QUALITY OF LIFE OF INSTITUTIONALIZED TEENAGERS WITH MENTAL DEFICIENCY. A THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE

Author(s): Adriana Ciobanu,Mihaela Tănăsoiu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 33/2023

This article aims to theoretically analyze the quality of life of institutionalized teenagers with intellectual disabilities. By examining existing literature and relevant theories, the article provides a deeper understanding of this issue and suggests directions for future research and practice. Quality of life (QoL) has become a central theme in psychological research on people with intellectual disabilities. This article reviews the existing literature on quality of life in institutionalized youth with intellectual disabilities, focusing on indicators of physical, emotional, and social well-being.

SOCIAL DYNAMICS AND ROMANTIC PURSUITS IN JANE AUSTEN’S EMMA: EXPLORING STATUS, COMPETITION, PRIVACY AND MARRIAGES

Author(s): Gina-Geta Fojica-Chiroiu / Language(s): English Issue: 33/2023

In Jane Austen’s Emma, social status plays a significant role in the characters’ lives, particularly for the protagonist, Emma Woodhouse. Emma, a wealthy and privileged young woman, believes that no man is worthy of her hand in marriage due to her high social standing. Meanwhile, Harriet Smith and Jane Fairfax, both lacking in social status and fortune, face limited marriage prospects. Emma, influenced by her own vanity, attempts to shape Harriet’s destiny by discouraging her from accepting a proposal from a suitable farmer, Mr. Martin, and instead encouraging her to pursue a match with the respected but uninterested Mr. Elton. Emma’s misguided meddling continues as Harriet develops feelings for Emma’s close friend, Mr. Knightley, whom Emma believes is far above Harriet’s social station. In contrast, Jane Fairfax, despite her lack of fortune, is highly accomplished and educated, making her a potential match for higher social status. Ultimately, Austen pairs Harriet with Mr. Martin, the most suitable partner for her, and rewards Jane’s intelligence and accomplishments by uniting her with Frank Churchill, a man of similar social standing. Throughout the novel, competition arises among the female characters, driven by Emma’s vanity and desire for control. However, these competitions serve a purpose, leading Emma to confront her true feelings for Mr. Knightley and ultimately find her own happiness. This article also explores the influence of privacy and courtship rules in the novel which represent a mirror for the social interactions in the eighteen century. The characters’ visits and social gatherings reveal levels of intimacy and attachment. Misunderstandings arise due to the characters’ inability to express their feelings openly. The novel features six marriages, some successful and others influenced by social status or misguided matchmaking attempts. Ultimately, the story highlights the importance of genuine love, social conventions, and clear communication in relationships.

RISKY DRIVING BEHAVIOR: IMPORTANCE OF PSYCHOSOCIAL INTERVENTION PROGRAMS IN REDUCING DANGEROUS BEHAVIOR ON THE ROAD

Author(s): Felicia Haidu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 33/2023

The impact of risky driving includes accidents resulting in injuries, loss of life, and economic costs. Various interventions, such as public awareness campaigns, education, law enforcement, and technological measures, have been implemented to address this issue. However, the effectiveness of these interventions may vary, and a comprehensive approach that includes emotional and cognitive education is needed. The study emphasizes the relevance of addressing and resolving dangerous driving behaviors to prevent accidents and their consequences, through psychosocial intervention programs. The program's objectives included reducing aggression in traffic, improving self-control and conflict management skills, and increasing awareness of aggressive driving behaviors. The program involved a group of 100 participants selected based on their high levels of aggressive driving behavior. The intervention program was found to significantly reduce risky driving behavior, as evidenced by posttest comparisons using ANCOVA. The results suggested that the intervention had a positive impact on the experimental group, leading to lower levels of risky driving behavior. These findings emphasize the importance of intervention programs in promoting safer driving and reducing risks on the road.

Dziergowice i Kuźnia Raciborska na tle innych wsi powiatów kozielskiego i raciborskiego w okresie powstań śląskich i plebiscytu w świetle nowych źródeł archiwalnych

Author(s): Paweł Parys / Language(s): Polish Issue: 6/2018

The author of the following work based his considerations on documents from the collections of the “Upper Silesian Uprisings” and “Silesian Uprisings” from the resources of the Central Military Archives and the Józef Piłsudski Institute of America based in New York. They focus on the inhabitants of Dziergowice (Kędzierzyn-Koźle County) and Kuźnia Raciborska (Racibórz County) that took part in the Third Silesian Uprising. The investigated documents deal with issues related to age, professions and the involvement of some families in the pro-Polish activities. Furthermore, the article also discusses locals supporting Germany. The whole is closed by the personal register of insurgents, as well as the membersof the Upper Silesia Heimat Patriots (German: Heimattreue Oberschlesier) and Stormtroops (German: Stosstruppen) from the aforementioned towns.

