RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: This essay aims to analyse the phenomenon of power with a particular attention to scientific aspects, in particular to the anthropological and ethical area. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: Power does not belong only to scientific research, but also to everyday life, to the simple experience that each of us has in the various institutions in which someone lives, from the simplest ones such as the family or a small association to the most complex ones such as companies, schools, universities, associations, religious communities, trade unions, political parties, bureaucratic structures, national and international organizations. THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: To study power, this essay uses an ideal guide of all respect: William Shakespeare. Power is certainly a scene of the vast theatre that is the world. It is not only because of the questions and reflections it suggests, but above all because it sees many characters and different tragedies or comedies play in different times and sets. RESEARCH RESULTS: The small result of this essay is to reach a new understanding of a complex problem of power. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The researches about power, especially those based on the anthropological and ethical area, are so rich and different. It could an interesting idea to go on with synoptic view of power, based on the many field of literature and social sciences.
As the backgound for the opinions of the Bible on the stat, this article presents briefly the history of Israel, divided into two main periods: national monarchy (earlier period of the Old Testament) and submission to the foreign powers (later books of the Old Testament and the New Testament). The opinions of the Old Testament on the own state hesitate between hope and disappointment, between optimism (royal ideology and messianism, tasks of the king, principles of government) and criticisms (Judges 9, 1 Samuel 8-12, bad kings). A moderate conclusion is offered by the Pentateuch (law above politics, Deut 17). In the attitudes towards the empires, we find two contradictory currents: submission to foreign rule and resistance. In the New Testament we find an acceptation of the state in the New Testament (Mark 12 on taxation, authority from God in Romans 13, 1 Cor 12.12-30), but also criticisms, triggered by persecutions (life of Jesus and Paul, Rev 13-19 and the satanic side of the empire). The state has its lawful authority, both instituted and limited by God and his law. This institution has some justification, but also serious vices (godlessness, violence, high taxes). However, the citizens should obey the state which deals justly with them.
The Bible says that "all authority comes from God." But what if the authority is corrupt and abusive? The author of the article analyses the duty to resist a corrupt authority when it threatens inalienable human rights, the common good or the sacredness of authority itself, for example a tyranny or an act of an usurpation. The author examines the conditions which must be fulfilled in order that such forms of resistance as: admonition, protest, rebellion (civic disobedience), strike and uprising can be legitimate. It is important to bear in mind the obligation to obey even a corrupt authority insofar as it can be objectively stated that it serves the common good.
The paper investigates the conceptual dichotomy of violence and nonviolence in reference to the self-immolations that have been taking place in Tibet for the last several years. First using the insights of Hannah Arendt to distinguish between the categories of violent, nonviolent and peaceful, I approach the question of violence as the problem of acts that transgress prohibitions against causing harm. Using that heuristic, I examine the ways multiple ethical systems are vying for recognition regarding the selfimmolations, and how a certain Buddhist ambivalence around extreme acts of devotion complicate any easy designations of the act as ‘violent’ or ‘nonviolent’. I conclude by suggesting how any such classification inculcates us into questions of power and assertions of appropriate authority.
This article is an interdisciplinary inquiry into the usage of historical silk routes by the Chinese as a popular narrative for the modern BRI. While looking at the archaeological trace, the historiography and other dimensions, this article would unfold how the nostalgia on the ‘Silk Routes’ have been rejuvenated for an ambitious geopolitical project. Taking both land and maritime silk routes into the consideration, this paper would further consider the position of historical narratives for the geopolitical ambitions of the 21st century.
The question of the possibility of a phenomenological sociology is of the utmost importance today. In this paper, techniques in transcendental-genetic phenomenology are introduced as applicable to sociological work. I introduce the concept of recoil, a habit of thought which negatively determines protentions and expectations concerning types sedimented in far retention. Recoil is seen to be an important element in the theory of alterity in social life, including the understanding of alters as invisible. Finally, arguments in favor of the use of the epoché in sociological work is given, as the epoché allows us to engage with the experience of the subject of study without a latent invidious comparison to a naturalistic substructure.
