Simulation, Fetishism and World Domination

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 16-27
Author(s):  
Charles Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
American Fiction ◽  
Deep Sleep ◽  
Jean Baudrillard ◽  
System A ◽  
Mechanical Object ◽  
Show Evidence ◽  
Dream State ◽  
American Society

According to Jean Baudrillard, in a totally functional world people become irrational and subjective, given to projecting their fantasies of power into the efficiency of the system, a state of ‘spectacular alienation’. I argue that Americans as a society have accommodated themselves to such a system to the detriment of their ability to make sense in their public discourse. Baudrillard finds pathology in the system of objects as it determines social relations. In one symptom, people may obsess over a fetish object. For American society, the magical mechanical object is the gun. I show evidence for this weapons fetish in American fiction, cinema, television and serious journalism. Then, using Baudrillard and other analysts, I show how the American obsession with the superior functionality of weapons joins its myth of exceptionality and preference for simulation over reality to create a profound American dream state that protects a very deep sleep.

scholarly journals The Puritans in Early American Society and the Premises of Religious Fundamentalism

2021 ◽  
pp. 24-29
Author(s):  
Birane Sene
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
The United States ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Religious Fundamentalism ◽  
Early American ◽  
The World ◽  
American Society ◽  
Relationship Of

Puritanism is historically a form of Protestantism, resulting from the movement of John Calvin affirmed in England, from the 1560s in reaction against official Anglicanism considered too close to idolatry. Puritans will leave England where they were persecuted and settle in the East of the United States later known as New England. This puritan community will serve as a model of a Protestant state based on religious principles. The rigor of the Calvinist doctrine determined social relations and guided the destiny of handpicked people for their moral rectitude. The principles that governed this Puritan society were already laying the foundations for a theocracy whose imprints are still visible in today’s American society. The puritans were pretending to be the light that should shine above the world and enlighten it with its values, and on this basis, they excluded any relationship of equality with others. Despite this theocratic ideal, the Protestant identity will gradually fade in favor of a secular state with a religious diversity and pluralism.

How Media Shapes the Public Discourse and Influences Health

2020 ◽  
pp. 23-35
Author(s):  
Alonzo L. Plough
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Multiple Roles ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Inaccurate Information ◽  
Modern Media ◽  
Multiple Media ◽  
American Society ◽  
The Many

This chapter describes the multiple roles of modern media in determining not only what consumers know, but also how and what they think. The exponential growth of ideologically driven cable channels and social media, dovetailing with cutbacks in newspaper staffing and coverage, point to the many ways that the power and reach of media are shifting even as they continue to reshape American society and norms. In this environment, multiple media compete for viewers, readers, and listeners who will click on their websites, buy their products, sign their petitions, and often accept their spin, especially if it reinforces personal perspectives. Thoughtful information about complex public health issues is easily lost in that context, leading too many people to base their decision-making on incomplete, biased, and even inaccurate information. For the news media to help build a Culture of Health, people need to understand how it works, what it does, and how it can be used for widespread benefit.

Senegalese Street-Sellers, Racism and the Discourse on ‘Irregular Trade’ in Rimini

Modern Italy ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno Riccio
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Summer Camp ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Institutional Practices ◽  
Dominant Discourse ◽  
Seasonal Movement ◽  
Economic Trends ◽  
The Town

SummaryThe coast of Emilia-Romagna is a favourite destination for the seasonal movement of Senegalese street-sellers. It is no coincidence that Rimini hosted one of the first racist demonstrations of shopkeepers in 1989. The situation has worsened over time. In fact, the local public discourse on immigration never developed autonomously but has always been connected to the discourse expressing the main concern of the town: irregular trade. Yet discourses do not work alone and are linked also to social relations and to economic trends such as the restructuring of the local retailing economy and the tourist sector. This article therefore shows how racism in Rimini is the fluid product of, first, the overlapping of discourses about differing social phenomena which shape the dominant discourse on immigration; and, secondly, the identification with this dominant discourse that has emerged from everyday social relations and institutional practices. The latter part of the article presents elements of the counter-discourse, based on observations and conversations carried out with Senegalese immigrants in a summer camp outside Rimini. Finally, a proposal by the mayor of Rimini to exclude non-resident immigrants coming from outside the province is analysed as an example of the criminalization of immigrants through the application of a ‘sedentarist metaphysic’.

