No reverberatory effect of the great war has caused American public opinion more solicitude than the failure of the “melting-pot.” The tendency... has been for the national clusters of immigrants, as they became more and more firmly established and more and more prosperous to cultivate more and more assiduously the literatures and cultural traditions of their homelands. Assimilation, in other words, instead of washing out the memories of Europe, made them more and more intensely real. Just as these clusters (...) became more and more objectively American, did they become more and more German or Scandinavian or Bohemian or Polish.... [This] is not, however, to admit the failure of Americanization. It is not to fear the failure of democracy. It is rather to urge us to an investigation of what Americanism may rightly mean. It is to ask ourselves whether our ideal has been broad or narrow—whether perhaps the time has not come to assert a higher ideal than the “melting pot.”... We act as if we wanted Americanization to take place only on our own terms, and not by the consent of the governed. All our elaborate machinery of settlement and school and union, of social and political naturalization, however, will move with friction just in so far as it neglects to take into account this strong and virile insistence that American shall be what the immigrant will have a hand in making it, and not what a ruling class, descendent of those British stocks which were the first permanent immigrants, decide that America shall be made. Randolph Bourne (1916/1977, 248ff). (shrink)

Anorexia nervosa remains an enigma among Western cultures. Various causal explanations have been offered, encompassing biological, psychological, and sociocultural models. These explanations, however, focus on the immediate or proximal mechanisms of causation. A more thorough understanding of anorexia nervosa can be achieved by understanding the relationship between these factors and ultimate causation, the level of explanation which deals with individual reproductive fitness. This paper reviews the biological, psychological, sociocultural, and evolutionary models and indicates a necessary synthesis between proximate and ultimate (...) levels of causation in examining the anorexia nervosa puzzle. (shrink)

Eschatological beliefs have matured alongside both biblical composition and Christian history. This evolution can be traced using cultural evolutionary studies. The process reflects attempts to adapt to new conditions and challenges—sometimes giving place to more focused views, but also sometimes to failures and dysfunctional forms or fruitless variations. It becomes a theological duty to assess this evolution better. The key element is the reception of these eschatological beliefs, to discern what expressions of them are more helpful in encouraging Christian (...) fidelity, coping with distress, and engaging with individual and societal challenges. In this article, we outline a research programme that links eschatology to anthropology, and that tries to analyse beliefs according to state‐of‐the‐art methods, such as evolutionary cultural studies and research on the believing process. We also contribute a case study based on the concept of hell to test the proposed approach. (shrink)

We would like to open some questions here about the institutional and cultural conditions of anything that might be called cultural studies or multiculturalism. By introducing cultural studies and multiculturalism many intellectuals aim at a more democratic culture. We share this aim. In this essay, however, we would like to argue that the projects of cultural studies and multiculturalism require: a more international model of cultural studies than the dominant Anglo-American versions; renewed attention to the (...) institutional environments of cultural studies; and a questioning of the relations between multiculturalism and identity politics. We seek less to “fix” these problems than to provide a critical analysis of the languages, the methods of criticism, and the assumptions about identity, culture, and politics that present the problems to us. Because the thickets entangling what our group calls cultural studies are so deeply rooted in Western academia, which to a large degree constitutes our own group, the counterexample of cultural criticism in other contexts can be more than usually instructive. We begin by considering the position of cultural studies in China, since our group includes a number of Chinese intellectuals, on whose experience the following section is largely based. The Chicago Cultural Studies Group began meeting in June 1990. It includes Lauren Berlant, David Bunn, Vinay Dharwadker, Norma Field, Dilip Gaonkar, Marilyn Ivy, Benjamin Lee, Leo Ou-fan Lee, Xinmin Liu, Mathew Roberts, Sharon Stephens, Katie Trumpener, Greg Urban, Michael Warner, Jianyang Zha, and Jueliang Zhou. (shrink)

