Pessimistic View Research Articles

Biblical versus Greek Narratives for Suicide Prevention and Life Promotion: Releasing Hope from Pandora’s Urn

Although suicide has been unfortunately stigmatized unfairly through the ages, we should not make the mistake of going to the opposite extreme and valorizing it. We should not forget that the major role of health care professionals is to prevent suicide when possible and to invigorate the underlying life force in the person. Suicide is often the ultimate outcome of a tragic and pessimistic view of life. It was prevalent in ancient Greek writing. Indeed, over 16 suicides and self-mutilations can be found in the 26 surviving tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides. In contrast, only six suicides can be found in the Hebrew Scriptures, and only one suicide in the Christian Scriptures. In addition, the Hebrew Scriptures present numerous suicide-prevention narratives that effectively provide a psychological instruction for people in despair which seems unavailable to figures in the writings of the great Greek tragedians. Unfortunately, some religious traditions tended to go to the opposite extreme in stigmatizing suicide rather than understanding it and trying to prevent it. This paper examines evidence regarding seven evidence-based risk factors for suicide: (1) Feeling depressed and isolated; (2) Feeling one’s life is without purpose; (3) Being a refugee from one’s homeland; (4) Feeling unable to express oneself with others; (5) Being adopted; (6) Feeling abandoned by one’s child leaving the family nest; and (7) Feeling doomed by a dysfunctional (indeed incestuous) family of origin We contrast biblical and Greek narratives regarding each of these factors, respectively: (1) Elijah against Ajax, (2) Job against Zeno, (3) David against Coriolanus, (4) Jonah against Narcissus, (5) Moses against Oedipus, (6) Rebecca against Phaedra, and finally, (7) Ruth against Antigone. These biblical figures thrive across risk factors while their Greek and Roman counterparts kill or mutilate themselves or provoke others to do the job. All these contrasts should demonstrate to psychotherapists, counselors, and clergy alike as to how Greek narratives lead to self-destructive behaviors while biblical narratives provide a hopeful positive psychology, and a constructive way out these dilemmas. My colleagues (Paul Cantz, Matthew Schwartz, and Moriah Markus-Kaplan) and I call for a biblical psychotherapy for positive psychology, suicide prevention, and indeed life promotion. Where hope is locked up in Pandora’s urn after she has released all the evils unto the world, the biblical God places hope into the sky as a bow after Noah and his family and all the creatures on the ark disembark to land after the receding of the flood.

Biodiversity citizen science: Outcomes for the participating citizens

AbstractCitizen science (CS) is regarded as a promising format in environmental and sustainability education as well as in science education. CS projects often assume that participation in the project influences, for example, participants' knowledge or behaviour.We investigated whether and to what extent biodiversity citizen science (BDCS) projects, from the participants' self‐reported perspective, achieve the following six participant outcomes: (a) content, process and nature of science knowledge, (b) skills of science inquiry, (c) self‐efficacy for science and the environment, (d) interest in science and the environment, (e) motivation for science and the environment and (f) behaviour towards the environment.For this purpose, we conducted an online survey of 1,160 CS participants across 63 BDCS projects in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Our survey was aimed at adults participating in CS voluntarily.Survey respondents reported positive changes in all six categories. The most notable result across projects was that self‐reported increases in knowledge, self‐efficacy, interest and motivation were found to be more pronounced when regarding the environment rather than science. Perceived gains in data collection skills were reported to be higher than gains in skills not directly connected to data collection. Reported behaviour changes primarily concerned communication activities, to a lesser degree also gardening activities, and finally more general environmental behaviour.In addition to these six participant outcomes, respondents mentioned a variety of other positive and negative outcomes, for example, health and well‐being, enjoyment, a sense of satisfaction, an increased connection to people and nature but also a more pessimistic view regarding the future of the environment.We conclude that BDCS projects could have a high potential for environmental and sustainability education as well as science education. Further research should investigate individual participant outcomes in more depth and should focus on the factors that influence these participant outcomes. Moreover, exploring the perspectives of both project participants and project coordinators would be valuable. In this way, it would be possible to improve the development and design of CS projects. As a result, BDCS projects could more effectively achieve outcomes for the participants, for science and for biodiversity.A freePlain Language Summarycan be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Editorial

