Will the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the emerging EU auditing standards be adequate to stop major corporate scandals? Certainly they will help, but the best defence against fraud is a corporate culture strong enough to itself stop abuse internally. Activities imposed from the outside can never match the role of colleagues within a company who challenge one another to maintain the highest of ethical standards and good business practices. Boards must ensure a strong ethics framework of appropriate behaviour. Since (...) behaviour is based on values priorities, a mutual effort at all levels to deal with corporate ethics begins with a clear understanding of core values, both individually and organisationally. If a company wants to achieve a high Return on Capital Employed and Customers Engaged, a high Return on Competencies Enhanced, and a high Return on Co-Creative Energy, it is a major breakthrough to discover the interrelationship between: value, values, valuing and valuation. (shrink)

The article analyzes the basic principles of state policy in the sphere of culture. The specific mission of cultural awareness is determined in the national socio-cultural context. The study highlights the key concepts of contemporary cultural policy in Ukraine, including "management culture" and "cultural support". The article discloses their role in the national public identity. The authors conclude on the necessity of substantial organizational and managerial reform of cultural policy on the principle of consistency in maintaining spiritual achievements of (...) Ukrainian people and its traditions with simultaneous modernization of cultural life of society. (shrink)

We animals have evolved a variety of mechanisms to avoid conspecifics who might be infected. It is currently unclear whether and why this “behavioral immune system” targets unfamiliar individuals more than familiar ones. Here I answer this question in humans, using publicly available data of a recent study on 1969 participants from India and 1615 from the USA. The apparent health of a male stranger, as estimated from his face, and the comfort with contact with him were a direct function (...) of his similarity to the men in the local community. This held true regardless of whether the face carried overt signs of infection. I conclude that our behavioral immune system is finely tuned to degrees of outgroupness — and that cues of outgroupness are partly processed as cues of infectiousness. These findings, which were consistent across the two cultures, support the notion that the pathogens of strangers are perceived as more dangerous. (shrink)

Background Truth-telling in health care is about providing patients with accurate information about their diagnoses and prognoses to enable them to make decisions that can benefit their overall health. Physicians worldwide, especially in the United Kingdom (U.K.) and the United States (U.S.), openly share such medical information. Bangladesh, however, is a Muslim-majority society with different social norms than Western societies. Therefore, we examined whether Muslim culture supports truth disclosure for patients, particularly how and to what extent medical information about life-threatening (...) diseases is provided to patients in Bangladesh. Methods This was a phenomenological qualitative study. We conducted thirty in-depth interviews with clinicians, nurses, patients and their relatives at Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh. We also used observations to explore interactions between patients, families and healthcare professionals regarding their involvement in medical decisions and truth disclosure issues. NVivo software was used to identify common themes, and a thematic analysis method was utilised to analyse the datasets. Results This study identified three recurring themes relevant to the ethics and practice of truth disclosure: best interest rather than autonomy, the ambivalent value of deception and who understands what. The participants revealed that physicians often withhold fatal medical prognoses from terminally ill patients to ensure the best healthcare outcomes. The results indicate that deception towards patients is commonly accepted as a means of reducing burden and providing comfort. The participants opined that true medical information should be withheld from some patients, assuming that such disclosures may create a severe burden on them. Whether or to what extent medical information is disclosed primarily depends on a family’s wishes and preferences. Conclusions While truth disclosure to patients is considered an ethical norm in many cultures, such as in the U.K. and the U.S., the practice of concealing or partially revealing severe medical prognoses to patients is an actual medical practice in Bangladeshi society. This study emphasises the importance of recognising a patient’s active involvement and respecting the cultural values that shape family involvement in medical decision-making. These findings may have significant policy and practical implications for promoting patient autonomy within Bangladeshi family dynamics and religious-based cultural values. (shrink)

