Showing papers on "Contemporary society published in 1979"

What Future for Employment

Abstract: Contemporary society is increasingly confronted with the socio‐economic problems generated by what has been described as the end of industrial society and its transition to a post‐industrial society. The most immediate symptom of this transition process is the high rate of unemployment being experienced by all the advanced industrialised nations. The aggregate percentage of the labour force unemployed in April 1978 in Canada was 8.6; in Italy 6.8; in Belgium 10.4; in Great Britain 5.8; in West Germany 4.4; and in the United States 6.0.

Walter Scott and the historical imagination

Abstract: First published in 1979. This study explores the main critical issues that arise out of a modern reading of Scott’s work, and treats the major novels in detail. It tackles the questions of Scott’s place in literary history and his problems in pioneering the historical novel. As well as examining the greater novels of the Scottish series, the author also deals with the relation between historical fiction and reality, with reference to the Waverley Novels, and Scott’s own attitude to history. Also discussed are some of the possible reasons for Scott’s failure to depict conflicts in his contemporary society. This book would be of interest to students of literature.

New productive forces and the contradictions of contemporary capitalism

Abstract: The analysis that we have put forward is necessarily incomplete without developing its implications for political practice. However, considerations of space prevent us from elaborating on this aspect of our argument here. It is also the case that our ideas on politics are less coherent and developed than the theoretical perspective that we have outlined. This seems inevitable, since political thinking must be a collective project; political programs written by isolated individuals always sound hollow and abstract.

Opportunities are expanding...

Abstract: social mobility is an important aspect of American history. It is reflected in the early colonization and conquest of the native population and in the subsequent revolution for political independence. It appears as the ethnic mosaic of our immigrant forefathers. After the Great Depression, the steady migration of young persons from farms and small towns to the swelling cities entailed social as well as geographic mobility. Given the central place of social mobility in our historical past, it is easy to understand the vitality of our shared image of America as a land of opportunity. Perhaps because mobility is part of our national image, Americans continue to monitor the degree of opportunity in contemporary society. Interestingly, we seem more concerned that American society continue to be structured so as to permit social mobility across generations than that it contain less inequality in current social and economic standing. Americans assent to the awarding of widely different prizes to persons depending on their performance in the economic "race." But we insist that all run the race under the same set of rules so that ability and talent show themselves in a fair way; and we sometimes intervene on behalf of some who cannot start the race from the same place as most of us. Our social programs to insure equality of economic opportunity--to overcome the "handicaps" of social background--issue from this logic. Without regard to the wisdom of our comparative philosophical intolerance of inequality of opportunity as contrasted with our tolerance of inequality of socioeconomic well-being, we can address the question of whether contemporary American society continues to be permeable. For example, does it allow the offspring of lower status families to acquire the material well-being and occupational statuses of middle-class life to as great a degree as in the past? Some social commentators suggest that opportunities for socioeconomic advancement were quite extensive immediately following World War II, largely as a consequence of the war-heated economy and of the GI Bill for education. An evaluation by Patrick Owens in Newsday (June 11, 1975) puts it pointedly:

On the Proper Use of Ancient Political Philosophy: A Comment on Stephen Taylor Holmes's “Aristippus in and out of Athens”

Abstract: The central concern of Stephen Holmes' article is neither with theories that seek to describe contemporary society, nor with the teachings of ancient Greek political philosophy, but with the relation between Greek political philosophy and contemporary society. Two strands of thought run through the article's argument. On the one hand, modern society has become so obviously different in so many ways from the Greek polis that the conceptions of Greek thought should be discarded as timeworn and obsolete. In accordance with this view, Leo Strauss' arguments for the serious reconsideration of the ancient philosophic understanding are lightly dismissed as "amusing claims," "rather pointless" questions (however "solemnly" asked), and mere calls to remember "ancestral pieties" (Holmes, 1978, pp. 116-17). On the other hand, the appeal of Greek political philosophy today is dangerously powerful and tends to produce the evil consequences of totalitarianism. So great is the allure of Greek political thought, says Holmes, that Hannah Arendt, author of the most profound book on the origins of totalitarianism, failed to see how her "piety toward Greece" might increase the danger of what she cared most deeply to avoid (p. 117). How, one wonders, can obviously obsolete thought have so powerful an allure for serious thinkers? One answer to this question might be that the obsoleteness of Greek conceptions is not obvious, but needs to be revealed by Holmes' analysis. This answer, however, cannot suffice, for virtually every literate political scientist is aware of the massive differences between the Greek polis and our contemporary societies, which produce the obsoleteness of Greek thought as Holmes understands it. Even Leo Strauss, who is alleged to be singularly neglectful of social structure, states with complete clarity the immediate inapplicability of Greek principles:

Anthropology Resource Center

Abstract: Consumer advocate Ralph Nader's observations are particularly relevant to the present dilemma of applied anthropology. Although one might argue that applied anthropologists are "near" the problems of contemporary society, they have neither approached them with the "intellectual ferment" of a truly critical discipline nor proposed solutions that have generated public debate and civic action. This failure is due largely to the compromises that applied social researchers have made in serving only the needs of government bureaucrats and corporate managers. There is a certain "liberal practicality" among American social scientists, as C. Wright Mills pointed out, that limits the vision of the applied researcher to the demands of the modern corporation and state.

