Nachman Ben-Yehuda
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199734863
- eISBN:
- 9780199895090
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199734863.003.0011
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This concluding chapter frames Haredi deviant and unconventional behavior within symbolic processes of social change and social stability. The most prominent media reported Haredi infraction is ...
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This concluding chapter frames Haredi deviant and unconventional behavior within symbolic processes of social change and social stability. The most prominent media reported Haredi infraction is violence. Most of this violence is planned and calculated and aims to push Israel into becoming a Halakhic state. This pressure is absorbed within the flexible structure of the theocratic democracy that Israel is made of. Religious and theocratic pressures are not unique to Israel. Such pressures characterize many other democracies and they challenge status quos in public arenas. Clearly, what we observe in a theocratic democracy is a cultural conflict. Globally, it is a conflict between secularism and religious fundamentalism, a conflict that a theocratic democracy can cope with, as long as it is not too extreme.Less
This concluding chapter frames Haredi deviant and unconventional behavior within symbolic processes of social change and social stability. The most prominent media reported Haredi infraction is violence. Most of this violence is planned and calculated and aims to push Israel into becoming a Halakhic state. This pressure is absorbed within the flexible structure of the theocratic democracy that Israel is made of. Religious and theocratic pressures are not unique to Israel. Such pressures characterize many other democracies and they challenge status quos in public arenas. Clearly, what we observe in a theocratic democracy is a cultural conflict. Globally, it is a conflict between secularism and religious fundamentalism, a conflict that a theocratic democracy can cope with, as long as it is not too extreme.
Robert A. Paul
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226240725
- eISBN:
- 9780226241050
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226241050.003.0011
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
Boyd and Richerson suggest that the practice of growing giant yams on the island of Pohnpei is an example of a runaway process at the symbolic level, paralleling the runaway process in biological ...
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Boyd and Richerson suggest that the practice of growing giant yams on the island of Pohnpei is an example of a runaway process at the symbolic level, paralleling the runaway process in biological evolution that produces phenomena such as the peacock’s tail. Taking this as a test case, this chapter places the practice in the context of the complex social system of Pohnpei, and argues that the yams are part of a symbolic system that redirects competition from selfish to prosocial ends by means of the important system of prestige, won in the public arena in which display is all important. It is shown that the socio-cultural system of Pohnpei exhibits the various features predicted by the model of dual inheritance proposed in this book, and stresses the role played by cultural symbols in maintaining the wider tribal society proposed by Boyd and Richerson.Less
Boyd and Richerson suggest that the practice of growing giant yams on the island of Pohnpei is an example of a runaway process at the symbolic level, paralleling the runaway process in biological evolution that produces phenomena such as the peacock’s tail. Taking this as a test case, this chapter places the practice in the context of the complex social system of Pohnpei, and argues that the yams are part of a symbolic system that redirects competition from selfish to prosocial ends by means of the important system of prestige, won in the public arena in which display is all important. It is shown that the socio-cultural system of Pohnpei exhibits the various features predicted by the model of dual inheritance proposed in this book, and stresses the role played by cultural symbols in maintaining the wider tribal society proposed by Boyd and Richerson.
Hannah Rosen
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807832028
- eISBN:
- 9781469605715
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807888568_rosen.6
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter describes how, throughout the South, people who had once been slaves were demanding a voice in public affairs in the early stage of congressional Reconstruction. Following emancipation, ...
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This chapter describes how, throughout the South, people who had once been slaves were demanding a voice in public affairs in the early stage of congressional Reconstruction. Following emancipation, African Americans formed multiple public spheres for political discussion outside white-dominated political discourse and, when the opportunity arose, seized the right both to speak and to vote in existing white-controlled public arenas. Their actions posed a formidable challenge to antebellum constructions of citizenship, which had presupposed that those speaking and voting in public would be white men. Freedpeople's ability to challenge what it meant to be a citizen in southern society was greatly facilitated by actions of the federal government. Most important among these actions was the enfranchisement of African American men in the former Confederate states through the Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867.Less
This chapter describes how, throughout the South, people who had once been slaves were demanding a voice in public affairs in the early stage of congressional Reconstruction. Following emancipation, African Americans formed multiple public spheres for political discussion outside white-dominated political discourse and, when the opportunity arose, seized the right both to speak and to vote in existing white-controlled public arenas. Their actions posed a formidable challenge to antebellum constructions of citizenship, which had presupposed that those speaking and voting in public would be white men. Freedpeople's ability to challenge what it meant to be a citizen in southern society was greatly facilitated by actions of the federal government. Most important among these actions was the enfranchisement of African American men in the former Confederate states through the Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867.
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780853237389
- eISBN:
- 9781846313608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780853237389.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter examines the history of the Liverpool Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) during the period from 1905 to 1914. It explains that the WSPU was formed by Manchester Independent Labour ...
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This chapter examines the history of the Liverpool Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) during the period from 1905 to 1914. It explains that the WSPU was formed by Manchester Independent Labour Party (ILP) women in October 1903 and it offered a very different approach to public work and provided local women their first opportunity to enter the public political arena as part of a large organisation that was open and amenable to all women regardless of their class, religious or party-political allegiances. This chapter also explores the implications of the dissolution of the WSPU in September 1914 for the women's suffrage movement.Less
This chapter examines the history of the Liverpool Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) during the period from 1905 to 1914. It explains that the WSPU was formed by Manchester Independent Labour Party (ILP) women in October 1903 and it offered a very different approach to public work and provided local women their first opportunity to enter the public political arena as part of a large organisation that was open and amenable to all women regardless of their class, religious or party-political allegiances. This chapter also explores the implications of the dissolution of the WSPU in September 1914 for the women's suffrage movement.
