Class and social differentiation in Oceania

The rise of cognitive anthropology has recently stimulated a growing interest in intercultural variation. Separate social groups and strata endowed with various ranks and statuses already appeared at the dawn of history when the socioeconomic classes were developing. Hence that was also the time when various distinct social subcultures were emerging. Some Soviet scholars conceptually divide culture in two related ways. The first is determined by the principle which claims that each cultural form includes both productive and reproductive activities (technic-technological aspects) and the objectivized results of such activities. The second one has to do with various real cultural forms: production culture, consumption culture, interaction culture (or etiquette), socionormative culture, physical culture, artistic culture and so on. It seems quite evident that the emerging social differentiation affected distinct forms of ethnic culture rather differently. In order to understand this process, an extensive survey of the ethnic cultures of New Guinea, Melanesia and Polynesia has been conducted. The implication of this analysis is that it is necessary to correct some points in the methodology of Melanesian and Polynesian ethnic culture studies, because evidence of ordinary folk culture is inappropriate for the description of elite culture, and vice versa. The marshalled data put the investigation of the social differentiation process in a new perspective, particularly concerning the interpretation of prehistoric cultural frontiers.

The Tipping Point – when, how and why did We start thinking “Pandemically”?

Suspended between theories of manipulation and the public health catastrophe that continues to shake our world, there is a whole range of answers to the questions posed by scientists, doctors, politicians and ordinary folk – when, where, how and why did it all begin? Given the various concepts and ideas on the future corona world, it is important to keep asking and (still) avoid simple and mind-numbing answers. The world of media has also reached or surpassed a tipping point – can we even shake the illusion we deserve some “new normal”? Or perhaps the future holds a “new abnormal” world, alongside the “old abnormal”. On the one hand the pandemic has changed our behavioural patterns, and will continue to do so, but it has also changed our way of thinking, reaching conclusions and perceiving the external world and the world within us. On the other hand, are we in part historically regressing through our acceptance of half-dictatorship, lockdowns, immovability, blandness and hiding our smiles? Why and how might the philosophy of the media help with this challenge of views in some new techno-feudalism? Will we adopt any new lessons? We must first remember the legendary children’s show Sesame Street and its revolutionary insight – you can teach children only if you attract their attention first...

Russia as a Life and Writing Experience: The Journals Of A White Sea Wolf by Mariusz Wilk

International audience Mariusz Wilk is a Polish prose‑writer, who travels to the remote north of Russia. His first book, The journals of a White Sea wolf reveals his originality. He tries to delve into the mysteries of the ‘Russian soul’ and history, for that he chooses to blend in with local life. That is why he settled in a faraway, but representative place, the Solovetsky Islands. He writes of the ordinary folk he meets on a daily basis. He discovers a world marked by the ruins of the Soviet prison system, but also by the secular presence of the monastery. In his notes, Wilk stops on some details with strong metaphorical potential. Finally, he writes of himself as a writer and a traveler. For in his writing and his travels, Wilk’s main aim is to find himself, to understand who he is, to think about writing that allows self‑transcendence, about the language and about the specificity of each word, with its emotional and symbolic charge. The journals of a White Sea wolf is a testimony on past and today’s Russia, a reflection on practice and literary genre of travel prose. Mariusz Wilk est un auteur polonais qui voyage dans la Russie du grand Nord. Son premier ouvrage, Le Journal d’un loup, révèle l’originalité de ce regard. Wilk cherche à découvrir la Russie en profondeur, en choisissant de se fondre dans la vie locale. Pour cela il s’installe dans les îles Solovki, un lieu excentré, mais représentatif à ses yeux, de l’histoire et de la mentalité russes. Il y découvre un monde en sursis, marqué par les ruines du système pénitentiaire soviétique, mais aussi par la présence séculaire du monastère. Dans ses notes, Wilk s’arrête sur certains détails à forte potentialité métaphorique. Enfin, il se livre à une réflexion sur son double statut d’écrivain et d’étranger, sur l’écriture qui permet le dépassement de soi, sur la langue et le mot, avec sa charge émotive et symbolique. Le Journal d’un loup est autant un témoignage sur la Russie d’hier et d’aujourd’hui, qu’une réflexion sur la pratique et l’écriture littéraire du voyage.

Folk conceptions of free will: A systematic review and narrative synthesis of psychological research

The existence of free will has been a subject of fierce academic debate for millennia, still the meaning of the term “free will” remains nebulous. In the past two decades, psychologists have made considerable progress in defining lay concepts of free will. We present the first systematic review of primary psychological evidence on how ordinary folk conceptualise free will, encompassing folk concepts, beliefs, intuitions, and attitudes about free will. A total of 1,384 records were identified following a pre-registered protocol. After abstract and full-text screening, 18 articles were eligible for inclusion, comprised of 36 studies and 10,176 participants from regions including the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Turkey, and Germany. A narrative synthesis of results showed that for ordinary folk, especially the more educated population from the United States, free will is a dynamic construct centred on the ability to choose following one’s goals and desires, whilst being uncoerced and reasonably free from constraints. Results suggesting metaphysical considerations regarding consciousness, dualism, and determinism were inconclusive. Our findings provided preliminary support for a psychological model of folk conception of free will, and elucidated potential pathways mediating the effects of consciousness and dualism on free will attributions. Further research is needed to explicate the distinction between having free will and having the ability to exercise free will, as well as the cross-cultural validity of findings on folk conceptions of free will.

