The Social Production of Indifference

The Social Production of Indifference PDF Author: Michael Herzfeld
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226329089
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
In this fascinating book, Michael Herzfeld argues that 'modern' bureaucratically regulated societies are no more 'rational' or less 'symbolic' than the societies traditionally studied by anthropologists. Drawing primarily on the example of modern Greece and utilizing other European materials, he suggests that we cannot understand national bureaucracies divorced from local-level ideas about chance, personal character, social relationships and responsibility. He points out that both formal regulations and day-to-day bureaucratic practices rely heavily on the symbols and language of the moral boundaries between insiders and outsiders; a ready means of expressing prejudice and of justifying neglect. It therefore happens that societies with proud traditions of generous hospitality may paradoxically produce at the official level some of the most calculated indifference one can find anywhere.

The Social Production of Indifference

The Social Production of Indifference PDF Author: Michael Herzfeld
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226329089
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this fascinating book, Michael Herzfeld argues that 'modern' bureaucratically regulated societies are no more 'rational' or less 'symbolic' than the societies traditionally studied by anthropologists. Drawing primarily on the example of modern Greece and utilizing other European materials, he suggests that we cannot understand national bureaucracies divorced from local-level ideas about chance, personal character, social relationships and responsibility. He points out that both formal regulations and day-to-day bureaucratic practices rely heavily on the symbols and language of the moral boundaries between insiders and outsiders; a ready means of expressing prejudice and of justifying neglect. It therefore happens that societies with proud traditions of generous hospitality may paradoxically produce at the official level some of the most calculated indifference one can find anywhere.

The Social Production of Indifference

The Social Production of Indifference PDF Author: Michael Herzfeld
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000323129
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
In this fascinating book, Michael Herzfeld argues that 'modern' bureaucratically regulated societies are no more 'rational' or less 'symbolic' than the societies traditionally studied by anthropologists. Drawing primarily on the example of modern Greece and utilizing other European materials, he suggests that we cannot understand national bureaucracies divorced from local-level ideas about chance, personal character, social relationships and responsibility. He points out that both formal regulations and day-to-day bureaucratic practices rely heavily on the symbols and language of the moral boundaries between insiders and outsiders; a ready means of expressing prejudice and of justifying neglect. It therefore happens that societies with proud traditions of generous hospitality may paradoxically produce at the official level some of the most calculated indifference one can find anywhere.

Depraved Indifference

Depraved Indifference PDF Author: Gary Indiana
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312316419
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Gary Indiana, a 'huge satirical talent' (The New York Times), presents a darkly comic novel fueled by the virtuoso con artist Evangeline Slote and her extravagant life of chicanery and petty crime. Inspired by the case of Sante and Ken Kimes, the real-life mother/son grifters, the novel is a dissection of the mind of a charismatic sociopath and a satire of the society that appeases and abets her.

The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality

The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality PDF Author: Belden C. Lane
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199886326
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
In the tradition of Kathleen Norris, Terry Tempest Williams, and Thomas Merton, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes explores the impulse that has drawn seekers into the wilderness for centuries and offers eloquent testimony to the healing power of mountain silence and desert indifference. Interweaving a memoir of his mothers long struggle with Alzheimers and cancer, meditations on his own wilderness experience, and illuminating commentary on the Christian via negativa--a mystical tradition that seeks God in the silence beyond language--Lane rejects the easy affirmations of pop spirituality for the harsher but more profound truths that wilderness can teach us. There is an unaccountable solace that fierce landscapes offer to the soul. They heal, as well as mirror, the brokeness we find within. It is this apparent paradox that lies at the heart of this remarkable book: that inhuman landscapes should be the source of spiritual comfort. Lane shows that the very indifference of the wilderness can release us from the demands of the endlessly anxious ego, teach us to ignore the inessential in our own lives, and enable us to transcend the false self that is ever-obsessed with managing impressions. Drawing upon the wisdom of St. John of the Cross, Meister Eckhardt, Simone Weil, Edward Abbey, and many other Christian and non-Christian writers, Lane also demonstrates how those of us cut off from the wilderness might make some desert in our lives. Written with vivid intelligence, narrative ease, and a gracefulness that is itself a comfort, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes gives us not only a description but a performance of an ancient and increasingly relevant spiritual tradition.

Indifference Arguments

Indifference Arguments PDF Author: Stephen Makin
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN:
Category : Atomism
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
In this book Stephen Makin offers a striking new account of some intriguing but neglected arguments - indifference arguments - and of the presocratic atomism underpinned by indifference reasoning. Used by Parmenides, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle and Leibniz as well as some contemporary philosophers, indifference arguments start from claims about a balance of reasons or an absence of asymmetries. While some provide plausible support for surprisingly strong conclusions, others produce no conviction. Here, Makin offers an account of indifference arguments and provides answers to such philosophical questions as ′What makes a good piece of indifference reasoning?′, ′How do the arguments work?′, ′Do they involve claims about metaphysical commitments?′ The account that is presented of the Democritean atomic theory strongly emphasizes the continuity of atomism with earlier thought. A number of Zeno′s arguments are considered, and there is some discussion of other Eleatics. Indifference arguments in other ancient philosophers, such as Anaximander and Aristotle, also receive attention. The book will be of interest to all those concerned with ancient philosophy and philosophical logic.