HEALTH AND FAST-FOOD NUTRITION FOR ATHLETES

Author(s): Silvia-Sorina Zuiac,Alina-Dana Vișan / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 34/2023

Health is not only regarded as an ideal, but it is also an essential premise of life. This has become a problem that has been concerning us individually, as well as collectively, as society. In achieving a state of perfect well being, it is imperative that we meet a series of factors that are determinants of health, such as the economic, social, cultural and spiritual factors. On the hand, soft drinks – carbonated or still, sugar-rich foods, margarine or fast-food are to be mentioned among the most chemically over processed foods that contain a wide array of additives with harmful consequences on health. Secondly, poor nutrition mainly due to fast-food consumption, is claimed not only to increase the percentage of obesity, but it also represents one of the risk-enhancing factors for cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and/or even diabetes. Generally, food consists of a category of substances or so-called “nutritional determinant”. However, both from a chemical and a nutrition‘s perspective, the dietary information contains well – structured and quality substances that have a precise and nourishing function for the human.

ASPECTS REGARDING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE WORKER AND THE ECONOMY DURING THE COMMUNIST PERIOD

Author(s): Ștefan Torcărescu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 34/2023

Workers became a very extensive social category under communism. They were brought into an aseptic space, which is represented by the city where they had to demonstrate how good communism is and how many leaders contributed to it. For the communist regime, the image of the worker is projected in relation to production possibilities, through his quality as a Stakhanovist. The "Stahanovist" movement promoted the idea that workers should compete with each other to reach and exceed the production quotas set by the state. The economic policy of the state caused the rural population to migrate to the cities to work in the industrial and technological sectors. It is appreciated that during the communist regime the rural-urban population exchange was continuously achieved with a final advantage of six million inhabitants on the urban side, most of them being workers.

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION IN COUPLE

Author(s): Cristina Ceban / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 34/2023

Psychological studies have shown that the most common causes of family conflicts are communication disorders, the lack of ability to manage emotions. Modern studies on the reaction of spouses to family conflict and the dependence of perception on gender characteristics have revealed that, regardless of the length of family life, both men and women tend to look at the conflict through the prism of their own expectations, ideas, without taking into account the opinion of a partner, which is evidence of a lack of orientation towards the partner. For young families, the most typical are the conflicts arising on the basis of relations with relatives, the distribution of power with a pronounced dominance of one of the spouses, as well as the planning of the family budget. Over time, these causes of conflict become less expressed, disagreements about the education of children come to the fore and the disruption of role expectations. The dominant behavioral strategy for women is avoidance, for men it is compromise. At the same time, both women and men are ready to cooperate to preserve the psychological comfort of the family, but unlike women, husbands are more inclined to violate their husbands' rights in order to achieve their own.

Threatened identity and chalenges of the national revival of the Serbs in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia

Author(s): Saša S. Marković / Language(s): English,Serbian Issue: 3/2023

The Yugoslav experience of the Serbian national idea in the mid-1930s was seriously undermined. The assassination of King Aleksandar Karađorđević was an event that, after the rebellious response of loyalty, irreversibly initiated the search for the revival of the national idea and its racing modern European models. Since the international geopolitical situation witnessed the process of the failure of the Peace Treaty of Versailles, new national positioning occupied the attention of the Serbian intellectual elite. This paper presents the development of the ideas of national revival through combining formerly valid standpoints which, on the one hand, encourage the development of the collectivist type of society and, on the other hand, the redefinition of the individual approach in the existing standpoint about democracy. Their contradicting views affected pluralism, but there was also a threat of exclusive reflexions being transformed into antagonism.

A Valuable Contribution to the History of Sociology in Yugoslavia

Author(s): Ljubiša R. Mitrović / Language(s): English,Serbian Issue: 3/2023

The paper is a review of the scientific contribution of Russian sociologist, Professor Zinaida T. Golenkova, PhD, particularly in the field of research of Yugoslav (and Serbian) sociology in the period of its socialist development, as well as Golenkova’s personal engagement in the cooperation between (Soviet) Russian and (Yugoslav) Serbian sociologists in the period from the 1960s to date. Having in mind the wealth of history of Serbian and Yugoslav sociology, to the research of which Golenkova largely contributed, the paper pleads for the development of a special academic, sociological discipline that would deal with the development of sociology in Serbia.

