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At both a micro-information level and a macro-societal level, the concepts of “knowledge” and “wisdom” are complementary – in both decisions and in social structures and institutions. At the decision level, knowledge is concerned with how to make a proper choice of means, where “best” is measured as the efficiency toward achieving an end. Wisdom is concerned with how to make a proper choice of ends that attain “best” values. At a societal level, knowledge is managed through science/technology and innovation. And while science/technology is society's way to create new means with high efficiencies, they reveal nothing about values. Technology can be used for good or for evil, to make the world into a garden or to destroy all life. It is societal wisdom which should influence the choice of proper ends -- ends to make the world a garden. How can society make progress in wisdom as well as knowledge? Historically, the disciplines of the physical sciences and biology have provided scientific foundations for societal knowledge But the social science disciplines of sociology, economics, political science have not provided a similar scientific foundation for societal wisdom. To redress this gap, Frederick Betz examines several cases in recent history that display a fundamental paradox between scientific/technological achievement with devastating social effects (i.e., historical events of ideological dictatorships in Russia, Germany, China, and Yugoslavia). He builds a new framework for applying social science perspectives to explain societal histories and social theory. Emerging from this methodological and empirical investigation is a general topological theory of societal dynamics. This theory and methodology can be used to integrate history and social science toward establishing grounded principles of societal wisdom.
Security Challenges and Opportunities. This book contains 20 papers drawn from presentations and discussions at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Complex Societal Dynamics Security Challenges and Opportunities, held in Zagreb, Croatia in December 2009. The theory of complex systems views
Today's world is changing at breakneck speed, shaking the very foundations of many societies. Increased mobility through massive urbanization and migration allows people unprecedented access to different cultures and ideas; advanced technologies speed the pace of human interaction; the globalization of communication offers new forms of social relationships that may directly contradict traditional norms for behavior. These changes create tremendous stresses on relationships in societies - affecting the way youth interact with their elders, the way women and men relate to each other, how urban migrants and refugees relate to their new environments, and so on. The impacts of these changes are felt acutely in 'fragile' situations, where groups and institutions struggle to adapt to the stresses of rapid social change. In the worst cases, where fragility has given way to open violence - people are more than twice as likely to be malnourished, more than three times as likely to be unable to send their children to school, twice as likely to see their children die before age five, and more than twice as likely to lack clean water. In addition to these domestic challenges, the costs of fragility often spill over to neighboring regions in the form of trafficking in illegal goods and persons, corruption, and violence. 'Societal Dynamics and Fragility' frames a fresh approach to these challenges, by focusing on improving relationships across groups and institutions in society. Drawing on case studies from Yemen, Central African Republic, Haiti, Liberia and Aceh (Indonesia), the book provides a framework for understanding and healing the social divides that often get in the way of building capable institutions and exiting from fragility.
The editors of Beyond Trauma: Cultural and Societal Dynamics have created a volume that goes beyond the individual's psychological dynamics of trauma, exploring its social, cultural, politica!, and ethical dimensions from an international as well as a global perspective. In the opening address as International Chair of the First World Conference of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies on Trauma and Tragedy: The Origins, Management, and Prevention of Traumatic Stress in Today's World, June 22-26, 1992, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, the conference that formed the foundation for the col lected chapters in this volume, 1 commented: This meeting is a landmark in accomplishing the Society's universal mission. Our distinguished International Scientific Advisory Committee and Honor ary Committee, whose membership was drawn from over 60 countries, the cooperation of six United Nations bodies, and the participation anei endorse ment of numerous nongovernmental organizations and institutions attest to the Society's emerging presence as a major international forum for profes sionals of ali disciplines working with victims and trauma survivors.
