When it comes to liberalism, the usual story in postwar America is one of decline, accompanied by the subplot of conservatism’s ascendance. But take a longer view—look beyond and below politics—and it is the unchallenged triumph of liberalism and its philosophical assumptions that ought to command our attention. The triumph of liberalism means the tyranny of liberalism, explains James Kalb in this illuminating book, for liberalism is the extension into the sociopolitical realm of modern scientific thought and technological rationality. (...) These modes of thinking are regarded by nearly everyone today as uniquely authoritative; those institutions and beliefs which do not conform are regarded at best as annoyances, and at worst as evil. Furthermore, Kalb shows how liberalism is an expression of the interests and outlook of commercial and managerial elites, who are suspicious of less rationalized and controllable forms of social organization like the family. Kalb does not merely rehearse a tale of woe, nor is he content simply to analyze the current situation. With reference to concrete issues such as the debate surrounding same-sex marriage, he outlines the kind of traditionalist response to liberalism that is likely to be most effective. He argues that traditional, decentralized, and nonliberal forms of social organization are ultimately impossible to eradicate, and he shows how more human forms of association than those favored by liberalism might once again be brought into being. (shrink)

PRELIMINARIES Hysterical trading in art AT THE PRESENT TIME, when a great amount of music is being both composed and heard, a great deal is also being ...

What is liberalism and is it good or bad? Its pervasiveness makes it difficult to gain the perspective needed to decide such issues. Many current writers treat it as relativistic, individualistic, and hubristic, and the man who is now Benedict XVI has gone so far as to describe the situation in the liberal West as a “dictatorship of relativism.”1 Christopher Insole, a lecturer in theology at Cambridge University, disagrees. His academic position has made him quite familiar with the complaints, and (...) he begins his book by observing that recent theological critics have described liberalism as Against such objections, he defends…. (shrink)

Hebb's theory of cell assemblies is a precursor of the neural network approach used as an implicit hypothesis by most contemporary neuroscientists. Applying this model to language representation leads to demanding predictions about the organization of semantic categories. Other implications of a Hebbian approach to language representation, however, may prove problematic with respect to both neurolinguistic concepts and the results of neuroimaging studies.

_Demons in the Consulting Room: Echoes of Genocide, Slavery and Extreme Trauma in Psychoanalytic Practice_ isthe second of two volumes addressing the overwhelming, often unmetabolizable feelings related to mourning, both on an individual and mass scale. Authors in this volume explore the potency of ghosts, ghostliness and the darker, often grotesque aspects of these phenomena. While ghosts can be spectral presences that we feel protective of, demons haunt in a particularly virulent way, distorting experience, our sense of reality and our (...) character. Bringing together a collection of clinical and theoretical papers, _emons in the Consulting Room_, reveals how the most extreme types of trauma can continue to have effects across generations, and how these effects manifest in the consulting room. Essays in this volume consider traumas that have affected multiple generations of people, such as the Holocaust, experiences in the gulags, and the experience of slavery. Authors here consider the clinical challenges of working with the demonic force in severe childhood abuse and the effects of serious and prolonged physical injury and illness. Inevitably, there is in such difficult clinical work, the combined effects of hauntings in the analysts and in patients and often in the surrounding culture. In this book, distinguished psychoanalysts explore the myriad forms of ghosts and the demonic, which interfere and disrupt the endlessly difficult psychic work of mourning. It will be of interest to psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, as well as social workers, family therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. _emons in the Consulting Room _ill appeal to those specializing in bereavement and trauma and, on a broader level, to sociologists and historians interested in understanding means of coping with loss and grief on both an individual and larger scale basis. (shrink)

