Beyond equality of opportunity: from 'common sense' to 'good sense'

Soundings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 79 (79) ◽  
pp. 78-93
Author(s):  
Tony Jefferson
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Equality Of Opportunity ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Good Sense ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ready Availability ◽  
The Relationship

This article addresses the Labour Party's apparent inability to capitalise on the ready availability of good, progressive ideas. It suggests the key is to be found in the idea that the Labour Party no longer represents working-class people, a disjunction that can be best understood using Gramsci's distinction between 'common sense' and 'good sense'. Good sense is a more coherent development of everyday, commonsense thinking, based on its 'healthy nucleus'. However, it must never lose contact with common sense and become abstract and disconnected from life. Using this distinction, a critique of the common-sense notion of meritocracy follows, since the educational disconnect between Labour politicians and their working-class supporters is one of its malign results. This critique builds from the evidence of working-class rejection of meritocracy - the healthy nucleus that recognises the inadequacy of its justifying principle of equality of opportunity. To this is counterposed a good-sense notion of equality - one that embraces equal access to the means for achieving a flourishing life. This notion of equality is then used to explore a number of currently circulating political ideas concerned with equality, both their relationship to common sense and their potential to meet good sense criteria. These ideas include universal basic income, the Conservatives' proposed 'levelling up' agenda, and the demands of Black Lives Matter for racial justice, including the demand to 'defund the police'. A second thread is focused on the relationship between these discourses of common or good sense and the social forces with which they can be connected.

scholarly journals Dystopian literature and the sociological imagination

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 155 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Seeger ◽  
Daniel Davison-Vecchione
Keyword(s):  
Personal Experience ◽  
Sociological Imagination ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Utopian Literature ◽  
Historical Reality ◽  
Dystopian Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

This article argues that sociologists have much to gain from a fuller engagement with dystopian literature. This is because (i) the speculation in dystopian literature tends to be more grounded in empirical social reality than in the case of utopian literature, and (ii) the literary conventions of the dystopia more readily illustrate the relationship between the inner life of the individual and the greater whole of social-historical reality. These conventional features mean dystopian literature is especially attuned to how historically-conditioned social forces shape the inner life and personal experience of the individual, and how acts of individuals can, in turn, shape the social structures in which they are situated. In other words, dystopian literature is a potent exercise of what C. Wright Mills famously termed ‘the sociological imagination’.

Multiculturalism

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Arthur
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The Social ◽  
European Immigrants ◽  
Historical Origins

Few ideas are as open to different interpretations these days, or as controversial, as multiculturalism. Like many other ‘isms’ — socialism, conservatism, fascism — multiculturalism is a political movement as well as a set of philosophical, social, and political ideas. Before looking at the range of positions associated with multiculturalism, this article first describes its historical origins and the social forces that came together to create it. ‘Multiculturalism’ is a term that has, in Nathan Blum's phrase, both ‘great currency’ and ‘imprecise usage’. It is also a relatively new word, making its first recorded appearances in Canada and Australia during the 1970s, at a time when both countries were struggling to deal with large influxes of non-European immigrants and with a new-found appreciation of the mistreatment of their own indigenous peoples.

Class Struggle and Socialist Construction: The Hungarian Paradox

Slavic Review ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. von Lazar
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Political System ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Industrial Society ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

This article examines the relationship between the semantics of ideology and political practice under the pressure of socio-economic change in Hungary of the early 1960s, especially 1962-63. The events of 1956 forced the Communist Party elite to recognize the imperative need for internal social change and for control over its dynamics. Manipulation of social forces and ideological currents became a day-to-day concern as soon as it was realized that the political system must rely to an increasing extent upon the introduction of policies which induced support for the system itself—a need undoubtedly arising out of the social transformation that accompanies a developing and modernizing industrial society.

scholarly journals Politeness and other types of facework

Pragmatics ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 681-706 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nieves Hernández-Flores
Keyword(s):  
Social Situation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Institutional Characteristics ◽  
Communicative Acts ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Terms ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