There is a saying, ‘do not paint the devil on the wall’, which is commonly taken to mean that one should, for all intents and purposes, avoid portraying something in an overly negative or exaggerated way. The German origin of the proverb is even more interesting. It says: ‘One should not paint the devil on the wall, since he will enter the room anyway’[1]. Rather than referring to a moral virtue (don’t be overly pessimistic, don’t exaggerate), the original proverb is, in itself, a pessimistic view on the world. In short, you don’t need to evoke the devil, since he is already here. Or, perhaps, you don’t need to exaggerate, since the world is already exaggerated. This special issue started out as an attempt to pursue this idea: If the world is exaggerated, wouldn’t this require us to use exaggerated examples to describe it? ... [1] Man braucht den Teufel nicht an die Wand zu malen, er kommt auch ohne das herein

Barriers to the Large-Scale Adoption of a COVID-19 Contact Tracing App in Germany: Survey Study.

BackgroundDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, one way to reduce further transmissions of SARS-CoV-2 is the widespread use of contact tracing apps. Such apps keep track of proximity contacts and warn contacts of persons who tested positive for an infection.ObjectiveIn this study, we analyzed potential barriers to the large-scale adoption of the official contact tracing app that was introduced in Germany on June 16, 2020.MethodsSurvey data were collected from 3276 adults during the week the app was introduced using an offline-recruited, probability-based online panel of the general adult population in Germany.ResultsWe estimate that 81% of the population aged 18 to 77 years possess the devices and ability to install the official app and that 35% are also willing to install and use it. Potential spreaders show high access to devices required to install the app (92%) and high ability to install the app (91%) but low willingness (31%) to correctly adopt the app, whereas for vulnerable groups, the main barrier is access (62%).ConclusionsThe findings suggest a pessimistic view on the effectiveness of app-based contact tracing to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. We recommend targeting information campaigns at groups with a high potential to spread the virus but who are unwilling to install and correctly use the app, in particular men and those aged between 30 and 59 years. In addition, vulnerable groups, in particular older individuals and those in lower-income households, may be provided with equipment and support to overcome their barriers to app adoption.

Entropy Analysis of a Dataset using Machine Learning Approach

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning's component to recognise communication between machines and individual (real) languages is a natural language processing. Natural Language Processing is the identification of emotion mostly used to interpret terms to provide strong, slightly bad emotions due to people's reading patterns. Shannon's entropy helps me know whether or not people more like Zomato is a ranking program for restaurants. The assessment involves a restaurant review that can be used for entropy assessment. On this basis, the authors want to respond to the expected view of the analysis. The method used to pre-process the research is to minimise all terms, monitor access, remove quantities, sentence structure, stop words and compile. The latent semantic document frequency (TF-IDF) is then constructed from word to vector. The data we are gathering is 1,50,000 reviews. Great responses are rated 3 and above, poor comments are rated 3 and below, glowing reviews are rated 3 and above. The author uses split Evaluation, 80% full and 20% Data Screening. Accuracy, recall and precision is the criteria used to evaluate random forest classifiers. The reliability of this analysis is 92 percent. 92 %, 93 %, 96 % is the consistency of each selection's thoughts and feelings. 99%, 89%, 73% are a reminder of positive, pessimistic and constructive views. 93 % and 87 % are the average accuracy and recall. "Poor", "great", "fair", "better", "location", "care", "request", "food", "seek" and "pleasant" are the 10 terms that influence the results.

Is competition a cure for confusion? Evidence from the residential mortgage market

AbstractUsing the National Survey of Mortgage Originations, we document that borrowers who are more financially sophisticated (measured by their self‐reported understanding of the mortgage process) and more exposed to competition (measured by the number of lenders they considered) pay lower mortgage rate spreads. Yet, competition is not a substitute for sophistication: the benefits of competition accrue to sophisticates as well as to naïfs. Our results complement those from the literature detailing the limits of advice and education, and collectively they paint a pessimistic view about the prospects for simple interventions to close the mortgage rate gap between the informed and the naive.