_Ghosts in the Consulting Room: Echoes of Trauma in Psychoanalysis_ is the first of two volumes that delves into the overwhelming, often unmetabolizable feelings related to mourning. The book uses clinical examples of people living in a state of liminality or ongoing melancholia. The authors reflect on the challenges of learning to move forward and embrace life over time, while acknowledging, witnessing and working through the emotional scars of the past. Bringing together a collection of clinical and theoretical papers, _Ghosts (...) in the Consulting Room _features accounts of the unpredictable effects of trauma that emerge within clinical work, often unexpectedly, in ways that surprise both patient and therapist. In the book, distinguished psychoanalysts examine how to work with a variety of ‘ghosts’, as they manifest in transference and countertransference, in work with children and adults, in institutional settings and even in the very founders and foundations of the field of psychoanalysis itself. They explore the dilemma of how to process loss when it is unspeakable and unknowable, often manifesting in silence or gaps in knowledge, and living in strange relations to time and space. This book will be of interest to psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, as well as social workers, family therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. It will appeal to those specializing in bereavement and trauma and, on a broader level, to sociologists and historians interested in understanding means of coping with loss and grief on both an individual and larger scale basis. (shrink)

Rising social, political and economic inequality in many countries, and rising protest against it, has seen the restoration of the concept of 'class' to a prominent place in contemporary anthropological debates. A timely intervention in these discussions, this book explores the concept of class and its importance for understanding the key sources of that inequality and of people's attempts to deal with it. Highly topical, it situates class within the context of the current economic crisis, integrating elements from today into (...) the discussion of an earlier agenda. Using cases from North and South America, Western Europe and South Asia, it shows the - sometimes surprising - forms that class can take, as well as the various effects it has on people's lives and societies. (shrink)

Social dilemmas occur when the pursuit of self-interest by individuals in a group leads to less than optimal collective outcomes for everyone in the group. A critical assumption in the human sciences is that people's choices in such dilemmas are individualistic, selfish, and rational. Hence, cooperation in the support of group welfare will only occur if there are selfish incentives that convert the social dilemma into a nondilemma. In recent years, inclusive fitness theories have lent weight to such traditional views (...) of rational selfishness on Darwinian grounds. To show that cooperation is based on selfish incentives, however, one must provide evidence that people donotcooperatewithoutsuch incentives. In a series of experimental social dilemmas, subjects were instructed to make single, anonymous choices about whether or not to contribute money for a shared “bonus” that would be provided only if enough other people in the group also contributed their money. Noncontributors cited selfish reasons for their choices; contributors did not. If people are allowed to engage in discussion, they will contribute resources at high rates, frequently on irrational grounds, to promote group welfare. These findings are consistent with previous research on ingroup biasing effects that cannot be explained by “economic man” or “selfish gene” theories. An alternative explanation is that sociality was a primary factor shaping the evolution ofHomo sapiens. The cognitive and affective mechanisms underlying such choices evolved under selection pressures on small groups for developing and maintaining group membership and for predicting and controlling the behavior of other group members. This sociality hypothesis organizes previously inexplicable and disparate phenomena in a Darwinian framework and makes novel predictions about human choice. (shrink)

Delays in early language development are characteristic of young autistic children, and one of the most recognizable first concerns that motivate parents to seek a diagnostic evaluation for their child. Although early language abilities are one of the strongest predictors of long-term outcomes, there is still much to be understood about the role of language impairment in the heterogeneous phenotypic presentation of autism. Using a person-centered, Latent Profile Analysis, we first aimed to identify distinct patterns of language and social communication (...) ability in a clinic-based sample of 498 autistic children, ranging in age from 18 to 60 months. Next, a multinomial logistic regression analysis was implemented to examine sociodemographic and child-based developmental differences among the identified language and social communication profiles. Three clinically meaningful profiles were identified from parent-rated and clinician-administered measures: Profile 1 “Relatively Low Language and Social Communication Abilities,” Profile 2 “Relatively Elevated Language and Social Communication Abilities,” and Profile 3 “Informant Discrepant Language and Relatively Elevated Social Communication Abilities.” Overall, young autistic children from the lowest-resource households exhibited the lowest language and social communication abilities, and the lowest non-verbal problem-solving and fine-motor skills, along with more features of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and atypical auditory processing. These findings highlight the need for effective community-based implementation strategies for young autistic children from low-resource households and underrepresented communities to improve access to individualized quality care. (shrink)

