“Generativity versus Stagnation”: Midlife Crisis in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 431-446
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Midlife Crisis ◽  
True Nature ◽  
The Social ◽  
Individuation Process ◽  
Self Actualization ◽  
History Of ◽  
Psychoanalytic Approach ◽  
Caring Power

This paper discusses midlife crisis as a driving force behind the thought and action of the protagonist of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. The whole novel contains a diary written by the English butler Stevens who relates his history of servitude at Darlington Hall and concludes with some revelations about the true nature of his past. Since the butler’s account gives hints to his concern for the extent of his achievement in life, his reassessing act of delving into the past can be taken as an attempt to resolve midlife crisis. Being the seventh stage of Erik Erikson’s developmental psychology, midlife crisis is primarily characterized by the binary “generativity versus stagnation” and the subject’s struggle to decide on the meaning of life. Occurring between 40 and 65, midlife crisis is stimulated by the reconsideration of social demands such as career and marriage. Applying this psychoanalytic approach to Stevens’ experience of midlife crisis, the present research investigates the place of Lord Darlington and Miss Kenton, the former Stevens’ employer and the latter his only love object, as embodiments of the social demands of career and marriage that the butler reviews in his midlife stage. Ultimately, this research discusses the butler’s success in resolving midlife crisis by considering the individuation process, namely self-awareness, self-actualization, and the caring power the protagonist goes through. Keywords: Ishiguro, Erikson, Midlife Crisis, Generativity, Stagnation, Individuation.

The Political Significance of Hegel's Concept of Recognition in the Phenomenology

1994 ◽  
Vol 15 (01) ◽  
pp. 38-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Duquette
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Phenomenology Of Spirit ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Psychological Significance ◽  
Political Works ◽  
The Individual

There has been much debate regarding interpretation of the concept of recognition (Anerkennung) in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Among the issues discussed in various commentaries, two that I find particularly interesting and important are: a) the question of the social and historical vs psychological significance of the concept of recognition which appears in Chapter 4 of Hegel's Phenomenology and b) the status of the dialectic of lordship and bondage for understanding the nature of the reconciliation of self-consciousness in the realm of objective spirit. Both of these topics have been widely discussed and I could not pretend to do justice to them in the space of this paper. My particular interest here is to discuss the political significance of Hegel's concept of recognition, specifically by exploring its connection to Hegel's overtly political works, especially the Philosophy of Right with its articulation of the Idea of the state. However, before proceeding directly to that task, I would like to begin with some comments on the two issues I just mentioned, as they are relevant to my topic. In an essay entitled “Notes on Hegel's ‘Lordship and Bondage’” George Amstrong Kelly cautions the reader of the Phenomenology against oversimplifying Hegel's concept of recognition. There are two oversimplifications in particular that he worries about: (1) reducing the significance of Anerkennung to a social and political reading, and (2) (in Kelly's words) “the master- slave relationship is made an unqualified device for clarifying the progress of human history”, (p 191) The first mistake is avoided by seeing, in addition to the social “angle”, the “pattern of psychological domination and servitude within the individual ego”, (p 195) According to Kelly, “The problem of lordship and bondage is essentially Platonic in foundation, because the primal cleavage in both the history of society and the history of the ego is at stake. The two primordial egos in the struggle that will lead to mastery and slavery are also locked within themselves”, (p 199) The internal aspects of lordship and bondage are found in the struggle for self-awareness between self and other within the Ego, eg., in terms of appetition vs spiritual self-regard, opposed faculties in the ego that once awakened must be brought into harmony. As Kelly puts it in his book Idealism, Politics and History, “man remits the tensions of his being upon the world of fellow beings and is himself changed in the process. This relationship furnishes the bridge between psychology and history”, (p 334)

scholarly journals Why Do We Do What We Do? The Values of the Social History of Medicine

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-17
Author(s):  
Richard A McKay
Keyword(s):  
History Of Medicine ◽  
Social History ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Working Paper ◽  
Biennial Conference ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social History Of Medicine ◽  
Short Working

Abstract At the Society for the Social History of Medicine (SSHM)’s biennial conference in Liverpool in July 2018, members gathered to discuss a short working paper developed by the Society’s executive committee to articulate the values underpinning the SSHM’s mission. The occasion marked the first public discussion of this document, in development since 2015, which was intended to encourage disciplinary self-awareness and engagement, to give a sense of the breadth and importance of work carried out in our field and to spark broader discussion. To further these aims as the Society celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, the working paper appears here, accompanied by a foreword from the Society’s Policy Development Officer and the lightly revised invited responses shared that day by five members at different career stages.

Social Development

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross D. Parke
Keyword(s):  
Social Development ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Developmental Changes ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Current Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Time Periods

Social development is the sub area of developmental psychology that concerns the description of children’s development of relationships with others, their understanding of the meaning of their relationships with others, and their understanding of others’ behaviors, attitudes, and intentions. The examination of the social, emotional, biological, and cognitive processes that account for these developmental changes in social development are of interest as well. The historical shifts in the understanding of social development from Darwin to the present can be traced by an examination of the major theoretical and methodological advances that have characterized this area of inquiry. The history of social development is divided into five time periods—the beginning years (1880–1915), a period of conceptual clashes (1915–1940), a period of expansion (1940–1960), an era that saw the rise of contemporary themes (1960–1985), and the current period (from 1985 to 2019). Finally, future directions and unresolved issues are noted.

scholarly journals On the “second wind” of civilizational development (reflections on the report of N.I. Lapin)

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-56
Author(s):  
Nadezhda A. Kasavina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
General Process ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Self ◽  
Cultural Dialogue ◽  
Academy Of Sciences ◽  
World Development