Modernity as a problem -- On modernitis -- Can europe survive modernity? -- From one transcendental to another -- Sacred cows or mad cows? -- To ground reason -- Atheism or superstition? -- Is secularization modern? -- Democracy and theocracy -- Reaction to progress -- Culture -- Are there really two cultures? -- Does culture support the idea of truth? -- Heirs without a will? -- To temporize -- From time to time -- How one writes history -- The (...) conditions of a future -- Reconstruction -- An educational dream -- Not to betray: the tradition. (shrink)

This dissertation attempts to preserve the central tenets of a global moral theory called “the capabilities approach” as defended by Martha Nussbaum, but to do so in a way that better realizes its own goals of identifying gender injustices and gaining cross-cultural support by providing an alternative defense of it. Capabilities assess an individual’s well-being based on what she is able to do (actions) and who she is able to be (states of existence). Nussbaum grounds her theory in the (...) intuitive idea that each and every person is worthy of equal respect and dignity. The problem with grounding a theory in a version of intuitionism is that it runs the risk of authoritarian moral reasoning. I argue Nussbaum, in fact, is the final arbiter who decides which intuitions are mistaken, which are not, and how to interpret what people say to fit into her own framework. This method of justifying capabilities is most problematic in cases of social inequality whereby dominant group members do not feel they need to check their intuitions against non-dominant group members, and even if they did, they are not forced to take the non-dominant group’s intuitions seriously. I find capabilities as a global moral theory to be very promising, and I agree with Nussbaum that a list of capabilities is beneficial for identifying people who are not able to live a truly dignified human life. However, I am also sympathetic to the criticism of defending capabilities using a version of intuitionism. So, I offer an alternative method of justifying the capabilities rooted in the discourse ethics tradition. This method seeks all persons that are affected by the outcome to freely and equally share their opinion. This avoids the charge of authoritarian moral reasoning, because (1) it seeks perspectives other than simply one’s own, but unlike traditional ethics, it (2) pays special attention to the ways in which power relations shape dialogue. Ultimately, I hope to have preserved the central tenets of the capabilities approach while better realizing Nussbaum’s commitment to defending a theory that is gender sensitive and has gained cross-cultural support. (shrink)

The development of robots that closely resemble human beings can contribute to cognitive research. An android provides an experimental apparatus that has the potential to be controlled more precisely than any human actor. However, preliminary results indicate that only very humanlike devices can elicit the broad range of responses that people typically direct toward each other. Conversely, to build androids capable of emulating human behavior, it is necessary to investigate social activity in detail and to develop models of the cognitive (...) mechanisms that support this activity. Because of the reciprocal relationship between android development and the exploration of social mechanisms, it is necessary to establish the field of android science. Androids could be a key testing ground for social, cognitive, and neuroscientific theories as well as platform for their eventual unification. Nevertheless, subtle flaws in appearance and movement can be more apparent and eerie in very humanlike robots. This uncanny phenomenon may be symptomatic of entities that elicit our model of human other but do not measure up to it. If so, very humanlike robots may provide the best means of pinpointing what kinds of behavior are perceived as human, since deviations from human norms are more obvious in them than in more mechanical-looking robots. In pursuing this line of inquiry, it is essential to identify the mechanisms involved in evaluations of human likeness. One hypothesis is that, by playing on an innate fear of death, an uncanny robot elicits culturally-supported defense responses for coping with death’s inevitability. An experiment, which borrows from methods used in terror management research, was performed to test this hypothesis. [Thomson Reuters Essential Science Indicators: Fast Breaking Paper in Social Sciences, May 2008]. (shrink)

Scholars have long asserted that public relations (PR) professionals should play the role of organizational conscience, but little research has focused on why and how they play this role effectively. We found that PR professionals who played the role of organizational conscience had broadened conceptions of their roles and responsibilities, including a fervent duty to the public interest. This often put them in the position of providing criticism to powerful organizational players. Rather than raising their ethical concerns as persuasive orators, (...) they used subtle, resourceful, and experiential approaches to persuasion. Playing the role of organizational conscience typically necessitated gaining access to informal coalitions since access to dominant power coalitions often was limited or late. Organizations with participative cultures supported the role of organizational conscience. (shrink)

