Character Of Culture Research Articles

New Frontiers and Relations between Religion, Culture and Politics in Western Europe

Sociology was born as a discipline that analyzed the process of modernization of Western European societies. However, in turn, this science was developing a predictive, prophetic vision of the future of human communities, assuming that they were all going to follow paths similar to those followed by Western Europeans. This prophetic dimension reduced the capacity of sociology to analyze new phenomena including, on the one hand, phenomena relating to other societies, on the one hand, but also, on the other hand, phenomena related to the transformations suffered by Western European societies after their process of modernization. This last case constitutes the objective of this work, in which I try to recover the purely analytical character of sociology. To this end, I intend to relate the general model of the political modernization of Western European societies elaborated by historical sociology to the theory of social differentiation, avoiding the evolutionary drift of this theory. From that position, I try to specify the analytical nature of some conceptual instruments of sociology, in order to make them more useful to understanding the contemporary social transformations of Western European societies. Some of these transformations have changed the tendency towards the cultural homogenization characteristic of modernization, because after the two world wars these societies began to receive strong flows of immigration.

Personhood as Ongoing Gift from Others and to Others

Human personhood should be understood as a gift from and to others as well as a permanent and unchanging attribute of what it means to be a human being, for this understanding of human personhood fits better within a contemporary systems-oriented approach to reality. Likewise, for Christians it can also be seen as derivative from a more contemporary process-oriented understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity, namely, as co-constitutive members of a transcendent community or archetypal life-system. Finally, given the individualistic character of contemporary Western culture, an emphasis on the interdependence of entities on one another rather than on their independence from one another seems to be more needed at the present moment.

Culturally Contingent Cravings: How Holistic Thinking Influences Consumer Responses to Food Appeals

While prior literature has often conceptualized Eastern consumers as archetypes of resolute discipline and self‐control, the authors of this manuscript demonstrate that holistic thinking (a well‐established characteristic of Eastern culture) can pose a liability to consumers’ self‐control efforts by increasing their desire for indulgent foods under certain conditions. Specifically, this research reveals that when an indulgent food is advertised with a cue that sets the occasion for consumption (i.e., an occasion‐setting cue), holistic (vs. analytic) thinking increases craving and subsequent purchase likelihood for the featured product. Evidence for this effect is found across three studies using both self‐reported and physiological measures of craving. Furthermore, the effect holds regardless of whether holistic thinking is measured or manipulated. Finally, this research provides evidence for the underlying mechanism and establishes important boundary conditions for the interactive effect.

Applying cultural values to encourage disaster preparedness: Lessons from a low-hazard country

We present results from the CARISMAND project,11This research was carried out as part of the CARISMAND (Culture And RISk management in Man-made And Natural Disasters) research project which received funding from the European Union under the Horizon 2020 Programme (2014–2020), Grant Agreement Number 653748, co-funded by the European Commission. which investigated the relationships between risk perception and cultural factors in man-made and natural disasters. The present study focused on attitudes, feelings and perceptions in a”low-risk” country, the island of Malta. This research location was chosen due to its unique geographical and geo-political position. In combination with the low level of prevalent disaster risk, it can be seen to be particularly suitable for elucidating cultural factors which are strong enough to generate behavioural change in such an environment and allow further insight into the relationship between risk perception, culture and behaviour. The data were collected during a Citizen Summit (held in Malta in 2016) which combined quantitative inquiry, for measuring cognitive and emotional responses related to risk perception, with qualitative methods that follow the “fluid” character of culture. We found that disaster risk perception showed only weak links to preparedness intentions, supporting other published results. Focus group discussions revealed several cultural traits, most prominently strong family values and social cohesion, which was also supported by the quantitative data. Furthermore, we found evidence of how personal values are transformed into cultural values, and how these can work in favour, or against, a motivation to prepare for disasters. Our results suggest that integrating shared local values, shared everyday experiences, and shared local memories in risk communication strategies and behavioural guidelines may be effective in encouraging citizens’ disaster preparedness.