Cooperative action between fishermen and inspectors in the Svalbard Zone

Polar Record ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 35 (194) ◽  
pp. 207-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geir Hønneland
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Action Theory ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Coast Guard ◽  
Cooperative Action ◽  
System A ◽  
The Social ◽  
Local Commons ◽  
The Many

AbstractThis article demonstrates that, similar to the many cases of self-regulation of local commons, it is in certain conditions also possible to manage an international ocean-fishery without the use of direct coercion. The case study from the Svalbard Zone supports the argument of cooperative action theory: that a limited number of participants, rules at least partly designed by the users themselves, and a system of graduated punishment contribute to compliance with established rules. Based on observational data as well as in-depth interviews with Norwegian and Russian fishermen in the area, it seems particularly fruitful to conceive of the Norwegian Coast Guard not only as a state enforcement body in the Svalbard Zone, but its representatives also as constituent parts of a social system, a ‘seafaring community,’ in the area. When, due to jurisdictional dispute, it has been impossible to rely fully on external regulation in the area, the Coast Guard has taken upon itself the role of the mediator, admittedly representing state interests, but nevertheless aimed at achieving consensus with the fishing fleet on important regulation issues. Hence, the internal authority of this Arctic Ocean fisheries lies above all in the interface between fishermen's and inspector's arguments, and in the social relations accompanying the exchange of professional opinions.

scholarly journals Understanding Arab American Identity through Orientalist Stereotypes and Representations in Mohja Kahf’s The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (2006)

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-52
Author(s):  
Ishak Berrebbah
Keyword(s):  
American Identity ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Arab American ◽  
American Fiction ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Diasporic Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
American Society

Abstract Arab-American women’s literature has emerged noticeably in the early years of the 21st century. The social and political atmosphere in post-9/11 America encouraged the growth of such literature and brought it to international attention. This diasporic literature functions as a means of discussing the Orientalist discourse that circumscribes Arab American identity and its effects in determining their position in the wider American society. As such, this article investigates the extent to which Edward Said’s discourse of Orientalism is employed by Mohja Kahf in her novel The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (2006) to project the stereotypes and misrepresentations that confine the identity of Arab and Muslim characters in the US society. This article suggests that post-9/11 Arab American fiction serves as a literary reference to such stereotype-based discourse in the contemporary era. The arguments in this article, while employing an analytical and critical approach to the novel, are outlined within postcolonial and Orientalist theoretical frameworks based on arguments of prominent critics and scholars such as Peter Morey, Edward Said, and Jack Shaheen, to name just a few.

Modeling and Estimation of Energy Usage for Double Skin Facades Buildings

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Abou-Nassar ◽  
Zahed Siddique
Keyword(s):  
Heat Transfer ◽  
Flow Analysis ◽  
Ambient Conditions ◽  
Building Model ◽  
System A ◽  
Cad Models ◽  
Double Skin ◽  
American Society ◽  
Ashrae Standards ◽  
Double Skin Facades

In a time when energy crises loom on the horizon, means for more efficient energy sources are being thoroughly researched. One such area for improvement is in the building sector with the implementation of double skin façades (DSF). With capabilities of relatively rapid and large changes in various aspects of itself, a DSF can respond dynamically to varying ambient conditions. Applying American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Condition Engineers, Inc (ASHRAE) standards to design a general building model with a standard HVAC system, a comparison can be drawn between different architectural configurations, both with and without DSFs, and a better understanding of how a DSF can affect heat transfer into a building could potentially influence future structural design decisions. Using CAD models, a flow analysis and rudimentary heat transfer can be conducted in a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software, Fluent which can account factors such as wind speed as well as solar radiation. With the various design applications, the heat load of a building can be reduced by over 15%.

Book Reviews: Sociological Theory in Transition, The Category of Person, Social Relations and Spatial Structures, Nicos Poulantzas Marxist Theory and Political Strategy, The View from Afar, New Approaches to Economic Life, Cities in Crisis: The Political Economy of Urban Development in Postwar Britain, The Politics of Recession, Landscapes of Poverty, The Decline of Class Voting in Britain: Changes in the Basis of Electoral Choice, 1964–1983, How Britain Votes, Skilled Workers in the Class Structure, Managing the Police: Law, Organisation and Democracy, Teachers' Work, Sociology and School Knowledge: Curriculum Theory, Research and Politics, Literacy in Theory and Practice, Literacy, Language and Learning, Urban Rhythms: Pop Music and Popular Culture, Painting, Language and Modernity, Advertising, The Uneasy Persuasion: Its Dubious Impact on American Society, The Childless Marriage: An Exploratory Study of Couples Who Do Not Want Children, Sexuality and its Discontents: Meanings, Myths and Modern Sexualities

1986 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 855-918
Author(s):  
Derek Layder ◽  
Paul Hint ◽  
Stephen Wyn Williams ◽  
Bob Carter ◽  
John Clammer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Marxist Theory ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Electoral Choice ◽  
American Society
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document