A cognitively valuable reminder and memory of Vojin Milić’s sociological contribution

Author(s): Božo V. Milošević / Language(s): English,Serbian Issue: 3/2023

This opinion/review deals with a valuable collection of sociological articles that were previously presented at an especially organised scientific meeting at the Institute for Sociological Research of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, which was held in September 2022, to honour 100th anniversary of the birth of Vojin Milić, an influential Serbian (and former Yugoslav) sociologist. The authors of these articles are predominantly younger-generation sociologists, whose professors were Milić’s former undergraduate students, master or doctoral students.In the nine original articles that these proceedings contain, the scientific contributions of Vojin Milić are systematically analysed in five key areas of sociology (sociological theory, history of sociological thought, methodology of sociological research, sociology of knowledge, and sociology of science). The authors of the articles presented in a very structured, systematic and critical manner some of Milić’s most important views, which make him recognisable among sociologists even after more than a quarter of a century since his passing.It is indisputable that they made a valuable effort to reaffirm what is most noteworthy from the domestic cognitive (sociological) legacy, which contributed to international reputation of Serbian sociology and thus allowed for a more substantial and comprehensive introduction of it to the domestic younger generations in science.

Suverenumo samprata Georges’o Bataille’o filosofijoje

Author(s): Linartas Tuomas / Language(s): Lithuanian Issue: 115/2023

The article considers Georges Bataille's concept of sovereignty. It argues that Bataille's concept of sovereignty covers three principal domains: materialist (economic), transcendental (epistemological), and temporal. Here, Bataille's sovereignty is defined as anti-servile, anti-utilitarian and anti-rationalist. Also, Bataille's sovereignty is described as egalitarian, rebellious and based on useless and nonproductive consumption. Bataille's temporal sovereignty is defined as presentism. The article proposes the notions of acephalous sovereignty and political atheology. Finally, the research reveals that Bataille's concept of sovereignty is more economic than political. This is what makes it original and distinguishes it from other theories of sovereignty.

Теория, практика, resignation: Един дебат между Адорно и Маркузе

Author(s): Megy Popova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2023

The article traces the fundamental question that has always stood in front of critical theory since Marx ‒ the relationship between theory and practice. The focus will be mainly on the role of the theory: what is, what can be and what should be the relationship of critical theory (mainly Theodor Adorno’s as negative dialectics) to practice, to context, to the world. This question has faced critical theory since the Eleventh thesis on Feuerbach, in which the distinction between descriptive, purely theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy is reconciled. On the other hand, the main accusations against the philosophy of Adorno and Horkheimer consist of lack of practical commitment, of resignation; here once again that central question will be posed: what is the practical potential and commitment of Adorno’s negative dialectic specifically. Adorno calls for a return to theory and moving away from revolutionary practice, as he believes that in that context (1968/9) this practice is impossible. The question will be traced through the debate between Adorno and Marcuse and their disagreement regarding the potential and role of critical theory.

POSTMODERNA KAO DEKONSTRUKCIJA DEMOKRATIJE

Author(s): Sarina Bakić / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 24/2023

Review of: Bernard Harbaš, Politike postmoderne, Centar za kulturu i edukaciju Logos, Tuzla, 2023

Wokół Stanisława Ossowskiego

Author(s): Grzegorz Motyka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 23/2022

Ossowski – jak to rozumieć, jak to wytłumaczyć?

Author(s): Tadeusz Szawiel / Language(s): Polish Issue: 23/2022

Labor, Capital, and Surplus Value (Schumpeterizing Marx, Marxisizing Schumpeter)