Quem pode comer na mesa do capitão? Intertextualidade e alteridade nas obras de Katherine Anne Porter e Ana Margarida de Carvalho

Este artigo pretende analisar as relações intertextuais e a alteridade nos romances The Ship of Fools (1962) da escritora americana Katherine Anne Porter e Não se Pode Morar nos Olhos de um Gato (2016) da autora portuguesa Ana Margarida de Carvalho. Partindo de uma abordagem comparatista, com o intuito de analisar semelhanças no seio das diferenças, recorrendo aos contributos teóricos de Tiphaine Samoyault, Ingedore Koch, Paul Voestermans, entre outros, discutiremos o modo como a intertextualidade se assume como porta de entrada na alteridade – elemento fulcral nos dois romances. Com efeito, em ambas as obras, num ambiente de confinamento claustrofóbico, os olhares hostis de desconfiança lançados ao “outro” revelam preconceitos conducentes à injustiça e à discriminação social. Em ambos os casos, “a mesa do capitão” simboliza um estatuto privilegiado, acessível apenas a uma elite minoritária. Por fim, abordaremos a forma como a alteridade confere sentido às inter-relações estabelecidas nas duas obras, sublinhando uma visão pessimista da natureza humana, de inegável atualidade, que nos faz refletir no modo como em pleno século XXI, numa sociedade globalizada, percebemos e (con)vivemos com o “outro”.

Precursor-Based Earthquake Prediction Research: Proposal for a Paradigm-Shifting Strategy

The article discusses the controversial topic of the precursor-based earthquake prediction, based on a personal perspective intending to stir the current still waters of the issue after twenty years have passed since the influential debate on earthquake prediction hosted by Nature in 1999. The article challenges the currently dominant pessimistic view on precursor-based earthquake prediction resting on the “impossible in principle” paradigm. Instead, it suggests that a concept-based innovative research strategy is the key to obtain significant results, i.e., a possible paradigm shift, in this domain. The basic concept underlying such a possible strategy is the “precursory fingerprint” of individual seismic structures derived from the uniqueness of the structures themselves. The aim is to find as many unique fingerprints as possible for different seismic structures worldwide, covering all earthquake typologies. To achieve this, a multiparameter approach involving all possible sensor types (physical, chemical, and biological) of the highest available sensitivity and artificial intelligence could be used. The findings would then be extrapolated to other similar structures. One key issue is the emplacement location of the sensor array in privileged “sensitive” Earth surface sites (such as volcanic conduits) where the signal-to-noise ratio is maximized, as suggested in the article. The strategy envisages three stages: experimental phase, validation, and implementation. It inherently could be a costly, multidisciplinary, international, and long-term (i.e., multidecade) endeavor with no guaranteed success, but less adventurous and societally more significant to the currently running and well-funded SETI Project.

Food to politics: Representations of genetically modified organisms in cartoons on the Internet in China.

Controversies around genetically modified (GM) food have become particularly prevalent in China. To understand the situation, 257 GM cartoons were collected from various Chinese online sources. We found that China's GM cartoons peaked during controversial social events from the end of 2012 to 2016, which is consistent with the Baidu Media Index on GM headline news. About 85% of the cartoons involve GM food and more than half of cartoons share scary information. The mainstream media is more neutral and not only presents the dilemma in choice but also promotes genetically modified organisms (GMOs). However, social media inclines toward a more pessimistic view, providing scary information and focusing on health risks and conspiracy theories. Controversial topics have fueled the spread of political conspiracy theories. Generally, scientists supporting GMOs have been criticized under suspicion of betraying their country, and the issue of GM food in China reflects strong political views.

Priming Prosocial Behavior and Expectations in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic - Evidence from An Online Experiment

This paper studies whether and how differently projected information about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic affects individuals’ prosocial behavior and expectations on future outcomes. We conducted an online experiment with British participants (N=961) when the UK introduced its first lockdown and the outbreak was on its growing stage. Participants were primed with either the environmental or economic consequences (i.e., negative primes), or the environmental or economic benefits (i.e., positive primes) of the pandemic, or with neutral information. We measured priming effects on an incentivized take-and-give dictator game and on participants’ expectations about future environmental quality and economic growth. Our results show that primes affect participants’ expectations, but not their prosociality. In particular, participants primed with environmental consequences hold a more pessimistic view on future environmental quality, while those primed with economic benefits are more optimistic about future economic growth. Instead, the positive environmental prime and the negative economic prime do not influence expectations. Our results offer insights into how information affects behavior and expectations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

