Showing papers on "Dilemma published in 1977"

Disease and illness Distinctions between professional and popular ideas of sickness

Abstract: The dysfunctional consequences of the Cartesian dichotomy have been enhanced by the power of biomedical technology. Technical virtuosity reifies the mechanical model and widens the gap between what patients seek and doctors provide. Patients suffer "illnesses"; doctors diagnose and treat "diseases". Illnesses are experiences of discontinuities in states of being and perceived role performances. Diseases, in the scientific paradigm of modern medicine, are abnormalities in the function and/or structure of body organs and systems. Traditional healers also redefine illness as disease: because they share symbols and metaphors consonant with lay beliefs, their healing rituals are more responsive to the psychosocial context of illness. Psychiatric disorders offer an illuminating perspective on the basic medical dilemma. The paradigms for psychiatric practice include multiple and ostensibly contradictory models: organic, psychodynamic, behavioural and social. This melange of concepts stems from the fact that the fundamental manifestations of psychosis are disordered behaviours. The psychotic patient remains a person; his self-concept and relationships with others are central to the therapeutic encounter, whatever pharmacological adjuncts are employed. The same truths hold for all patients. The social matrix determines when and how the patient seeks what kind of help, his "compliance" with the recommended regimen and, to a significant extent, the functional outcome. When physicians dismiss illness because ascertainable "disease" is absent, they fail to meet their socially assigned responsibility. It is essential to reintegrate "scientific" and "social" concepts of disease and illness as a basis for a functional system of medical research and care.

Police Work: The Social Organization of Policing

Abstract: Based on extensive fieldwork in England and the United States, "Police Work" articulates a perspective on policing as an activity, as an organization, as a set of symbolic repertoires and situated actions, and as a source of myth, drama, and commonsense theories of social conduct. The evolution of a public mandate for policing as it is practiced today has resulted in the dilemma Manning sets forth in his introductory chapter: "They have charted a course of claiming responsibility for the maintenance of public order and the prevention of crime, yet their resources in the sense of public consensus and the level of cooperation that facilitates effective action are diminishing. They are the target for ever-increasing public demand for a level of public order and crime prevention they cannot possibly fulfill. They, like any other reasonable organization faced with an uncontrollable environment, an indifferent audience seldom moved to cooperative action, and massive discrepancies between their claims and their accomplishments have resorted to the dramatic management of the appearance of effectiveness."The "dramatic management of the appearance of effectiveness"--both within the polic hierarchy and in interactions between the police and the public--forms the core of Manning's discussion. He approaches it from a historical perspective beginning with the first London Metropolitan Police, and shows how the police mandate was gradually transformed from simple protection of citizens and their property from the "dangerous classes" to the paramilitary "crime-fighting" of today. The myths and rituals surrounding police work--both within and beyond the police organization--are examined, as are the evolution of police policy and the inherent contradictions of police-community relations. The police, Manning contends, are not really in the crime-control business. What they spend most of their time doing--and do badly because they do not consider it "real" police work--is supplying human services. As long as they encourage the public to think of them as "crime-fighters," which in today's complex society they cannot possibly be, and refuse to develop new modes of crime control and service delivery, they will be caught in the middle of public and political controversy.

Our Sister Killjoy or Reflections from a Black-Eyed Squint

Abstract: In this novel, the author explores the thoughts and experiences of a Ghanaian girl on her travels through Europe. It offers a running commentary on Sissie's feelings of alienation, her reflections on European culture and "civilization" and her return to the warmth of home in Africa. Ama Ato Aidoo has also published her collected plays "The Dilemma of a Ghost/Anowa" and short stories "No Sweetness Here". "Longman African Classics" are designed for the general reader, but are also suitable for schools and universities.

Cooperation and the Use of Coercion by Groups and Individuals

Abstract: In two experiments, male and female subjects, either as individuals or as groups, participated in a Prisoner's Dilemma and could communicate either threats of punishment for target noncooperation o...

Surplusage

Abstract: The forgotten dilemma of surplusage, why an animal should display potentials of learning ability far in excess of those required during evolution, is recalled in its century-old form and then reinstated as a guide to insights about contemporary but nontraditional views of animal intelligence.

Gandhi and Civil Disobedience: The Mahatma in Indian Politics 1928–1934

Abstract: Introduction 1 The recreation of a political leader 1922-8 2 The assertion of authority 3 Civil disobedience: the test of leadership 4 A time for peace 5 The constraints of peace 6 The frustrations of conflict 7 The resolution of the leadership dilemma Conclusion

Rationality and morality: A reply

Abstract: In his contribution, 'Rationality and Morality', (this issue, pp. 197-223), Professor Kurt Baier has provided a detailed and interesting critique of the treatment of the Prisoners' Dilemma and related games in my paper for the 1972 Bristol Conference on Practical Reason.1 The purpose of this note is to respond to Professor Baier's criticisms and to take this opportunity to make a few general remarks on the issues involved.2

Teachers in Role Conflict: The Hidden Dilemma.