Author(s): Deyan Deyanov / Language(s): English Issue: Special/2023

The legacy that Marx’s critique of political economy has bequeathed us who are thinking in a non-Marxian time, the time of supermodern capitalism, is a contradictory set of problems. Within it, one can criticize both the solutions proposed by Marx and the problems he raised; and first and foremost, what Marx unproblematically assumes to be self-evident. This is precisely what is at stake in my theory of surplus value – clearly incommensurable with Marx’s – that I have long summarized in the aphorism “Schumpeterizing Marx, Marxisizing Schumpeter”. Nevertheless, the theory of structures of mediation – being a critical theory of supermodern capitalism – follows, perhaps with quite a few caveats, the lessons of the revolutionary form of science that Marx has bequeathed us. I’ll say it again: the society we live in is not the one whose historical fate is critically theorized in Capital; nor is it Weber’s “modern capitalism” – what at the beginning of the previous century he called “the most fateful force in our modern life”; we live in supermodern capitalism and our problem is its historical fate; or, to put it more theoretically, its historical limits. My paper proceeds from those traps that the Marxian problematic has set beneath his theories of value and surplus value, goes through the theory of surplus value that I propose in opposition to that of Marx, and, finally, suggests the scenarios which the future has in store for us beyond these historical limits.

Towards a Reflexive Theory of Crisis

Author(s): Georgi Medarov / Language(s): English Issue: Special/2023

This article proposes a reflexive theory of the conceptions of capitalist crises. Reflexivity here entails acknowledging that the notions of crisis do not simply and transparently reflect its nature, but may themselves reflect upon the latter. Firstly, I study the productivity of the ways crises appear, and argue that the nature of a crisis is not pregiven. Then I introduce basic notions from the non-classical logic of the dialectical proposed by Deyan Deyanov, or what can be called an organon of the problematique of structures of mediation. Lastly, I apply the proposed theoretical construct in an analysis of the conditions for the appearance of today’s ecological crisis as a necessary, and not contingent, effect of the nature of capitalism.

The Theory of Labor after Marx: Labor as a Structure of Mediation

Author(s): Tanya Orbova / Language(s): English Issue: Special/2023

This article problematizes Marx’s theory of labor. It shows that Marx’s understanding of labor is not a coherent and non-contradictory whole, but contains different, sometimes incompatible, moments. My main argument is that Marx analyzes labor as a structure of mediation. This is the case regardless of whether he refers to labor as mediation between human and nature on a more abstract philosophical level, or, on the contrary, stresses its concrete historical character, where the self-movement of capital is mediated by labor. Returning to Marx’s theoretical legacy, I show how, beyond his multidimensional reflections on labor, a specific view of labor as mediator persists. The purpose of the distinction between multiple levels of analysis in Marx’s work is to explicate the limits of his concept of labor. In the spirit of Weber’s “disenchantment of the world”, it may be asserted that Marx reduces labor to its “disenchanted” form. Moreover, the article argues that it is possible to conceptualize other forms of labor by engaging with and against Marx’s work, where those other forms remain marginal in his analyses. This is done by juxtaposing Marx’s notions with the concepts of the theory of structures of mediation and its organon – the non-classical logic of the dialectical – developed by the Institute for Critical Theories of Supermodernity.

On the Forces of Nature (First Approach)

Author(s): Darin Tenev / Language(s): English Issue: Special/2023

This article proposes a rethinking of the concept of nature in terms of non-predetermined possibility. The first part retraces the notion of nature implied by the theory of structures of mediation; the second part offers a critical rereading of Aristotle and Hegel and their respective understanding of nature in order to outline a basis for a redefinition of nature that could help contemporary critical theory, social and human sciences. Put succinctly, nature is conceived as a constitutive exteriority that functions as an internal element. Nature is limiting its own self in such a way that it produces the very distinction between natural and non-natural as a natural distinction. Thus, it allows us to question the nature of technology, of history, of society, of culture – in short, of everything that traditionally has been opposed to nature.

Foucault, Marx, and the Political Technologies of the Accumulation of Capital

Author(s): Momchil Hristov / Language(s): English Issue: Special/2023

Despite the efforts to revise Foucault’s early lecture courses at the Collège de France towards an anti-Marxist interpretation, these lectures constitute an indelible sign of the French philosopher’s fruitful intervention in the field of Marxist analysis of exploitation. I focus on the lectures of 1972–1973 and 1973–1974. As I attempt to show, Foucault’s analytics of power relations, developed in these lectures, helps us understand the embeddedness of political technologies in the process of capital accumulation. My reading concentrates particularly on the role of violence (and different mechanisms and institutions of violence and coercion) not only as a “prelude to the history of capital” (Marx), but as its constant fellow-traveler. As Foucault shows, “apparatuses and techniques of confinement” are means to “accumulate men” for the ends of capitalist production and, in this sense, they are not only indispensable for the reproduction of capital but function also as “levers” of its accumulation.