Bertel Nygaard: History and the Formation of Marxism
This paper contains following book review: Bertel Nygaard: History and the Formation of Marxism Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, pp. 251
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This paper contains following book review: Bertel Nygaard: History and the Formation of Marxism Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, pp. 251
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Nutritional needs are basic physiological human needs. They influence consumer behaviourand individual consumer choices. When selecting food, consumers are impacted by their income,preferences, and habits. Market conditions affect the final selection of food. The aim of the articleis to determine the impact of various economic, demographic and cultural factors on consumerbehaviour with regard to contemporary market changes. The study uses the review method anda critical analysis of the subject literature from 2004–2022. The study identified food prices andconsumer income as the prime factors influencing nutrition behaviour. The analysis shows that theprice of high-quality food is the primary barrier for lower income consumers who prefer lower-end products that provide more energy. The higher the income, the greater the fruit and vegetableconsumption. Demographic factors, such as sex and education, influence nutritional consumerbehaviour. Dietary choices of women follow the principles of healthful nutrition more often thanthose of men, as evidenced by the following: the presence of fruit and vegetables in their diet,more meals per day, and particular cooking methods. The level of education is positively correlatedwith the awareness of proper nutrition habits. The subject literature on culinary habits as culturaldeterminants suggests that older people are more often ethnocentric, while younger consumers areopen to other nations’ cuisines.
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The article presents the history of development of sociological thought on emotions and demonstrates two classic traditions of their understanding: a positivistic one, describing the duality of human nature (individual and social, emotional and rational), and a neo-positivistic one, oriented towards actions and interactions between individuals (emotions are placed in individuals). A sociological typology of emotions is presented, offering a distinction between universal emotions (primary, basic, fundamental) and secondary (socially constructed). Among many social definitions of emotions, Steven Gordon’s definition was used owing to its cultural and constructivist references. The second part of the article presents classic sociological theories of emotions and contemporary trends in sociological studies of emotions.
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The COVID-19 pandemic engendered changes in the area of family practices, including those related to the celebration of holidays. Traditional rituals and familiar ways of demonstrating familiarity had to undergo immediate and often unwanted modifications. The research results show reactions to these changes, which encompass embracing new practices, relief connected with forgoing old rituals, as well as negative evaluations of the modified family celebration practices. The analysis of the changes in holidays-related family practices resulted in a more universal pro- posal of attitudes towards changing family practices during social crises.
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What is knowledge and how can we analyse it from within social sciences as social knowledge? Our socially driven intuition tells us that knowledge is a special relation that humans have with their surrounding world. Its specificity lies primarily in the fact that it implies a direct interaction with the environment. Another important and interesting characteristic of knowledge is its tendency to replace interactions with reality with interactions between pieces of knowledge produced about that specific reality. Connected to this, regarding the issue of truth, paraphrasing both Einstein and Smith, this article argues that ‘an invisible hand’ of the realities of social phenomena makes it so, that the accepted truths of a certain society are those and only those that are functional for the survival and reproduction of that society. And for this to happen it is a must that the elite designated with the production and the legitimation of ‘the truths’ exists and produces those ‘truths’ that support the ‘general interest’ of that respective society. Most importantly is to understand that the consistency of the legitimated truths with the dominant values of the society imbedded in its social order is far more important that their consistency with the empirical observations of the reality.
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The essay presents an analysis of the collective work Polskie nauki społeczne w kontekście relacji władzy i zależności międzynarodowych (lit. The Polish social sciences in the context of power relations and international dependencies). The reviewer sees it as the next stage of a research programme undertaken by Tomasz Zarycki and his colleagues, the thematic axis of which has for many years been the functioning of elites in contemporary Poland, and in particular the intelligentsia as the group responsible for the emergence of meaning constellations creating a discursive space for Polish society. The authors of the work’s chapters address the academic world and the mechanisms for producing knowledge in the Polish social sciences. Although belonging to the sociology of science, the work steps significantly beyond this area, constituting a statement on the specificity of the functioning of Poland’s intellectual elites from the 19th century and through the years of communism to the present day. It bears the hallmarks of a study in historical sociology, but it is the contemporaneity of the Polish social sciences that provides its centre of gravity. The interesting theoretical framework laid out here reveals the diverse consequences of Poland’s semi-peripheral positioning in global hierarchies pertaining to science, innovation, and also economic standing. The social sciences have been treated as a special area because of their substantial role in creating the symbolic universe formatting the Polish cultural canon, and the analyses of specific disciplines not only demonstrate their semi-peripheral place in global academic space, but also their close relations with the sphere of Polish politics and public debate. The theses put forward invite discussion concerning the state of the humanities in Poland, offering a wealth of fresh material for academia’s self-reflection.