Nagy, Zsolt Great Expectations and Interwar Realities: Hungarian Cultural Diplomacy, 1918–1941 (review)

SEER, 96, 2, APRIL 2018 380 and also ‘expose world views, aspirations, professional self-awareness, and ideological and aesthetic attitudes’ (p. 280). Photographs, architectural plans and documents illustrate the text appropriately. As for Kelly’s title, I am not sure that these places of worship can easily be described as ‘Socialist Churches’. At least when they were in the hands of religious communities, such communities would mostly have baulked at the idea that their places of worship were ‘socialist’, while the state would scarcely have welcomed them as part of its political establishment that this implies. Was the Soviet Union indeed ‘socialist’? But this is a minor quibble. Kelly has ranged widely to find materials recounting the fate of one Soviet city’s places of worship and thought hard about the competing impulses that destroyed some and left others standing in varying states and under various usages. The book illuminates a neglected aspect of the history of a city and its life, and of the religious communities that sought to survive under an uncongenial regime. London Felix Corley Nagy, Zsolt. Great Expectations and Interwar Realities: Hungarian Cultural Diplomacy, 1918–1941. Central European University Press, Budapest and New York, 2017. xvii + 341 pp. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $65.00: €58.00: £50.00. Not many Western readers will have any great expectations of a book about the disparity between revisionist propaganda and political reality in Hungary after the First World War. The subject of frontier revision has a prominent place in the historiography of Central Europe, and there is no shortage of books in English on the futile Hungarian endeavours to alter the territorial settlement, which contributed to major foreign policy failures on the country’s part. Yet, true to one of the endorsements on its handsome dust jacket, this scholarly volume does provide ‘a fresh look at Hungarian revisionism’. Rather than focusing on the official conduct of Hungarian diplomacy, the author examines the oblique attempts by an authoritarian regime to change negative foreign perceptions of a country and its people, with recourse to ‘munitions of the mind’: cultural production, image projection and public diplomacy. Admittedly, much of the analysis by Zsolt Nagy dwells on Hungary’s efforts to elicit sympathy from the United States. By comparison, the treatment of British-Hungarian cultural relations is somewhat cursory, as is the discussion of the reception accorded to Hungary’s propaganda by France, Italy and Germany. In a few respects, the monograph has the feel of a published doctoral thesis. The mini-conclusions at the end of the five chapters read formulaically REVIEWS 381 and disrupt the narrative flow. The engagement with academic argot, such as ‘image cultivation’, ‘nation-branding’ and ‘perception management’ (p. 2), may also rile some readers. More fundamentally, the application of so overused a political science concept as Joseph Nye’s ‘soft power’ to an early twentiethcentury case study of Hungarian foreign policy seems misplaced. After all, how much power — soft or hard — could a small defeated, isolated successor state of the Habsburg Monarchy be said to have? In any event, these minor shortcomings do not diminish the value of this incisive original work. The author gives detailed coverage of Hungary’s ‘cultural-diplomatic campaign’ (p. 3), which sought to improve the place of this vanquished, dismembered country in the post-war international order. Nagy concentrates his attention on ‘the intersection of diplomacy, national identity construction, and cultural production’ (p. 2), arguing that the selling of a positive national image beyond Hungary’s borders was seriously hampered by uncertainties concerning Hungarian cultural identity. A measure of these uncertainties is that prominent members of the Magyar intellectual elite were still openly debating what it meant to be ‘Hungarian’ on the eve of the Second World War. Clearly, it was never going to be easy to educate public opinion abroad about the merits and true European character of Hungarian culture whilst opinion makers at home were unceasingly at odds. Whether this was an element in the eventual failure of the revisionist strategy is another matter altogether. Foreign perceptions of Hungary and of Hungarians were barely influenced by the ill-tempered internal squabbles between urbánus and népi writers, to...