Kant's noncognitive argument based on practical reason claims that moral considerations alone suffice to justify the idea of personal immortality as a postulate. Some recent objections are considered here that have charged him with overstepping his own distinction between phenomenon and noumenon. After examining the arguments, Kant is exonerated of having violated his own principles. More troubling, however, is the peculiarity involved in postulating an infinite progression toward a goal whose attainment, by hypothesis, would undermine the very foundations of morality (...) (which for Kant always requires the agonistic condition of struggling to improve one's lower nature). It is argued that this paradox necessitates a reexamination of some tacit cultural presuppositions underlying Kant's conception of the soul. Finally, an examination is made of the thought of Kitarō Nishida, whose Zen Buddhist–inspired dialectic of the basho (logical "place") provides an alternative perspective from which to reconsider the postulate of immortality. Nishida, like Kant, rigorously maintains the phenomenonnoumenon distinction, yet his examination of ethics leads him to postulate an eventual sublation of the "soul" principle. It is concluded that Kant's postulate of immortality, while plausible enough on its own terms, is limited by a Western cultural bias and therefore fails in the end to be compelling. (shrink)

If the specificity of liberal democracy, as a regime, is to base power on consent then political violence appears to contradict the typical self-understanding of the societies whose functioning it informs. A justification of the motives which may call for such violence thus becomes both a political and a philosophical problem when such a regime faces the necessity to resort to violent means of action. Reaching intellectual maturity during the 30’s and the 40’s, while democratic states were faltering in Europe, (...) Raymond Aron had an acute understanding of this issue. An inquiry into Aron’s publications from that period will help us identify what kind of moral and cultural foundations they need to have if they are not to collapse during wartime. These texts also shed an original light on his post-war political thought and may lead us to reconsider some dominant contemporary interpretations of his work as revolving around the Kantian–Machiavellian antinomy. When compared to either element of this antinomy, Aron’s conception of agency, its emphasis on moral obligations, virtues and moral character, starts bearing more resemblance to the political science of Aristotle than to modern social or political science. (shrink)

Many areas of genetic research, genetic forensics and genetic essentialism are treated in public sphere debate as suspicious and problematic or are subject to waves of moral panic. In cultural theory, likewise, strong critiques of the genetic essentialism emerge as part of a broader critical assessment of the discourses of the biological sciences and the assertion of a connection between genes and human behavior. However, the scientific and popular claim to the existence of a “gay gene” is not treated (...) in the same way, and has been widely celebrated both within lesbian/gay culture and more broadly in liberal-humanist speech. This essay suggests that it is not enough to presume that this is a result of the extension of essentialism into new popular understandings of human biology. Rather, this essay examines five reasons which have made the popular acceptance of a “gay gene” tenable: the dominance of “gay personage” arguments, the continued influence of early sexology, the suspicion of psychological and constructionist approaches to lesbian/gay sexualities, the effectiveness of genetic essentialism in“ethnic rights” political approaches and the continued centrality of “fixed subjecthood” in contemporary western culture. (shrink)

Systemic history is an approach to explaining the past, that tries to maximize our understanding of context. Unlike most history, it does not do this by just narrating a chain of causal relationships for a given group through time. Instead, it shows how simpler systems become more complex over time through the interaction of reinforcing and balancing feedback loops. Systemic history offers the best way of understanding the processes that shape the Middle Way, because the Middle Way involves improving responses (...) to complexity, rather than falling back on shortcut simplifications (absolutizations). -/- This book examines the history of the Middle Way in four inter-related ways: as the biological development of organisms in relation to reinforcing or balancing feedback loops, as the psychological development of individual humans during a lifetime, as a succession of reinforcing and balancing feedback tendencies in human culture through history, and as a successive development of integrative practice. This shows how the Middle Way is a path distinctive to the human response to complexity, but nevertheless one rooted in the wider processes of all life. In the process it provides a detailed exploration of the relationship between the Middle Way and systems theory, biology, developmental psychology, and world history. (shrink)

Source [1] Andrew E. P. Mitchell, Federica Galli, Sondra Butterworth. (2023). Editorial: Equality, diversity and inclusive research for diverse rare disease communities. Front. Psychol., vol. 14. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1285774. "It is also important to recognize that certain mental health disorders are classified as rare conditions and have their own cultural concepts of distress, as defined in the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013)" and require “equal attention and support for individuals and their families, both physically and emotionally”. [1].

