The Logic of Self-Destruction

The Logic of Self-Destruction PDF Author: Matthew Blakeway
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780992796129
Category : Rationalization (Psychology)
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Why do knowingly act in ways that undermine our own wellbeing, like loving the wrong person or staying in an unfulfilling job? Why are ideologies so compelling? Why are we so convinced that our own, deeply held views are irrefutable? The Logic of Self-Destruction argues that our beliefs are at the heart of our problems, and that if we can see the human brain for what it really is - a robustly logical, computing device, we can finally understand how those beliefs are really formed. Matthew Blakeway's jovial and engaging multidisciplinary argument applies a logician's rigour to genetics, linguistics, socio-biology and evolutionary psychology, to investigate the unique human ability to affect and suppress emotions. In showing how everything from the British stiff-upper-lip to abusive relationships, from the rise of fundamentalist regimes to the failure of economies, stem from this problem, he provides new tools for understanding our motivations and shaping our futures. . In The Logic of Self-Destruction, Matthew Blakeway takes the reader on an fascinating journey through the logic of human behaviour. He uses a series of thought experiments based in everyday situations to reveal how we manipulate our emotions tactically - as individuals, social tribes and societies - and explores the consequences of this. . He challenges the assumption that happiness is an innate, instinctive human emotion and demonstrates what mystical 'higher states of being' have in common with art appreciation. . He investigates the suppression of emotional behaviour in groups to explain how humiliation on the parade ground turns a soldier into a killer, and how totalitarian regimes are perpetuated. . He reveals why ideology is more powerful than scientific evidence, and explains why climate change denial and even genocide can be explained rationally."

Logic of Self-Destruction

Logic of Self-Destruction PDF Author: Matthew Blakeway
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780992796105
Category : Rationalization (Psychology)
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description


The Logic of Madness

The Logic of Madness PDF Author: Matthew Blakeway
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780992796150
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
In assuming that mental illness is a mathematical problem, The Logic of Madness analyses how a human action can be deviant even when rational. It reveals that a person without a genetic or brain abnormality can have an apparent mental disorder that is entirely logical in its structure.

Society Against Itself

Society Against Itself PDF Author: Howard S. Schwartz
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429919344
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
"Political correctness" involves much more than a restriction of speech. It represents a broad cultural transformation, a shift in the way people understand things and organize their lives; a change in the way meaning is made. The problem addressed in this book is that, for reasons the author explores, some ways of making "meaning" support the creation and maintenance of organization, while others do not. Organizations are cultural products and rely upon psychological roots that go very deep. The basic premise of this book is that organizations are made up of the rules, common understandings, and obligations that "the father" represents, and which are given meaning in the oedipal dynamic. In anti-oedipal psychology, however, they are seen as locuses of deprivation and structures of oppression. Anti-oedipal meaning, then, is geared toward the destruction of organization.

Architects of Annihilation

Architects of Annihilation PDF Author: Götz Aly
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691089388
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Ultimately this would lead to the sinister 'adjusting' of the ratio between what were perceived as 'productive' and 'unproductive' population groups.".

Suicide

Suicide PDF Author: Jason Manning
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 081394435X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
The conventional approach to suicide is psychiatric: ask the average person why people kill themselves, and they will likely cite depression. But this approach fails to recognize suicide’s social causes. People kill themselves because of breakups and divorces, because of lost jobs and ruined finances, because of public humiliations and the threat of arrest. While some psychological approaches address external stressors, this comprehensive study is the first to systematically examine suicide as a social behavior with social catalysts. Drawing on Donald Black’s theories of conflict management and pure sociology, Suicide presents a new theory of the social conditions that compel an aggrieved person to turn to self-destruction. Interpersonal conflict plays a central but underappreciated role in the incidence of suicide. Examining a wide range of cross-cultural cases, Jason Manning argues that suicide arises from increased inequality and decreasing intimacy, and that conflicts are more likely to become suicidal when they occur in a context of social inferiority. As suicide rates continue to rise around the world, this timely new theory can help clinicians, scholars, and members of the general public to explain and predict patterns of self-destructive behavior.