The present paper focuses on a selection of Giovanni Verga’s short tales (Un processo, Tentazione!, Quelli del colèra, Cos’è il re, Il reverendo, La chiave d’oro, Don Licciu Papa), by analyzing his nonstereotypical enquiry into the close relationship between power forms and practices of justice.
The main objective of the article is analysis of the Actors evolution within the framework of late-Westphalian international environment. The proposed category – second tier powers – is stemming from theory of dynamics of Power which embraces international practice and scientific recollections, in order to fully investigate changes that have been observed since the end of the Cold War. The following research hypotheses will be proposed and verified. First, second-tier powers are characterized mainly by a positive asymmetry in their Powerbase and a prolonged internal crisis. Second, the second-tier powers function optimally only in conjunction with the functioning of the hyperpower. Third, the main function of second-tier powers is to stabilize the international environment by dissipating the capacities of first-tier powers.
PL
Podstawowym celem artykułu jest analiza ewolucji struktury podmiotowej późnowestfalskiego środowiska międzynarodowego. Zaproponowana kategoryzacja została stworzona na podstawie teorii dynamiki siły obejmującą zarówno praktykę międzynarodową, jak i refleksję naukową w celu odzwierciedlenia zmian narastających od końca zimnej wojny. W jego ramach zostaną zweryfikowane następujące hipotezy badawcze. Po pierwsze, mocarstwa drugiego rzędu charakteryzowane są głównie poprzez niewielką asymetrię dodatnią posiadanego potencjału siły oraz przedłużający się kryzys wewnętrzny. Po drugie, państwa należące do niniejszej kategorii funkcjonują optymalnie wyłącznie w koniunkcji z funkcjonowaniem hipermocarstwa. Po trzecie, główną funkcją mocarstw drugiego rzędu jest stabilizacja środowiska międzynarodowego poprzez rozpraszanie potencjału mocarstw wyższego rzędu zmierzających do osłabienia lub zastąpienia hipermocarstwa.
Abstract This paper examines the influence and power of language in education in Nigeria from the precolonial to colonial and post-colonial times. This is with regards to the effect of language on gender issues within the country. Nigeria, a country on the west coast of Africa is multi-ethnic with over 150 (one hundred and fifty) ethnic groups with their different indigenous languages and cultures. As a colony of the British, the Christian missionaries who first introduced western form of education in Nigeria used the British English language as a medium of communication and subsequently with the establishment of colonial administration in the country, English language was made the official language of the country. This paper contains a critical analysis of the use of English Language in the country and its implications on communication in social and economic interactions of individuals within the various communities across the country. It argues that the proliferation of the English language was through education of which the male gender benefitted more than their female counterparts due to the patriarchal dominance in the country. The data for the study was collated from random interviews and other written sources. The research discovered that the knowledge and ability to speak fluently and write the English language had a direct influence on the socio-political and economic status of individuals within the country. The women who benefitted from this were comparatively fewer than the men due to some prevailing conditions of what could be called in the present the subjugation of women the society. Critical discourse analysis is adopted for this study. It argues that English language dependency by Nigerians shows that forms of the colonial experience is still evident and these were all initiated during the past interactions with west through the transatlantic slave trade and colonial rule. This is because discourse as a social construct is created and perpetuated by the persons who have the language power and means of communication. The Nigerian family being of a conservative orientation derives its power directly from the father who is the patriarch of the family as obtained in the traditional set up of communities and the Nigerian society in general. This has grave effect on the opposite gender
The safeguarding of minors and of vulnerable adult persons is an intrinsic aspect of the mission that the Lord has entrusted the Church and it is the responsibility of all the faithful to fulfil it, whatever capacity they hold in the Church. Unfortunately, it is not possible to eradicate child abuse entirely as it is a human reality, but much can be done by creating a culture of safe space and safe relationships within the Church and beyond. The Catholic Church, as the oldest and biggest institution in the world and with its religious and moral values, has a special responsibility in preventing any kind of abuse, in protecting the most vulnerable, and furthermore, in Safeguarding; in creating safe spaces and safe relationships. Listening to victims and survivors of abuse who have been harmed in the Church or outside, is key for being and acting in a responsible, accountable, and transparent way. This is the cornerstone for credibility and for promoting the faith.
