Peggio il rimedio del male? Argomenti e valori nelle controversie sulla vaccinazione contro il Covid-19

An interdisciplinary approach involving linguistics, rhetoric, and argumentation theory helps reveal how people argue their opinions and decisions. Although the pandemic is a common experience, its risks are perceived in different ways. For some, the real threat is Covid-19 and the remedy is vaccination. For others, however, the real risk is the vaccine and the “remedy” is refusal to get vaccinated. Justifying their opinions on the subject, Italian Internet users refer to common values (such as life, health, responsibility, etc.). However, since Internet users diagnose risks in different ways, they make use of shared values in differing ways. In this paper, the views of those for and against vaccination are analyzed from three complementary perspectives. The first one concerns the differences in which people conceive of various values. The second one shows how, using the same topoi, pro- and anti-vaccine advocates create different hierarchies of values that are fundamental to their respective decisions. Finally, the third one explores differences in the ways values are used in various argumentation schemes used in disputes on vaccination.

Possible Citizens: Migration Enforcement as the Performance of Citizenship in the United Arab Emirates

While most boundary-making studies examine native-born citizens’ opposition to immigration, this article explains why immigrants develop anti-immigrant attitudes. Under what conditions do previous generations of immigrants develop solidarity with newcomers? When might immigrants, instead, police national boundaries and oppose further immigration or naturalization? I argue that under uncertain citizenship status, long-term immigrants are unlikely to develop solidarity with newcomers, despite common experience with exclusionary citizenship policies. Drawing on interviews with naturalization applicants in the United Arab Emirates, this article analyses how policies that unevenly distribute rights and protections to non-citizens structure relationships between immigrant groups. Moving beyond citizen/non-citizen binaries, it calls attention to hierarchies among non-citizens, examining how long-term immigrants with partial and conditional rights police national boundaries to navigate exclusionary policies. When states restrict citizenship, making it a scarce good, immigrants may respond to uncertainty by competing and, thus, limiting access to that good for newcomers. When naturalization is arduous, applicants face pressures to continually perform citizenship to prove that they deserve inclusion. Naturalization applicants lacked citizenship, but they immigrated to the UAE before the establishment of its guest-worker program and claimed Emirati identity by differentiating themselves from “migrant workers.” I show how migration enforcement and boundary-policing factored into their perceptions and performances of what it meant to be a “good” Emirati citizen. Ethnic hierarchies and the timing of migration created distinctions between immigrants eligible for naturalization and those who were not. The mere possibility of inclusion in the citizenry may generate hierarchies between immigrants, precluding solidarity, and encouraging boundary-policing.

Anger, Lamentation, and Common Ground

This essay argues that the Catholic Common Ground Initiative, founded twenty-five years ago, needs to shift focus to deal with the pervasiveness of anger among American Catholics. Instead of striving to achieve agreement through rational dialogue, American Catholics should aim to find common ground in our sorrow by developing liturgies of lamentation to address the pervasive devastation arising from crises such as clergy sex abuse. Lamentation finds common ground in the common experience of loss, without insisting that everyone attribute the loss to the same cause or agree upon the same path toward renewal.

The “common” experience of voice-hearing and its relationship with shame and guilt: a systematic review

Background Despite Auditory Verbal Hallucinations (AVHs) have been long associated with mental illness, they represent a common experience also in the non-clinical population, yet do not exhibit distress or need for care. Objectives This paper aims to provide a systematic review of studies that investigated the relationship between auditory hallucinations, shame, and guilt in people without relevant signs of psychiatric issues. Methods We searched studies reporting information about voices characteristics, the relationship between voices and hearers, hearer's reactions, and beliefs (1946-2021) and those that explored the differences between “patients” and “non-patients”, paying peculiar attention to shame and guilt issues. Included papers were evaluated for risk of bias. Results Eleven studies that explored the relationship between AVHs, shame and guilt, were extracted. Phenomenological, pragmatic, as well as neuropsychological features of hearing voices in non-clinical populations, allowed us to note a dynamic relationship and the constellation of subjective experiences that can occur. The role of guilt was characterized by few studies and mixed results, while shame was mainly common. Conclusions Due to the high heterogeneity detected and the scarce sources available, further studies should focus on both the aetiology and the bidirectional relationship between hearing voices, shame, and guilt in non-clinical people. This might favour the development and implication of different treatments considering emotion regulation, distress tolerance and interpersonal sensitivity on the other people.

