Ideological Tenets Research Articles

Professional Turmoil in Hungary

Professional Turmoil in Hungary Taxing Tips. Interwoven in the health care system of most socialist countries is the practice of tipping, a phenomenon in which patients or their relatives give money, gifts, or various favors to physicians either before, after, or during treatment. When tips are given in advance, they clearly represent a bribe; in other cases they are genuinely motivated by gratitude. However, tipping can create uneasiness, mistrust, and embarrassment in patient-physician relationships, and tension and envy among specialists. In Hungary, the extremely low salary of physicians, the level of which was established after the Second World War, seems to have justified the acceptance of tips and other forms of benefits. In the 1970s however, state health administrators launched a campaign against tipping, one that was doomed to fail. They publicly condemned physicians for taking envelopes from patients, but failed to enforce their rhetoric against those in prestigious positions. Although ethics committees were established in every county, primarily for the purpose of eliminating tipping, they have proven too weak even to dare criticizing the biggest recipients of tips. The health adminstrators appear to have concluded that it is better and cheaper to let consumers subsidize physicians than to raise salaries. The issue took a new turn in January 1988, when for the first time ever, the state began to tax every form of personal income and included physicians' tips as taxable income. Physicians are outraged: A practice that has been for several years a subject of criticism is now to be tolerated and to become a source of state revenue. The profession defends its practice by pointing out that tipping has so infiltrated every dimension of life in the society that it is malicious to single out the medical profession. Of course, no recipient of tipping is about to declare the actual amount of the tips regardless of the threats of tax offices. Moreover, the taxing of tips requires revision of a basic ideological tenet. Socialism is held to be superior to capitalism on the grounds that it ensures both full employment and free medical care to all. Yet this view becomes untenable once the reality of the practice of tipping is acknowledged. What is clear is that either the idea of a free, equal, and high level of health care to all has to be given up, or physicians have to be paid adequately. Currently, Hungarians are content to wait-and-see, but the stake is not small: It is a matter of having a tolerable or utterly malfunctioning health care system. A Rejected Medical Ethical Code. A subject of discussion in the Hungarian medical profession for several years has been the need to create moral guidelines for physicians. …

Ideology, ethics, and history: A reply to Feyerabend, Rachlin, and Leahey

As always, I find myself in Professor Feyeraband’s debt in this case, for articulating many of the underlying presuppositions of my argument about animal consciousness. In a deeper sense, I am grateful to Professor Feyerabend for his inspiring and pioneering work towards a realistic philosophy of science, one which engages the welter of ethical, social and epistemological problems of science that had been declared non-problems by fiat in a great deal of traditional philosophy of science, much of which should properly be dubbed philosophy of science fiction, and which served to legitimate and provide intellectual underpinnings and credibility for the dubious ideology he and I discuss. Indeed, what else but adherence to such a dogmatic ideology could explain some of the incredible responses I have encountered from highly intelligent and accomplished scientists. How else can one explain the physician who told me that a given drug did not really make me feel better because it was theoretically counterindicated “You didn’t feel better,” he announced with the confidence of the expert, “you only thought you felt better.” Here ideology in this case faith in reductionistic explanation of drug action is stronger than logic! Similarly, how else can one explain the now-famous case of the time I had served on a panel on animal pain with a well-known pain physiologist who spent the better part of an hour trying to show that since the electrochemical activity in the cerebral cortex of the dog differed dramatically from the electrochemical activity in the cerebral cortex of humans, and since the cerebral cortex is the information processing area of the brain, the dog didn’t reall? feel pain in any sense that we do. My time came for rebuttal. Though I am usually long-winded, in this case my response was quite brief. I said, “Dr. X, you are justly acclaimed for your work in pain. ” “Thank you,” he said. “You do that work on dogs, do you not?” I queried. “I do,” he replied. “You extrapolate the results to people, do you not?“, I queried. “That is correct,” he said. “In that case,” I said, “I have nothing else to say!” In other words, either his paper was false, or his research work was he could not have it both ways. Once again, ideology and confidence in one’s expert status allowed him to be cavalier about making sense! How else can one explain the fact that, in a similar vein, although analgesics are always tested on rodents, rodents never receive analgesics? How else can one explain the fact that the same psychologist who uses intentional and mentalistic

