[From Kent McClelland (2010.11.04.1530)]
Greetings! I'm returning to CSGNET after quite a long absence, but I
have something to share, and I'm interested in seeing what CSGNET
subscribers have to say.
The attached pdf describes some of my current thinking about how to
apply PCT to sociology. It's a fragment of a longer paper that I'm
currently working on, which gives a PCT perspective on the theories of
Pierre Bourdieu, a prominent French sociologist. However, the piece
I'm attaching is relatively self contained.
It's a 12-page pdf. If you are interested but have difficulty opening
it, please let me know, and I can send the material to you in another
way.
Kent
Environmental Stabilization.pdf (128 KB)
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Kent McClelland, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Department of Sociology
1210 Park Street
Grinnell College
Grinnell, IA 50112
Phone: 641-269-3134
Fax: 641-269-4985
www.grinnell.edu
On Nov 4, 2010, at 1:33 PM, Richard Marken wrote:
[From Rick Marken (2010.11.04.1130)]
Martin Taylor (2010.11.04.15.22) --
When Nixon started the "War on Drugs" and created the DEA we
(my friends and I) all said something on the lines of "Didn't they
learn ANYTHING from prohibition?", but we thought that the
public would soon insist on relegalization and the WoD would
be short-lived. But instead of that, it has grown out of control,
to become a religion or worse.The public learns nothing from experience and right wingers actively
ignore experience (at least the aspect of experience that matters to
me; the well being of the vast majority of our citizens; they are very
tuned in to the difficulties of being a multibillionaire;-)). This is
just the way control systems operate; people don't want to deal with
data that is inconsistent with their preconceived beliefs.Prohibition was repealed only because most people enjoy drinking
alcohol; only a minority of those people drink just to get high.
Everyone who uses marijuana uses it _only_ to get high. I think the
repeal of prohibition had general support because it interfered with
many people's life style; not because they saw that prohibition was
the cause of a huge crime wave. Marijuana is unlikely to ever be
legalized in the US because of the fact that it is used only to get
high and right now I bet only a small minority of people are users.
The non-user population --probably 80% in the US -- could care less
about evidence that drug prohibition is a waste of their taxes.Same is true for right wing policies, such as regressive taxation (the
Reagan/Bush tax cuts), that always increase unemployment and the
deficit. People don't look at the data; they just know what they are
told by the right wing noise machine that now controls the US media.
And right wing policy makers care only about making the rich richer
and they _know_ that making the rich richer is the best thing to do
for the economy so they are certainly not interested in data, which
has that damned liberal bias;-)I'm afraid the US is f**ked by the complete right-wing corporate take
over of the political process and media, along with the active
cheering on of the working class Tea Party mishuganas. But there is a
small ray of hope; California might actually get it together, which
would be nice for me because, though I love Canada, I love sunny
California even more;-)Have a nice winter;-)
Best
Rick
--
Richard S. Marken PhD
rsmarken@gmail.com
www.mindreadings.com