This article examines the reparative turn in current queer feminist scholarship by tracking its twin interest in the study of affect and time. By foregrounding Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s influential critique of what she called paranoid reading, I am interested in the ways that various critics – Ann Cvetkovich, Heather Love, and Elizabeth Freeman in particular – take up the call for reparative reading by using the temporal frameworks of the everyday, backward feeling, and queer time to reparative ends. In the (...) process, I consider the reparative work being done to reclaim Sedgwick as a major thinker for queer feminist concerns, and speculate on the attraction, in a time of declining economic and cultural support for the interpretative humanities, of a critical practice that seeks to love and nurture its objects of study. (shrink)

While the idea of freedom lies at the heart of our economic system, academic research has neglected to connect theories of the firm to freedom theory. To fill this void, the authors delineate two archetypes of freedom — quantitative and qualitative — and outline the consequences of the respective notions for organisational strategy, corporate governance, leadership and culture. Supporting the quest for reform in management theory, the authors argue for an enlarged perspective of the role of the firm within free (...) societies. (shrink)

This study investigates the relations between “Belief in a Just World” , religiosity and victim-blaming attitudes. In particular, the influence of BJW and religiosity on social attitudes is probed. Recent theoretical and psychometric developments in the BJW construct are considered. Thus, 176 Turkish subjects completed measures for BJW-Self /BJW-Other , “Belief in Immanent/Ultimate Justice,” attitudes towards the poor, and religiosity. Results show that Belief in Ultimate Justice and BJW-S are uniquely related to religiosity. As hypothesized, BJW-O and Belief in Immanent (...) Justice are strongly related to harsh attitudes towards the poor. However, contrary to our expectation, results do not indicate a positive link between religiosity and negative attitudes towards the poor. Study findings also provide strong cross-cultural support for the conceptual and psychometric revisions of the Just-World construct. (shrink)

Formalizing shared ethical standards is an activity of scientific societies designed to achieve a collective goal of promoting ethical conduct. A scientist who is faced with the choice of becoming a “whistleblower” by exposing misconduct does so in the context of these ethical standards. Examination of ethics policies of scientific societies which are members of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP) shows a breadth of purpose and scope in these policies. Among the CSSP member societies, some ethics policies chiefly (...) present the ethical culture of the community in an educational context and do not have enforcement procedures. Other policies are more comprehensive and include standards for certification, procedures for addressing ethical issues, and established sanctions. Of the 36 member societies of CSSP that have developed a code or adopted a code of another professional society, 18 specifically identified a responsibility to expose ethical misconduct, demonstrating an acknowledgment of the possible critical role of the whistleblower in addressing ethical issues. Scientific societies may revise their ethics codes based upon experience gained in addressing cases of ethical misconduct. In most cases, the action of a whistleblower is the initial step in addressing an ethics violation; the whistleblower may either be in the position of an observer or a victim, such as in the case of someone who discovers that his or her own work has been plagiarized. The ethics committee of a scientific society is one of several possible outlets through which the whistleblower can voice a complaint or concern. Ethical violations can include falsification, fabrication, plagiarism and other authorship disputes, conflict of interest and other serious violations. Commonly, some of these violations may involve publication in the scientific literature. Thus addressing ethical issues may be intertwined with a scientific society’s role in the dissemination of new scientific results. For a journal published by a scientific society, the editor can refer at some point to the ethics committee of the society. Whereas, in the case of a journal published by a commercial publisher, the editor may be without direct support of the associated scientific community in handling the case. The association of a journal with a scientific society may thus direct a whistleblower towards addressing the issue within the scientific community rather than involving the press or talking to colleagues who may gossip. A formal procedure for handling ethics cases may also discourage false accusers. Another advantage of handling complaints through ethics committees is that decisions to contact home institutions or funding agencies can be made by the ethics committee and are not the responsibility of the whistleblower or the editor of the journal. The general assessment is that the establishment of ethics policies, especially policies covering publication in society journals, will promote a culture supportive of whistleblowers and discouraging to false accusers. (shrink)