The ideology of Jacobitism on the eve of the rising of 1745—part I

The ideology of Jacobitism is difficult to articulate, since it was composed of many heterogeneous strands. The ideology of English Jacobites was a ‘partial’ view of the world. It embraced the pre-1688 Tory notions of hereditary and indefeasible right, passive obedience and non-resistance. It took in the ‘Country’ critique of corruption and its nostalgia for a lost ‘golden age’. The ideology of Scottish Jacobitism came nearer to being a ‘ Welta~sc~u~u~g’. Apart from its role as an ideolgy of nationalism, stressing the importance of a unique Scottish culture, it depended on a providential and mystical view of the world. Discussion of the part played by ideology in the Jacobite rising of 1745 necessarily includes, then, a motley array of issues, dynastic, religious, cultural, political and even philosophical. Basically, there were three types of ideological Jacobitism. The first type, whose major tenets had been exhaustively debated during the period 16881720, concerned the notions of divine, indefeasible right, passive obedience and non-resistance. This doctrine, particularly associated with pro-Stuart polemicists like Charles Leslie and Francis Atterbury, was still very much alive in Jacobite circles by 1745, though the debate between Whig and Tory on its implications had to some extent given way to the debate between exponents of the Court and Country positions. The second type was Jacobitism as an ideology of Scottish nationalism. This was particularly associated with the mystics of North-Eastern Scotland like Chevalier Ramsay, and was a powerful influence in the 1745 rebellion; one of its leading practitioners, Lord Pitsligo, was ‘out’ in the rising. The third type was Jacobitism as an offshoot of Country ideology. Perhaps the best representative of this species of Jacobitism was the great historian Thomas Carte. This is perhaps the most difficult type to pin down, since the Country party was in some ways diametrically opposed to the Jacobites. There is a further problem about Jacobite doctrine in that its ideological tenets were never collected together in one volume so as to rival John Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government which was a possible, if not actual Whig ‘bible’. A systematic and exhaustive survey of Jacobite ideology would have to be pieced together from a number of divers sources, including songs, pamphlets and manifestos, all of which tend to exemplify the tripartite heterogeneity mentioned above. Some of these tenets were, in any case, regarded as self-evident and in need of little refinement since their classical

The role of science and technology in the development of society

This paper traces the interplay throughout history between science and technology on the one hand and social relations on the other. In view of changing conditions of life (historical conditions) the relationship between changing concepts of science and changing forms of society is shown. It becomes evident that the functionalistic character of knowledge in contemporary science has its counterpart in the contemporary functionalistic society. It is submitted that this kind of society bears the features of a technocracy which is as repressive as its counterpart: the ideological society. It is pointed out that the open society can be realized only on the basis of critical and self-critical consciousness, which sets man free from the science dogma on the one hand and the ideological dogma on the other.

Food versus Feed and the Dynamics of the World Food Situation: Discussion

I do not have major conceptual or methodological differences with any of the papers. What is intended here is to supplement Dr. Mellor's paper, since his analysis excluded the People's Republic of China (PRC), and to elaborate on Dr. Tang's paper. Basically, China's agricultural development faces the same problems the other developing countries have encountered, namely, a large population to feed, backward agricultural technology, large rural sector, and a poor natural endownment. In addition, China suffers from the consequences of thirty years of isolation and the aftereffects of past dogmatic ideology. Since 1976, China's current leadership has embarked on a pragmatic course of modernization of the economy. Therefore, the Chinese agricultural development should be looked at in two distinct periods: 1949-76 and 1977 to date. Some of the notable agricultural policies in force today include: (a) putting the order of economic priority as agriculture, light industry, and heavy industry, with emphasis also on energy and transportation sectors; (b) raising standards of living in rural and urban areas by raising personal income, by producing more consumer goods and less capital goods, and by subsidizing the gap between the recently raised procurement prices and the retail prices of agricultural products; (c) decentralizing more production and managerial decision making down to basic production units instead of relying on orders from the central government; (d) implementing, on a large scale, a material incentive production system rather than relying on ideology as in the past; (e) allowing the expansion of private sector by enlarging the size of private plots and opening rural free markets-as a result, the rural income derived from this activity has increased from 25% of total in 1979 to possibly as high as 40% currently; (f) being willing to import large amounts of farm goods, especially grains and cotton, in order to satisfy rising demand; (g) emphasizing science, technology, ecoomics, and management; and (h) strictly enforcing population control. Because of these policies much progress was made in agriculture between 1977 and 1980. Table 1 presents a rough comparison. In addition, population growth rate was reduced to about 1.1% in 1980. Per capita inome for a commune member from collective distribution, which had increased from 43 yuan in 1956 to 63 yuan in 1976, rise to 85 yuan in 1980, a similar increase in just four