Character of Japanese Traditional Culture

Character of Japanese Traditional Culture

Lokalna aktywność obywatelska – czynniki, pułapki, zróżnicowanie. O wzorach zaangażowania charakterystycznych dla wspólnot mieszkaniowych

Artykuł skupia się na lokalnej aktywności obywatelskiej, postrzeganej jako istotny warunek rozwoju miasta. Przegląd literatury wskazuje czynniki aktywności obywatelskiej: poziom wykształcenia, dochody, więzi sąsiedzkie, przywiązanie do miejsca, kontakty społeczne, ogólna aktywność społeczna, etap życia, wielkość społeczności, lokalne problemy, relacje wewnątrz społeczności lokalnej, lokalny lider, cechy kulturowe regionu oraz lokalna kultura polityczna. Scharakteryzowano także różnorodne typy zaangażowania obywatelskiego. Rozważania na temat lokalnej aktywności obywatelskiej uzupełniono o aktywność generowaną w ramach wspólnot mieszkaniowych. Rosnąca popularność tych organizacji skłania do rozważań na temat ich wpływu na wzory zaangażowania obywatelskiego. Część badaczy dowodzi, że członkostwo we wspólnocie uczy współrządzenia, daje poczucie wpływu, wzmacnia zaangażowanie lokalne i obywatelskie. Z drugiej strony pojawiają się argumenty, zgodnie z którymi poczucie przynależności do wspólnoty mieszkaniowej skutkuje niższą odpowiedzialnością za miasto i sferę publiczną. Czy zaangażowanie w ramach wspólnoty mieszkaniowej można nazwać obywatelskim? Odpowiedź bazuje na wynikach przekrojowego studium przypadków jedenastu takich wspólnot. Zaprezentowano te aspekty funkcjonowania wspólnot mieszkaniowych, które odnoszą się do aktywności obywatelskiej: cele organizacji w opinii mieszkańców, zaangażowanie w proces współrządzenia, stosunek do dalszego otoczenia oraz relacje wspólnot z sąsiadami. Wzory zaangażowania charakterystyczne dla wspólnot mieszkaniowych nie mieszczą się w ramach przyjętej definicji aktywnej obywatelskości. Korespondują raczej z koncepcją sprywatyzowanej, biernej obywatelskości. Ich członkowie są skupieni na własnych, grupowych interesach. Wspólnoty mieszkaniowe mogą być postrzegane jako pułapka czy niebezpieczeństwo dla lokalnej aktywności obywatelskiej. Skłaniają bowiem do aktywności społecznej, która stanowi alternatywę dla uczestnictwa w sferze publicznej.

‘What’s far fetch’d, and dearly bought’: The Politics of Clothing in Poetry from Eighteenth-Century Ireland

This essay examines the representation of clothing in eighteenth-century poetry from Ireland, and the implications of this representation for our understanding of the interwoven character of individual subjectivity and commodity culture. The sourcing and consumption of textiles played an important role in the economics of individuals and households in Ireland, and may be linked in turn to an increase in overseas trade, and to the political impact of these developments. In addition to its practical effects, the depiction of dress in verse texts offers symbolic readings, and is linked to questions concerning representation itself and to the process of self-fashioning in times of social change.

Using Hawkeye from the Avengers to communicate on the eye.

Superheroes, such as Iron Man, Captain America, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Hawkeye, have appeared in numerous films, displaying their range of incredible superpowers and abilities. Therefore, it is unsurprising that many people would not only wish to attain these powers, but also to learn about scientific accessibility to these powers. Popular culture characters such as superheroes can provide a unique platform for the communication of difficult scientific concepts. In the classroom, these characters can be used to communicate learning objectives to students in an interesting, fun, and accessible manner by taking advantage of student familiarity with the characters. Hawkeye, a member of the Avengers, is one such superhero who can be utilized by educators. His powers can be attributed in part to his advanced eyesight, which has physiological aspects in common with many birds of prey. Hence, Hawkeye can instigate discussion on the physiology of the human eye, while also allowing for comparison with other species, such as birds of prey, and reflection on advancements related to genetic engineering and wearable technologies. In addition, in my experience, Hawkeye has proven to be a highly suitable popular culture character for use in scientific communication and outreach.