Social Welfare and Organizational Society

Abstract: The dominance of the large-scale formal organization is a central feature of contemporary American society. This article overviews those societal trends that are bound up with organizational dominance and presents some implications for social welfare. It argues that the combination of large-scale organizations and traditional industrial arrangements results in the formation of a stable yet chronically underfinanced welfare system whose level of support and character is crucial to the lives of an increasingly alienated lower class. Organizational dominance implies that changes in bureaucratic rules have important consequences for large segments of society; however, strong social forces militate against any significant changes in those rules affecting public welfare.

An Interview with Michel Tournier

Abstract: Michael Tournier is one of France's more important contemporary novelists. His most important work in French was translated into English as 'Friday or the Other Island' which is a modern version of the Robinson Crusoe myth. He answers questions on his attitude towards the important pre-war writers, the role of the novel in contemporary society and the mythological dimension in his writings.

Management and complex organizations in comparative perspective

Abstract: Mohan has enlisted the expertise of scholars from Italy, Yugoslavia, Japan, Poland and the U.S. to consider the large-scale organization as the decisive institution in contemporary society, whether of a Communist or Capitalist type.

Class, Ethnicity, and the Family in Contemporary Society

Abstract: This paper attempts to demonstrate that observed variations in the family structure of the contemporary Capitalist World are determined primarily by the political and economic conditions peculiar to Capitalism, and that ethnicity has a subsidiary influence upon family structure. The paper also intends to explore the functions of the family within the Capitalist System and to examine the resulting positions and roles of women within the family types encountered.

The problem of the universality of social relations in classical marxism

Abstract: The concept of 'society' (Gesellschaft) in classical Marxism denotes not any form of human relations; in Marxism only those relations which are characterized by universality are recognized as 'social'. This peculiarity of classical Marxism has influenced its interpretation of contemporary Western society and of world history, and has also affected its prognosis concerning the future 'human society'. In this article the idea of universality of social relations in classical Marxism is examined in relation to two themes: firstly the thesis of classical Marxism about the 'up-side-down' character of contemporary society and, secondly, the dominance of natural relations in all preceding history. These topics deserve careful attention because they are connected in the most intimate manner with the intellectual originality of classical Marxism and its apparent intellectual promises (includ ing some elements which later became burdensome to Marx). When Marx tells us in the 'Theses on Feuerbach' that he is taking the "standpoint of human society",1 the logical stress falls on 'human'. When he published these for the first time in 1888, Engels put this word in italics so as to draw the reader's attention to its importance. The notion of 'man' has a peculiar meaning in classical Marxism, derived partly from a naturalistic anthropologism and partly from Marx's recognition of the anthropological importance of the modern industrial successes of Western Europe. According to Marx, not every member of the human race deserves the title 'man' in the full sense of this word, just as not every human historical community (Gemeinwesen) can be called 'human society'. Like any other living species, man developed according to Marx not all at once but as the result of a lengthy natural evolution, developing its natural potencies from generation to generation. In the case of man this process is not yet complete. Although no other human group or region is as close to completion as that of industrialized Western Europe, completion is not yet reached even there. If we are what we are this is because we are well along the path from our animal ancestors to our mature descendants, and this fact is reflected in our civilization. However, real perfection will be reached only by overcoming

Introduction to ‘Mind That You Do as You Are Told’

Abstract: It is hardly surpnsing that in recent years feminists have turned attention to questions around education. Schooling is after all a common experience, a compulsory part of the lives of all children in advanced industnal societies, and in most other contemporary societies too. And it is even less surprising that many feminists should see education, or rather, institutionalized state schooling, as playing a major part in the creation and maintenance of inequality between the sexes.

The English Teacher and Pop Music.

Abstract: Summary The article underlines a disjuncture between schools' curricular model and the ways of experiencing and knowing developed by adolescents through the mass media. Pop music represents the extreme case of this disjuncture because it is marked out as the music exclusively of youth. Thus it is particularly important to understand the situation of adolescents in contemporary society and the needs served by pop in their lives. Adolescent culture is made up of groups showing distinct differences of lifestyle reflected by pop music. These differences are nevertheless variations on the ethos of the parent society, a dominant feature of which is the hedonism about which many adults have ambivalent feelings. Adolescents' search for identity in a rapidly changing society is exacerbated by such ambivalence, by the generation gap and by adult condemnation of pop music, in which adolescents seek integrative meanings. It is pupils in the higher ability bands who experience the greatest conflict between academic va...

Bureaucracy and Public Communication

Abstract: Bureaucracy is one of the most striking characteristics of contemporary society. In the course of a single century bureaucracy has developed from hierarchically organized administrative government into one of the most outstanding traits of almost all organizations of society. It is to be found not only in state administration but also in all centralized economic, political, and scientific institutions, in all sorts of social and political organizations, labor unions, and even in mass entertainment and sports organizations. In short, almost no form of the mass organization of society has been able to withstand a bureaucratic trend.