De-Mythologizing Magnuson-Moss: Reviving Section 18 Rulemaking at the FTC

America faces twin crises of metastasizing corporate power and foundering government capacity to respond. Cries for economic justice grow louder as corporate consolidation has reached record levels and “informational capitalism” has systematically shifted power from individuals to large, data-rich firms. Americans are left vulnerable to “dark patterns” that extract customers’ wealth, to gig work companies that siphon customer tips away from workers, and to algorithmic decisionmaking that exhibits racial and gender bias. Yet, many rightfully doubt that America’s elected branches of government remain functional enough to handle these emerging challenges, and the Supreme Court continues to impede efforts that Congress and the President do undertake. The Federal Trade Commission is well-positioned to step into this breach. Section 18 of the FTC Act grants the agency the authority to issue new consumer protection rules to police against unfair or deceptive business tactics, backed by tough penalties and consumer redress. Yet, this power has sat virtually dormant for the past thirty-seven years after a “Reagan Revolution” at the agency decisively ended its rulemaking activity. For the first time in decades, a majority of FTC Commissioners supports using this tool, but long-unchallenged received wisdom stands in the way. This common narrative holds that Congress saddled the agency with almost impossibly onerous “Magnuson-Moss” procedural requirements for rulemaking in reaction to overbroad and politically unpopular FTC regulation. This paper argues that the conventional story is mistaken. A review of the history, statutory text, and judicial constructions of section 18 show that this pessimistic view confuses a historical decline in rulemaking—which was driven by non-statutory factors including an ascendant corporate lobby, changing congressional pressures, and a deregulatory ideological moment—with supposed flaws in section 18. Puncturing the mythology that has grown up around the Magnuson-Moss Act provides a more clear-eyed view of the FTC’s authorities. Doing so makes apparent that the Commission can—and should—pick back up its powerful tool of consumer protection rulemaking. Future rules can rein in marketplace misconduct such as deceptive online “drip pricing,” unfair privacy abuses, and much more. Reinvigorating the FTC’s regulatory program can restore the agency as a champion of American consumers and a cornerstone of an administrative state that is able to counterbalance dominant corporations and establish a more just economy.

Vascular surgery in the most populous state in the Amazon: socio-professional profile and aspirations of the specialty.

BackgroundThere is a dearth of studies conducted to understand the socio-professional profile of the vascular surgery specialty and the population demands of specific regions, which are needed to support creation of care policies and direct infrastructure improvements in healthcare.ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to describe the socio-professional profile of vascular surgeons in the state of Pará, Brazil, to guide creation of tools for professional improvement.MethodsA cross-sectional, self-report survey was conducted in Pará using a questionnaire comprising 30 questions covering six main topics.ResultsAll vascular surgeons actively practicing in the state participated in this study. The total number of specialists was 59, with 71.2% working in the greater Belém area and 16.9% exclusively practicing in the interior of the state. The mean age of these professionals was 48 ± 11.1 years, 86.4% of respondents were men, 64.4% of surgeons had completed medical residency, and 96.6% (n=57) of the surgeons would like to improve their skills in venous surgery, echo-guided vascular access, and endovascular surgery. The method of professional improvement of greatest interest was simulation courses (hands-on), endorsed by 93% of the participants.ConclusionsPará has 59 vascular surgeons. These professionals mainly work in the greater Belém (71.2%), in hospitals (100%) or in private clinics or offices (94.9%), performing a wide range of procedures, including venous and arterial surgery, amputations, and provision of hemodialysis access. More than 90% of these surgeons were satisfied professionally and reported that they would choose the specialty again. However, 22% had a pessimistic view of the specialty’s future. The vast majority of professionals (96.6%) consider that training or a continuing education program are necessary.

Impacts of Population Pressure on Agricultural Production and Farming Practices of Households: The Case of Essera Woreda in Dawro Zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia

Agricultureasaprimaryeconomicactivityisthemajoreconomicbaseoftheworld’spopulation. Agriculture as a primary economic activity is the major economic base of the world’s population. More than 60 percent of the world population depends on agriculture for their livelihood. This study was conducted in Dawuro Zone Essera district achieve the general objective that assessed the impacts of population growth on agricultural production and farming practices. Essera district is 102,848, of whom 51.35% are male and 48.64% are female. This district falls into three agro-ecological regions, of which, kolla within (500-1500masl), weina-dega within (1501-2500 masl) and Dega above (> 2500 masl). To conduct this study, the cross-sectional survey design with the application of both qualitative and quantitative approaches were employed. The study involved a multistage sampling, i.e. a combination of purposive, stratified, and simple random sampling procedures to select the study area and sample households. To draw the samples, the households in the study area, Stratified random sampling technique was applied to collect information from respondents. Study area districts stratified into 3 stratums based on agro ecological zone, after this stratification in agro-ecological zone, kebeles that study has been undergone, selected purposively. That is kola whose elevation ranges from 1000m-1500m above sea level, woynadega whose elevation ranges from 1500m-2000m above sea level, and dega whose elevation ranges from 2000-3000m above sea level. Data that was made available through different instruments was analyzed using quantitative and qualitative techniques. Different tables, maps and figures were also used to illustrate the various aspects of the study. In the light of the theories considered and the finding of the study indicated, both the population pessimistic views of Malthusians and neo Malthusians and the optimistic views of Boserupian could not separately provides the complete explanations regarding the population and agricultural production relationship of this study. It was observed that, increase in population growth of the area associated with an increase in usage of modern inputs which increase in total crop outputs in general and yields for some crop types such as cereals in particular. Moreover, labor intensive land investment practices including tree planting; terracing, manuring croplands were increasingly under taking by peasants as result of rapid change in population size of the area. Farmers have to be advised to plant tree at area far away from land serving agricultural activities.

Neuropsychiatric outcome in attempted hanging: A case report.

Factors involved in causation of death by hanging include carotid and vertebral artery occlusion, jugular venous compression, tracheal obstruction, stimulation of carotid sinuses, and the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems.[1] Survivors of attempted hanging may manifest a range of neuropsychiatric sequelae. We report a young male who survived a suicidal attempt by hanging but had prominent neuropsychiatric sequelae. A 29-year-old male survivor of suicidal hanging was brought to the psychiatric outpatient unit with complaints of forgetfulness, persistent and pervasive low mood, decreased social interaction, reduced interest in work as well as his daily routine, and disturbed appetite. He did not remember the hanging incident and also the past year. About 4 years back, following a breakup with his girlfriend, he developed low mood, reduced interest in work as well as his daily routine, anhedonia, getting tired easily, disturbed sleep, pessimistic views of future, and ideas of hopelessness and worthlessness, and attempted suicide by drinking poison. Luckily, his mother found him in the act and stopped him. His family members got him married in the next three months, thinking that it would help him, but his condition worsened. He began consuming alcohol at the age of 20 year, but has been consuming daily for the past 3 years. One day, he came back home drunk, and after a minimal provocation by his mother, he went into his room and locked the door. Sensing it to be unusual, they went to the window and found him hanging by a ligature tied to the ceiling fan. The family members brought him down. He had turned blue and was gasping at the time of rescue and was admitted to a nearby hospital. He remained in coma for 72 h. There was no evidence of hypoxic/ischemic changes in the brain on neuroimaging. In the initial 3–4 days of regaining consciousness, he remained disoriented to time and place but recognized relatives who visited him. He did not remember the hanging episode as well as events of almost 6 months preceding the attempted suicide. One and a half years after the incident, antero/retrograde amnesia still persisted. Although he was able to take care of self, he lacked initiative, remained apathetic, had unprovoked anger outbursts, and occasionally wept profusely. On physical examination, icterus was present. Mental status examination revealed restricted affect, impaired immediate, recent and remote memory, poor attention span, impaired insight, and judgment. His mini mental status examination score was 20. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain revealed frontal lobe atrophy. His memory scores on verbal retention for dissimilar pairs, mental balance and visual retention to be in the lowest quartiles, a below-average performance quotient, and severe visuospatial disturbance. He was started on tablet mirtazapine 15 mg, which leads to improvement in his symptoms. At the time of presentation, the patient had apathetic behavior, retro/anterograde amnesia, and mood symptoms, which made it difficult to diagnose. MRI changes and history of alcohol further led to a diagnostic dilemma between primary amnesic syndrome versus Korsakoff's syndrome. Since the patient also had along term history of low mood symptoms, he showed a significant improvement after treatment with antidepressant. Soon after, his memory, low mood features, and social interaction improved. Thereafter, the final diagnosis was made as depression with pseudodementia. Coma of more than 24 h duration carries a risk of severe neuropsychiatric defect on recovery of consciousness. The greater the duration of unconsciousness, more is the chances of irreversible damage. Hanging leads to hypoxic /anoxic injury, due to obstruction of airway. Hanging also leads to ischemia, due to occlusion of blood flow and is significant in causing cerebralnecrosis.[23] Furthermore, there is a selective vulnerability in different brain regions to undergo hypoxic–ischemic injuries such as hippocampus, striatum, thalamus, globus pallidus, and third layer of cerebral cortex.[1] Survivors of cerebral anoxia due to suicidal hanging may present with diverse neurological deficits and psychiatric symptoms or syndromes such as acute and chronic amnestic syndromes, dementia, Korsakoff's syndrome, and even hysteria. An analysis of the neuropsychiatric features found in hanging survivors highlights the diagnostic difficulty, which may lead to hypoxic symptoms being misjudged for hysterical disturbance.[4] Declaration of patient consent The authors certify that they have obtained all appropriate patient consent forms. In the form, the legal guardian has given his consent for images and other clinical information to be reported in the journal. The guardian understands that names and initials will not be published and due efforts will be made to conceal identity, but anonymity cannot be guaranteed. Financial support and sponsorship Nil. Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest.