What are the possibilities for art to provide non-reactionary, productive spaces for pedagogical endeavors? How can culture function pedagogically and critically beyond the continuing constraints of positivism on the one hand and fixed systems on the other? In what ways can art’s impasse open spaces, its weakness move beyond the teleological, and its exit provide pedagogical possibilities beyond its current horizons? These and other such questions about the limitations and potential for pedagogy and culture through the lens of art lie (...) at the core of Baldacchino’s Art’s Way Out: Exit Pedagogy and the Cultural Condition. This review of his work is divided into two overarching sections, a summary of his work and questions that his arguments have raised for this reader, and questions that address the ideas presented in Art’s Way Out and the philosophical tools utilized to make them.Summary, Questions, and ArgumentsAt one level, this work asserts that art is central to pedagogy and p .. (shrink)

The text is the editor’s introduction to the articles of this scientific journal Philosophy. Sociology, thematically divided into four sections: Philosophy of Technology and Ethics of Technology, Social Philosophy and Philosophy of Communication, Philosophy of Art and Art Communication, Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy. This article also aims to problematise the concepts of culture and technology and present one of the conceptual approaches when considering cultural and value differences in the conditions of technological globalisation. From the author’s perspective, although technology (...) provides tools for effective human activity and technological progress influences different societies and their interactions, technological solutions alone cannot eliminate or neutralise the cultural, mentality, moral, or simply value differences of different societies. (shrink)

In this paper we study selected argument forms involving counterfactuals and indicative conditionals under uncertainty. We selected argument forms to explore whether people with an Eastern cultural background reason differently about conditionals compared to Westerners, because of the differences in the location of negations. In a 2x2 between-participants design, 63 Japanese university students were allocated to four groups, crossing indicative conditionals and counterfactuals, and each presented in two random task orders. The data show close agreement between the responses of (...) Easterners and Westerners. The modal responses provide strong support for the hypothesis that conditional probability is the best predictor for counterfactuals and indicative conditionals. Finally, the grand majority of the responses are probabilistically coherent, which endorses the psychological plausibility of choosing coherence-based probability logic as a rationality framework for psychological reasoning research. (shrink)

(1990). Cross‐cultural dialogue—based on socio‐economic conditions? Some reflections as an introduction to the discussion. World Futures: Vol. 28, Cross-Cultural Dialogue, pp. 23-30.

The article presents the study of the effectiveness of pedagogical conditions of organizational culture formation of future border guard officers, as well as the essence and features of its content. It has been found out that organizational culture is a professionally important quality of future border guard officers, which covers knowledge about the mission and values of the border guard agency, ability to maintain and contribute to the harmonized work of the border guard unit and is expressed through adhering to (...) professional standards in interpersonal interaction and in performing border security tasks, as well as in self-organization and mobilization. In the conditions of higher military educational institution it is recommended to intensify the value-motivational attitude of cadets to learn current issues of organizational culture of the border guard officers; to develop their abilities and skills of team work by introduction of social and psychological training; to apply modern dialogic forms, methods and interactive technologies of training for the development of skills of professional communicative interaction; to develop cadets’ organizational abilities, managerial decision making skills and leadership by gradually introducing into the educational process professionally oriented situational tasks, gradually complicating content with each course. The results of the pedagogical experiment regarding formation of organizational culture of future border guard officers in the course of their professional training are described in detail. (shrink)

Evolutionary socioecological theory and research proposing linking parasites with human social organization is uncommon and therefore welcome. However, more generally, condition-dependent adaptive phenotypic plasticity requires environmental uncertainty on a small scale, accompanied by reliable cues. In addition, genes in parasites may select among biologically adaptive cultural alternatives directly without necessarily going through human genetic predispositions, resulting in inter-specific gene-culture coevolution.