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XVIII Ogólnopolski Zjazd Socjologiczny, który we wrześniu 2022 roku pracował w Warszawie, był dobrą okazją do przedstawienia całościowych obrazów społeczeństwa oraz wyników badań z wielu dziedzin szczegółowych, w tym takich, które dopiero się wyłaniają. Dawał też sposobność do refleksji nad naszą dyscypliną i profesją — zawodem i powołaniem.
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In this article, I wish to offer the notion of epistemic media as a theoretical concept. The concept refers to media forms and media practices geared primarily not for communication but for rendering data and information into knowledge. Epistemic media is historically contingent as it emerges with modernity. As epistemic devices were developed in an increasingly rationalised society, they also opened up a space to know not just objective reality but the self, thus becoming entwined with the emergence of subjectivity as a realm of self-reflection where reason is used to form a free and authentic self. Exploring a few case studies of epistemic media, in particular, double-entry bookkeeping, and, drawing on the notions of cultural techniques and media practice, the article offers a preliminary exploration into epistemic media and its relations to the emergence of subjectivity.
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Healthcare Organizations, which are in the crucible of ruthless complexities, unforgiving pressures and continuous transformation due to service offerings that directly affect human health, are obliged to ensure continuous job satisfaction of their employees and, accordingly, to retain their employees. Considering that the potential problems of employees in health organizations will directly affect the service provided and thus human health, it is necessary to prevent the dissatisfaction problems of human resources related to their jobs. Based on this point, this study aims to determine the effect of mindfulness and ego strength on job satisfaction of healthcare professionals. Within the scope of the research, 456 healthcare professionals working in public and private hospitals in Istanbul were selected as a sample. The data were evaluated by using regression analysis through SPSS 22.00. According to the findings of the study, mindfulness and ego strength increase job satisfaction. This finding reveals that by effectively managing mindfulness interventions in health organizations and determining strategies to increase ego strength, employees with high satisfaction will be positioned in the organization and accordingly, the quality of health services that will directly affect human health will increase.
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The concept of capitalism has experienced a resurgence in the social sciences, following a period of relative quiet in the last decades of the previous century. In contemporary discussions, three significant trends regarding the critique of capitalism have emerged. Firstly, there is a growing emphasis on immanent forms of critique, which derive their standards by reconstructing the fundamental principles of the institutions to be criticized. Secondly, there is a prevailing argument that the artistic critique of capitalism has lost its effectiveness, as capitalism has absorbed it into its mechanisms, while social critique has gained prominence. Thirdly, the analytical focus is directed to comprehending the critiques expressed by the actors living within the capitalist system. We assert that a comprehensive analysis of capitalist society demands the consideration of three additional forms of critique. First, this involves integrating a critique that draws from norms external to the system it criticizes. Secondly, artistic critique, often contrasted with social critique, should not be relegated to insignificance but rather revitalized ‒ especially in light of evidence indicating the perpetuation of its targets. Lastly, a critical examination of capitalism should not only encompass the critique presented by social actors but also delve into how social conditions and processes shape individual’s capacity for critique, its absence, and its content.
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Max Weber saw the true purpose of sociology not in the progress of knowledge as such, but in its significance for the self-understanding of the actors in the social-historical world. Thus, the greatest possible accuracy and reliability of sociological knowledge was exceptionally important for him. Through his interpretative sociology, as the stable core of social and cultural studies, Weber wanted to go beyond the simple postulate and to demonstrate how such a requirement can be met. His almost obsessive insistence on value-free judgments refers to what is no less than the condition sine qua non of strict empirical knowledge and of a practice that is true to reality, e.g., to that which is at stake in any serious Enlightenment. This view has motivated me to participate in many debates on whether, and to what extent, sociology really corresponds to its vocation for Enlightenment.
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The following article offers a detailed close-up reading of chosen parts of the collective work The Weight of the World (1993), published under Bourdieu’s direction. By scrutinizing the original research practices and operative concepts such as „active listening“, „understanding“, „reflex-reflexivity“, „benevolent disposition“, „autoanalysis“ of the socioanalytical programme, which Bourdieu bequeathed to us in a fragmentary form, the main intention of this paper lies in revealing its broad methodological scope which cannot be reduced to simple conceptual analysis. Alongside the discursive level, the socioanalysis works also through analytical regard towards all the accompanying affective changes in the interviewees’ behaviour. Thus, its complex strategy preconditions a new and authentic approach to marginalized phenomena such as positional suffering and symbolic violence seized through their effects in the shared biographical narratives or illusions. The socianalytical programme deserves a new reappropriation in the field of social sciences in the light of the affective turn in phenomenology both as a condition for symbolic therapy and comprehensive view to the everyday pathologies.
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In this article I juxtapose the sociology of race of W.E.B. Du Bois and Max Weber. They exemplify an early radical sociologization of race, rejecting the biological and naturalistic presuppositions, prevailing in their historical context. Through this juxtaposition I aim to derive an approach for thinking about the relationship between race and crisis. By crisis here I mean conjunctures in which the attainment of formal equality is followed by practical inequality, which acquires racialized forms. The latter could eventually become anchored in the legal framework. Both sociologists think in the period between the end of US Civil War and the early twentieth century, when the practical racialized inequalities, following the emancipation, were judicialized in the „Jim Crow“ system.