TV-panel discussions constitute a communicative genre with specific features concerning the situational context, the communicative goals, the roles played by the participants and the acts that are carried out in the interaction. In the Spanish TV-debate Cada día, discourse is characterized as semi-institutional because of having both institutional characteristics – due to its mediatic nature – and conversational characteristics. In the communicative exchanges the social situation of the participants is negotiated by communicative acts, that is, facework is realised. Facework concerns the speakers’ wants of face, both the individual face and the group face. In the present article face is described in cultural terms within the general face wants autonomy and affiliation and in accordance with the roles the speakers assume in interaction. In the analysis of an excerpt from the TV-debate Cada día two types of facework are identified: On the one hand politeness, that is, when an attempted balance between the speaker’s and the addressees’ face is aimed at and, on the other hand, self-facework, which appears when only the speaker’s face is focused on. No samples of the third case of facework, impoliteness, are found in this excerpt. The results of the analysis display the relationship between the communicative purposes of this communicative genre (to inform, to entertain and to convince people of political ideas) and the types of facework (politeness, self-facework) that are identified in the analysed data.

scholarly journals KRITIK SOSIAL SEBUAH CINTA (DALAM SENI LUKIS)

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 212
Author(s):  
Leska Latansa Dina ◽  
Yayan Suherlan ◽  
Dona Prawita
Keyword(s):  
Visual Arts ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Psychological Impact ◽  
Social Criticism ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Social ◽  
Orientation Deviation ◽  
The Relationship

<p><strong>ABSTRAK</strong></p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>Jurnal ini menginterpretasikan gagasan imajinasi penulis dalam judul kritik sosial sebuah cinta sebagai tema utama. Terdapat beberapa permasalahan yang dibahas dalam hal ini, yaitu; 1) hubungan antara cinta dengan kondisi sosial masyarakat yang digambarkan dalam seni lukis, 2) membahas tema kritik sosial sebuah cinta dalam seni lukis?, 3) memvisualisasikan kritik tentang cinta dalam sudut pandang sosial melalui karya seni lukis. Cinta merupakan hasrat naluriah manusia yang diberikan oleh Tuhan, cinta melibatkan perasan emosi yang dalam, dan berefek keindahan bagi penikmatnya. Aktifitas bercinta sebagai pengungkapan hasrat rasa saling cinta antar sesama manusia, menjadi aktifitas yang terlarang ketika melanggar norma sosial kesusilaan, dan dapat menjerumuskan seseorang ke arah degradasi moral serta memberikan dampak negatif secara</p><p>psikologis, seperti penyimpangan orientasi seksual, depresi, hingga terjadi kasus bunuh diri. Sehingga pada kasus tertentu dapat mengakibatkan tindakan diluar akal sehat dan tidak berperikemanusiaan seperti aborsi dan kasus pembunuhan. Penulis tertarik mengambil tema tersebut, dikarenakan penulis terketuk hati nuraninya ingin memaparkan sudut pandangnya tentang kritik sosial dari degradasi moral yang berkembang di masyarakat yang di atas namakan cinta. Tujuan dari penulis ialah menjadikan karya lukis sebagai media kritik atas penyimpangan sosial yang terjadi di masyarakat serta Mendiskripsikan degradasi moral manusia akibat pemahaman yang dangkal tentang cinta. Metode Penciptaan melaui penggalian ide dari pengamatan dan sebuah perenungan, dan hasil pengamatan dikonsep melalui rancangan sketsa yang ditata berdasarkan asas</p><p>keseni rupaan, tahapan terakhir ialah, memindahkan ide yang terkonsep ke dalam kanvas dengan cat minyak, yang di padu dengan sapuan kuas teknik opaque. Hasil karya yang diolah melalui pendekatan simbolisme visual yang bersifat komunikatif dan umum, yang dikemas secara estetik, diharapan penikmat tertarik untuk melihat apa yang disampaikan oleh karya lukis serta pesan moral yang terkandung di dalamnya.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Kata kunci: </strong>kritik sosial, cinta, seni lukis.</p><p> </p><p><strong><em>ABSTRACT</em></strong></p><p><em>This journal interprets the idea of the author’s imagination in the title “Kritik Sosial Sebuah Cinta” as the main theme. There are several problems discussed in this regard, namely: 1) the relationship between love and the social conditions of society described in painting arts, 2) discussing the theme of social criticism of love in painting, 3) visualizing criticism of love in a social perspective through love. Love is an instinctive desire of human given by God. Love involves deep emotional feelings, and has beautiful effect for the connoisseurs. The act of making love as an expression of mutual love between human beings is prohibited when it is violating social norms of decency and can plunge someone towards moral degradation, have a negative psychological impact, such as sexual orientation deviation, depression, and suicide. In certain cases, it can lead to the actions beyond common sense and inhumane such as abortion and murder cases. The author is interested in</em></p><p><em>taking the theme because of his consciousness to explain his point of view about social criticism on moral degradation in the name of love that develops in the community. The author aims to make painting as a mediaof criticism on social deviations that occur in society and to describe the degradation of human moral due to superficial understanding of love. The creation method is through extracting ideas from observations and contemplation, and the results are conceptualized through sketch designs arranged based on the principles of visual arts. The final stage is to move the conceptual ideas into canvas with oil paint, which are combined with opaque techniques. The work that is processed through the communicative and general visual symbolism approach, which is packed aesthetically, is expected to make the audience interested in seeing what is conveyed by the painting and the moral messages contained in it. </em></p><p><em> </em></p><p><strong><em>Keywords: </em></strong><em>social criticism, love, painting arts.</em></p>