The Impact of Simultaneous Local Elections (Pilkada) for the Achievement of Democratic Consolidation in the Election of Governors and Deputy Governors of Central Sulawesi

Researchers' interest in studying the quality of democracy in Indonesia has been developed since the reform era. Although there was a pessimistic view on Indonesian democracy's achievement, the quality of Indonesian democracy has experienced significant development in a proper political perspective. The dynamics of the first wave of regional head elections in 2015 feature the face of Indonesian democracy nationally. Democratization at the national level is awakened by strengthening democracy at the local level. This paper aims to determine the impact of the Direct Regional Head Election (Pemilihan Langung Kepala Daerah - Pilkada) concurrent in Central Sulawesi to achieve Indonesia's democratic consolidation. This research was conducted by a qualitative method with a descriptive-analytical approach that explained, described, and analyzed the implementation of the election of Governors and Deputy Governors of Central Sulawesi in 2015 to achieve democratic consolidation. The results showed that simultaneous elections have achieved strengthening democratic consolidation. This condition is seen in several aspects. Namely the development of a free civil society, the development of an open political society; the right rule of law; government effectiveness; and democratic culture development.

Germany’s Participation in Peacekeeping Operations in Africa at Present

The article is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of Germanys participation in UN, EU and NATO peacekeeping operations in Africa. The relevance of the research topic is due to conflicting opinions about the need to preserve and prolong most operations in the region. In this regard, the opinions of experts with optimistic and pessimistic views on this problem are considered, and the stages of the evolution of peacekeeping activities are highlighted. The purpose of the study is to prove the validity of the assumption of the critical theory of the use of peacemaking by countries as a tool for realizing their foreign policy aspirations. Based on the analysis of German efforts to increase its military contingent in UN peacekeeping operations and maintain positions (despite the presence of oppositional representatives of the Parliament) in EU and NATO operations, it is proposed to identify the cause-and-effect relationships of such behavior. To achieve this goal, we used the method of historicism, which helped to identify the problems of the past that Germany is trying to get rid of by participating in the operations of international organizations, as well as the method of comparative analysis, which regulates the comparison of Germanys efforts in missions with its foreign policy tasks. The analysis of the documents of the international organizations under consideration, as well as legislation and foreign policy doctrines of Germany, allows us to assess not only the legality of the country's operations outside its borders, but also to identify foreign policy priorities in order to obtain reliable results when comparing them. In conclusion, we present the following conclusions: the evolution of Germanys efforts in the UN, EU and NATO missions in Africa. The results of the research reflect the postulates of critical theory in the process of studying German peacekeeping activities in Africa.

