Inevitable Disagreement Research Articles

Debate for Civic Learning: A Model for Renewing Higher Education’s Civic Mission

Rapidly eroding financial support and tuition increases that outpace inflation threaten the viability of an education that considers civic engagement as foundational. Simultaneously, institutions of higher education are increasingly perceived by the public as market-driven entities existing for the economic benefit of the individual, the upward mobility of a social class, and in turn the further sedimentation of racial and class differences. Now, more than ever, our nation is in need of deliberate attempts to fashion common understandings, ways to navigate inevitable disagreements, and reasonable paths forward. Higher education is positioned to respond to these civic needs but requires a commitment to be bold and remain dedicated to our shared civic mission in the face of alarming polarization and vacated institutional trust. One way institutions of higher education can return to their shared sense of civic mission is with the integration of debate across the curriculum through innovative partnerships and collaborative design. Debate across the curriculum utilizes intentional course redesign to offer active learning experiences that combine public speaking, evidence-based reasoning, collaborative learning, and argumentation into various advocacy simulations. The debate for civic learning model has faculty partnered across multiple institutions to design, integrate, and assess debate-based pedagogy to positively impact student civic learning. Students and faculty across disciplines have reported that debate-based pedagogy helped improve classroom engagement, critical problem solving, perspective taking, empathy, and advocacy skills. This mixed-method research provides insights not only into debate-based course design and learning improvement strategies but also into how faculty, students, and administrators can partner between institutions to demonstrate a shared commitment to the civic mission of higher education and democratic promise of our nation.

Serial Participation in Urban Planning

Problem, research strategy, and findings The current focus on power relationships in planning processes emphasizes socioeconomic characteristics of the general public, whose participation is often portrayed as one-time, idiosyncratic, nonprofessional, and relatively powerless. To shift attention to the understudied repeated participation in the general public, we distinguish serial participation as a distinct participation pattern by focusing on an underexplored group, referred to as natural joiners or usual suspects. Our analysis focuses on Jerusalem and draws on interviews with serial participators (N = 13) who participated in at least three different planning processes and with city planners (N = 19). Becoming a serial participator emerged as an evolutionary process, during which knowledge gained triggered transitional learning, manifested by a broader perspective on planning and a transition toward locality-oriented participation. Serial participators’ influence varies; it can extend beyond specific planning outcomes to the process itself and the discourse among city planners. Although it does not mitigate imbalanced power relations within the public, serial participation contributes to more balanced power relations between ordinary citizens and paid participants in planning. Takeaway for practice Serial participators can provide planners with valuable historical perspective, local knowledge, and participation recommendations while serving as intermediaries to the local community capable of mobilizing others and activating civic networks. Planners can nurture serial participation by encouraging repeated involvement of individuals engaged in additional community spheres or passionate “anecdotal” participants. Seeking influence and not recognition, serial participators may not always fully cooperate. Planners should invest in long-term relationships that allow for reconciling inevitable disagreements.

Moscow-Cyprus Relations since the 1950s: A Schematic Introduction

Allowing for inevitable disagreements, stemming from political, ideological, psychological propensities and fixed ideas, it should be undeniable that, throughout the post-World War II era, Moscow had displayed friendship, solidarity and multidimensional support towards Cyprus and its overwhelming Greek Cypriot majority. Hence the recurrent expressions of “gratitude” by Cypriot political elites, opinion makers, and large sectors of civil society. Three primary sources of this “special relationship” stand out: first, Moscow, while serving its own geopolitical goals, simultaneously offered Cyprus protection against Anglo-American errors, sins and even crimes; second, in contrast to the West’s exclusively self-regarding strategies and tactics towards Cyprus, the Moscow-Cyprus bilateral bonding has overall been premised on a synthesis of mutual interests, shared norms and common values; and third, until very recently, Moscow extended to the Republic of Cyprus sustained understanding and support regarding Turkey’s threats and provocations. Except for the last dimension – addressed near the end of this essay - my major theses and supporting empirical evidence regarding the sui generis Russia-Cyprus relationship were first developed in my 2016 book, Russia-Cyprus Relations1.