“Being Instigated by the Devil”

This chapter discusses the identification of occult mischief as a crime by exploring what is witchcraft and the various ways New Englanders envisioned it. It cites Elizabeth Garlick, who travelled from her home in Easthampton, Long Island to stand trial in Hartford for witchcraft. It also mentions that John Godfrey was prosecuted for occult crime in Massachusetts in March 1666, but he eventually went free. The chapter uses the stories of Elizabeth Garlick and John Godfrey to illustrate New Englanders' understandings of witchcraft, viewing it as a crime rooted in English law and culture. It describes witchcraft as maleficium, a Latin term referring to injury or harm committed through magical means, which dominated the views of ordinary folk who tended to be most concerned with the immediate threat that witches posed to their lives and livelihood.

Choosing and Refusing: Doxastic Voluntarism and Folk Psychology

A standard view in contemporary philosophy is that belief is involuntary, either as a matter of conceptual necessity or as a contingent fact of human psychology. We present seven experiments on patterns in ordinary folk-psychological judgments about belief. The results provide strong evidence that voluntary belief is conceptually possible and, granted minimal charitable assumptions about folk-psychological competence, provide some evidence that voluntary belief is psychologically possible. We also consider two hypotheses in an attempt to understand why many philosophers have been tempted to view belief as involuntary: that belief is a prototype concept and that belief is a dual character concept. Altogether, our findings contribute to longstanding philosophical debates about the relationship between the will and the intellect, while also advancing scientific understanding of important social judgments.

Daulat’s Flight

In 1719, a group of high noblemen from the clan of the Sayyids of Barha deposed the Mughal ruler Farrukh Siyar and replaced him with another prince. Such an act of unprecedented violence against the kingly body shook the established ideals of imperial authority. The regicide was understood, explained, debated, and justified in the admonitory histories that were written by observers of this moment of crisis, who vainly struggled to establish a new ideal of sovereignty. Yet the king and his nobility were not the only actors in this drama. For, as this chapter demonstrates, this convulsion of politics at the highest levels of the empire witnessed the forceful intervention of a new actor: the people of the city. While the popular action was dismissed by elite observers, these pages demonstrate how the city’s ordinary folk rejected the attempt by the nobility to change the structure of power.

The Financial Markets: Between Publics and Multitudes. A Sociological Contribution to Markets from Gabriel Tarde’s Viewpoint

This paper reflects on the dynamics of today’s financial markets in the light of two concepts — publics and multitudes — which were developed by the sociologist Gabriel Tarde at the end of the 19th Century. Each of the concepts reveals a different way of structuring social links among individuals. We consider that Tarde’s concepts let us: (1) stress the communicative dimension of today’s financial markets, placing currents of opinion at the core of speculative activity in the creation and assignment of value to monetary flows and other financial instruments; (2) hypothesise that financial markets articulate the logic of ‘publics’ (or audiences). These markets are virtually, globally connected, spreading currents of opinion that link financial experts and ordinary folk. They also link the multitudes (giving rise to ‘bubbles’, key social-temporal moments, and e-valuations through community links among professional agents — all features that can pave the way to a crisis). The paper’s point of departure is a review of present theories on Market Sociology. It then delves into the contributions that the concepts of ‘public’ and ‘multitude’ make in shedding light on financial dynamics and hence on the Sociology of Finance.

Still Too POSH to Push for Structural Change? The Need for a Macropsychology Perspective

My mother, who lived her early years in the British Raj in India, assures me that POSH referred to the well-to-do European's wish to travel “Port Out, Starboard Home” on ships to and from India, which meant enjoying the predominantly shaded side of the ship, protected from the ravaging heat that “ordinary” folk had to endure. What an apt, provocative, and profound analogy Gloss, Carr, Reichman, Abdul-Nasiru, and Oestereich (2017) have given us in their description of the primary focus of industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology on “Professional, Official, Secure, and High income” work.

India’s Middle Class

The category “middle class” can refer to quite different social entities. In the United States, it is often used as a synonym for “ordinary folk.” In the United Kingdom it references an elite with economic and social privileges. In India, “the middle class” acquired its own valence through a history that encompasses colonialism, nationalism, and desire for upward social mobility. At one level the Indian middle class was evidently derivative. Indians who wished to emulate the achievements and standing of the British middle class adopted the category, “middle class” as a self-descriptor. Yet the Indian middle class was hardly a modular replica of a metropolitan “original.” The context of colonialism, indigenous hierarchies, and various local histories shaped the nature of the Indian middle class as much as any colonial model. Composed of people—often salaried professionals—who were reasonably well off but not among India’s richest, being middle class in colonial India was less a direct product of social and economic standing and more the result of endeavors of cultural and political entrepreneurship. These efforts gave the middle class its shape and its aspirations to cultural and political hegemony. The same history, in turn, shaped a variety of discourses about the nature of society, politics, culture, and morality in both colonial and post-independent India. Contradictions were inherent in the constitution of the middle class in colonial India, and continue to be apparent today. These contradictions become even more evident as newer, formerly subaltern social groups, seek to participate in a world created through middle class imaginations of society, culture, politics and economics.