The safeguarding of minors and of vulnerable adult persons is an intrinsic aspect of the mission that the Lord has entrusted the Church and it is the responsibility of all the faithful to fulfil it, whatever capacity they hold in the Church. Unfortunately, it is not possible to eradicate child abuse entirely as it is a human reality, but much can be done by creating a culture of safe space and safe relationships within the Church and beyond. The Catholic Church, as the oldest and biggest institution in the world and with its religious and moral values, has a special responsibility in preventing any kind of abuse, in protecting the most vulnerable, and furthermore, in Safeguarding; in creating safe spaces and safe relationships. Listening to victims and survivors of abuse who have been harmed in the Church or outside, is key for being and acting in a responsible, accountable, and transparent way. This is the cornerstone for credibility and for promoting the faith.
W artykule przedstawiono propozycję zastosowania techniki obliczeń ewolucyjnych w celu poszukiwania ekonomicznych planów produkcji energii elektrycznej w systemie elektroenergetycznym. Przeprowadzone dotychczas przez autorów badania dowodzą, że algorytmy ewolucyjne są zdolne w stosunkowo krótkim czasie znaleźć rozwiązania, które są dopuszczalne ze względu na wymienione uprzednio kryteria. Jednak zdecydowanie dalszych badań wymaga jeszcze kwestia uzyskania poprawy jakości odnajdywanych przez algorytmy ewolucyjne rozwiązań dopuszczalnych.(fragment tekstu)
EN
In the paper we discuss the possibilities of implementation of evolutionary algorithm for the purpose of finding of economic plans of electric energy production for 24-hours period. Particularly, in the paper we propose binary coding system for solutions on the genetic material of evolving individuals. Moreover, we propose the way of calculation of fitness function, and we explain how to perform the operation of tournament selection.(original abstract)
En demandant de role d'eveque de Romę dans l'antiquite il serait bien se referer a l'ceuvre d'auteur qui lui meme exeręait cette mission et, en plus, il nous a lessait un temoignage suffisamment fort. Saint Gregoire le Grand (540-604) accomplit tres bien cette tache. Il forme un solide point culminante d'epoque patristique, en meme temps il est un intermediaire specifique entre l'antiquite chretienne et Moyen Age. L'autorité d'eveque de Rome, selon notre auteur résulte de commandement de meme Christ et de le role de saint Pierre, le premier éveque de la „Ville Eternelle”. Cette autorite, géneralement pas conteste, il a ete percu de differentes manieres, selon la region geografique, les traditions particulieres, finallement aussi selon la fonction et meme le caractere des personnages, avec les quelles saint Gregoire a tenu des relations.
PL
En demandant de role d'eveque de Rome dans l'antiquite il serait bien se referer a l'ceuvre d'auteur qui lui meme exeręait cette mission et, en plus, il nous a lessait un temoignage suffisamment fort. Saint Gregoire le Grand (540-604) accomplit tres bien cette tache. Il forme un solide point culminante d'epoque patristique, en meme temps il est un intermediaire specifique entre l'antiquite chretienne et Moyen Age. L'autorité d'eveque de Rome, selon notre auteur résulte de commandement de meme Christ et de le role de saint Pierre, le premier éveque de la „Ville Eternelle”. Cette autorite, géneralement pas conteste, il a ete percu de differentes manieres, selon la region geografique, les traditions particulieres, finallement aussi selon la fonction et meme le caractere des personnages, avec les quelles saint Gregoire a tenu des relations.
