Moral Order Research Articles

A New Moral World Order: Carl Alexander Simon and the German Colonization of Southern Chile

Abstract This article focuses on overlooked aspects of German colonization in southern Chile by examining the treatise Auswanderung und deutsch-nationale Kolonisation von Süd-Amerika mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Freistaates Chile (Emigration and German National Colonization of South America with Special Attention to the Free State of Chile) by Carl Alexander Simon. Simon was a Romantic artist who advocated for overseas colonization and settled in Chile to promote his ideas. His treatise, which blended poetry and Romantic rhetoric with political ideas, aimed to encourage German occupation of Chile and South America based on the supposed physical and intellectual superiority of the Germans. This article argues that Simon’s work is integral to understanding the intersection of Romanticism and German colonialism in the nineteenth century and how racial and nationalistic sentiments fuelled German colonialism in remote corners of the world. Furthermore, it contributes to discussions on German nation-building overseas and the connections between German colonialism and race, the legacies of German colonialism, German colonial fantasies, and indigeneity and Germanness. Finally, this study of Simon’s work complements existing research on German settlements in Africa, Asia and the Pacific from 1850 onwards, highlighting the importance of considering the role of Germany in the global colonial project.

Комментарий очерка Сергея Слонимского «Скандалист поневоле: хроника хронического стресса – 1972-1991» из книги «Заметки на полях нотной тетради»

The article continues the publication and commentary of S. M. Slonimsky’s 2002 essay “An Unwilling Scandalmonger: A Chronicle of Chronic Stress – 1972-1991” from the book “Notes in the Margin of a Music Score”. Due to space limitations, the entire material of the essay is divided into three parts: the first article is dedicated to the post-war period of the author’s life until the beginning of the 1970s. The second (this) article explores events from the composer’s life and work in 1972-1991. The following, third article will cover the last decade of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, 1992-2002. The focal points of the author’s reflections in the second essay of the “chronicle of chronic stress – 1972-1991” are also themes of moral and ethical issues within the composer’s society. These themes are explored in a different light – in direct connection with S. M. Slonimsky’s life in chronological order. The essay covers the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. The writing of this commentary is driven by the intensifying crisis of moral values in contemporary society. The author concludes: one should “focus on only one painful moment, quite typical of my creative and life path. Perhaps scandalous storms are my cross, the fateful predetermination of my destiny. Perhaps it is a fatal necessity for an independent person walking their own path, not wanting to prudently submit to those in power, to what promises peace, recognition, success, prosperity, and happy success. That is how I am, and that is how I will remain until the end <…> In my work, my philosophical worldview, personal traits of my emotional temperament, and my attitude towards many people inhabiting Russia, Europe, Asia, our entire earth are absolutely obvious.” As a result of the study, Slonimsky’s unwavering commitment to the established moral and ethical order and his uncompromising stance against manifestations of evil, envy, and betrayal in the composers’ milieu and music teaching have been identified and confirmed.

Crimscapes. Kulturanthropologische Perspektiven auf Politiken der Kriminalisierung

At the end of the last century, criminalisation has become a globally accepted mode of governing social problems. Using two policy fields, sea rescue in the Mediterranean and combating hate speech on the internet, we propose a cultural anthropological perspective on the punitive turn and the politics of criminalisation. Using the concept of crimscapes, we describe the dynamic landscapes that unfold around criminal justice interventions, in which new figures of threat and vulnerability emerge, moral orders are restructured and new constellations of actors and practices are brought to the fore. By relating different policy fields, understood as local articulations of global dynamics of criminalisation, the concept also points to the ambivalences of this policy, which can also have an enabling and protective effect alongside exclusionary, stratifying and punitive effects. This underlines the need for critical cultural anthropological research that highlights the ambivalences and contradictions of criminalisation and contributes to an informed critique that is not based solely on normative evaluations, but can also draw attention to unintended effects and contradictions in political debates.

Moral orders of pleasing the algorithm

This article examines how ‘pleasing the algorithm’, or engaging with algorithms to gain rewards such as visibility for one’s content on digital platforms, is treated from a moral perspective. Drawing from Harré’s work on moral orders, our qualitative analysis of Reddit messages focused on social media content creation illustrates how so-called folk theories of algorithms are used for moral evaluations about the responsibilities and worthiness of different actors. Moral judgements of the actions of content creators encompass ideas of individuals and their agency in relation to algorithmic systems, and these ideas influence the assessment of algorithm-pleasing as an integral part of the craft, as condemnable behaviour, or as a necessary evil. In this way, the feedback loops that arrange people and code into algorithmic systems inevitably make theories about those systems also theories about humans and their behaviour and agency.