scholarly journals “This degrading and stealthy practice”

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 456-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frances Myfanwy Miley ◽  
Andrew F. Read
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Indigenous Population ◽  
Financial Fraud ◽  
Indigenous Australians ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Financial Interests ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to make visible the relationship between accounting and stigma in the absence of accounting. This research examines how failure to implement mandatory accounting and auditing requirements in the management of indigenous wages contributed to stigmatisation of indigenous Australians and led to maladministration and unchecked financial fraud that continued for over 75 years. The accounting failures are by those charged with protecting the financial interests of the indigenous population. Design/methodology/approach An historical and qualitative approach has been used that draws upon archival and contemporary sources. Findings Prior research has examined the nexus between accounting mechanisms and stigma. This research suggests that the absence of accounting mechanisms can also contribute to stigma. Research limitations/implications This research highlights the complex relationship between accounting and stigma, suggesting that it is simplistic to examine the nexus between accounting and stigma without considering the social forces in which stigmatisation occurs. Social implications This research demonstrates decades of failed accounting have contributed to the ongoing social disadvantage of indigenous Australians. The presence of accounting mechanisms cannot eradicate the past, or fix the present, but can create an environment where financial abuse does not occur. Originality/value This research demonstrates that stigma can be exacerbated in the negative space created by failures or absence of accounting.

CULTURAL CAPITAL AND THE SCENE OF RIOTING: MALE WORKING-CLASS AUTHORSHIP IN ALTON LOCKE

2000 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Menke
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Social ◽  
Politics And Culture ◽  
Intellectual Labor ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Realm ◽  
Title Character ◽  
Do So