Continuing the MODIS Dark Target Aerosol Time Series with VIIRS

For reflected sunlight observed from space at visible and near-infrared wavelengths, particles suspended in Earth’s atmosphere provide contrast with vegetation or dark water at the surface. This is the physical motivation for the Dark Target (DT) aerosol retrieval algorithm developed for the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS). To extend the data record of aerosol optical depth (AOD) beyond the expected 20-year lifespan of the MODIS sensors, DT must be adapted for other sensors. A version of the DT AOD retrieval for the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi-National Polar-Orbiting Partnership (SNPP) is now mature enough to be released as a standard data product, and includes some upgraded features from the MODIS version. Differences between MODIS Aqua and VIIRS SNPP lead to some inevitable disagreement between their respective AOD measurements, but the offset between the VIIRS SNPP and MODIS Aqua records is smaller than the offset between those of MODIS Aqua and MODIS Terra. The VIIRS SNPP retrieval shows good agreement with ground-based measurements. For most purposes, DT for VIIRS SNPP is consistent enough and in close enough agreement with MODIS to continue the record of satellite AOD. The reasons for the offset from MODIS Aqua, and its spatial and temporal variability, are investigated in this study.

Sex, truth and tolerance: some theological reflections on the Irish Civil Partnership Bill 2010 and challenges facing Christians in a post-Christendom culture

This paper uses the 2010 Irish Civil Partnership Bill as a lens by which to describe and explore different Christian approaches to public theology in general. Interacting especially with the work of John Stackhouse, it analyses the reasoning behind Evangelical Alliance Ireland’s (EAI) support of the Bill and concludes that it represents a Christian Realist position. Various other public responses to the Bill highlighted two other theological frameworks shaping alternative negative Christian responses to the Bill; what Stackhouse calls ‘cultural transformationalist’ and ‘holy distinctness’ views. It concludes that a credible public theology has to attempt to bridge a hermeneutical gap between the realm of personal ethics and the complex realities of a modern, democratic plural state and that this will seldom be easy or obvious. Inevitable disagreement poses challenges for Christians of how to engage with their ‘Other’ as well as with fellow Christians operating within different theological frameworks.

Determination of dyeing levelness using surface irregularity function

AbstractAn acceptably dyed fabric must be a match to the target and is visually even in appearance, that is, level. Although color difference measurement can objectively determine whether a match has been achieved, levelness is still determined subjectively, leading to inevitable disagreements between dyer and customer. The levelness of a series of dyed fabrics has been objectively evaluated using a surface irregularity function derived from analysis of digital images of the fabrics. The measurements derived correlate more closely to visual assessment than do K/S measurements. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 34, 285–290, 2009