In this new book, David Harvey seeks to determine what is meant by the term in its different contexts and to identify how accurate and useful it is as a description of contemporary experience.

Vādanyāya is one of the representative works of Dharmakīrti. It is concerned with debate logic and deals with win-or-lose reasoning rules in the broad sense of logic. In this paper, we will concentrate our discussion on Dharmakīrti’s theory of nigrahasthāna (fault) in his debate logic, a key issue in Vādanyāya. First, we point out that the justification of three logical reasons as proof conditions of debate constitutes the rational point of departure for Dharmakīrti’s debate logic. Second, we analyze the differences (...) between Dharmakīrti’s and the Naiyāyika’s notion of debate and point out that Dharmakīrti’s ‘debate’ involves two parties (the disputant and the opponent) attempting to rationally refute the other’s opinion to persuade the other to change their wrong ideas. Last, based on the discussion of Dharmakīrti’s concept of debate logic, we identify seven types of nigrahasthāna in Vādanyāya with regard to the two parties of a debate (the disputant and the opponent). (shrink)

The growth in international trade in recent years necessitates a better understanding of customs and expectations in cross-cultural negotiations. While several researchers have sought to examine and detail the similarities and differences between select countries, their data have generally been obtained under neutral or unspecified negotiating conditions. However, issue importance, opponent (prowess, ethical reputation), and context (location, confederate awareness, urgency) can play a significant role in the use of negotiating tactics. This paper describes a study comparing the perceptions of (...) one hundred and forty-two current and future business professionals from two emerging trade partners, Brazil and the United States, regarding the appropriateness and likely use of five categories of negotiation tactics under seven challenging or unfavorable negotiating conditions commonly faced by negotiators. The results indicate an overall conditional effect for both attitudes (perceived appropriateness) and intentions (likelihood of use). In addition, while no significant difference in perceived appropriateness was found due to country, there were differences in likely use due to country for six conditions-behaviors. (shrink)

It is important to note that certain mental health disorders are classified as rare conditions, and they have their own ‘cultural concepts of distress’ as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM 5). Cultural concepts of distress are a recent attempt to understand psychological distress influenced by culture, separate from biomedical diagnoses that require equal attention and support for individuals and their families, both physically and emotionally. [1].

Philosophers have long debated whether, if determinism is true, we should hold people morally responsible for their actions since in a deterministic universe, people are arguably not the ultimate source of their actions nor could they have done otherwise if initial conditions and the laws of nature are held fixed. To reveal how non-philosophers ordinarily reason about the conditions for free will, we conducted a cross-cultural and cross-linguistic survey (N = 5,268) spanning twenty countries and sixteen languages. Overall, participants (...) tended to ascribe moral responsibility whether the perpetrator lacked sourcehood or alternate possibilities. However, for American, European, and Middle Eastern participants, being the ultimate source of one’s actions promoted perceptions of free will and control as well as ascriptions of blame and punishment. By contrast, being the source of one’s actions was not particularly salient to Asian participants. Finally, across cultures, participants exhibiting greater cognitive reflection were more likely to view free will as incompatible with causal determinism. We discuss these findings in light of documented cultural differences in the tendency toward dispositional versus situational attributions. (shrink)