Mindfulness buffers the influence of stress on cue-induced craving for Internet among Chinese colleges with problematic Internet use

Background and aims Stress is a common experience among college students with problematic Internet use, and it may exacerbate their cue-induced Internet craving. This study aimed to examine the influence of stress on cue-induced craving for the Internet among subjects with problematic Internet use and the buffering effect of mindfulness. Methods Sixty-eight college students with problematic Internet use were assigned to groups with a 2 (stress vs. no-stress) × 2 (high vs. low mindfulness) between-subject design. Results It was deduced that stress could significantly enhance cue-induced craving for the Internet, and mindfulness could buffer this effect. Specifically, the effect of stress on cue-induced craving for the Internet was weaker among subjects with high mindfulness as compared to subjects with low mindfulness. Discussion and Conclusions These findings contribute to understanding of the factors influencing problematic Internet use and how such factors interact. It also provides recommendations on how to prevent the progression of problematic Internet use and suggests possible interventions.

Jedna hra, různé příběhy? Zamyšlení nad kulturním překladem hry Stavíme Stalinův pomník

The article is a comparative analysis of Stavíme Stalinův Pomník and the Polish translation of it. This games refers to the world’s largest monument to Stalin in Prague, whose short history seems to summarize the specific character of the epoch. Drawing attention to the period when these games were created, which dates back to the early 1990s, the author tries to answer the question of whether the creators wanted to show something with this game, or whether it was only a matter of the satirical presentation of Stalin’s communism and the worship of him. A comparison of the components of versions of the game, such as the board, the rules of the game, the characters and the event cards highlights the icons of the communist era that are common for both countries, suggesting what belongs to the common experience of all Eastern Bloc countries.

The Saami and the Karen — common experience and differences: a comparative perspective

This paper offers a comparative perspective on a specific issue of the indigenous peoples of the Saami and the Karen. The groups being compared are from Europe and Asia, selected on the basis of their particular circumstances of living in more than one State. However, while the Saami are a relatively well-treated people that enjoy a form of cultural autonomy; the Karen are in a far worse situation with regard to their legal position as well as actual living conditions. The authors examine the cultural, political, and legal aspects of the Saami and the Karen situations and compare their common experience and aspirations. The article attempts to answer the question as to what the similarities and differences between the two indigenous peoples are and what lessons can be learned by those peoples that may be helpful in realizing their aspirations.

Introduction

On New Year’s Day 1993 Czechoslovakia was dissolved, giving place to two new European countries, Czechia and Slovakia. Czechs and Slovaks lived under Habsburg rule for centuries, then, between 1918 and 1938 and between 1945 and 1993, under a common state. Their coexistence, their shared culture and their common experience of Communism provided them with a similar background for the development of democratic party politics. Their new political institutions (parliamentarism, proportional electoral system, etc.) and their membership in the European Union (EU) after 2004 enhanced the forces of convergence. Yet, in the mid-2000s the Czechs were considered to have one of the most stable party systems in post-Communist Europe, while the Slovaks had a rather chaotic party landscape....

Breathing places: Three filmmaking investigations

Filmmakers and scholars Christine Rogers, Catherine Gough-Brady, and Marsha Berry each find a connection with place through their video work. In this article, they share their experiences of creating short videos, focusing on their insider experiences of filming and the spatial relationships between themselves and place. Although each of them began with a proposition, they filmed unscripted, allowing themselves to respond intuitively to their environment, allowing space in their practices for fluid and organic change and letting place shape what they filmed, and their final works. Christine Rogers engages with Elspeth Probyn’s idea of belonging as movement as she films Ngāi Tahu (Māori) traveling in dinghies away from her, toward islands where she, an outsider, cannot set foot. Catherine Gough-Brady finds a connection between non-representational theory and documentary film theory, uncovering a landscape that has no eye-line. Marsha Berry explores the seaside landscape, making a constellation with Rebecca Solnit’s lyrical essays about walking and place and non-representational theory as a mooring for her practice, exposing the common experience of standing still whilst looking at the blue horizon at sunset. Each filmmaker finds a unique path through the myriad of elements that make something a place.