Evolution, Human Enhancement, and the Narrative Self

Evolution, Human Enhancement, and the Narrative Self Neil Scheurich (bio) But philosophy has no direct influence on the great mass of mankind; it is of interest to only a small number even of the top layer of intellectuals and is scarcely intelligible to anyone else. On the other hand, religion is an immense power which has the strongest emotions of human beings at its service. Sigmund Freud1 In casual conversation a while back, a psychiatrist colleague of mine asked a question that set me to thinking about the relationships between science, the self, and the odd amalgam of the two that is psychiatry. “Why all this talk now of narrative?” he asked. “It’s a word that has long been with us, but it seems to mean much more now, to stand for something else that we can’t talk about any more.” His question suggested that something vital, while not absent from medicine and psychiatry, has retreated underground. The answer I came up with is that narrative is important because it is a device that economically and holistically captures crucial elements of human experience—self, identity, and notions of value, free will, and even spirituality—that seem increasingly questionable these days in the context of reductionist science on the one hand and social constructionist theories on the other. The term “narrative self” neatly captures that blend of biophysical reality and abstract representation that is human experience. With respect to literature, autobiography, and psychotherapy, the self and its values, reluctant to vanish altogether into the anatomy and physiology of the brain or into the fractured postmodern text, live on in the guise of narrative. The broad phenomenon of narrative—stemming naturally from linguistic consciousness—was the original self-enhancement “technology,” [End Page 1] but the accelerating growth of science and social theory has variably offered both empowerment and distortion. In what follows, my aim is twofold. First, I will explore the implications of evolutionary psychology for the self and the crucial role of narrative in enabling the self to manage its own ambiguous and multidimensional nature. Secondly, I will apply the considerations of evolution and the narrative self to ongoing debates over genetic, physical, and especially psychological enhancements of human beings. I Neurobiology and evolutionary psychology, as well as their common meeting ground, behavioral genetics, have clearly grown exponentially in explanatory power vis a vis human psychology and psychopathology. While much remains to be discovered, and disputes over some facts will always exist, scientists understand more than ever not only how motivation, emotion, and cognition work on a neurological level, but also why human beings are the way they are, based on our historical need to survive and reproduce in the context of natural selection. It is ever more apparent that a host of features crucial to personal identity— social proclivities, temperament, intelligence, and even religiosity—may be under significant genetic and evolutionary control.2 Moreover, evolutionary concepts increasingly find their way into mainstream psychology and even into the popular realm, and thus influence the ways people view themselves. For instance, in his blog for Psychology Today, The Scientific Fundamentalist, Satoshi Kanazawa applies evolutionary psychology to matters of everyday behavior related to sexuality, family relationships, and even social policy.3 Similarly, in a political context, Jonathan Haidt includes evolutionary perspectives in his account of the differing motivations of liberals and conservatives.4 Apart from inevitable disagreements over the facts, evolutionary psychology’s controversy stems mainly from concerns about reductionism, eugenics, and fears of complacency with regard to our moral imperfections. Evolutionary psychology theorists argue that such atrocious behaviors as sexual jealousy, rape, and even abuse of stepchildren can be at least indirectly explained by past evolutionary advantage. The concern is that blinkered scientists and a credulous public will assume that because certain behaviors came about in such transparently explicable fashion, they must be alright. To be sure, evolutionary psychology arguably tends toward a view of human nature that is potentially both [End Page 2] tragic and lenient: evil, in its various guises, is a predictable result of human beings subjected to unmodified natural selection, while human weakness in general seems more comprehensible when viewed in its animal aspects. As...

Too Good to be True

ConstitutionalGoods offers an ambitious constitutional theory that challenges basic liberal ideas such as the priority of basic liberties and the inevitable disagreement between competing conceptions of the right and the good. The book has two objectives: it attempts to widen, on the one hand, the list of constitutional goods that deserve priority over other interests. On the other, it tries to bring competing conceptions of the right and the good together under an overarching umbrella defined as the 'inclusive conception'. This article attempts to show that, despite the valuable and ambitious effort,Constitutional Goodsis unlikely to convince everyone of its capacity for inclusiveness.

Rising to the challenge: China's grand strategy and international security

China's increasing economic and military capabilities have attracted much attention in recent years. How should the world, especially the United States, respond to this emerging great power? A sensible response requires not only figuring out the speed and extent of China's rise, but also answering a question that has received much less attention: What is China's grand strategy? This book describes and explains the grand strategy China's leaders have adopted to pursue their country's interests in the international system of the 21st century. The author argues that their strategy is designed to foster favorable conditions for continuing China's modernization while also reducing the risk that others will decide a rising China is a threat that must be countered. Why did China's leaders settle on this grand strategy and what are its key elements? What alternatives were available? Is the current approach yielding the results China anticipated? What does this grand strategy imply for international peace and security in the coming years - and, most critically, what are the prospects for an increasingly prominent China and a dominant United States to rise to the challenge of managing their inevitable disagreements?

Textual Reasonings: Jewish Philosophy and Text Study at the End of the Twentieth Century (review)