Pengembangan Model Asesmen Autentik Berbasis Karakter Santri Sebagai Upaya Penyiapan Generasi Unggul dan Berdaya Saing

The purpose of this research and development are: 1) to produce syllabus base on santri characters, 2) Produce an authentic santri based guidance books in the subject of Ethics and Profession Education as an effort to prepare superior and competitive generation.3) To know the validity of the authenticity assessment model based on the character of santri as an effort to prepare superior and competitive generation that has been developed according to the assessment of content / assessment experts, linguists and design experts. 4) To know the effectiveness of the authentic assessment model based on the character of santri through the responses of students and lecturers towards the application of authentic assessment models based on the character of santri. This type of research is a research development with Borg and Gall model that has been modified into eight development steps. Development steps include: 1) preliminary research, 2) planning, 3) product development, 5) design validation, 5) design revisions, 6) product trials, 7) product revisions, and 8) final product. Data collection techniques used are authentic assessment documents based on santri characters developed, observation and questionnaire applied in the form of research instruments. Data analysis techniques used descriptive qualitative analysis techniques and descriptive statistics. The result of the research shows that the authentic assessment model based on the character of santri is very feasible to be used, it is proved by the assessment scores of 80.00% (quite reasonable), the linguist is 82.9% (reasonable enough), and the design expert is 86.7% (feasible). The developed product is tested to try on 20 students of the fourth semester who are taking the course of Ethics and Profession of Education in the study program of economic education of hamzanwadi University academic year 2016/2017 to know its effectiveness through student characteristic observation before and after the implementation of the assessment using santri character based assessment model that the difference between the results before and after, obtained the average percentage before the amount of 56.00% with the category of santri characters began to grow. Average Percentage after obtained percentage of 75.00% with the character of santri Culture. while the results of student responses with average percentage of 87.1% with the category worth to use, and obtained the average value of lecturer's response percentage of 88.00% with the category decent. It proves that the use of authentic assessment model based on santri character is effective in assessing student santri character

Challenges in Teaching Japanese EFL Students to Express Themselves Logically

This paper describes a study conducted with twenty-five Japanese lower-level EFL students to develop their ability to write logically in English. In school, Japanese students rarely express their opinions in writing supported by facts or reasons, a result of an important characteristic of Japanese culture: people focus more on emotion than on critical reasoning. Teachers of English often instruct students to add reasons, examples, or conclusions to their written expressions of opinion, but students often fail to do so because they do not grasp their purpose. In this study, students were explicitly instructed in 1) the different values in Western and Japanese culture, 2) alternate ways of thinking and expression, 3) the importance of logic in English rhetoric, and 4) paragraph structure in written English. Students practice writing using English paragraph structure, first in Japanese and then in English. The results indicated that initially only about one third of the students acquired an understanding of how to organize a paragraph logically when writing in Japanese, indicating the difficulty Japanese students have in adopting the principles of English rhetoric even in their native language. After explicit instructions were given repeatedly, another one third of the students were able to structure their paragraphs logically when writing in English. Throughout the six sessions of the study, however, the rest of the students (32%) continued to write their paragraphs in both Japanese and English according to the conventions of Japanese rhetoric, or without logical reasoning.

Skeletonization application: Chinese calligraphy character representation and reconstruction

Chinese calligraphy is often used to perform the beauty of characters in Chinese culture and is quite suitable in the study of shape representation. The skeleton of a digital line pattern can be treated as the shape descriptor. However, the skeleton-biased and reconstruction-incomplete phenomena often exist in a skeletonization method, which results in the difficulty of using the skeleton to perform the beauty of Chinese calligraphy characters. To overcome this difficulty, skeletal line information derived from the skeletal points and indexed boundary points is defined, and its transformation is implemented by a procedure of two-phase skeletal line placement (SLP). Based on the SLP, an effective algorithm including the SLP-stroke for strokes, SLP-fork for forks, and SLP-end for the end parts of strokes is developed for constructing the skeletal line-based shape descriptor. Four indices of measurement of skeleton deviation, number of distorted forks, number of spurious strokes, and measurement of reconstructability are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach. Experimental results show that the skeleton-biased phenomenon can be greatly reduced and the pattern reconstructability close to 100% is achieved, thus confirming that the proposed skeletonization approach is suitable for the Chinese calligraphy character representation and reconstruction.