This book by Jonathan Turner and Anthony Roberts proposes a new theoretical approach for explaining the dynamics of inter-societal systems. The authors argue that inter-societal systems have existed since the beginning of human societies and the dynamics of these systems are a fundamental property of the social universe. However, while world-systems analysis has emphasized this latter point, the authors argue the reluctance to theorize complex abstract models and systems of explanatory propositions on the dynamics driving inter-societal systems hinders scientific explanation of inter-societal dynamics. In this context, the authors critically look at contemporary theorizing and review key theories that have been developed to explain geo-economic, geo-political, and geo-cultural dynamics, from the classic period through present-day world-systems analysis and cliometrics. The book summarizes these theories clearly, emphasizing their strengths and weakness, finally developing a theoretical synthesis through new models and propositions on the dynamics of premodern and modern inter-societal systems. Professor Turner’s decades of experience writing theory books for undergraduates have ensured that this book presents abstract ideas clearly and with examples so that students can understand the arguments. This book is a must-read for all social theory researchers, academics, serious undergraduate students, graduate students, and interested laypersons.
Everyday life is defined and characterised by the rise, transformation and fall of social practices. Using terminology that is both accessible and sophisticated, this essential book guides the reader through a multi-level analysis of this dynamic. In working through core propositions about social practices and how they change the book is clear and accessible; real world examples, including the history of car driving, the emergence of frozen food, and the fate of hula hooping, bring abstract concepts to life and firmly ground them in empirical case-studies and new research. Demonstrating the relevance of social theory for public policy problems, the authors show that the everyday is the basis of social transformation addressing questions such as: how do practices emerge, exist and die? what are the elements from which practices are made? how do practices recruit practitioners? how are elements, practices and the links between them generated, renewed and reproduced? Precise, relevant and persuasive this book will inspire students and researchers from across the social sciences. Elizabeth Shove is Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University. Mika Pantzar is Research Professor at the National Consumer Research Centre, Helsinki. Matt Watson is Lecturer in Social and Cultural Geography at University of Sheffield.
Globalization, immigration and economic crisis challenge the conceptions of nations, trans-national institutions and post-ethnic societies which are central topics in social sciences' discourses. This book examines in an interdisciplinary and international comparative way structures of national identity which are in conflict with or supporting multi-ethnic diversity and trans-national connectivity. The book’s first section seeks to clarify the concepts of national identity, nationalism, patriotism and cosmopolitism and to operationalize them consistently. The next section regards the diversity within national states and the consequences for the management of identity and intra-national integration. The third section focuses on external integration between different nations by searching for the "squaring of the circle" between the bonding with co-patriots and the critical reflection of one's own national perspective in relation to others. The last section explores to what extent and in which ways media use shapes collective identity.
This 1985 book studies the relation between the individual and collective processes, which is central to the social sciences.
This book was nurtured by the belief that the new dynamics of today's and tomorrow's aging has not yet been treated well in the gerontology literature. Several questions drove the choice of substance for the book: What kind of new dynamics of aging deserves consideration? What kinds of theories and fields are at the core of treating such a new dynamics? And what kind of empirical evidence should be considered? The master hypothesis on which the book is based maintains that the new dynamics of old age is best observed in a range of everyday aging contexts that have been undergoing major change since the second half of the 20th century. In particular, five areas of new and persistent dynamics are treated in depth: the social environment, with a focus on cohort effects in social relations and the consideration of family relations and elders as care redelivers; the home environment, with emphasis on housing and quality of life, relocation and urban aging issues; the outdoor environment, with consideration of out-of-home activity patterns, car-driving behaviour and the leisure world of aging; the technological environment, with treatments of the role of the Internet and the potential of technology for aging outcomes and; and the societal environment with a focus on global aging, the new politics of old age and older persons as market consumers. The book's main purpose is to provide the scholarly gerontology community with a comprehensive and critical discussion of these new trends related to old age. The book will be of interest for the scholarly community of gerontology in a variety of disciplines; sociology, psychology, demography, epidemiology, humanities, social policy and geriatrics; students in gerontology education and in the disciplines named above who have an interest in aging issues (graduate level); professionals in practical and applied fields related to aging such as community and urban planners, health and care providers and policymakers; people involved in senior citizens' organizations and those in industry who wish to serve older people with new products.