Background: Cognitive Training may contribute to the maintenance and even enhancement of cognitive functions in healthy older adults. However, the question who benefits most from multi-domain CTs is still highly under-investigated.Objective: The goal is to investigate prognostic factors and models for changes in cognitive test performance in healthy older adults after a multi-domain CT.Methods: The data bases MEDLINE, Web of Science Core Collection, CENTRAL, and PsycInfo were searched up to July 2019. Studies investigating prognostic factors and/or models on cognitive outcomes (...) after conducting a multi-domain CT in healthy older adults were included. Risk of Bias was assessed using the QUIPS and the PROBAST tool.Results: 23 prognostic factor and model studies were included. Results indicate a high heterogeneity regarding the conducted multi-domain CTs, the investigated prognostic factors, the investigated outcomes, and the used statistical approaches. Age and neuropsychological performance at study entry were the most investigated predictors, yet they show inconsistent results.Conclusion: Data on prognostic factors and models of changes after multi-domain CT are still too rare and inconsistent to draw clear conclusions due to statistical shortcomings and low reporting quality. Approaches for future research are outlined.Registration:https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, ID: CRD42020147531. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung: Die politische Grenze, die in der Erzählung vom Goldenen Kalb schematisch gesetzt wird, ähnelt zeitgenössischen autoritären wie auch demokratischen Strategien, Macht durch gesellschaftliche Spaltungen auszuüben. In Bezug auf die Überlagerung politischer Differenzen mit moralischen und religiösen Werturteilen, die Verabsolutierung von Privilegien und die Verschleierung des Gesetzes scheint die in der Episode vom Goldenen Kalb erzählte Spaltung systematische Parallelen zu gegenwärtigen Praktiken innergesellschaftlicher Grenzziehung aufzuweisen. Die Aktualität der Berufung auf religiöse Erzählungen, rhetorische Polarisierungen oder antagonistische Symboliken macht die (...) Kritik und Analyse der politisch-theologischen Sakralisierung politischer Differenzen zu einem wesentlichen Gegenstand der Aufklärung über die religiösen Grundlagen politischer Gewalt. Der Artikel interpretiert mit Verweis auf textkritische Analysen der Erzählung die Abspaltung der Leviten vom restlichen Volk als kultisch inszenierte militärische Aktion zur Herstellung und Befestigung von Privilegien durch Grausamkeit, den Tanz um das Goldene Kalb als Strategie der Konsolidierung einer durch die Abwesenheit von Gesetz und Führung verunsicherten Gemeinschaft und die Konstruktion gesellschaftlicher Antagonismen als Kompensation für die Verschleierung des Gesetzes. Abschließend wird diskutiert, inwiefern diese Strategien auch in Demokratien zentrale Merkmale der Konstituierung kollektiver Identitäten, Privilegien und Gewaltbeziehungen sind und ob es in Demokratien auch Raum für die Neuverhandlung innergesellschaftlicher Grenzen gibt. (shrink)

We investigate a theory in which fundamental objects are branes described in terms of higher grade coordinates $X^{\mu{_1}\ldots \mu{_n}}$ encoding both the motion of a brane as a whole, and its volume evolution. We thus formulate a dynamics which generalizes the dynamics of the usual branes. Geometrically, coordinates $X^{\mu{_1} \ldots \mu{_n}}$ and associated coordinate frame fields { ${\gamma_{\mu{_1}\ldots\mu{_n}}}$ } extend the notion of geometry from spacetime to that of an enlarged space, called Clifford space or C-space. If we start from (...) four-dimensional spacetime, then the dimension of C-space is 16. The fact that C-space has more than four dimensions suggests that it could serve as a realization of Kaluza-Klein idea. The “extra dimensions” are not just the ordinary extra dimensions, they are related to the volume degrees of freedom, therefore they are physical, and need not be compactified. Gauge fields are due to the metric of Clifford space. It turns out that amongst the latter gauge fields there also exist higher grade, antisymmetric fields of the Kalb–Ramond type, and their non-Abelian generalization. All those fields are naturally coupled to the generalized branes, whose dynamics is given by a generalized Howe–Tucker action in curved C-space. (shrink)