How Context Shapes Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy as a Driver of Entrepreneurial Intentions: A Multilevel Approach

We study how the proximate and distal sociocultural environments affect the well-established relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions. We focus on the institutional individualism–collectivism orientation of nations and the presence of nascent entrepreneurs as moderators of this relationship to account for the multilayered nature of the context. We observe that for individuals with entrepreneurial self-efficacy the positive effect of knowing nascent entrepreneurs as a driver of entrepreneurial intentions is weaker than for individuals who do not believe to be able to successfully launch a business venture. This effect is contingent on the individualistic–collectivistic character of the national culture.

Exploring “Deep Roots”: Politics of Place and Groundwater Management Practices in the Pajaro Valley, California

ABSTRACTGroundwater is one of the most critical natural resources in an era of climate change, yet groundwater depletion is extensive in many parts of the world. The Pajaro Valley, an agricultural region in Central California, exemplifies the common challenges to sustainably manage a groundwater basin. This article draws on materialist conceptions of power and political economy, and humanist conceptions of place identity and dependence, to illuminate how both can influence groundwater management practices. Through ethnographic observation and interviews with self-identified groundwater users, we find that social character, economic interactions, and dominant understandings of culture and community all work together to define personal and collective meanings of and attachments to place. We suggest that using a “politics of place” approach can provide a deeper understanding of why particular groundwater management practices occur, and that this can aid in shaping future sustainability efforts.

Специфика религиозной культуры в зеркале социальной философии

Специфика религиозной культуры в зеркале социальной философии

Romano Guardini and the Problem of Vision

Romano Guardini and the Problem of Vision David N. Foote (bio) "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old." (Mt 13:52) All is yours, but you are Christ's. (1 Cor 3:23) Introduction Romano Guardini (1885–1968) apparently enjoyed the movies. Scattered throughout his diaries are comments on films he had seen. For example, on June 9, 1953, he writes, "Last night, I saw the lovely movie Antoine et Antoinette. Exactly what one is looking for in real cinema. Especially charming is the smile with which the [End Page 123] young Antoinette looks at her husband. Love and reflection at the same time. But what is the meaning of this superiority with which woman rightly looks at man? Is it not due, in large part, to the radical strangeness between the sexes?"1 On March 23, 1954, he writes, "Last night I saw the movie Drôle de drame. The actors were polished, but the movie as a whole was idiotic. It was supposed to be a farce, but it was simply stupid. (Arsenic and Old Lace is a farce, as is My Friend Harvey, but not Drôle de drame.)2 And again, on November 17, 1954, "We went to see the film Dieux a besoin des hommes in the small cinema on Occamstraße, which shows mostly older films. The film touched me like few others. Something genuine, pure, and grand; moreover, it was flawless."3 His students at the University of Munich must have known that he frequented the cinema, for in February 1953 they asked him to deliver a lecture on the cultural significance of film as a modern art form. The lecture was published that same year in the journal Hochland.4 The reconsiderations piece presented here is an English translation of the lecture published in CrossCurrents (1956). "Thoughts on the Problem of the Film" is an interesting piece for several reasons. To begin with, it offers a provocative and, in some ways, puzzling reflection on a modern art form. As one reads the article, it is not altogether clear, at least at first, whether Guardini intends to affirm, minimize, or reject the cultural value of film. In the brief introduction to the English translation published in CrossCurrents, the editor writes, "In granting permission to reprint the article, Msgr. Guardini said he hoped that his criticism of the movies would not be misunderstood, and emphasized that his own attitude was that of his short but positive conclusion." Not everyone picked up on this. A journalist for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, who apparently found Guardini's reflections overly critical, commented, "True philosophers are even more rare than good films."5 Perhaps Guardini had this in mind, or reactions like it, when he wrote to the editor of CrossCurrents. This tension between affirmation and negation—so evident in the article presented here—is a hallmark of Guardini's thought. It [End Page 124] raises larger and more interesting questions about the value of modern culture itself and about Guardini's significance as an observer and critic of it. He is sometimes taken to be a pessimist; and anyone who has read Letters from Lake Como or The End of the Modern World can certainly understand why. Most of Letters from Lake Como (letters 1 through 8) focus on the exploitative and destructive character of modern technology and mass culture. Then, in the final letter, as if out of the blue, comes a "short but positive conclusion," in which he affirms the value of both.6 The reader comes away, it seems, with far more ammunition for rejecting modern culture than for affirming it. What is one to make of such "affirmations"? This play of "yes" and "no," which is so characteristic of Guardini's thought, resonates still further. Proceedings for the beatification of Monsignor Guardini opened in December 2017. Of course, building a case for Guardini's beatification is not the purpose of this article, but one senses something of the uncommon vision of a saint in Guardini's...