There is an increased controversy surrounding Westerners' use of ayahuasca. One issue of importance is psychological resiliency of users and lack of screening by ayahuasca tourism groups in the Amazon. Given the powerful effects of ayahuasca coupled with lack of cultural support, Western users are at increased risk for psychological distress. Many Westerners who experience psychological distress following ayahuasca ceremonies report concurrently profound spiritual experiences. Because of this, it may be helpful to consider these episodes "spiritual emergencies," or crises (...) resulting from intense and transformative spiritual experiences. Although the author warns readers to avoid romantic comparisons of Western ayahuasca users to shamans, ethnographic data on indigenous shamanic initiates along with theory on liminality may be of some use to understand difficult experiences that accompany ayahuasca use. Given that psychotherapy is culturally sanctioned, therapists trained in treating spiritual crises can help Western ayahuasca users make meaning of their distress. Three case studies are offered as examples of individuals working through various sorts of crises following ayahuasca ceremonies. (shrink)

This project reconstructs the philosophical anthropology implicit in Hans Blumenberg's mature work. In Chapter 1, following a brief synopsis of philosophical anthropology's modern origins, I view Blumenberg's position through the prism of Heidegger's disavowal of philosophical anthropology and his challenge to Cassirer at Davos in 1929 over the proper interpretation of Kant and neo-Kantianism. I focus on a subtheme in this debate: the starting points and goals of philosophy as it relates to their respective conceptions of human existence. For Blumenberg, (...) unlike Heidegger, this starting point is a version of philosophical anthropology, one that requires a reconceptualization of Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms as necessary cultural supports for human existence. Blumenberg's philosophical anthropology is simultaneously the basis of his philosophy of history. ;Chapter 2 expounds the new starting point. I develop Blumenberg's account of human existence as a consequence of its limits, which can be summed up by two facts: our biological deficiencies and the indifference of reality. These facts require a compensatory life-world, which is established through metaphor and symbol, as Cassirer would have it. Action, or self-assertion, is thus circumscribed by and shaped indirectly through the symbolic constructs that constitute a culture. This is further constrained by a regulative idea of humanity. Chapter 3 examines the resulting life-world, or the sense in human existence is supported by myths and institutions, with particular attention to how these can be understood as objective and rational. Within this context, I examine what could count as reason, which necessarily works within institutional constraints and is limited by myth and history. Chapter 4 is a case study that extends the resulting theoretical model. I pose the problem of understanding the significance of our contemporary preoccupation with gender. I claim it is both a myth and a reflective category. Gender can be understood as the story of sexual difference, a story that makes possible a reflective position for questioning modern disenchantment from the perspective of sexual difference. In conclusion, I contend that this reconstruction of Blumenberg's anthropology supports a larger argument: in modernity, it is in our philosophical and ethical interest to restate anthropological needs and reevaluate the life-supporting function of institutions rather than succumb to the temptations of anti-anthropology, which forgets "man.". (shrink)

Drawing on interviews with women and men who serve on the supervisory boards of German stock-listed companies, this qualitative study examines why some female directors seek to augment gender equality in their organizations while others do not. Those who take action do so both in formal board processes and in informal settings. A sense of belonging to women as a social group and a sense of responsibility for women in the organization are key factors in explaining why some female directors (...) contribute to gender equality. In addition, the study highlights the relevance of a board culture supportive of gender equality and positive expectations by other organizational members about female directors’ role in advancing gender equality. Board chairs influence how supportive female directors perceive the organizational context to be. Where the organizational context is not seen as supportive, those who take equality-related action anyway are experienced directors. Surprisingly, the presence of other women on the board does not appear to be related to whether or not female directors take action. Examining female directors’ actions and paying close attention to both their identities and their specific organizational settings shows how the interplay between social identity and situational opportunities and constraints affects board behavior. (shrink)

