Charles van der Haegen's List: Theory of Socio-Cultural Viability

"Has social psychology become a Tribal Moral Community since the 1960s? Are we a community that is bound together by liberal values and then blind to any ideas or findings that threaten our sacred values? I believe the answer is yes, and I'll make 3 points to support that claim.

Introduction

By John Brockman

On January 27th, moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt gave a provocative talk at the annual convention of the Society for Personality and

Social Psychology which is already making waves and is a prime candidate for anEdge conversation.

Edge is pleased to present (a) the video of Haidt's narrated presentation, (b) the transcript of the talk which Haidt provided and (c) discussion and feedback from Daniel Kahneman, Daniel Gilbert, Steven J. Heine,Alison Gopnik, David Pizarro and Lee Jussim.

—JB

JONATHAN HAIDT is Professor in the Social Psychology area of the Department of Psychology at the University of Virginia, where he does research on morality and emotion, and how they vary across cultures."

Thanks to products like iPad, and software from Blio and Quark, the practice of reading may be on the brink of redefinition. A brink ... and maybe, a new way to think.
Making the different narratives to work together... Technology permits us to "rediscover language" Permitting to create the narrative to jump to new possibilities.... A hybrid grammar ..... a single narrative .... a voice ..... and a new way to think...?

I bounced upon this series in the blogpost of Antonio Lopez ' greening a digital media course" http://newmedialiteracies.org/blog/2011/05/greening-a-digital-media-cours.php
The lessig epiode there is entitled "Green Culture"
What strikes me most in this 40 min presentation is his conclusion: You can work on any intractable problem of our world, it will not be solved unless we solve the problem at the roots of all these problems: the corruption of our democratic suystems provoked by the dependency of our governance bodies on money.
This leads me to reinforce my belief that our fight for giving a more pre-eminent place to the Theory for socio-cultural viability is worthwhile, since this precisely shows that "closed hegemonies" meaning exclusion of solidarities in problem definition and solution design and implementing don't allow the social systems in which they appear to remain viable and dynnamic...
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root" Henry David Thoreau

"About the Thirdside.org

Thirdside.org is sponsored by the Global Negotiation Project (formerly the Project on Preventing War) at Harvard University. The Project develops and encourages the use of effective negotiation processes to reduce the risk of war. In addition, the Project is also committed to the development of negotiation theory and practice in a wide range of related areas, such as international mediation and designing dispute resolution systems to contain violence and resolve conflict.

The idea of the Third Side and the initial content of this website are drawn from The Third Side: Why We Fight and How We Can Stop. All author's profits from the sale of this book will be used for peace education.

William Ury (www.williamury.com) is the co-founder of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, where he directs the Global Negotiation Project. He is co-author of Getting to YES and author of Getting Past No and The Third Side:Why We Fight and How We Can Stop. He works with community, government, and business leaders around the world on transforming adversarial relationships into mutually beneficial partnerships.

Over the last two decades, he has mediated between quarrelling corporate divisions, battling unions and management, and warring ethnic groups. He was actively involved in the creation of nuclear risk reduction centers in Washington and Moscow, serving as a consultant to the Crisis Management Center at the White House. Working with former President Jimmy Carter, he co-founded the International Negotiation Network, which seeks to end civil wars around the world. Trained as an anthropologist, with a B.A. from Yale and a Ph.D. from Harvard, he has carried out his research not only at the bargaining table and in the boardroom, but also among the Bushmen of the Kalahari and the clan warriors of New Guinea.

Joshua N. Weiss is currently the Associate Director of the Global Negotiation Project at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. from the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICA

"The World Policy Institute, a non-partisan source of informed policy leadership for more than four decades, develops and champions innovative policies that require a progressive and global point of view. In an increasingly interdependent world, WPI focuses on complex challenges that demand cooperative policy solutions to achieve: an inclusive and sustainable global market economy, engaged global civic participation and effective governance, and collaborative approaches to national and global security

WPI’s Fellows program, regular public and private events, collaborative policy development, media activities, and flagship World Policy Journal provide a forum for solution-focused policy analysis and public debate. Its programs seek to introduce fresh ideas and new voices from around the world on critical shared global issues including migration, climate change, technology, economic development, human rights, and counter-terrorism.