From Guest-Workers to Settlers

Focusing on theatre, the article reveals how issues regarding Sweden-Finnish migrants’ agency and representation became politicised, problematised and reworked in the beginning of the 1970s. In the popular emotional representation of the early 1970s’ Finnish theatre, the migrant worker was seen as a tragic human casualty of inhuman capitalism. The representation was emotionally relevant both to the radical left with its strong anti-capitalist sentiments and to the rural population in northern and eastern Finland that had been affected by structural change and migration. The tragic migrant characters and the pessimistic view of migration, predominant in Finnish drama, was problematised by the Finnish immigrants to Sweden who did not want to be victimised as exploited guest-workers oppressed by capitalism. As the Sweden-Finnish institutions strengthened in the beginning of the 1970s, active cultural politics sought to increase the immigrants’ agency and their participation in society, politics and culture. It was crucial to replace the negative representation of a passive and resigned guest-worker with a positive image of an active and sociable settler. Mirroring a larger shift in the more nuanced understanding of migration processes and in the Swedish minority politics, the new and positive self-representation was to evolve from community-based cultural activity. The local Sweden-Finnish societies were encouraged to launch spontaneous cultural creation, including collective performances based on their everyday migrant experiences.

THE INFLUENCE OF SCHOPENHAUER’S AND NIETZSCHE’S PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHTS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL PESSIMISM

This paper gives a particular overview of reflections on education by two renowned philosophers of West European culture, Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche. What links their philosophy of education is the inclination towards the more complete shaping of a man. Nietzsche is a great supporter of Schopenhauer's understanding of philosophy as a philosophy of life. However, while Schopenhauer remained imprisoned in the world of pessimism, Nietzsche overcame the pessimistic view of the world with the image of a creative artist who consistently sets his life in motion, while enjoying his art of living. The thing they have in common is extreme individualism – the understanding of philosophy as the liberation of inner life. Arthur Schopenhauer perceived a man as a being of will that succumbs to laws of nature and the lower levels of humanity – will and passion. Friedrich Nietzsche saw a man as a being of will for power, emphasizing the power of the urgent and irrational one. Schopenhauer gave the pessimistic view of a man who is under the power of an unquenchable lust for life, whereas Nietzsche gave a nihilistic view of the world, in which he advocated demolishing ​​and putting an end to the old values. In Nietzsche's opinion, a nihilist is someone who sees everything as pointless and futile. Arthur Schopenhauer had a significant influence, not only on Friedrich Nietzsche but also on some other great men of his time, who mostly did not support his philosophy in its entirety. Understanding the world in Schopenhauer's way came to life at the end of the 19th century and later, primarily because of Friedrich Nietzsche. This was an era in which social sciences finally began to develop separately, but at the same time complement each other. Due to this interaction, it was possible for Schopenhauer, and through him also for Nietzsche, to have such a significant influence on the European spiritual life.

Status of weak scale supersymmetry after LHC Run 2 and ton-scale noble liquid WIMP searches

While LHC has discovered a very Standard Model-like Higgs boson of mass m_h~ 125 GeV, no solid signal for physics beyond the Standard Model has emerged so far at LHC or at WIMP seach experiments. For the case of weak scale supersymmetry (SUSY), LHC has found rather generally that gluinos are beyond about 2.2 TeV whilst top squark must lie beyond 1.1 TeV. These limits contradict older simplistic notions of naturalness that emerged in the 1980s-1990s, leading to the rather pessimistic view that SUSY is now excluded except for perhaps some remaining narrow corners of parameter space. Yet, this picture ignores several important developments in SUSY/string theory that emerged in the 21st century: 1. the emergence of the string theory landscape and its solution to the cosmological constant problem, 2. a more nuanced view of naturalness including the notion of "stringy naturalness", 3. the emergence of anomaly-free discrete R-symmetries and their connection to R-parity, Peccei-Quinn symmetry, the SUSY mu problem and proton decay and 4. the importance of including a solution to the strong CP problem. Rather general considerations from the string theory landscape favor large values of soft terms, subject to the vacuum selection criteria that electroweak symmetry is properly broken (no CCB minima) and the resulting magnitude of the weak scale is not too far from our measured value. Then stringy naturalness predicts a Higgs mass m_h~ 125 GeV whilst sparticle masses are typically lifted beyond present LHC bounds. In light of these refinements in theory perspective confronted by LHC and dark matter search results, we review the most likely LHC, ILC and dark matter signatures that are expected to arise from weak scale SUSY as we understand it today.

Proust under the Covers

Abstract This essay begins as a reminiscence of its author’s early readings, including the first volume of Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. It then reflects on Proust’s depiction of his family, his love of art, and his pessimistic views on love.