Catechesis and Christian Recitation: Teaching the Old Testament in a Digital Age

Old Testament catechesis is too varied and too dependent on the story of the Old Testament (as we remember it) to be spiritually formative. Especially given the way the current secularized, “modern moral order” (Taylor) pressures Christians toward neo-Marcionism, the Christian church ought to take more seriously the way the Old Testament has been shaped by the Holy Spirit and the way it encourages catechesis to be done, that is, through memorization and recitation of the very words of the Old Testament, recovering Old Testament as Miqra. Such a practice is not only more in keeping with the Spirit's work in forming the Old Testament, but reciters will be able (a) to appreciate better its non-narrative sections (incl. law and poetry), (b) to pay attention to self-correcting features in its most difficult and violent passages, and (c) to have their imaginations and metaphors reshaped by its poetry. Such catechesis by recitation is not antithetical to classic “question-and-answer” catechisms, and it is easily recovered by beginning with reciting in households and/or reciting the Ten Commandments (as in the catechism of the Book of Common Prayer). In the end, this ancient, religious reading of the Old Testament is not too antiquated but timely and needed, given the postliterate nature of our current digital culture.

服齋 奇遵의 정치 활동과 己卯八賢으로서의 위상

This paper is a study that examines the political activities and posthumous reinstatement process of Gijun, who was one of the Gimyosarim. Gijun was an elite bureaucrat who spent most of his government career in Hongmungwan. In the sinssibogwiso case, appeal requesting the reinstatement of the deposed Queen Sin, Gijun raised the argument for press protection together with Jo Gwang-jo, contributing to the gathering of Gimyosarim as a political force. Also, after taking power, he dreamed of the realization of Jichiui(至治) and taught King Jungjong as a Gyeongyeongwan. He was named as one of the eight key figures in the Gimyosahwa, and was exiled, and then killed for additional crimes. After his death, he was revered as one of the ‘Gimyo-palhyeon.’ The Ginmyosarim were elite bureaucrats who gathered together in pursuit of the realization of the Jichiui(至治) in the wake of the sinssibogwiso case. Even though Gijun and Ginmyosarim were deposed, they were revered as exemplary men in the noble society and used as assets for the realization of moral political order.

Compassion as appraisal, performative identity and moral affiliation

Abstract This article addresses the underexplored topic of compassion in digital activism through linguistic research. Utilising corpus linguistics and the SFL appraisal framework, the study initially analyses the lemma “compassion” and its appraisal nature within The Coronavirus Corpus. It then models compassion development as a social discursive process, taking Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS-Australia) campaigns as a case study, drawing on “communion” and “tendering” strategies, and positioning theory-based morality by linking structure to agency. The analysis provides evidence that the concept of “compassion” extends beyond triggered emotions, expressing institutionalised feelings. Compassion also develops through a moral affiliation process: aligning identities, positioning others within shared moral and sociocultural frameworks, and exhorting people towards purposeful social actions as commodities. This research underscores compassion’s normative (i.e. moral orders) core and performative essence.

Conservatism, the Far Right, and the Environment

Sociology operates with an impoverished understanding of conservatism and the natural environment. The discipline's focus on antiregulatory and antiscience dimensions of conservative politics can obscure a more comprehensive, historically deep, and theoretically rich understanding of conservatism's connection to nature. We review and integrate sociological research with a large multidisciplinary global literature on conservative and far right environmental thought. Our analysis shows an intellectual tradition built around three commitments concerning the moral order of nature and society: naturalism, organicism, and pastoralism. Rather than being antiscientific, these traditions have drawn heavily on natural science for their authority. After tracing their history, we consider several contemporary manifestations, sometimes in ways that are counterintuitive to sociology's dominant understanding of conservatism. Conservative thought, including its far right edges, maintains a firm hold on global politics while climate change transforms the planet. To better understand these dynamics, sociology must continue to integrate work from other socioenvironmental fields. This review begins to correct this neglect and charts a path for future research at this increasingly impactful intersection.

Reading the Nicomachean Ethics with Goffman

ABSTRACT Inspired by Aristotle and Goffman this article considers how the study of virtue acquisition may be pursued through an observational theorising about social interactions in institutions. Adapting Goffman’s and Harré’s notions of moral order and moral career, it proposes character education to be a dialogic process requiring negotiation between social actors over time. Taking part in educational institutions, learners learn to perform various roles in a manner by which virtues are to be attributed. But this is not all. Goffman’s and perhaps Aristotle’s accounts are arguably too ‘thin’ to allow for moral change, unless these processes themselves are mastered by learners and may be transcended by them. It is thus by applying the sociological imagination to the institutions we are in, the criticality necessary for true character is developed. The role of sociology in character education is therefore twofold: to inform educators in the creation of institutions and practices that transmit and manifest virtues; and, as an essential part of a virtue-ethics curriculum—giving moral agents the sensitising concepts necessary to understand, negotiate and mould the social frame.