More than 30 senior fellows and program staff—a group of accomplished policy analysts, journalists and writers—give the institute a distinctive voice in national and international affairs.

Founded in New York City in 1961 as the Fund for Education Concerning World Peace through World Law, the World Policy Institute has its origins in the post-World War II movement of moderate internationalists. Its founders --the banker Harry B. Hollins, and the banker and public servant C. Douglas Dillon inspired by the World Federalist thinker Grenville Clark -- sought to develop international policies to prevent future carnage and devastation like what the world had just experienced. In 1963, the Institute’s name was shortened to World Law Fund. In 1972, it merged with the Institute for International Order, founded in 1948 and run by Earl D. Osborn. The combined organization adopted a new name, the Institute for World Order. In 1982, the World Policy Institute adopted its current name to reflect a shift from a primarily educational focus to incorporating a strong policy element, and founded World Policy Journal. From 1991-2007, the Institute was part of The New School, a New York City University. In 2007, the World Policy Institute was re-incorporated as a free-standing institution, which works in active collaboration with like-minded organizations around the world "

"The Interdependence Movement is a network of Citizens without Borders, including artists, educators, students, politicians, entrepreneurs, civic and religious leaders and other activists, who recognize the interdependent nature of our world and advocate for new forms of constructive civic interdependence to solve the multiple cross-border challenges in economics, ecology, technology, war, disease, and crime that confront us. Since 2003, people from around the world have celebrated September 12 as Interdependence Day; they are now forging a year-round movement to combat unilateralism, parochialism, ultra-nationalism, and isolationism wherever they are found.

CivWorld, an International Project at Dēmos, is the NGO that sponsors the Interdependence Movement. CivWorld engages in several closely linked activities aimed at raising awareness of the interdependent character of global society and fostering transnational and interdependent solutions to global challenges: the Interdependence Day Forum and Celebration and the Interdependence Movement that has emerged from it, Theoretical and Policy Research on Democracy and Interdependence, and Advocacy.

The International Program at Dēmos advances new ideas to cope with a changing world that is faced with accelerating globalization, starker inequities between nations, growing human migration, and profound security and environmental threats. Through research, policy development, and engagement in public debates, we seek to bring about four major outcomes:

A more democratic system of global governance which reflects the realities of international interdependence, the erosion of U.S. dominance, and the need for multilateral solutions to global problems.

A more inclusive global economy in which all peoples and nations share in the prosperity generated by markets, growth, and trade, and in which the globalization of commerce is matched by the globalization of social protections.

New approaches to citizenship and political representation to ensure that immigrants are better incorporated into the societies in which they live in an era marked by rising cross-border movements of people.

A more active engagement of the American public in U.S. international policy to ensure that the democratic values that underpin our policies at home also guide American actions abroad.



Dēmos is a non-partisan public policy research and advocacy organization. We are committed to building an America that achieves its highest democratic ideals-a nation where democracy is robust and inclusive, with high levels of electoral participation and civic engagement; an economy where prosperity and opportunity are broadly shared and disparity is reduced; and a strong and effective government with the capacity to plan for the future. "

A fundamental article on how new social theory brings new perspectives on how to find and omplement solutions to the intractable problems of our time. These ideas originally developped by Maruy Dougleas, have been refined and developped into a full theory, called Theory of Socio-Cultural Viability, anso sometil$mes called "Cultural Theory". The lead researcher in this field is Michael Thompson, author of this Workshop Report

Dipak Gyawali talks about Clumsy solutions and Socio-cultural Viability Theory

"Bereits im Jahre 1884 beschrieb Caroll Lewis in seinem Werk „The Principles of Parliamentary Representation“ die Idee des Delegated Voting: Das vorher schon bekannte Prinzip der Übertragung der eigenen Stimme bei einer Entscheidung an einen anderen Stimmberechtigten (Proxy Voting) wurde dahingehend erweitert, dass Stimmen auch über mehrere Stufen (transitiv) weitergegeben werden können (Delegated Voting).