Microcosme de la société, espace symbolique où se nouent des rapports humains et sociaux fondamentaux, lieu de mémoire, l'hôpital public a vu ses fonctions se transformer au fil du temps. Successivement lieu d'accueil, maison d'enfermement, « machine à guérir », pivot de l'action sanitaire, il est aujourd'hui à la fois une administration et une entreprise de soins. Cependant, sous la pression de quelques évolutions sociales fondamentales, l'hôpital ne serait-il pas en train de s'ouvrir progressivement sur l'extérieur, de se transformer de (...) « citadelle » du service public de santé en « espace public » aux vertus culturelles et solidaires. Parmi ces évolutions, le développement d'initiatives solidaires en milieu hospitalier, telles que l'organisation de solidarités de proximité en partenariat avec le « dehors », paraît jouer un rôle essentiel.Hospitals are microcosms of society, symbolic places where basic human and social relationships are formed and places of memory and as such have witnessed great changes to their functions over the years. In turn they have been places of welcome, places of confinement, “healing machines”, the mainspring of health policies and nowadays seem to be both government-run institutions and healthcare businesses however contradictory that may sometimes appear. However, the pressure of a few basic social shifts seems to have led hospitals to gradually open up to the outside world, turning themselves from publich health system strongholds into “spaces open to the public” with culturally supportive values. Among these shifts in society, the development of support initiatives in the hospital environment such as local community-based solidarity projects run in partnership with “the outside world” seems to be playing an important role. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dracula and Carmilla:Monsters and the MindBenson Saler and Charles A. ZieglerFollowing the publication of Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1897, vampire narratives proliferated in Britain and the United States.1 While many twentieth century short stories, novels, plays, and films in both countries depart from Dracula in various ways, it is our impression that that workand its close derivatives retain pride of place in the popular imagination. Yet Dracula was but (...) one of several well-known vampire stories published in English during the nineteenth century, and scholars deem certain of the other tales to be of literary merit.In noting that, we raise this question: What is it about the plot and the characterization of vampires in Dracula that make it the most famous example of vampires in English fiction? Why, in particular, has it been more influential than Le Fanu's Carmilla which preceded it in time and is of equal or perhaps greater literary distinction?2 We address that question, and by doing so we hope to gain some insight into the attraction and persistence of vampire tales across time and cultures.We begin by sketching our approach to conceptualizing the category "vampire." Nina Auerbach, a Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, writes that "There is no such creature as 'The Vampire'; there are only vampires."3 That declaration is in keeping with her demonstration that in nineteenth and twentieth century British and American vampire novels, short stories, plays, and films, vampires vary greatly in behavior, in apparent motivation, and in cultural significance. Different social orders and different culturally supported sensibilities [End Page 218] and sensitivities, she persuasively argues, find expression in different sorts of vampires.We deem Auerbach's literary nominalism preferable to an essentialism that would govern vampiric class inclusion by insisting on some conjunction of necessary features or conditions. At the same time, however, we think that there is a better way of allowing for differences in conceptualizing vampires and in understanding their multi-faceted significance in British and American imaginings of the last two centuries. That way combines the recognition of family resemblances with insights derived from prototype theory in the cognitive sciences.A family resemblance approach can be quite liberal in what it includes as instantiations of the category "vampire." It can encompass not only such familiar (albeit different) figures as Ruthven, Varney, Carmilla, Dracula, and Lestat, but also others, including so-called "psychic vampires," who flourish not by sucking blood but by draining vitality, will, and even experience from their victims. Some may ask, does this not create a category that is so promiscuous in what it includes as to render the category analytically useless? No, we reply, once you couple family resemblance with insights from prototype theory.Prototype theory, narrowly described, attempts to account for "prototype effects." These "effects" are differences in the judgments that people render about how well different instances of a category exemplify the category. Thus, for instance, some people may judge apples and oranges to be clearer or better exemplars of the category "fruit" than olives. Similarly, some may judge robins and sparrows to be clearer or better exemplars of the category "bird" than penguins. Judgments can be explicitly given, or they can be inferred from the order of examples that people give or from their responses to lists of examples furnished by others. Prototype theorists call the adjudged clearest or "best" examples of categories "prototypes" or "the most prototypical exemplars."4 This approach celebrates centrality and periphery rather than essence and boundary in conceptualizing categories.5 It allows that some instantiations of a category may be deemed more central to the category than others. Thus in the case of vampires, Dracula is more central to the category than, say, the shape-shifting space alien who extracts salt from victims in an episode of Star Trek, First Generation. Auerbach recognizes that centrality when she refers to "Dracula's dominance in our century" (p. 111). We contend, moreover, that while Sheridan Le Fanu's vampire Carmilla is more prototypical—that is, an adjudged better exemplar of the category—than vampiric space aliens [End Page 219] and legions of psychic vampires, she is less... (shrink)