Some Observations on Ideology and Sexuality in America

In the last several years the public debate on sexuality has increasingly indicated that strong ideological biases are operating in our sexual lives. In order to illustrate and scientifically analyze these biases, five substantive areas of public controversy are examined for evidence of our ideological tenets concerning human sexuality: (1) abortion, (2) genetic differences, (3) exploitation and pornography, (4) sexual normality, and (5) sexual history. Two broad ideologies are derived from this examination: Traditional-Romantic and Modemrn-Naturalistic, and several tenets of each type are ,formally stated. Both of these conflicting ideologies blind their adherents to the broader set of choices and perspectives that are available in the area of human sexuality. The ideology of science offers a way of understanding these conflicting ideologies. Thus, social science research into such ideologies must be encouraged, despite the potential clash with personal ideologies.

The Changing Face of Power: Revolution and Accommodation in the Development of the Soviet Ceremonial System: Part II

This study analyses the development and significance of Soviet official ceremonial events (calendar festivals, life-cycle ceremonies, pilgrimage and institutional ceremonial) in four phases, culminating in the present elaborate and integrated system of mass participation. These events and their symbols are interpreted as both an instrument and a reflection of social change: their 'overt' message is linked with the policies of the government in specific circumstances; their 'covert' message reveals changing power and status relationships and the inexorable, if uneven process of adaptation and accommodation of a revolutionary regime to national traditions and 'grass-roots' needs and realities. The attempt to secure the universal acceptance of a dogmatic ideology encouraged the development of such ceremonial, as with other fideistic movements which have won power. The first part of the article discusses central concepts and problems and traces the evolution of Soviet ceremonial to the death of Stalin. Problems; concepts; approaches The nascent Marxist movement of the I840's has been characterised by Hobsbawm (i 959: 169-73) as 'anti-ritualistic' and 'matter-of-fact', in contrast to earlier, 'primitive rebels' of the ritual brotherhood type. This 'wholly modern revolutionary organisation' seemed to achieve its logical culmination in Lenin's creation of an austere, disciplined and single-minded functional party which we have come to regard as typically 'Communist'. Yet in the world's first Marxist state, after sixty years an industrialised super-power, there flourishes a consciously encouraged system of 'ritualistic' ceremonial, comparable in forms and scale to that of the major religions, but based on an atheistic belief-system. Our essential problem is to explain how this seemingly paradoxical change came about. The fact that, despite its 'matter-of-fact' organisation, the Marxist (and especially Bolshevik) movement has always had a fideistic and metaphysically dogmatic character has been noted by many scholars (Fuilop-Miller 1927; Aron I955; Monnerot 1949; Parsons 1951: 526-33; Redlikh I955; Daniels I962: 3I5-6i). The idea of Bolshevism as a 'pseudo-religion' has become discredited through its association with unfashionable 'totalitarian' and 'functionalist' approaches; in any case the 'faith' element seemed less important after the disillusionment caused by the 'debunking' of Stalin in 1956 and I96I. But the symbolic behaviour which usually accompanies dogmatic faith and has always played an important part in Soviet public life has until recently

Experts and Representatives: Comparative Basis of Influence in Educational Policy-Making

AFUNDAMENTAL axiom of educational policy-making, as evidenced in the literature documenting the rationale for the formal structure of school district organization, rests upon a simple division of labor: the school board establishes policy and the superintendent administers policy.' Such a division of labor is certainly not unique to education, but rather is firmly grounded in the general ideology of the municipal reform movement and is reflected in the division of responsibility between city council and city manager, for example. In addition to the formal division of responsibilities, educational policy-making is constrained by a more general ideological tenet: education and politics are an incompatible mixture.2 Thus, educational government was separated from municipal government, school board members were elected on a nonpartisan, atlarge basis, and professionally trained experts were appointed to administer the school system.3 These structural changes were based upon a general acceptance on the part of school boards that most educational decisions were largely technical matters beyond the capacity of laymen, or their representatives to decide. Hence, politics (defined as either partisan activity, or a more general notion of bargaining negotiation, and compromise) was not an appropriate mechanism for educational policy-making and implementation. Practice is seldom as clear as theory, and educational policy is no exception. Administration is not often a politically neutral activity, even if performed in an ostensibly neutral fashion. Superintendents routinely set agendas for board meetings and routinely prepare and support a budget. Both activities are overtly political. The first, agenda setting, defines what is to be discussed. The second allocates scarce resources. There is virtually no dispute about the substantial influence of the superintendent in making educational policy, as is attested to by a growing body of research.4 Educational policy-making, if guided by the principle of the separation of administration from politics, involves in reality the continuous ex-