IN ITS VERY TITLE, Charles Kingsley’s 1850 novel Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet: An Autobiography hints at a set of questions that the novel itself never manages to answer in a very clear or convincing way: what is the relationship between manual and intellectual labor, between industrial and poetic production, between making a coat and writing a poem? How might the early Victorian imagination conceive of a working tailor who is also a working poet — especially in light of the various actual working-class poets who appeared on the literary scene in the first half of the nineteenth-century, complete with occupational epithets, such as Thomas Cooper, the “shoe-maker poet” (a figure who in many ways provided a model for Kingsley’s fictional protagonist)? And what if, like a fair number of urban artisans, including Cooper himself, the tailor-poet is also a Chartist — as Alton Locke indeed turns out to be? What is the relationship between the Chartist call for reform and for representation of disenfranchised men in the political realm, and the attempts of a fictional working-class man (since the novel’s treatment of gender, as I will argue, is crucial to its treatment of politics and culture) to enter the early Victorian field of literary production? Or why, in the first place, should a novel that treats the “social problem” of class in the hungry forties and the appalling working conditions of the clothes trade do so by way of the literary aspirations of its title character, that is, through a fictional construction of working-class authorship?

Transdisciplinary and Translational Research

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula S. Nurius ◽  
Susan Kemp
Keyword(s):  
Dissemination And Implementation ◽  
Societal Impact ◽  
Community Partnership ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Integrative Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Educational Pipeline ◽  
Partnership Models ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This entry provides an overview of the nature of transdisciplinary and translational priorities in the context of changing forms of research and assessments of the relationship of research to societal impact. It first describes shifts away from single disciplinary to more integrative disciplinary approaches to science and discusses emerging forms of integrative research, distinguishing and illustrating multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches. It then turns to describing the social forces behind the acceleration of science into service, illustrating what are referred to as translational gaps and efforts to bridge them. Within social work, methods attentive to adaptation for diverse settings, organizational dissemination and implementation, and community partnership models have become prominent. The entry concludes with attention to the development of an educational pipeline that prepares professionals as well as researchers for capable, confident participation into this environment of transdisciplinary and translational approaches.

Trade Unions and Political Parties in Britain, France, Italy and West Germany

1978 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-495
Author(s):  
David Coombes
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
West Germany ◽  
The Social ◽  
Changing Role ◽  
The Relationship

The object in trying to compare the relationship between trade unions and working-class political parties in these four countries was to see how far the relationship had changed in response to certain trends supposed to be common to the countries concerned. The trends were: (i) the changing role of working-class parties themselves; (ii) the decline of political representation, especially by parliamentary means, in favour of direct action; (iii) the growth of government in the social and economic sphere and increasing direct participation by trade unions in governmental decision-making. It was considered important to look at these countries together in view of their growing economic and political interdependence, in spite of fundamental differences among them which affect the roles both of political parties and of trade unions.

scholarly journals Class, Gender, and Rhoticity: The Social Stratification of Non-Prevocalic /r/ in Edinburgh Speech

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Dickson ◽  
Lauren Hall-Lew
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Analysis Of Variation ◽  
Middle Aged Adults ◽  
The Relationship

Despite the prominence of socioeconomic status as a factor in models of English variation, few studies have explicitly considered speakers whose social class status changed over their lifetime. This paper presents an auditory and acoustic analysis of variation in non-prevocalic /r/ among middle-aged adults from Edinburgh, Scotland. The speakers represent three groups: the Established Middle Class (EMC) and the Working Class (WC), both of which are characterized as socioeconomically non-mobile, and a third group we call the New Middle Class (NMC), comprising individuals born to working-class families and living middle-class lives at the time of data collection. The results demonstrate that realizations of /r/ have a significant correlation with socioeconomic status, and that the effect of class further interacts with gender. NMC speakers demonstrate the highest level of rhoticity of all three groups. In contrast, WC men show extensive derhoticization and deletion, while WC women show patterns of rhoticity that are more comparable to the NMC women. The EMC speakers show more non-rhoticity than either the NMC speakers or the WC women. A consideration of the indexical value of weak rhoticity highlights the need for more robust phonetic measures distinguishing non-rhoticity from derhoticization, and to that end we consider the cue of post-vocalic frication. Overall, the results point to the need to conceptualize socioeconomic status as potentially fluid and changeable across the lifespan, thereby improving models of the relationship between social class and linguistic variation.

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