Phenomenal experiences of immaterial spiritual beings—hearing the voice of God, seeing the spirit of an ancestor—are a valuable and largely untapped resource for the field of cognitive science. Such experiences, we argue, are experiences of the mind, tied to mental models and cognitive-epistemic attitudes about the mind, and thus provide a striking example of how, with the right combination of mental models and cognitive-epistemic attitudes, one's own thoughts and inner sensations can be experienced as coming from somewhere or someone else. (...) In this paper, we present results from a large-scale study of U.S. adults (N = 1779) that provides new support for our theory that spiritual experiences are facilitated by a dynamic interaction between mental models and cognitive-epistemic attitudes: A person is more likely to hear God speak if they have the epistemic flexibility and cultural support to shift, temporarily, away from a mundane model of mind into a more “porous” way of thinking and being. This, in turn, lays the foundation for a meditation on how mental models and cognitive-epistemic attitudes might also interact to facilitate other phenomena of interest to cognitive science, such as fiction writing and scientific discovery. (shrink)

The main objective of this essay is to show that the process of transition from socialism to capitalism in Central and Eastern Europe is a cultural problem rather than a technical one. In pursuing that objective I analyze two interrelated issues. First, analysis shows why and how cultural differences in Central and Eastern Europe have, via transaction costs specific to the process of transition, specific and predictable effects on the results of institutional restructuring, and, consequently, on economic performance. Second, I (...) argue that spontaneous changes in the prevailing culture could, under a set of credible and stable formal rules of the game, help to close a gap between the culture supportive of capitalism and the prevailing culture in Central and Eastern Europe. a Footnotesa My colleague and friend Fred Fransen made two major contributions to this essay: he helped me identify numerous inconsistencies in the essay, and he changed a number of my perceptions on the relationship between culture and economic performance. James Buchanan, Ljubo Madzar, Henry Manne, Milic Milovanovic, and Katarina Ott gave me useful suggestions and comments on earlier drafts. I am grateful to Victor Vanberg and Ulrich Witt for the opportunity to discuss this essay with their colleagues and students at the University of Freiburg and Max Planck Institute in Jena, Germany. (shrink)