The Story-Shaped World: Fiction and Metaphysics—Some Variations on a Theme (review)

Shorter Reviews245 ethical absolutes which are traditionally the province of pastoral and romance; and the area of conflict between the private and the public sphere. The last chapter investigates some of the manifestations of historical-philosophical thought in historical drama, for instance the dramatists' fascination with power or with the historical process. All this makes stimulating reading and this reviewer, at least, is grateful that the book nowhere bogs down in ideological dogma, in jargon, in vast generalization, or in value judgments as to whether or not this or that dramatist is "really" interested in, true to, history. Mr. Lindenberger wishes to encourage in his reader an "exploratory attitude and the spirit of intellectual play" (p. xi) and admirably succeeds in doing just that. One might quarrel with some individual points of interpretation (repeatedly, I found myself wishing to modify interpretations of Brecht or of Weiss). But such disagreements add to the fun. The book should be useful in courses on drama and literary theory in all the modern languages and in philosophy and literature. One hopes it will stimulate further discussion of historical writingalongthe lines Mr. Lindenberger suggests. A detailed index increases the usefulness of the volume. University of California, Santa BarbaraUrsula Mahlendorf The Story-Shaped World: Fiction and Metaphysics—Some Variations on a Theme, by Brian Wicker; pp. viii & 230. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975, $12.95. Brian Wicker has prepared for his readers a concoction which suggests the laboratory of an encyclopedic autodidact who is also an eclectic amateur spokesman for Vatican II. But if readers are prepared in advance for much heavy going—ungraced by the comfort of a first rate literary style or even a Second Class philosophical sense of clarity and structure—they can still hope to find some reward in scattered passages of extremely interesting discussion. There are several intriguing suggestions about differences between the New Testament and many parts of the Old. The disquisitions on Beckett and Mailer may not excite many, but some of the extended comments on Lawrence, Joyce, Waugh and Robbe-Grillet are useful and graciously offered. This short book is about a great many things, too many things. Here are two explanations by Wicker himself of what he is trying to do: (A) "We have been saying for a long time now that literature is an indispensable witness in the courts of the philosopher and the theologian; and conversely that the literary critic can no longer afford to be a mere visitor in the territory of the speculative thinker. In this book I have tried to bear witness in two places at once, by discussing some common themes from both points of view. In Part 246Philosophy and Literature One I have tried to explore die philosophical and theological implications of two main ideas: the idea that metaphor, especially as understood by linguists, is endemic to all forms of communication since it is simply one of the two 'poles' of language itself; and the idea that metaphor is never an 'innocent' figure but always implies a subterranean metaphysics. In Part Two I try to show how the conclusions drawn from these provocative and sometimes unwelcome thoughts illumine the work of various modern writers of fiction" (p. vi). (B) "But it is to my purpose to draw attention to a remarkable parallel between the current literary debate about the vocabulary appropriate to fiction and a corresponding debate about the appropriate language for describing religious experience" (p. 4). The best way to free readers to hunt down what is valuable in The Story-Shaped World is for reviewers to warn them in advance of the irritations which must be overlooked. Wicker is likely to embarrass Roman Catholics, while infuriating other readers who respect his faith, by so crudely injecting into such inquiries the message woven between some of his lines and threaded across a few others: all roads can lead the enlightened to God, and most roads can lead the most enlightened to the Christianity of Greene and Waugh (or at least to that of T. S. Eliot). This is unfortunate because Wicker consequently flutters between wisdom and dogmatic absurdity when he righdy looks at language and literature...

Ideologies of dedicationvs.blueprints of expedience1

The motivating role of ideology seems central to the antagonists in a polarizing conflict. Apartheid is frequently associated with an elaborate ideology of puritan calvinist authoritarianism, aimed at legitimating white domination, at least in the perception of its beleaguered defenders. However, it may be argued that compared with the role of ideologies in other conflict situations and dictatorships, the defence of White privileges does not represent a fixed belief system or the self‐delusion of a false consciousness, which constitutes both the strength and weakness of white South Africa at the same time. By allowing for ideological cleavages and tactical splits among its ruling group instead of an encapsulating monolithic static ‘siege culture’, the South African system of pragmatic racial domination is rather flexible in accommodating pressure and adjusting to new situations outside dogmatic and rigid ideologies.