important source which provides the social contexts of the home countries of its authors. Carlos Bulosan’s 'America is in the Heart' and Pira Sudham’s 'Monsoon Country' are among this group of literature representing the voice of the oppressed and exploited farmers in the Philippines and Thailand, respectively home of the authors. The farmers are represented as being exploited by those in power, including colonizers, local officials, landlords, and middlemen. The exploiters can be seen as capitalists who accumulate wealth through the labor and the property of farmers. In their methods of oppression the oppressors employ State Apparatuses and Ideological State Apparatuses to maintain the status quo and reproduce the exploitative system. To transcend the oppression and exploitation, the major characters of the books struggle to obtain education, since they view that ignorance is the most important cause of the exploitation. Education is seen as the only way to eliminate ignorance and liberate themselves as well as their people from the exploitative cycle. 'America Is in the Heart' and 'Monsoon Country' represent the voice of the farmers in the Philippines and Thailand who condemn their exploiters and raise readers’ awareness of the problem.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Keywords: </strong><em>diasporic literature, oppression and exploitation, education, voice</em></p>

On Social Stability and Social Change

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 360-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron C. Kay ◽  
Justin Friesen
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Personal Control ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
System Justification ◽  
Social Stability ◽  
System Justification Theory ◽  
The Status ◽  
System Threat ◽  
Do So

More than a decade of research from the perspective of system-justification theory (Jost & Banaji, 1994) has demonstrated that people engage in motivated psychological processes that bolster and support the status quo. We propose that this motive is highly contextual: People do not justify their social systems at all times but are more likely to do so under certain circumstances. We describe four contexts in which people are prone to engage in system-justifying processes: (a) system threat, (b) system dependence, (c) system inescapability, and (d) low personal control. We describe how and why, in these contexts, people who wish to promote social change might expect resistance.

scholarly journals Female slam poets of francophone Africa: spirited words for social change

Africa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 91 (5) ◽  
pp. 742-767
Author(s):  
Mirjam de Bruijn ◽  
Loes Oudenhuijsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Francophone Africa ◽  
Popular Knowledge ◽  
The Status ◽  
Gendered Power

AbstractSlam poets in Africa are part of an emerging social movement. In this article, the focus is on women in this upcoming slam movement in francophone Africa. For these women, slam has meant a change in their lives as they have found words to describe difficult experiences that were previously shrouded in silence. Their words, performances and engaged actions are developing into a body of popular knowledge that questions the status quo and relates to the ‘emerging consciousness’ in many African urban societies of unequal, often gendered, power relations. The women who engage in slam have thus become a voice for the emancipation of women in general.

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