Abstract: expectable among my friends in educa tion who choose, inadvertently or self consciously, to prefer value orientations that are predominantly past-centered, present-centered, or quite probably just eclectic-centered. Not all of my friends, however, are of like mind. Some are future-centered. With that galaxy of powerful and ac tivist Utopians ranging all the way from Plato to Francis Bacon to Edward Bella my to Buckminster Fuller to Lewis Mumford ? these and other friends would maintain (as the secular peren nialist educator Robert M. Hutchins once maintained while commenting on the confusions besetting education) that nothing less than a Utopian choice will any longer do. I am reminded here, too, of a wonderful quotation from Arnold Toynbee: "It is a paradoxical but pro foundly true and important principle of life," he said, "that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some other more ambitious goal behind it." As I interpret this great global his torian, he was speaking to us from a value orientation that is neither merely pastnor present-centered but is, above all, a new value orientation that should now govern our educational and cultural agenda. For, as Toynbee indicated, we need to set our target toward "the more ambitious goal" of today and tomorrow that only a future-oriented philosophy of education can any longer provide. D

The Coming Age of Conservation

Abstract: The energy dilemma for the most industrialized societies is usually perceived in terms of creation of an energy supply sufficient to permit expansion of consumption. The author, and many others, have been arguing that the energy dilemma would be as well formulated with inverted emphasis. Technology plays a dominant role in finding ways to make an industrialized society dynamic and high-spirited under the constraint of putting ever fewer demands on natural resources. Several themes emerge in this review: (1) in every sector of the economy, dramatic reductions in energy consumed to provide a given product or amenity are technically feasible; (2) however savings are computed, no single sector and no single strategy dominates the sum; and (3) the structures of the economies of the industrialized countries, viewed from the standpoint of energy consumption, are remarkably similar, such that when one of these countries identifies significant areas for energy conservation and promising tactics, these are almost always applicable in nearly every other country. This review suggests many of the characteristics of a society preoccupied with conservation; it is not a boring place. There is a lot of currently unfamiliar engineering: machines are more complicated, but built to be serviced and tomore » last. There are large ''extension'' services, helping people and industries use resources more carefully. There are many jobs associated with the extension services and with doing repairs generally. Everywhere there is evidence of ''systems'' thinking: fewer energy-costly traffic jams, more thermally integrated industries, and a lot of tricks to match loads to requirements over time. 5 tables, 6 figures, 78 references.« less

The Identity Crisis of the Community College A Dilemma in a Dialectic

Abstract: The identity crisis of the community college is explored in an analysis of the writings of ten community college leaders. A dialectic between elitist and egalitarian ideals in higher education migh...

Sufism and psychiatry.

Abstract: The questions, "What is the purpose of living?" and "Why do I exist?" haunt modern Western civilization and the absence of an adequate answer to them has given rise to the "illness" of meaninglessness or anomie. Psychiatrists, themselves, are afflicted with the same illness, partly because the problem of the meaning of life is solved by a special type of perception rather than by logic--psychiatry is trapped by its commitment to rationalism. Sufism, on the other hand, is a tradition devoted to the development of the higher intuitive capacity needed to deal with this issue. By taking advantage of the special science of the Sufis, Western civilization may be able to extricate itself from its dilemma and contribute to the development of man's full capacities.

Learning to "Fiddle" Customers: An Essay on the Organised Production of Part-Time Theft

Abstract: A lengthy period of participation observation and subsequent semistructured interviewing among the bread salesmen in an Englishfactory bakery showed that the salesmen regularly steal small sums of money from their customers. Paradoxically, although this is clearly (and seriously) theft, the salesmen manage to sustain a def inition of the practice as trifing. This paper shows that the salesmen's adoption of systematic theft (and their definition of it as unimportant) is a rational response to a critical organisational dilemma, and that ultimately, the responsiblity for illegality lies squarely with the bakery management.

The Dilemma of Mass Communication: An Existential Point of View:

Abstract: Man is what he is in communication; his existence is defined by his ability to remain in communication, not only with others as a prerequisite to any participation in the social process, but also with himself as a source of genuine feel ings and appreciations of his environment.

Conservation and Management of Tropical Rain-forest: A Dilemma of Development in Papua New Guinea

Abstract: Large areas of Papua New Guinea are covered by tropical rain-forest, but national and local pressures for development are causing increasing areas to be cleared for agriculture or logged for timber. Despite concern by conservation-minded land managers, a number of constraints make planning for the rational use of these resources rather difficult.The problems encountered are mainly sociological rather than ecological. Thus while landowners are willing or eager to sell the rights to harvest the timber on their land, they are unwilling to commit the land to any long-term land-use, whether this be as managed forest, national park, or wildlife reserve. The problem is compounded by the complicated system of land tenure and the fact that several language-groups may commonly be found within even a small area.The Gogol Timber Project at Madang illustrates some of these difficulties and the attempts that are being made to overcome them.

“Social preference” and game theory: A comment on “the dilemma of a paretian liberal”

Abstract: In \"The Dilemma of a Paretian Liberal,\" John Aldrich argues persuasively that Amartya Sen's theorem concerning \"The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal\" (1970) has wide-ranging consequences and is intimately connected with a number of well-known theoretical anomolies. In the main, Aldrich's arguments strike me as quite reasonable, and certainly they are of considerable interest. However, it does appear to me that his article contains several ambiguities, and I want here to address what seems to me to be the most basic one. Sen's theorem (like Arrow's) is cast in the framework of abstract social choice theory that Aldrich sketches out on p. 1. Such theory is concerned with formal relationships between n-tuples of individual preference orderings and a \"social preference relationship\"; it is not directly concerned with the mechanisms, institutions, or processes that generate such \"social preferences.\" But Aldrich's examples of applications of Sen's theorem do involve such processes and, accordingly and appropriately, are (or can be) cast in the framework of game theory. Such theory does specify a process for generating \"social choice\" by assigning strategic