Fall of the New Class

Fall of the New Class PDF Author: Milovan Djilas
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
He was a true believer in communism who became disillusioned with the totalitarianism and corruption of the Communist regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. A wartime partisan leader in Yugoslavia and later the number three man in the politburo, he broke with Marshal Tito in 1954 and spent most of the next decade in prison, where he began to write about the inner workings of the Communist system. Here, Milovan Djilas--who died in 1995-- discusses why communism failed in Europe, what its failure means for the future of the continent, and how he transformed himself from ideologue into humanist. ;;;;;;;; Djilas's publication, in 1957, of The New Class, which was translated into sixty languages, caused a worldwide sensation with its description of the bureaucratization of the movement, of the special privileges accorded its leaders and cadres, and of its reliance on secret police and repression. His new book reemphasizes and enlarges on those themes, giving the reader intimate portraits of Tito and his colleagues, describing the wartime struggle against the Nazis and rival Yugoslav factions, and showing why Mikhail Gorbachev failed in his efforts to reform the Soviet system. ;;;;;;;; Controversial and courageous to the end, Milovan Djilas sharply criticized Serbia's war on Croatia, and once again is the target of vilification in his native land. Fall of the New Class is the final testament of one of the most remarkable thinkers of the century.

The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness

The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness PDF Author: Erich Fromm
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1480401935
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 962

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Book Description
A study of aggression from the renowned social psychologist and New York Times–bestselling author of The Art of Loving and Escape from Freedom. Throughout history, humans have shown an incredible talent for destruction as well as creation. Aggression has driven us to great heights and brutal lows. In The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, renowned social psychologist Erich Fromm discusses the differences between forms of aggression typical for animals and two very specific forms of destructiveness that can only be found in human beings: sadism and necrophilic destructiveness. His case studies span zoo animals, necrophiliacs, and the psychobiographies of notorious figures such as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Through his broad scholarship, Fromm offers a comprehensive exploration of the human impulse for violence. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erich Fromm including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.

The Index of Self-Destructive Acts

The Index of Self-Destructive Acts PDF Author: Christopher Beha
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1947793829
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
On the day Sam Waxworth arrives in New York to write for the Interviewer, a street-corner preacher declares that the world is coming to an end. A data journalist and recent media celebrity—he correctly forecast every outcome of the 2008 election—Sam knows a few things about predicting the future. But when projection meets reality, life gets complicated. His first assignment for the Interviewer is a profile of disgraced political columnist Frank Doyle, known to Sam for the sentimental works of baseball lore that first sparked his love of the game. When Sam meets Frank at Citi Field for the Mets’ home opener, he finds himself unexpectedly ushered into Doyle’s crumbling family empire. Kit, the matriarch, lost her investment bank to the financial crisis; Eddie, their son, hasn’t been the same since his second combat tour in Iraq; Eddie’s best friend from childhood, the fantastically successful hedge funder Justin Price, is starting to see cracks in his spotless public image. And then there’s Frank’s daughter, Margo, with whom Sam becomes involved—just as his wife, Lucy, arrives from Wisconsin. While their lives seem inextricable, none of them know how close they are to losing everything, including each other. Sweeping in scope yet meticulous in its construction, The Index of Self-Destructive Acts is a remarkable family portrait and a masterful evocation of New York City and its institutions. Over the course of a single baseball season, Christopher Beha traces the passing of the torch from the old establishment to the new meritocracy, exploring how each generation’s failure helped land us where we are today. Whether or not the world is ending, Beha’s characters are all headed to apocalypses of their own making.

Suicide as Psychache

Suicide as Psychache PDF Author: Edwin S. Shneidman
Publisher: Jason Aronson
ISBN: 9780876681510
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
A collection of previously published articles discussing the definition of suicide, analyses of its occurrence, and possible therapeutic responses.

Self-consuming Evolutions

Self-consuming Evolutions PDF Author: Mária Csanádi
Publisher: Akademiai Kiads
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
What is the politico-economic-social logic of the operation and change of party-state systems? How can we explain their similarities and differences in operation and transformation? Why do some party-states carry out reforms and others do not? Why do some collapse and others do not? Why are some transformations accompanied by economic crisis while others by economic growth? This book examines these questions both theoretically and empirically, in an interdisciplinary way. The author introduces the Interactive Party-State (IPS) model as an empirically based, comprehensive tool for analyzing and comparing self-similarities and differences in the operation and transformation of these systems. The model describes the intertwined power network and its variations formed by the interrelationship of individual party-state and economic decision-makers and the structural inequalities in interest promotion. It reveals the structural background of the dynamics of self-reproduction and its main traps due to political rationality of economic behavior that leads to self-consumption of the system during self-reproduction. It also lays down the structural background of different operations and transformation paths. The model is applied to the birth, operation, and transformation of the Romanian, Hungarian, and Chinese party-states.