Showing papers on "Face (sociological concept) published in 1978"

Remembering faces: acknowledging our limitations.

Abstract: Attention is drawn to three features of human memory : the gap between what can be recalled and what can be recognised ; the selective nature of what is stored, and the tendency to code material in terms of general categories rather than specific instances. The relationship of these factors to laboratory studies of face recall and recognition is then considered and the implications for the use of such face reconstruction systems as “Photofit” by the Police are outlined. It is argued that such systems have utility and can be improved but that their likely potential is restricted by the workings of the human memory system.

Social change, charisma and international behaviour : toward a theory of foreign policy-making in the Third World

Abstract: Cultivated in a Eurocentric milieu, international regulations theory tended to neglect the developing areas. That special genre, the international theories of imperialism, presently being reincarnated in the dependencia literature, did treat the developing areas but mainly as extensions of metropolitan power. More recently, voting and coalition behavior studies of the United Nations have brought empirical tools to bear on the foreign policies of newly independent states-but in a narrow way. Otherwise, there is almost a void of systematic analysis of Third World international behavior. Professor Korany's book is a pioneering effort to fill this void. He has two complementary but not easily wedded purposes. First, he seeks, by "conceptual mapping," to cull from the literature concepts and hypotheses that can be used to analyze Third World foreign policies and to integrate that analysis with general theory. Second, he endeavors to lay out and substantiate an empirical explanation of "non-alignment" policies of Third World states. He is more comfortable and probably more persuasive with the second. Kornay rejects the (unflattering) "power politics" explanation of Third World non-alignment which, he contends, regards it as passive neutralism-an expression of impotence in the face of bipolar strategic competition. On the contrary, he argues, non-alignment is a policy of assertiveness; it is better explained by internal, psychosocial variables than by bipolarity; and, rather than helpless conflictavoidance, it is a positive conflict-resolving influence in world affairs. He explains non-alignment as a generic response in Asia and Africa to the colonial legacy of "social disorganization." Third World leaders resort to charisma, which requires "special results," to achieve national solidarity. Their instrument for this in foreign affairs is non-alignment, which teases rewards from the superpowers and justifies creative diplomatic intervention in peripheral superpower conflicts (e.g., India's mediation in Korea). Intriguing though this model is, two criticisms may be anticipated here. First, it does not do away with "power politics" explanations of Third World foreign policies. Instead it shows how those pol-

The Kondratieff Wave

Abstract: T HERE IS NO DENYING the fact that the past several years in the American marketplace have been confusing and frustrating. Marketers have had to cope with rapid expansion and equally rapid contractions of business activity, while the Federal Reserve Board and U.S. Government have employed stop-go monetary and fiscal policies. Consumers are left with declining real incomes as inflation remains high and unemployment refuses to go down, undercutting their credit worthiness and further dampening their already sagging confidence, which in turn is translated into anemic sales for autos, new homes, home furnishings, leisure products, steel, aluminum, textiles, etc. Yet in the face of underutilization of manpower and capital, the consumer, industrial, and commodity price indices continue to inflate. On top of these contradictory events, marketers are treated to conflicting advice: one year they are advised to demarket in a period of shortages (hyper-expansion); the next year they are told about how to market during a recession (hyper-contraction).* If the market watchers and advisors are not as confused as the businessmen, they nevertheless do appear to contradict themselves with alarming speed and alacrity. Marketers, and the rest of us, seem to be in need of some handle, some "scheme of things," to help them sort out the permanent trends from the transitory events-something that may help make sense out of where we are and where we may be going. This something need not be the "master scheme," but to be useful it should provide us with a fairly comprehensive understanding of basic trends and at least make reasonable sense out of where we stand and what we may expect: this is a cyclic theory, the 54-year Kondratieff Wave.2 The gist of the Kondratieff thesis is succinct: the U.S. economy is in a secular decline. We recently passed the crest of the 54-year wave, and we are now going downward and will continue to go downward for two to three decades.

Habermas' purge of pure theory: Critical theory without ontology?

Abstract: Reading J?rgen Habermas and his associates of the Frankfurt School of ide? ology critique more often than not leaves the impression that ontology is anath? ema to critical social theory. For ontology, in promoting a quietistic attitude of contemplation and mimesis in the face of a stable cosmic order, readily becomes a witting or unwitting ideological instrument for a politics of conservatism and ethics of conformity to the already given. But what if ontology took upon itself to describe the entire gamut of reality in the ways in which it is encountered and provokes us in our most concrete pursuits, so that the descriptive "is" of its givenness would eo ipso imply the prescriptive "ought" of immediate tasks? The world could then be interpreted as a direct invitation, if not to revolutionary ac? tivism, at least to rational change, thereby fulfilling the tacit ontological demand hidden in Marx's most familiar thesis on Feuerbach. The reciprocities involved here find a particularly telling formulation in the German: Die Welt ist uns nicht nur gegeben, sondern auch aufgegeben. Recent decades have witnessed a number of beginnings toward conceptualiz? ing such a task-structured reality as it presents itself to human endeavors. Hei? degger's explication of "the being for whom being is at issue" aims to elaborate the "perfect tense a priori," future as well as past, of the world in and through

The Philosophy of Medicine: The Early 18th Century

Abstract: This is an important book, not only for its superb treatment of the philosophical bases of 18th century scientific and medical thought, but for its uncanny ability to force its 20th century reader to face his own medical-scientific assumptions. It is a rare experience to enjoy a historical treatment of our discipline that is so provocative for modern thought. Dr King has done far more than lay before us the philosophical basis of 18th century medicine. He has properly reached back in time to lay its foundations in Neoplatonic and Galenic medicine and has demonstrated the variations played on these themes until medieval theories were forced to face the new world of scientific observation. Equally interesting are his discussions of the attempts to relate past theory and new knowledge, both by accommodation by reinterpretation and by rejection of one or the other. But beyond the interplay of conflicting philosophical constructions,

Why Be a Great Teacher in the Face of Apathy

Abstract: In answering the question posed in his title Hertz warns that educators need expect no guarantees of success. The challenge and the reward arise from having done our best.

Nogmaals Binnenstebuiten en Ondersteboven: repliek

Abstract: In Nogmaals Binnenstebuiten en Ondersteboven: repliek (Inside Out and Upside Down Again: A Reply) Frank Bovenkerk & Lodewijk Brunt argue that one of the greatest theoretical problems urban ethnographers have to face is the relationship between concrete situations & the wider social context. The suggestion that one should start from a given social theory to explain findings is rejected as an absolutistic device which leaves no room for the insider's perspective, ie, how people themselves experience their lives. Modified HA.

Action Learning — or antiquity reborn

Abstract: A recent issue of The Behavioral Sciences Newsletter referred to action learning as the latest management buzzwords in Europe. It is, on the contrary, a codification of the oldest activities of Mankind, since we became the social animals we are only by each learning with and from the other by common responses in the face of threat. Action learning asks whether managers learn anything useful in their tasks of managing by being cloistered with experts in the traditional programmes; it prefers real managers to tackle real problems in real time, so that by asking each other how they deal with today's troubles, and by observing the outcomes, they may succeed in dealing more effectively with tomorrow's.

When is a changed state not a changed state? When a theory of mechanics persists in the face of a theory of relativity

Abstract: A theoretical inconsistency in Whitehead's discussion of the effects of misinformation on knowledge is discussed. A suggestion for resolving this inconsistency is offered by means of reference to ethnomethodological concepts developed in work done to reconcile differences between Black and Standard English linguistic systems.