Showing papers on "Contemporary society published in 1977"

Two Approaches to Contemporary Dispute Behavior and Consumer Problems

Abstract: The two articles that follow contribute to the mapping of dispute behavior in contemporary society. Hannigan (1977) describes how a newpaper action line, or ombudsman, handles consumer disputes. Best and Andreasen (1977) report the findings of their survey of consumer experiences and what consumers did about the problems they encountered. These essays represent complementary approaches to the study of how people and institutions respond to common consumer disputes. I will begin by indicating where they fit into the evolving tradition of sociolegal research and how they add to our still redimentary understanding of dispute behavior. What is known about contemporary dispute behavior? Perhaps the prior question must be, what portion of the social terrain has been the subject of this research tradition? Social control and the resolution or avoidance of conflict include a large part of political and social life. But scholarship in this tradition has in fact been limited to what happens to grievances, disputes, or trouble cases (e.g., Llewellyn and Hoebel, 1941). It has been primarily concerned with focused, visible conflict-the grievance of one identifiable party against another concerning a concrete dispute. Such a dispute may be only a part of, or a symbol for, some other underlying conflict, because the parties may be pursuing psychological, social, religious, or political goals not involved in the explicit dispute. This research tradition, however, has tended to isolate and concentrate on what is manifest. It has thus

The Black Male in America: Perspectives on His Status in Contemporary Society

Abstract: Follow up what we will offer in this article about the black male in america perspectives on his status in contemporary society. You know really that this book is coming as the best seller book today. So, when you are really a good reader or you're fans of the author, it does will be funny if you don't have this book. It means that you have to get this book. For you who are starting to learn about something new and feel curious about this book, it's easy then. Just get this book and feel how this book will give you more exciting lessons.

The Role of the Courts in Contemporary Society

Abstract: To describe the role of the courts in contemporary American society is a Janus-faced assignment. It can be a description of what we are, or an expression of what we should be. To propose what we should be requires that we know what we are; to know what we are requires an overview of two centuries of American experience. This makes for a fitting Bicentennial treatment because the beginning point is both natural and familiar. This article surveys key evolutions in the courts these past two hundred years, and concludes with extensive recommendations and reflections on federalism, separation of powers, and the proper, limited role of the modern judiciary. PDF scan posted with permission of the University of Pittsburgh Law Review.

Major Trends in Mental Retardation

Abstract: Human beings surpass all other life forms on earth in intelligence. Their capacity to reason, to conceptualize , to learn, and to manipulate time distinguishes them as unique. Most contemporary societies place high value on intelligence and tend to equate it with being human. Hence, individuals lacking in intelligence tend to be considered less human than others; typically, they have been stigmatized and denied full participation in society.

The Artist in Contemporary Society: Report of an International Symposium (review)

Abstract: The title of Deinhard's book, despite its sociological qualification, is misleading. To a philosopher i t sets up expectations of conceptual analysis or of descriptive phenomenology. In fact, the book is a provocative examination of cultural historical styles. All works of art, according to the author, include both meaning and expression as elements, but distinct societies at different historic moments tend to regard one or the other element preferentially. This preference also determines the critical attitude of that society-whether it will value as art a wide range of objects (because of their expressive quality) or restrict the designation 'work of art' to only those items that share a common meaning. Both terms, 'meaning' and 'expression', are defined extra artistically. as culturally determined features manifested in art. Mearring, which is variable, is independent of the visual aspect of a painting but is its particular iconic referent. The meaning of a work of art is not exclusively aesthetic-it may be a religious or philosophical dogma, a political conviction or a moral imperative. Expression, also characterized as 'potential content', is more directly identified with the visual features of the work itself. I t is manifested in the form relationships of those visual elements as they correspond to structural relationships of the social world outside the work. Expression is thus an objective, relatively unchanging property of the work of art ; while meaning is variable, reflecting the extra-artistic values and beliefs of a particular society. Unt i l the advent of modern art (ca. 1850) pictures were esteemed largely for their meaning; but contemporary critics have exalted expressiveness to a position of pre-eminence. While expression necessarily reflects the historic context of the artist. i t is also the means by which art conveys the 'timeless' qualities of general experience. Deinhard affirms that expression in the concreteness of its artistic embodiment reconciles the particularity of historicity with the universality and timelessness attributed to fine art. The paradoxical unity of these attributions provides the point of departure of her sociological inquiry. How, she asks. can works of art that are necessarily made within and for a particular society, also 'live for' and 'speak to' the concerns of totally different societies? This question, which is posed in the form of a classically Marxist dialectical puzzle, is commonly answered by a denial of history. Aestheticians seek ahistorical constants such as objective properties of works of art (e.g., 'significant form'), or as essential features of human appreciative consciousness le.g., archetypal patterns) or as transhistoric canons of aesthetic excellence. But Deinhard is committed to the intact preservation of the dilemma: the timelessness of time-bound art. Her aim is to find and formulate laws that explicate the structural and formal interactions of works of art and their contemporary societies, their mutual influence and mutual illumination. Her answer to the classic dilemma is thus framed in terms of mobile, but lawful, patterns of human domination and subordination, socio-economic relationships and their ideological rationalizations. The structure of her argument takes shape and is revealed through the painstaking analysis of four paintings, three of them depictions of the same biblical event-the massacre of the innocents as commanded by King Herod in anticipation of his own deposition by the fore-ordained Christ. Each of these paintings (by Giotto, Bruegel and Rubens) is shown to express by means of the formal arrangement of its visual elements the structural features of the disposition of power and authority characteristic of its time. Each painting reveals as well the prevalent mode of acceptance (passive or resistant) that different segments of scoiety display with respect to that power structure. I t is this expressive content that fixes the work of art in its historic moment but that may transcend documentation to merit the characterization of universality. The artist need not be merely a barometer of his environment (a passive measure of condensation) but may be a formative influence upon his own o r future societies. The value of works of art to societies other than their own rests upon their capacity to evoke recognition of and identification with structural patterns meaningful in other times and other places. The measure of an artist's popularity among his own contemporaries is thus logically independent of his reception by subsequent audiences. This explains the apparent discontinuity of the history of taste. Deinhard alludes to the potential for social criticism, which has been associated with great art. In the 20th century, however, as she points out, art has become a personal assertion of self-alienation under the misconception that this is self-expression. Self-assertion without self-knowledge, as she characterizes it, is a mode of relief-seeking from and an index of the alienation endemic in our society. Art, having become self-conscious and self-expressive, obscures its expressivity and becomes evasive (which is not escapist). Unfortunately, Deinhard offers no hope or promise of a more gratifying development of art. One regrettable shortcoming of the book is the poor quality of the reproductions. Since her discussion is detailed in its analysis the reader is constantly drawn to the illustrations, but they are too small and too blurry to permit a visual understanding of a l l that she describes.