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The main contention of this paper is that, no matter whether one is a true believer or a professed atheist, religion remains a relevant social phenomenon. Serious scholars have written about an eclipse of the sacred in industrial societies through a sad confusion between «sacred» and «religious». The «religious» as a commodity administered by an organized church might well be in a state of crisis. But the «sacred» is actually the meta-human element that makes mankind exist and develop beyond the so-called «laws» of the marke
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Ibn Khaldūn, considered the founder of the philosophy of history and sociology, evaluates art in the context of the understanding of the art of his period in his Muqaddimah. This understanding of craft/ profession comes to mind when art is mentioned during the Middle Ages. Ibn Khaldūn deals with and evaluates the relationship between art and ‘umrān within the needs framework. The only condition for the emergence and development of art in a society is the level of need of the society for that art. In this understanding, as the need for the arts as increases as ‘umrān increases, the arts also increase and develop. One of the most critical factors in the developing the arts is the state's support for the arts, in otherwords, its need. Since art is considered as a means of earning in Ibn Khaldūn, the most essential way of its development is its potential to provide financial return to the artist. Art that does not bring financial gain to its artist will be abandoned and that art will be forgotten in time. The relationship Khaldūn established between ‘umrān, art and need is not an individual-based one, but a society-based one. In this sense, it is not the individual needs and abilities of the artist that nourish, grow and direct the arts, but the order of needs of development level of the society. The climate, which is decisive for the needs, is a severe factor that also determines development of art. Climate directly affects the character and development of society, which in turn directly affects the arts in the context of needs. Ibn Khaldūn, who carries, the thoughts of his period in terms of considering art as a profession, differs from the ideas of his time in terms of the complex relationship he established between, such as art, society, need and climate. Muqaddimah, which is seen as the founding text of many branches of science, can be considered the founding text of the sociology of art in terms of its method of dealing with the relationship between art and ‘umrān. The study used qualitative research methods to used to analyze Ibn Khaldūn’s relationship that established between ‘umrān and art.
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The multiculturalism of our current societies favors the appearance of stereotypes, a phenomenon due to the generalizations of certain characteristics which are projected on a social group belonging to another society. Stereotypes develop with societies, sometimes evolving towards prejudices or clichés. Stereotypes have identifiable properties and typologies at the lexical, semantic and discursive level. There is a complex connection between the stereotype, the metaphor and the metonymy influenced by cultural tradition and semantic contents. Currently, the media launch convincing but erroneous representations aimed at groups of individuals, the message transmitted carrying either a positive or a negative meaning.
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This article explores the genesis and establishment of the idea of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The relationship between human rights and religious concepts is explored.
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The aim of this article is an analysis of the process of removing the Soviet monuments including the objects commemorating the Red Army and those glorifying the Soviet regime, which were created during the occupation of the Baltic states by the USSR. After the spontaneous process of destroying the monuments and their removal in the 1990s, many of them remained in public spaces of the sovereign states. In recent years, due to Russia’s occupation of Crimea (2014) and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (2022), the governments of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have taken active steps to dismantle monuments that are a symbol of Russian imperialism and falsification of history. The author draws attention to the process of heritage management, in which certain meanings are accepted and reinforced, while others are marginalised and rejected. Gregory Ashworth’s heritage paradigm will be used to analyse the research topic, according to which heritage is a process of selective acceptance or rejection of elements of the past in response to the current social, political and economic needs.
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Along with the development of ethnology and sociology, researchers’ interest deepened in one of the most important elements of culture: law. Bronisław Malinowski was one of the founding fathers of social anthropology, who studied law as a phenomenon functioning in a cultural context. The researcher emphasised the importance of law for social institutions, and although this phenomenon was a rather fluid category according to Malinowski, he declared the need to present its clear definition. The text deals with the ways Malinowski conceptualised law, including his reference to the assumptions presented by other researchers, and how his observations, conclusions and postulates contributed to the development of anthropology of law as a field of research.
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The aim of the article is to reveal how the human-animal relationship is reflected in real linguistic utterances made in Polish. 2,813 sentences from the National Corpus of Polish, in which the words człowiek / ludzie (person / people) and zwierzę (animal) co-occur, were analysed. On the basis of direct contexts, a dozen groups of sentences were distinguished, reflecting different ways of perceiving the relationship in question: from equating the two, through varying degrees of indicating the similarities and differences between humans and animals, to a clear emphasis on distinction between them. It was found that speakers most often indicate humans and animals as playing different roles — performers vs. recipients — in various activities and experiences. Speakers also often emphasise the strong similarities between humans and animals, particularly often referring jointly to both human and animal in their utterances, but as separate objects.Sentences equating humans with animals account for only about 8% of the analysed set.
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