The Chinese Model and Chinese Wisdom of Modernization 1: The Soviet model of socialism and the American model of capitalism are the two major solutions to modernization. Under the guidance of the traditional Chinese Doctrine of the Mean and the Marxist dialectical materialism, the Communist Party of China, by successively learning from these two major solutions and combining with the actual situation of China, has proposed Chinese solutions of socialism with Chinese characteristics to modernization of state governance and thus offered (...) to the world Chinese wisdom beyond the conflicts between two major ideologies, namely, socialism and capitalism. Keywords: State governance. Modernization. Chinese wisdom. Chinese situations. O modelo chinês e a sabedoria chinesa da modernização Resumo: O modelo soviético de socialismo e o modelo americano de capitalismo são as duas principais soluções para a modernização. Sob a orientação da doutrina chinesa tradicional do caminho do meio e do materialismo dialético marxista, o Partido Comunista da China, aprendendo sucessivamente com essas duas soluções principais e combinando-se com a situação atual da China, propôs soluções chinesas de socialismo com características chinesas, modernização da governança do estado e, assim, ofereceu ao mundo a sabedoria chinesa além dos conflitos entre duas grandes ideologias, a saber, socialismo e capitalismo. Palavras-chave: Governança estatal. Modernização. Sabedoria chinesa. Situações chinesas. El modelo chino y la sabiduría china de la modernización Resumen: El modelo soviético del socialismo y el modelo estadounidense del capitalismo son las dos soluciones principales para la modernización. Bajo la guía de la Doctrina tradicional china de la media y el materialismo dialéctico marxista, el Partido Comunista de China, al aprender sucesivamente de estas dos soluciones principales y combinar con la situación actual de China, ha propuesto soluciones chinas del socialismo con características chinas para modernización de la gobernanza estatal y, por lo tanto, ofreció al mundo sabiduría china más allá de los conflictos entre dos ideologías principales, a saber, el socialismo y el capitalismo. Palabras clave: Gobernanza estatal. Modernización. Sabiduría china. Situaciones chinas. 1This paper is related to “the Research of the Relationship between the Thought of the Communist Party of China about state Governance and Excellent Traditional Chinese Culture” supported by Beijing Social Science Fund Research Project Base Data de registro: 30/07/2020 Data de aceite: 21/10/2020 1 This paper is related to “the Research of the Relationship between the Thought of the Communist Party of China about state Governance and Excellent Traditional Chinese Culture” supported by Beijing Social Science Fund Research Project Base. (shrink)

The human capacity for culture is a key determinant of our success as a species. While much work has examined adults’ abilities to create and transmit cultural knowledge, relatively less work has focused on the role of children (approx. 3-17 years) in this important process. In the cases where children are acknowledged, they are largely portrayed as acquirers of cultural knowledge from adults, rather than cultural producers in their own right. In this paper, we bring attention to the important role (...) that children play in cultural adaptation by highlighting the structure, function, and ubiquity of the large body of knowledge produced and transmitted by children, known as peer culture. Supported by evidence from diverse disciplines, we argue that children are independent producers and maintainers of these autonomous cultures, which exist with regularity across diverse societies, and persist despite compounding threats. Critically, we argue peer cultures are a source of community knowledge diversity, encompassing both material and immaterial knowledge related to geography, ecology, subsistence, norms, and language. Through a number of case studies, we further argue that peer culture products and associated practices — including exploration, learning, and the retention of abandoned adult cultural traits — may help populations adapt to changing ecological and social conditions, contribute to community resilience, and even produce new cultural communities. We end by highlighting the pressing need for research to more carefully investigate children's roles as active agents in cultural adaptation. (shrink)