Reviewed by: Textual Reasonings: Jewish Philosophy and Text Study at the End of the Twentieth Century S. Daniel Breslauer Textual Reasonings: Jewish Philosophy and Text Study at the End of the Twentieth Century, edited by Peter Ochs and Nancy Levene. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2002. 310 pp. $28.00. Textual Reasonings, an entry in the series Radical Traditions: Theology in a Postcritical Key, edited by Stanley M. Hauerwas and Peter Ochs, shows the unique potential and configuration of American Jewish postmodernism. The collection exemplifies the announcement made by Eugene B. Borowitz, whose distinguished career bridges both the modern and the postmodern, that contemporary Jewish thinkers not only carry on "communal discussions but [End Page 164] do so ourselves in community" (p. 157). Modern Jews often seemed to stand in glorious isolation; theorists spun out conceptions of an ethical monotheism or even a catholic Israel from their isolated studies. Postmoderns, on the other hand, recognize that they speak within a community, their thinking occurs not alone in some study but in conversation with others. The meaning of Jewish texts, of the vocabulary and concepts of Jewish religiousness, of the power of Jewish practices emerges out of what is done in public and as part of a communal existence. A more somber note emerges in Peter Ochs' epilogue. Ochs reflects on the fact that despite ourselves we who seek to bridge the academic and religious spheres find ourselves oppressing now one and now the other of these. We seem trapped in the violence of one or another decision. Ochs expresses the hopes that the community of textual reasoners has created a refuge from that violence (pp. 289–290). He may well be right; nevertheless every action entails its own violence. It may be that the best we can hope for is to create that community in which former violence is addressed even while present violence is acknowledged and confessed. The self-consciousness of the participants in this volume, the recognition of inevitable disagreement, the effort to provide some respite from violence provides a basis for hopefulness. The intention to create a community that overcomes past violence and looks toward a less violent present seems to animate the volume as a whole. The conversation occurring in the book embraces voices of all kinds, even those outside the specifically Judaic community. The penultimate section of the book, "Christian Reflections," testifies to the breadth and inclusiveness of this widened community of textual reasoners. George Linbeck, opening that section, notes how he developed from being a detached outsider to being an enthusiastic participant (p. 252). The Jewish textual reasoners here join with religious thinkers from other traditions to wrestle with the presence of the divine in texts, in life, and in communities of faith. The collection as a whole affirms and cultivates a pluralism among participants in what becomes an open conversation focused on discovering Jewish religiousness through encountering religious texts. How does one read a classic text? Michael Fishbane's interpretive sketch of the development of a text in Song of Songs Rabba suggests that reading itself is an erotic activity and engagement with the divine. In response Steven D. Fraade complicates the schema—study is both a drawing near and a distancing from the divine. A text, he also implies, must "practice what it preaches" and set up a type of erotic tease for the student seducing and being seduced by elusive meaning. That teasing interplay continues as Tikva Frymer-Kensky raises the tantalizing possibility that the Hebrew Bible includes within its corpus self-doubt. [End Page 165] The Bible, she argues, seeks to assure that it will never become an absolute authority. She clearly opens conversation about the Bible to several voices usually excluded. Was that, however, what the midrashic approach intended? Aryeh Cohen tries to put rabbinic exegesis into context and, reluctantly it seems to me, concludes that much as neo-traditionalists would like a more inclusive rabbinic heritage, the rabbis were exclusivist and authoritarian in their own right. These conversationalists agree on values but tease out from the texts and from each other a more productive tension. While Robert Gibbs and Peter Ochs engage in discovering the correlation between economic...

A Program for Educating Parents about the Effects of Divorce and Conflict on Children: An Initial Evaluation