Economics as Science and as Culture

Abstract: Two aspects of contemporary society motivate this paper. First, is the recognition of a growing awareness that our society is in a period of major social-cultural change, and second is the recognition of science as the major institutionalized and organized basis of knowledge within society (Bell). The implication is that science can either impede or facilitate the change. The proposition that economics is both science and culture recognizes that economics as a discipline embodies society's traditional sense of historical purpose and values but that it does so in the name of science. Culture is used conceptually to designate society's common sense of purpose and meaning (Bell). We conceive of a cultural tradition as the embodiment of society's historical, experiential knowledge (Cassirer). The paper develops around the proposition that experiential knowledge is the basis of human meaning and purpose and is prior to, and takes precedence over, scientific knowledge as a ground for action and choice (Cassirer). The thrust of the paper is to clarify the distinction between cultural and scientific knowledge and, thus, the role of science, to give some historical background on how economics developed as both, and to develop some implications from this analysis regarding the future. This discussion necessitates considering science and the social sciences generally. Agricultural economics is an applied social science, and the implications will be expressed in terms of that discipline. One conclusion is that agricultural economics as now practiced is both bad science and uninformed culture. Culture, Science and History

The Single Person in Contemporary Society

Abstract: These are the questions which we have set out to answer in this article. The perspective is sociological rather than theological. Our purpose is descriptive rather than prescriptive. Other writers in this journal have explored biblical, ethical, historical, and psychological dimensions of the single life. Our task has been to put together a composite picture, a montage of single adulthood in America today.

Is History Becoming a Social Science?: The Case of Contemporary History

Abstract: IT IS BY NOW a commonplace to observe that the past ten or twenty years have been an unusual period of innovation in historical studies Ideas which are not new in themselves-they were being proclaimed and argued over in the 1930's, some of them in the nineteenth century -have acquired substantiality and been converted into programs of research on a sufficient scale to exercise a powerful attraction over the imagination of a younger generation of historians both in Europe and in the United States The impetus has come, or been derived by historians, from the expansion of the social sciences, and this is reflected in many of the characteristics of the New History, a term originally coined much earlier but only given substance in our own time by co-operation between scholars trained in different disciplines; by group projects; by the application of methods and concepts taken over from the social sciences and most important of all (since the rest follows logically from this) by looking at the past in ways similar to those in which social scientists look at contemporary society And indeed there is hardly a social science-anthropology, ethnology, sociology, economics, statis-

Bread, Butter, and Biology Teachers

Abstract: "Pensions apparently placed in jeopardy, ruined dreams for young teachers who had begun to establish homes and families, sudden idleness after a quarter-century in the classroom.. ." These lines were written by Judith Cummings (1976) of some of the nearly 3,800 New York City teachers being laid off by the Board of Education during 1976-77. Why should such traumas threaten those who in our times accept the challenges of teaching? Cummings quoted one teacher as follows: "The system is so political, if the board wants to zero in on you, they can do a hatchet job on you." Another teacher, however, blamed the union for the plight of the city's teachers. I will not take a stand in this editorial on the polemic presented by these teachers; rather I will simply propose that the time has come to divert some attention from the past preoccupation of developing a universally acceptable classroom situation for the future to the "bread and butter" issues of being a biology teacher in contemporary society. The idea of education dealing with futuristics in any meaningful way will become but another fad unless teachers themselves recognize that the future is dependent on how the present is managed. How can biology teachers, both individually and collectively, decide the best ways to deal with the urgent issues of survival in their chosen profession? These issues will surely have profound and permanent effects not only on the personal lives of biologists, but also on the lives of their students and the world these students will mold.

Nonviolent Action and Social Change in Contemporary Society

Abstract: Most often associated with the concept of revolution is some notion of violence-or at least the implication of the use of violent methods-as a necessary tool in resisting tyranny or effecting change against the intransigent power of the state. Without a doubt, it is the dramatic events which capture the attention of people and so often become the historical pivots which are pointed to. But, in reality, what does the beheading of a king or the machine-gunning of a crowd actually accomplish? Psychologically, of course, such events may have a great effect. They may serve as those unifying symbols which weld a social movement together. However, it is the longer, more difficult process of undermining the power position of the established authority which is the basis of the process of revolution. In general, methods of social change may be grouped on a continuum with violent means at one end and those associated with nonviolence at the other. Unfortunately, much of the standard literature dealing with &dquo;typical&dquo; revolutionary processes has a strong link with the assumed need for violence as a component for the prosecution of revolutionary change. This link with violence can strongly influence the conception of the nature of the process. In his Anatomy of Revolution, for example, Brinton (1938) completely ignores the problem of