Straipsnyje grindžiama nuomonė, jog postmodernybė yra iš modernybės kylantis kapitalizmo sistemos būvis, kuriam būdinga gyvybės suprekinimas ir suišteklinimas. Postmodernybę charakterizuoja populiariosios ir medijų kultūros išplitimas. Tos kultūros apima ne tik kultūros prekes, bet ir vartojimo būdus, įgūdžius ir jų lavinimą. Pastaruoju metu jos kuria nemirtingumo vaizdiniams bei nuojautoms palankią kultūrinę, intelektinę ir pasaulėvaizdinę terpę, kurioje struktūriškai įsitvirtina genetinis diskursas ir jo nustatomos žmogaus ir jo gyvenamo pasaulio aiškinimo gairės. Svarbus šio diskurso bruožas yra technologinis inžinerinis jo pobūdis, išryškėjęs susiejant nano (...) ir biotechnologijas, kuriomis tikimasi įveikti gyvąją ir negyvąją gamtą skiriančią prarają, iš reikalingų atomų bei molekulių kuriant reikalingų ląstelių dalis ir klonuojant gyvas būtybes. Gyvybė suprekinama ir suišteklinama patentuojant gyvybės elementus – genus ir su jais susijusius procesus. Daroma išvada, jog visi genetikos, informatikos ir kitų mokslų laimėjimai, teikiantys žmogaus gyvenimo ilginimo galimybių, kurios palaiko gundančią nemirtingumo idėją, jau yra persmelkti prekinių santykių, tad ir pats nemirtingumas įmanomas tik kaip prekė. Aptariami kai kurie evoliuciniai ir religiniai techno sapiens sampratos aspektai. Detaliau gvildenamos dvi „nemirtingumo“ versijos: Z. Baumano, kuris nemirtingumo pažadą sieja su kompiuterinės technikos plėtra prasidėjus „Antrajai medijų erai“, ir J. Baudrillard’o, tegiančio, jog klonavimo technologijos „apgręžia“ evoliuciją ir žmogų gundo virusiniu ar vėžiniu belyčiu nemirtingumu. Pagrindiniai žodžiai: genetinis diskursas, klonavimas, medijų kultūra, nanobiotechnologijos, nemirtingumas, suprekinimas. Genetic Discourse in Media Culture: Temptation by Commodified Immorality Vytautas Rubavičius Summary Postmodernity is maintained as a stage of the development of capitalism. The difference between modernity and postmodernity is explained in relation to the new sphere of commodification and resourcification, namely, that of life and of all natural living processes. Postmodern media culture, or popular culture, is peopled by signs of immortality and various kinds of immortals – cyborgs, clones, zombies, immortal human beings and others. Thus, culture accustoms a consumer to immortals and immortality which is concidered as the main goal of a human being and evolution. By nano-bio-technologies and genetic discourse this goal is made scientifically valid, thus reachable. Genetic discourse is becoming the fundamental world-view providing focal landmarks for the emerging future. Media culture supports the spreading of genetic discourse and facilitates its understanding. The temptation by immortality can be considered as a version of modernist ideology of human liberation from various natural, social and heavenly bonds. This liberation, and also secularization, is supported by a scientific genetic technological discourse which is becoming a stimulating factor of postmodern media production. The genetic explanation of the world is particularly handy for technological reflexivity: the entire world is as if encapsulated into human genes, which become the principle explaining the mystery of life, evolution and the future of humanity, thus rendering power to produce the human proper form and the future of people. All the possibilities stemming from the new genetic and biotech discoveries fell under the regulation of property relations by patenting, thus making “immortality” – as a temptation and brand – not only an exeptional commodity, but also a political tool and a commodifying force. As the relationships of private property have penetrated natural biogenetic diversity and, having turned it into a resource, the cognitive subject has reached the goal to secularise the Universe, which he has set for himself: only he as the owner and producer of genes lures people with the eternal shapes of the clones and their genetic information, which will be sustained in any location of the Universe. The temptation by “immortality” will become even stronger when the genetic code is mastered. The future of humanity is related to the mixed forms of life, trans-genic or otherwise genetically modified organisms and techno-human forms that will help to postpone, and later to conquer, death. Even thinkers with religious tendencies perceive the technological improvement of human beings as their evolution towards the techno sapiens and consider such a development as an advancement towards the Kingdom of God. The technologization of human beings is imagined in terms of their divination. Yet in this case the character of contemporary science secularising God and obliterating the perception of divinity is overlooked. Two versions of immortality are analyzed more closely – that of Z. Bauman, who links it with the development of computer technologies, and that of J. Baudrillard, who gives a warning that by cloning technologies humanity is trying to inverse the evolution and to return to the undifferentiated state of cells. The conclusion is drawn that regardless of how we understand ‘immortality,’ argue over its reality or unreality, all possibilities to prolong human life granted by genetics, informatics and other advances in science and technologies, which support the tempting idea of immortality, have already been penetrated by commodity relationships; therefore, “immortality” itself will be available only as a commodity. Keywords: cloning, commodification, genetic discourse, immortality, media culture, nano-bio-technologies. (shrink)