The present study explored the impact and consumer satisfaction associated with participation in a parent education program that specifically focused on divorce and parental conflict. The kids in divorce and separation program (k.i.d.s.) is a four-hour parent-focused psychoeducational program. The impact and consumer satisfaction associated with participation in the program were examined by comparing a treatment group of parents who participated in the program with an alternative treatment control group of parents who participated in another educational program for parents concerning general parenting and discipline information/techniques. Results indicated that participation in the program has positive effects on parents' self-reported knowledge and behavior with regard to interparental conflict, including their self-reports of the conflict behavior of non-participating ex-- spouses. Moreover, participants also reported a high level of consumer satisfaction with the program. The implications of the results for the potential value of parent educational programs for divorced couples are discussed, and directions for future research are outlined. Key Words: divorce, divorce education, family prevention, marital conflict, parent education, psychoeducational programs. One in two marriages will end in divorce, and 40% of children born in this decade will experience their parents' divorce, according to recent NCHS statistics (National Center for Health Statistics, Petersen & Steinman, 1994). There is an abundant documentation of short- and long-term negative effects of divorce on children (Emery, 1988; Hodges, 1991), with the rate of clinically significant mental health problems as much as 300% higher in children from divorced families than in children from intact families (Hetherington, 1993; Johnston, 1994). Interparental conflict is linked with children's adjustment problems, whether in intact or divorced families (Grych & Fincham, 1990). Unfortunately, interparental conflict, typically one of the primary reasons for divorce, does not end with separation or even the final order of divorce (Camara & Resnick, 1988; Emery, 1982, 1988; Jouriles, Murphy, & O'Leary, 1989). Research is increasingly pointing to the role parental conflict plays in contributing to children's post-divorce adjustment (Amato & Keith, 1991; Camara & Resnick, 1989; Emery, 1982; Johnston, 1994; Kurdek & Berg, 1983; Long & Forehand, 1987; Long, Slater, Forehand, & Fauber, 1988). Interparental conflict may continue to impact the children negatively after divorce, and prevent parents from developing an effective co-parenting relationship. Hetherington, Cox, and Cox (1976) reported that 66% of parental interactions two months after divorce were characterized by conflict and anger. In a study conducted by Ahrons (1981), 50% of the divorced parents interviewed perceived their relationship to be conflictual, with 34% of women and 21 % of men perceiving their relationship as often or always conflictual. However, Long et al. (1988) found no differences between children from divorced and intact families when post-divorce parental conflict was reduced (Hodges, 1991). Thus, an emerging consensus is that the nature and extent of conflict preceding and continuing after separation/divorce is a primary factor related to children's coping with and adjustment to divorce (Amato & Keith, 1991; Camara & Resnick, 1988; Emery, 1982, 1988; Long et al., 1988). Despite the distressing nature of interparental conflict and the challenges of divorce for parents and children, one should be cautious not to over-emphasize the negative. Parents can find constructive ways for handling their inevitable disagreements and disputes following separation/divorce. At the least, constructive conflict management styles are far less distressing for children, and may have minimal, if any, lasting negative effects (Cummings & Davies, 1994; Cummings & Wilson, in press). …

What Is “Distributive” Justice?

Many people easily use “distributive” or even “social” justice to designate a more equitable sharing out of income and wealth.But it is my obstinate contention that the latter involves, in fact, three forms of justice: social, distributive and exchange, and that the concept of distributive justice is still best reserved for its old sense of sharing out community benefits and burdens to individual members (I). Next, in seeking to know its practical applications, as in the case of any form of justice, the usual questions arise of defining a basic concept, moving on to intermediate principles, and spelling out detail amid inevitable disagreements (II).The third section of the paper connects up my approach with current discussion of income distribution and inequalities in positive economics (III).

Northumberland: The Myth of the Wicked Duke and The Historical John Dudley

The name John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, evokes the image of the ambitious and selfish politician who was responsible for the death of Lady Jane Grey. The son of an executed traitor, and a traitor and apostate Protestant himself, Northumberland has been defamed by chroniclers and historians since his death in 1553. His reputation rests upon alleged character defects and a political career that putatively divided, weakened, and dishonored the country. Attributions of crime and misdeeds, regardless whether proved, have made him one of the most notorious villains of the early modern period.Notwithstanding the inevitable disagreement over the particulars of Northumberland's life and work, the consensus is that he was the worst of a group of grasping, unprincipled new men who gained favor with Henry VIII and acquired status and wealth through the plunder of the church. Northumberland served the king as a soldier, courtier, and diplomat, and appealed to Henry's baser instincts, seeking only to advance himself socially and financially. It was only after the accession of Edward VI in 1547, so the traditional interpretation would have us believe, that circumstances permitted Northumberland to betray his true character and motives, and the full extent of his perversity. First, he allegedly supported a coup d'état that overthrew the will of the deceased king and installed the Duke of Somerset as Protector. Later, he intrigued to destroy the Protector's brother, Thomas, Lord Seymour, and then to depose Somerset. Following the overthrow of the Protector in 1549, Northumberland, aided by a small faction, instituted a regime of social repression, entered into a dishonorable alliance with France, and instigated the trial and execution of Somerset on entirely spurious charges. Throughout the reign of Edward VI, he encouraged the more radical Protestant reformers although he is said to have lacked sincere religious convictions.