From Colonial Order to Decolonial Future: Colonial Mimesis and Identity among the Papua Besena Movement

ABSTRACTDuring the 1970s and 1980s, a nationalist movement called Papua Besena emerged in Papua New Guinea. On the one hand, the group believed that the Papuan people were neglected by Australian colonisation and campaigned for Papuan sovereignty, either by creating an independent state or joining Australia as a state. On the other hand, as some scholars and politicians have pointed out, Papua Besena's rhetoric of colonial neglect failed to appreciate that Papuan people received more investment in colonial economic development, training, and infrastructure than most Papua New Guineans due to their proximity to the colonial centre. The Australian colonisation of the territories also changed due to pressure from the United Nations visiting mission. Yet despite the Papuan people's access to development, they still felt neglected and humiliated being so close to the colonial centre. To answer this paradox, the concept of mimesis, particularly the idea of colonial mimicry and mimesis as a source of identity, might shed new light on the political history and consciousness of Papuans. This paper suggests that Papuans' access to space, training, and positions was restricted in and around Port Moresby. Many Papuans took up the colonial moral order and mimicked the colonial perspective visible in the capital, projecting it into their decolonial future and their relationships with New Guineans and Australia. In other words, the Papuans' proximity to the colonial space and process contributed to their experiences of neglect and their identity simultaneously.

Struggle Over Rights and Duties at Work: Storylines and Discursive Self-Other Positioning in Workplace Bullying Stories

This study examines the phases and dynamics of workplace bullying (WB) as a social positioning phenomenon within moral orders. Applying the positioning theory (PT) and the relational model of WB, the study analyses 136 written online stories of WB, utilizing narrative analysis of positioning in self-other relationships. The findings, limited to the perspective of the bullied (targets), identify four distinct storylines of WB that involve different forms of positioning: (1) the loss of health and ability to work, (2) passive acceptance of bullying, (3) unresolved conflict, and (4) active opponent in bullying. These findings shed light on the development and variations in WB storylines regarding the target, perpetrator, and work community, with a focus on the organizational and interpersonal power dynamics associated with WB. Furthermore, each WB storyline emphasizes the diverse strategies employed in response to WB and the various paths WB can follow over time.

Unreproductive citizenship: Social sterilisation of queer and trans people in Poland

This paper offers the term unreproductive citizenship to characterise the social positionality of LGBTQ people in Poland. Unreproductive citizenship is brought about by means of social sterilisation: while queer and trans people are ‘tolerated,’ they are not treated as reproductive subjects with a potential to participate in social reproduction. Drawing on Polish and international literature on queer families, reproductive politics, and forced sterilisation, as well as research including interviews, political speeches and auto-ethnography, I argue that the discursive and political framing of LGBTQ people as unreproductive subjects is eugenic. Leading political figures representing Poland's robust political right-wing, as well as the majority of Poles, have expressed fears that LGBTQ reproduction could somehow ‘contaminate’ future generations and therefore poses a threat to the nation's moral order. The social sterilisation of queer Polish people as ‘unreproductive citizens’ illustrates how the logics of reproductive righteousness operate in contemporary Poland.

Religious Dimensions of Confucius’ Teachings on Ren and Li in the Analects

This essay examines whether Confucius aligns more with humanism or religious thought, asserting that his philosophy defies simple classification. It highlights his use of religious motifs, especially the concept of li 禮, which he broadened beyond mere rituals to include societal behaviors, infusing them with a sacred essence. Additionally, this essay delves into Confucius’s notion of de 德, perceived as having an almost magical influence without coercion, closely tied to his ideas on li and governance. This reflects a belief in a universal moral order, challenging the view of Confucius as purely a humanist. The text also explores his nuanced understanding of tian 天, a central yet complex aspect of his philosophy, suggesting a spiritual dimension. Ultimately, this essay advocates for recognizing Confucius not only as a moral guide but as a thinker embodying significant religious or spiritual insights.

Impoliteness in Twitter Discourse: a Case Study of Replies to Donald Trump and Greta Thunberg

Twitter (X) is a popular social media platform that allows users to express their opinions and interact on various topics, including politics. However, Twitter can provide a space for impolite and aggressive language use, especially when the issues are controversial or polarizing. This study analyzes the replies to two controversial and similar tweets, namely Donald Trump’s tweet to Greta Thunberg and Greta Thunberg’s tweet to Donald Trump. Ninety-seven tweets that impolitely took issue with the original tweets were collected and coded for their moral order themes and pragmatic functions. Culpeper’s (2011) impoliteness framework was consulted as a threshold to include or exclude reply tweets in the data analysis. The results show that the replies invoked moral order expectations in three overarching categories in the responses to both parties: age-appropriate behavior, respect and manners, and concern for the common good. As far as the pragmatic functions were concerned, criticism of personal characteristics, criticism of supporters, criticism of relatives (to Trump only), praise of the opposing party, directing, mockery, and ideology denial (to Thunberg only) were performed. The study discusses how users took offense through language in a highly polarized political context.