Robert A. Paul
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226240725
- eISBN:
- 9780226241050
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226241050.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
Starting from the observed fact that humans construct themselves using information carried in two separate channels, one cultural and consisting largely of symbols, the other genetic and consisting ...
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Starting from the observed fact that humans construct themselves using information carried in two separate channels, one cultural and consisting largely of symbols, the other genetic and consisting largely of DNA, this book explores the consequences for human socio-cultural systems of the relationship between the two components of this dual inheritance model and of the key differences between them. Using a wide array of ethnographic cases, the book shows that while socio-cultural systems vary greatly, any one of them when analyzed will reveal the effects of the necessary tension between the two modes of information transmission across generations. The analysis of the ethnographic material shows that a dual inheritance model does a better job of accounting for distinctive characteristics of human societies than does an account based on either ordinary evolutionary theory or social-cultural construction theory alone. The key distinctions between the modes of transmission of the two types of information are that genetic information cannot produce exact replicas of itself, can only create a small number of close relatives, operates on an agenda based on the logic of inclusive fitness, and must be accomplished by copulation; while cultural information can inform large numbers of replicas of itself that can approximate to identity, operates on an agenda based on the establishment of wide-ranging groups united by symbolic kinship, and is transmitted in a public arena in which copulation is excluded or restricted. These differences generate many observed distinctive forms of human society.Less
Starting from the observed fact that humans construct themselves using information carried in two separate channels, one cultural and consisting largely of symbols, the other genetic and consisting largely of DNA, this book explores the consequences for human socio-cultural systems of the relationship between the two components of this dual inheritance model and of the key differences between them. Using a wide array of ethnographic cases, the book shows that while socio-cultural systems vary greatly, any one of them when analyzed will reveal the effects of the necessary tension between the two modes of information transmission across generations. The analysis of the ethnographic material shows that a dual inheritance model does a better job of accounting for distinctive characteristics of human societies than does an account based on either ordinary evolutionary theory or social-cultural construction theory alone. The key distinctions between the modes of transmission of the two types of information are that genetic information cannot produce exact replicas of itself, can only create a small number of close relatives, operates on an agenda based on the logic of inclusive fitness, and must be accomplished by copulation; while cultural information can inform large numbers of replicas of itself that can approximate to identity, operates on an agenda based on the establishment of wide-ranging groups united by symbolic kinship, and is transmitted in a public arena in which copulation is excluded or restricted. These differences generate many observed distinctive forms of human society.
Malcolm M. Feeley and Malcolm Langford
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- March 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780192848413
- eISBN:
- 9780191943669
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780192848413.003.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Legal Profession and Ethics, Comparative Law
This chapter situates the examination of Nordic lawyers in this book within the broader scholarship on lawyer’s engagement with politics and liberalism. It charts firstly the revisionist body of ...
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This chapter situates the examination of Nordic lawyers in this book within the broader scholarship on lawyer’s engagement with politics and liberalism. It charts firstly the revisionist body of scholarly work in the 1970s that challenged the conventional understanding that the legal profession enjoyed the status of a “high calling”. Instead, the legal profession was overwhelming devoted to protecting and expanding its privileges and prestige. This realist conception is later moderated by some scholars who make the more modest claim that legal complexes emerge to fight for political liberalism—a narrow set of civil rights, a moderate state, and space for civil society. This perspective generated a range of country and cross-country studies where they found conditional evidence for the claim. The authors in this chapter introduce a new iteration—a focus on the Nordic countries—a deviant case giving the suggestive evidence that lawyers did not mobilize for political liberalism. The authors summarize briefly in this chapter that Nordic lawyers who acted collectively played no or little role in the establishment of the modern liberal states in the Nordic countries in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It mentions a bricolage of other actors that were central, vocal, and influential in the establishment of political liberalism during the course of the nineteenth century. It also explains that liberalism in the Nordic countries was influenced by Enlightenment ideas advanced in France, Germany, and England, and was given momentum by the American and French Revolutions. The chapter hints at a factor that accounts for the relative absence of lawyers in the public arena. It points out that Nordic legal professions were poorly organized until well into the nineteenth century, long after major strides were made in establishing political liberalism. In addition, the authors note that this negative finding permits new reflections on the legal complex theory and the authors discuss an alternative approach which is raised in the volume—based on rational choice theory rather than constructivism.Less
This chapter situates the examination of Nordic lawyers in this book within the broader scholarship on lawyer’s engagement with politics and liberalism. It charts firstly the revisionist body of scholarly work in the 1970s that challenged the conventional understanding that the legal profession enjoyed the status of a “high calling”. Instead, the legal profession was overwhelming devoted to protecting and expanding its privileges and prestige. This realist conception is later moderated by some scholars who make the more modest claim that legal complexes emerge to fight for political liberalism—a narrow set of civil rights, a moderate state, and space for civil society. This perspective generated a range of country and cross-country studies where they found conditional evidence for the claim. The authors in this chapter introduce a new iteration—a focus on the Nordic countries—a deviant case giving the suggestive evidence that lawyers did not mobilize for political liberalism. The authors summarize briefly in this chapter that Nordic lawyers who acted collectively played no or little role in the establishment of the modern liberal states in the Nordic countries in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It mentions a bricolage of other actors that were central, vocal, and influential in the establishment of political liberalism during the course of the nineteenth century. It also explains that liberalism in the Nordic countries was influenced by Enlightenment ideas advanced in France, Germany, and England, and was given momentum by the American and French Revolutions. The chapter hints at a factor that accounts for the relative absence of lawyers in the public arena. It points out that Nordic legal professions were poorly organized until well into the nineteenth century, long after major strides were made in establishing political liberalism. In addition, the authors note that this negative finding permits new reflections on the legal complex theory and the authors discuss an alternative approach which is raised in the volume—based on rational choice theory rather than constructivism.