Researchers from across the social sciences have found consistent deviations from the predictions of the canonical model of self-interest in hundreds of experiments from around the world. This research, however, cannot determine whether the uniformity results from universal patterns of human behavior or from the limited cultural variation available among the university students used in virtually all prior experimental work. To address this, we undertook a cross-cultural study of behavior in ultimatum, public goods, and dictator games in a (...) range of small-scale societies exhibiting a wide variety of economic and cultural conditions. We found, first, that the canonical model – based on self-interest – fails in all of the societies studied. Second, our data reveal substantially more behavioral variability across social groups than has been found in previous research. Third, group-level differences in economic organization and the structure of social interactions explain a substantial portion of the behavioral variation across societies: the higher the degree of market integration and the higher the payoffs to cooperation in everyday life, the greater the level of prosociality expressed in experimental games. Fourth, the available individual-level economic and demographic variables do not consistently explain game behavior, either within or across groups. Fifth, in many cases experimental play appears to reflect the common interactional patterns of everyday life. Key Words: altruism; cooperation; cross-cultural research; experimental economics; game theory; ultimatum game; public goods game; self-interest. (shrink)

While the story of Stanislav Petrov – the Soviet Lieutenant Colonel who likely saved the world from nuclear holocaust in 1983 – is often trotted out to advocate for the view that human beings ought to be kept “in the loop” of automated weapons’ responses, I argue that the episode in fact belies this reading. By attending more closely to the features of this event – to Petrov’s professional background, to his familiarity with the warning system, and to his decisions (...) to defy his protocol – it becomes clear that Petrov was not seamlessly working “in his loop,” but reassessing it entirely. I claim that this exhibits a paradox intrinsic to all automated loops: namely, that their optimum function in fact rests on unforeseen human interventions that cannot be reliably codified ex ante, that is, that good judgment cannot simply be “programmed into” their protocols. This dependence, moreover, reveals automation’s ineluctable need for virtue ethics – not in the usual sense (whereby ethics deliberates about, say, possible damages and loss of life), but in the sense that ethical judgment, rightly understood, entails the reassessment of all of the conditions surrounding a decision, including whether a protocol should be followed at all. (shrink)

If culture is defined as variation acquired and maintained by social learning, then culture is common in nature. However, cumulative cultural evolution resulting in behaviors that no individual could invent on their own is limited to humans, song birds, and perhaps chimpanzees. Circumstantial evidence suggests that cumulative cultural evolution requires the capacity for observational learning. Here, we analyze two models the evolution of psychological capacities that allow cumulative cultural evolution. Both models suggest that the conditions which allow (...) the evolution of such capacities when rare are much more stringent than the conditions which allow the maintenance of the capacities when common. This result follows from the fact that the assumed benefit of the capacities, cumulative cultural adaptation, cannot occur when the capacities are rare. These results suggest why such capacities may be rare in nature. (shrink)

The phenomenon of information culture in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war is analyzed. It has been proven that changes in the priorities of the development of information culture during the war are determined by the course of spiritual confrontation with the enemy, accelerated transformations of public consciousness, the peculiarities of state information policy, and the urgent need to protect the country’s information sovereignty. It is argued that under the influence of the war in Ukraine, including in the spiritual and (...) informational space, all components of information culture are being transformed, particularly its core - the information worldview. The features of the development of the information worldview as a fundamental component of information culture are identified. It is noted that living in an information society without possessing the necessary information culture poses a danger of getting lost in both virtual and real worlds simultaneously. Personal mastery of information culture in modern society is based on theoretical knowledge about the essence, content, features, and regularities of its functioning in societies with different levels of informatization. The negative impact of informational aggression on the formation of the information culture of modern youth is demonstrated. During the war, the information culture of youth is formed and changed at an accelerated pace due to the increase in information flows of both negative and positive nature and under the influence of new information technologies. One of the main problems in the process of forming the information culture of youth in the conditions of the Russian-Ukrainian war is mastering methods of countering enemy propaganda, developing critical attitudes towards information, and having a value-based worldview barrier to countering fake and anti-Ukrainian narratives. The role of knowledge and the education system in the formation of the information culture of Ukrainian society is revealed. (shrink)

New Caledonian crow populations have developed complex tools that show suggestive evidence of cumulative change. These tool designs, therefore, appear to be the product of cumulative technological culture. We suggest that tool-using NC crows offer highly useful data for current debates over the necessary and sufficient conditions for the emergence of CTC.