Investigating the Relationship between Religion and Morality: Insight from Hume

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relation between religion and morality. David Hume, an influential figure in the Scottish Enlightenment, provides insightful contributions to this discourse through his philosophical works. This article explores Hume's nuanced views on the relationship between religion and morality, drawing from his key texts such as "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" and "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals." Hume challenges the traditional notion that religion is a necessary foundation for morality. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he argues that moral principles do not derive from religious doctrine or divine commandments but instead from human sentiment and reason. Hume contends that moral judgments are based on a natural sense of empathy and utility rather than religious authority. Furthermore, Hume critiques the idea that religion is essential for maintaining moral order within society. He suggests that religious beliefs and institutions may, in fact, be detrimental to morality by promoting superstition, intolerance, and dogmatism. Hume advocates for a secular approach to morality, where ethical principles are grounded in rational reflection and social cooperation rather than religious doctrine. While Hume challenges the traditional link between the two, he acknowledges the historical influence of religion on moral development and societal norms. Hume recognizes the social utility of religion in fostering moral virtues and promoting social cohesion, albeit without attributing morality exclusively to religious sources.

From Body of Order to Body of Disorder: Beatrice’s Ecstatic Metamorphosis in Matilde Serao’s Cuore infermo (1881)

ABSTRACT Matilde Serao publicly supported a behavioural model for women rooted in soberness and restraint. However, some of her fictional heroines led her to places governed by a law of disorder at odds with the moral and social order she officially asserted. This is the case with her first novel, Cuore infermo (1881), where the protagonist Beatrice passes from being a model of restrained order to one of liberating disorder, driven by impulses and desires, culminating in the ecstasies she enjoys with her husband. Resorting to a conceptual apparatus grounded in the notions of ecstasy, repression, pleasure principle, and death drive, and showing how Serao engages with these notions, partly anticipating some of Freud’s findings, the article explores Beatrice’s ecstatic metamorphosis, arguing that Serao provides a depiction of moral, social, and sexual transgression that calls into question women’s established roles in society, unveiling a will to disrupt existence at its core.

To err is human but to persist is diabolical: Toward a theory of interactional policing.

Social interaction is organized around norms and preferences that guide our construction of actions and our interpretation of those of others, creating a reflexive moral order. Sociological theory suggests two possibilities for the type of moral order that underlies the policing of interactional norm and preference violations: a morality that focuses on the nature of violations themselves and a morality that focuses on the positioning of actors as they maintain their conduct's comprehensibility, even when they depart from norms and preferences. We find that actors are more likely to reproach interactional violations for which an account is not provided by the transgressor, and that actors weakly reproach or let pass first offenses while more strongly policing violators who persist in bad behavior. Based on these findings, we outline a theory of interactional policing that rests not on the nature of the violation but rather on actors' moral positioning.

Mobile phones and moral order: Children’s appropriation of and accounting for digital media rules in schools

This study explores children’s appropriation of media rules in a group of boys (10 years) in Sweden. The analysis is based on focus-group interviews where rules regulating children’s use of mobile phones in school was discussed. Drawing on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, the focus is on how rules are made sense of and appropriated, and how this contributes to establishing, negotiating, and sustaining a moral order for digital media use. The findings show that the children justify rules by discussing them in relation to their school context, through criticism of the enforcement of rules, and through navigating different rule systems.

Humour scandals in the Finnish political public sphere in 1990–2020

Humour is a part of contemporary mediated political struggles. At times, humour itself becomes politicised, turning into public controversies or humour scandals. This study explores how humour scandals have become intertwined with the Finnish political public sphere during the last three decades. Quantitative mapping, based on journalistic articles retrieved from two nationwide media, reveals that between 1990 and 2020, 26 national humour scandals in Finland were reported in the national public sphere for at least five days. The number of scandals increased exponentially, from just two such scandals in the 1990s to 15 in the 2010s. Our qualitative analysis of three humour scandals from different decades demonstrates how humour controversies relate to the changes in political and media environments and moral order. While in the 1990s and early 2000s humour scandals often dealt with clashes between popular TV satires and leading politicians, from the 2010s onwards the topics of humour scandals diversified, including issues related to political campaigning, artistic performances, and racism.

Comparative Study on the Stratification of Education between Urban and Rural Areas in China

Comparative Study on the Stratification of Education between Urban and Rural Areas in China