The text is a response to some of the passages of the report by N.I. Lapin, which was pre­pared for discussion of the methodological grounds of the “Russian Civilizational Devel­opment Project” (Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences). In the continuation of the methodological searches of N.I. Lapin, the concept of the historical development of the civilization of K. Jaspers is considered in more detail in accordance with the all-human idea of A.V. Smirnov, as well as in the context of the justification of civilizational unity through the phenomenon of transversal reason (V. Welsh). Based on these ideas, the justification for the importance of constructing the unity of world civiliza­tion, which should take place not through the priority of individual cultures, countries or their associations, but on the basis of their originality, is provided. The concept of histori­cal development of K. Jaspers allows us to conclude that the distinction of the first axial time is the formation of cultural identity, local cultural self-awareness as a result of the path of civilization to the transcendent. The second axial time tends to the formation of an all-human civilization, transversely “collecting” local cultural achievements. In modern times, the most important factor in this formation is the progress in science and technology, which determines the main paths of civilizational development. At the same time, the social and humanitarian sciences have a mission to ensure cultural dialogue and participate in the general process of dis­cussing the current problems of our time. Globalization can be thought of as interaction, including the interaction of projects of further world development, taking into account both the unique cultural features and the history of civilizations, and their coexistence in the world as a whole.

scholarly journals The Social and Psychological Portrait of a Modern Woman (Reviewing the book by Krelenko N. S., Chernova L. N., Kostina A. K. Takie raznye… Sud'by anglijskih intellektualok Novogo vremeni [So Different… The Fates of Modern English Women Intellectuals]. Moscow, Dmitry Pozharsky University Publ., 2018, 352 p.)

2020 ◽  
pp. 142-149
Author(s):  
И.М. Эрлихсон
Keyword(s):  
Self Awareness ◽  
Women Intellectuals ◽  
Present Book ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

В предлагаемой рецензии анализируется коллективная монография Н. С. Креленко, Л. Н. Черновой, А. К. Костиной, в которой систематизируется и осмысливается исторический опыт становления женского самосознания на примере биографий английских интеллектуалок Нового времени. The present book review analyzes the collective monograph authored by N. S. Krelenko, L. N. Chernova, and A. K. Kostina. The reviewed monograph systematizes and assesses history of self-awareness in women at the example of modern English women intellectuals.

The Social Origins and Provenance of the English Bishops during the Reign of Edward II

1959 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 51-79
Author(s):  
K. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Early Career ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Origins ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
The Social ◽  
Complete Study ◽  
History Of

During the last twenty or twenty-five years medieval historians have been much interested in the composition of the English episcopate. A number of studies of it have been published on periods ranging from the eleventh to the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. A further paper might well seem superfluous. My reason for offering one is that most previous writers have concentrated on analysing the professional circles from which the bishops were drawn, and suggesting the influences which their early careers as royal clerks, university masters and students, secular or regular clergy, may have had on their later work as bishops. They have shown comparatively little interest in their social background and provenance, except for those bishops who belonged to magnate families. Some years ago, when working on the political activities of Edward II's bishops, it seemed to me that social origins, family connexions and provenance might in a number of cases have had at least as much influence on a bishop's attitude to politics as his early career. I there fore collected information about the origins and provenance of these bishops. I now think that a rather more careful and complete study of this subject might throw further light not only on the political history of the reign, but on other problems connected with the character and work of the English episcopate. There is a general impression that in England in the later middle ages the bishops' ties with their dioceses were becoming less close, and that they were normally spending less time in diocesan work than their predecessors in the thirteenth century.

Individual differences, social attention, and the history of the social motivation hypotheses of autism

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter C. Mundy
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Early Development ◽  
Emotional Development ◽  
Social Motivation ◽  
Social Attention ◽  
Social Emotional Development ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Precise Understanding ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Abstract The stereotype of people with autism as unresponsive or uninterested in other people was prominent in the 1980s. However, this view of autism has steadily given way to recognition of important individual differences in the social-emotional development of affected people and a more precise understanding of the possible role social motivation has in their early development.

The problem of periodization of the history of religion

1997 ◽  
pp. 3-8
Author(s):  
Borys Lobovyk
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Religious Development ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Role Of Religion

An important problem of religious studies, the history of religion as a branch of knowledge is the periodization process of the development of religious phenomenon. It is precisely here, as in focus, that the question of the essence and meaning of the religious development of the human being of the world, the origin of beliefs and cult, the reasons for the changes in them, the place and role of religion in the social and spiritual process, etc., are converging.

Early Cinema in Scotland

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Small Towns ◽  
Early Cinema ◽  
Popular Song ◽  
Feature Film ◽  
Local Newspapers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Production History ◽  
History Of ◽  
International Audience

This collection of essays, drawn from a three-year AHRC research project, provides a detailed context for the history of early cinema in Scotland from its inception in 1896 till the arrival of sound in the early 1930s. It details the movement from travelling fairground shows to the establishment of permanent cinemas, and from variety and live entertainment to the dominance of the feature film. It addresses the promotion of cinema as a socially ‘useful’ entertainment, and, distinctively, it considers the early development of cinema in small towns as well as in larger cities. Using local newspapers and other archive sources, it details the evolution and the diversity of the social experience of cinema, both for picture goers and for cinema staff. In production, it examines the early attempts to establish a feature film production sector, with a detailed production history of Rob Roy (United Films, 1911), and it records the importance, both for exhibition and for social history, of ‘local topicals’. It considers the popularity of Scotland as an imaginary location for European and American films, drawing their popularity from the international audience for writers such as Walter Scott and J.M. Barrie and the ubiquity of Scottish popular song. The book concludes with a consideration of the arrival of sound in Scittish cinemas. As an afterpiece, it offers an annotated filmography of Scottish-themed feature films from 1896 to 1927, drawing evidence from synopses and reviews in contemporary trade journals.

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