Zu einem tatsächlich Einsatz kamen diese Verfahren praktisch nicht, sicherlich insbesondere aufgrund des hohen logistischen Aufwandes angesichts der damals zur Verfügung stehenden Mittel. Erst über 100 Jahre später wurde diese Idee in Zusammenhang mit den Möglichkeiten des Internets neu gedacht und die Idee der Liquid Democracy als ein demokratisches System mit direkten Abstimmungen und der Möglichkeit zur transitiven und jederzeit widerrufbaren Delegation der eigenen Stimme formuliert.

A democratic system in which most issues are decid"

"Summary
Robert Reich discusses Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life.

In his newest book, "Supercapitalism," Reich explores the clash between capitalism and democracy. Our economy has become more efficient than ever, with turbocharged, web-based global capitalism morphing into supercapitalism. While supercapitalism is working well to enlarge the economic pie, democracy - charged with caring for all its citizens - is becoming less and less effective under its influence. He makes clear how the tools traditionally used to temper America's societal problems have withered as supercapitalism has burgeoned, and sets out a clear course that can lead the nation to a vibrant capitalism and a concurrent, equally vibrant democracy - Cody's@FCCB"

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The EC team:


Toby Webb is our founder and chairman, Nick Johnson manages the whole team, Liam Dowd and Hayley Weinberg do the marketing for the magazine and reports, Cora Ng is our senior conference director and Catherine McNally is our conference director. Andrew Bold and Oliver Bamford look after sponsorship and advertising. Harshi Joshi looks after subscriptions and Ian Welsh is the Editor of the magazine.


To find out more about us, click on the following links: for the Magazine, Conferences and Research"

"The Open Society Foundations work to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens. To achieve this mission, the Foundations seek to shape public policies that assure greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems and safeguard fundamental rights. On a local level, the Open Society Foundations implement a range of initiatives to advance justice, education, public health, and independent media. At the same time, we build alliances across borders and continents on issues such as corruption and freedom of information. The Foundations place a high priority on protecting and improving the lives of people in marginalized communities."

the book in English

"Son of Former Mexican President Addresses Violence
Written by Keph Senett


In November 2010, Emiliano Salinas, the son of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, delivered a TED talk titled "A civil response to violence" which addressed the climate of fear and security concerns in Mexico.

Completed and posted in June 2011, it is the first TED talk ever delivered in a language other than English (the video is in Spanish with subtitles)."

Video of 1.55 minutes
Description: Mary Douglas talks about her book 'Purity and Danger'

Dame Mary Douglas, DBE, FBA (25 March 1921 16 May 2007) was a British anthropologist, known for her writings on human culture and symbolism.

Her area was social anthropology; she was considered a follower of Emile Durkheim and a proponent of structuralist analysis, with a strong interest in comparative religion.

She was born as Margaret Mary Tew in San Remo, Italy to Gilbert and Phyllis Tew; her father was in the British colonial service. Her mother was a devout Roman Catholic and Mary and her younger sister, Patricia, were raised in that faith. After their mother's death the sisters were raised by their maternal grandparents and attended the Roman Catholic Sacred Heart Convent in Roehampton. Mary went on to study at the St Anne's College, Oxford from 1939 to 1943; there she was influenced by E.E. Evans-Pritchard.

She worked in the British Colonial Office until 1947, when she returned to Oxford to take up graduate study she had left. She studied with M. N. Srinivas as well as Edward Evans-Pritchard. In 1949 she did field work with the Lele people in what was then the Belgian Congo; this took her to village life in the region between the Kasai River and the Loange River, where the Lele lived on the edge of the previous Kuba kingdom.