The Implementation Of Character Education Values In Integrated Physical Education Subject In Elementary School

The issue of this research emphasizes on the implementation of character building values through physical education learning in elementary school. The effort in developing this character building practice is essential to be done in order to tackle moral and character crises, which already occur in both individual and collective levels reflected in educational institution from elementary school to higher education. Hence, to form culture and national character, educational program and process are inseparable from environmental factor including the values of society, culture, and humanity. Physical education subject that is based on 2013 Curriculum has significant difference compared to the previous physical education subject. This is due to the fact that integrated physical education has its own uniqueness in terms of planning, systematic implementation, and instructional medium. This research aims at producing guidance in implementing character values integrated in physical education in elementary school. The method used in this research is research and development (R&D) method, which includes preliminary research, model designing, limited trial, and extensive trial, as well as validation and dissemination. The findings of the research show that character values can be implemented in physical education in elementary schools in Sumedang Regency.

New Nordic Mythologies

New Nordic Mythologies

Media culture as dialogue of cultures in modern society

Media culture as the phenomenon occurred simultaneously with media appearance. However, scientists have started talking about the necessity to study media culture in society and its formation only in the late XX century. Media culture obtains the special priority position under conditions of the information society. It is promoted by the accelerated development of communication and digital technologies, the rapid growth in volume, richness and multiformat media consumption by contemporaries. Changes of the technocratic world should be accompanied with development of new media skills and preferences of the individual and society: understanding media flows, analyzing and evaluating information, engaging in dialogue with the media, do not let them manipulate you. The media culture should be the main factor of individuals’ socialization in the information society. The term «media culture» is based on two fundamental concepts, which are «media» and «culture», with many interpretations each. Therefore, the definition of the term remains ambiguous. Media culture is studied in the framework of technological, personal, creative and informational approaches. The determining factor in understanding media culture, in our opinion, becomes an interactive approach that makes possible and effective intercultural dialogue through a global network of communications. The opportunity and focus for dialogue is becoming a key characteristic of media culture. The interaction, mutual relation and correlation of media and book cultures should be considered in the framework of the dialogue approach. The interactive nature of the media culture allows us to hope for preserving and reproducing bookishness in the conditions of the digital media revolution, for its further integration into the new communication environment.

Konsolidacja demokracji w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej: Rola społeczeństwa obywatelskiego

The main question of the article is the connection between democratic consolidation in post-Soviet states and civil society development. Even though such a thesis is very popular in political science, it cannot be borne out in present-day policy. And even if we describe democracy as a purely institutional arrangement, it’s impossible to ignore its substantial character. It certainly includes a dynamic civil society and participatory character of political culture. Given these issues, political analysis is very difficult for all researchers, especially because of the variety of traditions and beliefs.