Finding Italian Roots

Finding Italian Roots PDF Author: John Philip Colletta
Publisher: Genealogical Publishing Com
ISBN: 9780806317410
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
A guide for family researchers of Italian descent points the way to resources in the United States as well as information available in the town halls, archives, churches, and libraries of Italy.

Siege of the Spirits

Siege of the Spirits PDF Author: Michael Herzfeld
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022633175X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
What happens when three hundred alleged squatters go head-to-head with an enormous city government looking to develop the place where they live? As anthropologist Michael Herzfeld shows in this book, the answer can be surprising. He tells the story of Pom Mahakan, a tiny enclave in the heart of old Bangkok whose residents have resisted authorities’ demands to vacate their homes for a quarter of a century. It’s a story of community versus government, of old versus new, and of political will versus the law. Herzfeld argues that even though the residents of Pom Mahakan have lost every legal battle the city government has dragged them into, they have won every public relations contest, highlighting their struggle as one against bureaucrats who do not respect the age-old values of Thai/Siamese social and cultural order. Such values include compassion for the poor and an understanding of urban space as deeply embedded in social and ritual relations. In a gripping account of their standoff, Herzfeld—who simultaneously argues for the importance of activism in scholarship—traces the agile political tactics and styles of the community’s leadership, using their struggle to illuminate the larger difficulties, tensions, and unresolved debates that continue to roil Thai society to this day.

The Need for Roots

The Need for Roots PDF Author: Simone Weil
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000082792
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Hailed by Andre Gide as the patron saint of all outsiders, Simone Weil's short life was ample testimony to her beliefs. In 1942 she fled France along with her family, going firstly to America. She then moved back to London in order to work with de Gaulle. Published posthumously The Need for Roots was a direct result of this collaboration. Its purpose was to help rebuild France after the war. In this, her most famous book, Weil reflects on the importance of religious and political social structures in the life of the individual. She wrote that one of the basic obligations we have as human beings is to not let another suffer from hunger. Equally as important, however, is our duty towards our community: we may have declared various human rights, but we have overlooked the obligations and this has left us self-righteous and rootless. She could easily have been issuing a direct warning to us today, the citizens of Century 21.

Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians

Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians PDF Author: Marcello Pera
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1594035644
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
The intellectual and political elite of the West is nowadays taking for granted that religion, in particular Christianity, is a cultural vestige, a primitive form of knowledge, a consolation for the poor minded, an obstacle to coexistence. In all influential environments, the widespread watchword is “We are all secular” or “We are all post-religious.” As a consequence, we are told that states must be independent of religious creed, politics must take a neutral stance regarding religious values, and societies must hold together without any reference to religious bonds. Liberalism, which in some form or another is the prevailing view in the West, is considered to be “free-standing,” and the Western, liberal, open society is taken to be “self-sufficient.” Not only is anti-Christian secularism wrong, it is also risky. It's wrong because the very ideas on which liberal societies are based and in terms of which they can be justified—the concept of the dignity of the human person, the moral priority of the individual, the view that man is a “crooked timber” inclined to prevarication, the limited confidence in the power of the state to render him virtuous—are typical Christian or, more precisely, Judeo-Christian ideas. Take them away and the open society will collapse. Anti-Christian secularism is risky because it jeopardizes the identity of the West, leaves it with no self-conscience, and deprives people of their sense of belonging. The Founding Fathers of America, as well as major intellectual European figures such as Locke, Kant, and Tocqueville, knew how much our civilization depends on Christianity. Today, American and European culture is shaking the pillars of that civilization. Written from a secular and liberal, but not anti-Christian, point of view, this book explains why the Christian culture is still the best antidote to the crisis and decline of the West. Pera proposes that we should call ourselves Christians if we want to maintain our liberal freedoms, to embark on such projects as the political unification of Europe as well as the special relationship between Europe and America, and to avoid the relativistic trend that affects our public ethics. “The challenges of our particular historical moment”, as Pope Benedict XVI calls them in the Preface to the book, can be faced only if we stress the historical and conceptual link between Christianity and free society.

The Awakening of Intelligence

The Awakening of Intelligence PDF Author: J. Krishnamurti
Publisher: Krishnamurti Foundation Trust UK
ISBN: 1912875020
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 581

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Book Description
This comprehensive record of Krishnamurti's teachings is an excellent, wide-ranging introduction to the great philosopher's thought. With among others, Jacob Needleman, Alain Naude, and Swami Venkatasananda, Krishnamurti examines such issues as the role of the teacher and tradition; the need for awareness of 'cosmic consciousness; the problem of good and evil; and traditional Vedanta methods of help for different levels of seekers.