Emotion and affect are different, yet intricately interwoven. Emotions such as fear, joy, or sadness are biological in as far as they are physically felt, but they are relational in as far as they are more fully experienced. Affect arises out of the relational quality of emotion-it consists of the myriad ways in which emotions are embodied, expressed, and enacted. Emotion and affect are influenced by their physical and symbolic contexts. In terms of physical context, data for this article were collected from two different research studies and several sites in the Free State Province of South Africa. Two forms of data were collected: verbal data and images/artworks. In terms of symbolic context, these verbal and visual forms of language and their functioning were explored to generate insights on the social construction of emotion and affect. Margaret Wetherell’s work provides a theoretical basis for analyzing emotion and affect. Rather than conceptualizing emotion in terms of obscure or esoteric formulations, her “practice-based” approach grounds the study of emotion by examining its manifestation in actions. When taken together, action and practice imply pattern and order, form and function, process and consequence. Both projects featured in this paper are sensitive studies that stir emotion. This is fertile ground for exploring emotion and affect in participants’ narratives. It is also fertile ground for exploring how emotion and affect may influence the qualitative researcher and the research process itself. Accordingly, this paper offers an additional layer of analysis on the functioning of intersubjectivity, power, emotion, and affect in the research encounter. Concluding insights endorse the practice of mindfulness as a fruitful approach to manage researcher subjectivity in the qualitative research encounter.
The aim of this article is to elaborate on the reasons behind feeling the emotion of pride within the professional context of actions undertaken by contemporary Polish teachers. The article attempts to answer the question of what role pride plays in teachers’ career building process and their daily work. All considerations focus on the social construction of the meaning of pride, established from teachers’ perspectives. Pride is here referred to as social emotion, in line with an interpretivist approach. The following reflections are based on the data collected due to: 1) multiple observations conducted by the author in the years 2008-2016 in the primary, as well as junior high schools; 2) interviews with teachers, parents, and other school staff. Pride in teachers’ work arises in three main contexts: 1) pride due to prestige, 2) pride due to one’s recognition (appreciation), and 3) pride as a result of diverse interactions, for example, teacher-student. The emotion at hand is, like shame, of a social origin and plays a key role when it comes to interactions, social control, as well as maintaining social order. And yet, most of the researchers would give the lead to emotions such as shame, guilt, or related stigma. Based on the collected data, this article focuses on the emotion of pride in the process of identity building by employees-teachers.
Celem artykułu jest krytyczna refleksja nad pojęciem dyspozytywu u Michela Foucaulta i jego aplikacją do badań społecznych. Dyspozytyw oznacza heterogeniczną kompozycję dyskursywnych i niedyskursywnych elementów rzeczywistości społecznej połączonych dynamicznymi relacjami władzy. Od dwóch dekad w ramach postfoucaultowskiej analizy dyskursu podejmowane są próby operacjonalizacji kategorii dyspozytywu. Jako kategoria analityczna dyspozytyw odnosi się do mechanizmów społecznie rozproszonej władzy, które można badać empirycznie na podstawie danych dyskursywnych i niedyskursywnych. Rezultatem zainteresowania dyspozytywem jest perspektywa badawcza analizy dyspozytywu. W artykule prezentowane są główne założenia tej perspektywy i typologia zastosowań Foucaultowskiej kategorii dyspozytywu w badaniach empirycznych, zilustrowana przykładami prac niemieckich i polskich badaczy. Prezentacji towarzyszy namysł nad niekonsekwencjami i ograniczeniami tego podejścia metodologicznego.
EN
The aim of this paper is a critical reflection on Michel Foucault’s concept of dispositive and its application in social research. Dispositive means a heterogenic composition of discursive and non-discursive elements of social reality linked together with the dynamic relations of power. Since two decades in the frames of post-Foucauldian discourse analysis the attempts at operationalizing the category of dispositive have been made. As an analytical category dispositive refers to the mechanisms of socially dispersed power, which can be studied empirically on the basis of discursive and non-discursive data. A research perspective of dispositive analysis has emerged as a result of an interest in dispositive. This paper presents the main guidelines of this perspective, as well as a typology of applications of the Foucauldian category of dispositive in empirical research, illustrated with chosen examples of German and Polish scholars’ works. This presentation is accompanied by a consideration of inconsistencies and deficiencies of such methodological approach.