In the early 1950s she completed her doctorate, married James Douglas and started a family of three children. She taught at University College, London, where she remained for around 25 years. She taught and wrote in the USA for 11 years. She published on such subjects as risk analysis and the environment, consumption and welfare economics, and food and ritual, all increasingly cited outside anthropology circles.

After four years (1977-81) as Foundation Research Professor of Cultural Studies at the Russell Sage Institute in New York, she moved to Northwestern University as Avalon Professor of the Humanities with a remit to link the studies of theology and anthropology. Her reputation was established by her book Purity and Danger (1966). She wrote The World of Goods (1978) with an econometrician, Baron Isherwood, which was considered a pioneering work on economic anthropology.

She became a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's New Year's Honours List, published on 30 December 2006. She died on 16 May 2007 in London, aged 86, from complications of cancer, survived by her three children. Her husband died in 2004.

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Douglas)

Full interview 60 minutes "Description: Interview with the anthropologist Mary Douglas, author of 'Purity and Danger' and other works.

Dame Mary Douglas, DBE, FBA (25 March 1921 16 May 2007) was a British anthropologist, known for her writings on human culture and symbolism.

Her area was social anthropology; she was considered a follower of Emile Durkheim and a proponent of structuralist analysis, with a strong interest in comparative religion.

She was born as Margaret Mary Tew in San Remo, Italy to Gilbert and Phyllis Tew; her father was in the British colonial service. Her mother was a devout Roman Catholic and Mary and her younger sister, Patricia, were raised in that faith. After their mother's death the sisters were raised by their maternal grandparents and attended the Roman Catholic Sacred Heart Convent in Roehampton. Mary went on to study at the St Anne's College, Oxford from 1939 to 1943; there she was influenced by E.E. Evans-Pritchard.

She worked in the British Colonial Office until 1947, when she returned to Oxford to take up graduate study she had left. She studied with M. N. Srinivas as well as Edward Evans-Pritchard. In 1949 she did field work with the Lele people in what was then the Belgian Congo; this took her to village life in the region between the Kasai River and the Loange River, where the Lele lived on the edge of the previous Kuba kingdom.

In the early 1950s she completed her doctorate, married James Douglas and started a family of three children. She taught at University College, London, where she remained for around 25 years. She taught and wrote in the USA for 11 years. She published on such subjects as risk analysis and the environment, consumption and welfare economics, and food and ritual, all increasingly cited outside anthropology circles.

After four years (1977-81) as Foundation Research Professor of Cultural Studies at the Russell Sage Institute in New York, she moved to Northwestern University as Avalon Professor of the Humanities with a remit to link the studies of theology and anthropology. Her reputation was established by her book Purity and Danger (1966). She wrote The World of Goods (1978) with an econometrician, Baron Isherwood, which was considered a pioneering work on economic anthropology.

She became a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's New Year's Honours List, published on 30 December 2006. She died on 16 May 2007 in London, aged 86, from complications of cancer, survived by her three children. Her husband died in 2004.

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Douglas) "

"An interview of Mary Douglas the anthropologist in which she talks about her life and work in Africa and elsewhere. Mary Douglas filmed and interviewed by Alan Macfarlane at her home in London on 26th February 2006. The interview lasts approximately 86 minutes. Generously supported by the Leverhulme Trust.

Created: 2011-03-21 13:34
Collection: Film Interviews with Leading Thinkers
Publisher: University of Cambridge
Copyright: Professor Alan Macfarlane
Language: eng (English)
Keywords: anthropology; Lele; Africa; purity;
Credits:
Actor: Mary Douglas
Director: Alan Macfarlane
Reporter: Sarah Harrison"

"Neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran outlines the fascinating functions of mirror neurons. Only recently discovered, these neurons allow us to learn complex social behaviors, some of which formed the foundations of human civilization as we know it. "

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