Eleven primary social needs are defined, which if attained, fulfil the generic needs of all societies. Balanced attention to all these needs is the key to sustainability. Based on an analysis of constitutions, media content, citizen surveys, and participant observation, such balance is compared in 28 countries. The dangers of prioritization in China (economic opportunity), Japan (economic opportunity), the former Soviet Union (collective security), and the United States (individual freedom/individual security) are explored in great detail. Finally, homeostatic social mechanisms designed (...) to allocate attention to the full range of needs are discussed. (shrink)

If culture is defined as variation acquired and maintained by social learning, then culture is common in nature. However, cumulative cultural evolution resulting in behaviors that no individual could invent on their own is limited to humans, song birds, and perhaps chimpanzees. Circumstantial evidence suggests that cumulative cultural evolution requires the capacity for observational learning. Here, we analyze two models the evolution of psychological capacities that allow cumulative cultural evolution. Both models suggest that the conditions which allow (...) the evolution of such capacities when rare are much more stringent than the conditions which allow the maintenance of the capacities when common. This result follows from the fact that the assumed benefit of the capacities, cumulative cultural adaptation, cannot occur when the capacities are rare. These results suggest why such capacities may be rare in nature. (shrink)

The article is an attempt of analysis and interpretation of the “Young Poland“ comedy written by Włodzimierz Perzyński in psychopathological or psychoanalytical perspective. The author draws reader’s attention to artistic achievements of Włodzimierz Perzyński who was a Polish novelist, comedy writer, columnist and poet, satirist and ironist and he died eighty years ago. The article is informally built out of two parts: Michel Foucault’s cultural criticism is a context of the first part, in the second one the author uses (...) general psychoanalytical theories of Sigmund Freud and Karen Horney. A neurotic personality, neurotic disturbances in the relations between people and activities of individuals in the different social situations are an object of analysis and interpretation. The author discussing one of the most famous Perzyński’s comedies tries to show that the Polish writer’s plays are interesting and opening a lot of perspectives of interpretation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Democracy, Culture, Catholicism: Voices from Four Continents eds. by Michael J. Schuck and John Crowley-BuckSteven P. MilliesDemocracy, Culture, Catholicism: Voices from Four Continents Edited by Michael J. Schuck and John Crowley-Buck NEW YORK: FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2016. 350 pp. $105.00 / $35.00Democracy, Culture, Catholicism is the product of a three-year, international project that started from a less specific inspiration. Originally begun at Loyola University Chicago's Joan and Bill (...) Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage in 2010 as a broad inquiry into the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and politics, the project leaders eventually took a different bearing from events as diverse as the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movement, and Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical Caritas in Veritate to focus their project more squarely on democracy. Examining democracy from within the diverse experiences found in Lithuania, Peru, Indonesia, and the United States, the editors [End Page 208] present us with a valuable snapshot of where the Catholic engagement with democracy as a cultural expression finds itself today in a global perspective.Given the amount of material at play, the volume is a monumental achievement, if only for the clarity with which it presents its findings. Some essays are stronger than others. Still, the volume benefits tremendously from an apparent and unusual amount of editorial attention that sequences the essays and interrelates them with useful references to one another in such a way that Democracy, Culture, Catholicism escapes entirely the fate of so many volumes of collected essays. Here, the reader has the sensation of reading one coherent narrative, not twenty-three disparately connected, individual essays. This alone is impressive.The volume possesses other strengths. Reflections emerge throughout that engage the deeper questions of democracy. Who are these people making decisions together? How can we understand the composition of a political community? Too much democratic theory overlooks the complex interweaving of history, memory, and identity that operates like a substrate of our consciousness beneath our reason while we are presuming ourselves to be rational