Michel Foucault jest jednym z tych autorów, którzy istotnie przysłużyli się do poszerzenia znaczenia terminu „władza” oraz obszarów, w których szuka się jej przejawów. Wkład Foucaulta w rozbudowę studiów nad władzą jest jednak frapujący. Otóż w Historii seksualności Foucault zaczął otwarcie przekonywać, że władza jest po prostu wszędzie. Ten pogląd – teza o powszechności władzy – ma u Foucaulta dwa, rozwijane latami, uzasadnienia. Na użytek niniejszej analizy pierwsze z nich zyska nazwę uzasadnienia historiozoficznego, a drugie – uzasadnienia zróżnicowaniem społecznym. Celem artykułu jest krytyka ich obu, a pośrednio także tezy, którą wspierają. Ich rekonstrukcja i krytyczne rozpatrzenie są ważne dla postfoucaultowskiego nurtu w naukach społecznych, ponieważ ramy wszelkiej Foucaultowskiej analityki władzy wyznaczone są właśnie przez te dwa uzasadnienia.
EN
Michel Foucault is one of those authors who significantly impacted upon broadening the meaning of the term “power,” including realms in which one is to look for its symptoms. Foucault’s contribution to the developmental tendency within the studies of power is especially striking. In the History of Sexuality, Foucault was to openly claim that power was plainly everywhere. For years Foucault had been elaborating two ways of legitimizing this view, which is named here “a prevalence of power” thesis. For the sake of the below analysis, the first justification is going to be called historiosophical, and the second—social differentiation justification. The article aims at criticizing both of them and, although indirectly, the very thesis they support. Since the boundaries of all Foucauldian analytics of power are outlined by these two justifications, their reconstruction and critical consideration are of crucial importance for the post-Foucauldian current in social sciences.
Seeing sociology visually adds a sense of realness to the viewer compared to only reading sociological texts. In this paper, I aim to provide an example of how a single scene from a feature film can be utilized as a practical and meaningful means to analyze a social situation and to help students of sociology to grasp key features of Goffman’s theory of interaction order. More precisely, the main aims of the paper are 1) to illustrate Goffman’s theory of the interaction order by identifying acts of disruption and alignment in interaction through a film clip; and 2) to attempt to analyze, in a Goffmanian sense, what is really going on in the situational interaction. The scene is from the 2013 American movie August: Osage County and follows a dinner of immediate family in the wake of the funeral of the hostess’s late husband. The normative and civilized interaction of the meal is, however, jeopardized by the hostile and provocative mood of the hostess, as she repeatedly disrupts the interaction order with attempts to mock and/or uncover the hidden and vulnerable truths of the immediate members of her family, exemplifying her power status in the particular situation. The dinner guests, however, try to overlook and resist the provocation of the hostess and stick to their predetermined roles to save and sustain their idealized selves (their faces) and the interaction order (the faces of others), In doing so they, on the one hand, discard the uncomfortable truths acclaimed by the hostess and, on the other, explain the hostess’s provocative actions in terms of their claim that she is unwell and in need of medical attention. Thus, the attacked dinner guests in the scene align more alliance to the interaction order than to truth itself.
The article completes the study of totalitarianism in the twentieth century. In the first part of the text, we reviewed Joseph Vialatoux’s commentary on Hobbes’ political theory. In the second part, which we present here, we draw conclusions and general principles. Vialatoux is of the opinion that every totalitarianism is a form of naturalism. There are two main forms here. The first form is Hobbes philosophy, while the second is Durkheim’s sociologism. In response to totalitarianism, Vialatoux formulates the philosophy of mind. He then develops the theme of freedom. He distinguishes between inner and outer freedom. In conclusion, he speaks of order and authority as necessary conditions for human freedom.
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