decision makers using democratic procedures. The book's engagement not just with democracy and Catholicism but also with culture is important. These essays treat culture not only in different local expressions but also (and in a way that is deep, serious, and sustained) as a phenomenon of consciousness.The American perspective always lurks in the narrative, threatening to dominate. This is inevitable not only because the project was managed in the United States but also because the polarizing obsessions of the church in the United States about how to acknowledge the norms of modern political arrangements have tended to dominate conversation in the church worldwide. The editors have shrewdly chosen to save the United States for the last part of this volume, allowing other voices to come forward first to claim their own space. This editorial decision, like so many others, improves the volume and keeps the narrative in good balance. Still, some questions linger in this reviewer's mind as the volume concludes.What do we mean by democracy? Throughout, the authors treat this as a question that is largely settled. Democracy is identified with democratic values that the church accepts, and in Schuck's words, what is under way is "a critical conversation with the culture of democracy" (330). Yet procedural democracy cannot be severed from these values. Are democratic norms and values vindicated when majorities choose undemocratic values? A more careful drawing of distinctions between democracy, liberalism, and republicanism would expose the inner conflicts in which Catholicism meets modern political norms.Perhaps most urgently for the subject matter of this book, are the claims of Catholic social teaching and Christian ethics a foundation for the democratic, participatory values of this secular age, as writers like Charles Taylor and David [End Page 209] Walsh have suggested? This also would raise questions about how culturally conditioned we should understand democracy to be, surely an important consideration for this very fine study.Steven P. MilliesCatholic Theological UnionCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Cultural competence, a clinical skill to recognise patients' cultural and religious beliefs, is an integral element in patient‐centred medical practice. In the area of death and dying, physicians' understanding of patients' and families' values is essential for the delivery of culturally appropriate care. Dementia is a neurodegenerative condition marked by the decline of cognitive functions. When the condition progresses and deteriorates, patients with advanced dementia often have eating and swallowing problems and are at high risk of (...) developing malnutrition. Enteral tube feeding is a conventional means of providing artificial nutrition and hydration to meet nutritional needs, but its benefits to the frail population are limitedly shown in the clinical evidence. Forgoing tube feeding is ethically challenging when patients are mentally incompetent and in the absence of an advance directive. Unlike some developed countries, like the United States of America, death and dying is a sensitive issue or even a taboo in some cultures in developing countries that forgoing enteral tube feeding is clinically and ethically challenging, such as China and Malaysia. This article in three parts 1) discusses the clinical and ethical issues related to forgoing tube feeding among patients with advanced dementia, 2) describes how Hong Kong Chinese, North American, and Malaysian Islamic cultures respond differently in the decision‐making patterns of forgoing tube feeding for patients with advanced dementia, and 3) reiterates the clinical implications of cultural competence in end‐of‐life care. (shrink)

In The Inhuman Condition Keith Tester explores whether we are capable of coming to terms with the world we have made, then argues that we are not. We are so confused by the wonders and the sights and sounds around us that we all try to build safe little homes in which we can, for a while, be consoled by love which is doomed to fail as soon as it is thought about, and by commodities which leave us unsatisfied. (...) This book is a major interpretation of contemporary cultural and social relationships. It is also a major exercise in sociology which encompasses thinkers like Heidegger, Arendt, Benjamin and Simmel. The author opens with Heidegger worrying about photographs of the earth and argues that, contrary to sociological orthodoxy, the world is now more experienced in the finding than the making. Tester then explores aspects of that finding: from the beautiful promises of commodities to the noises and sights of cities, from the search for love to the throbbing gristle painted by Francis Bacon. We can only come to terms with our experiences and our existences if we embrace the inhuman idiot wisdom of kitsch; and perhaps there is no escape from the embrace of stupidity. (shrink)