Real Interests Research Articles

Community dialog technology

For the past three years, the M.I.T. Community Dialog Project has facilitated approximately 200 group meetings, settings ranging from high schools and universities to political and industrial organizations, from senior citizens groups and rotary clubs to state and national assemblies of government officials, scientists and businessmen. Using electronic voting technology and specially designed meeting procedures, every participant is enabled to make an anonymous coded response to questions posed by the moderator or another participant, and to observe instantaneously a tally of how many people voted in what category. The purpose is to get a rapid appraisal of where there is consensus and where there is controversy, to allow participants to reveal their ignorance, to deal with controversial questions without intimidation, and generally to make the discussion more responsive to real interests and needs of the group. In special cases, quantitative procedures are used to rate alternatives against criteria and find group utilities, but mostly these procedures are regarded as an augmentation of normal free discussion and idea formulation, not a means for commitment to final decision. The paper evaluates the usefulness of these techniques as a function of the type of topic and questions used, the personality and experience of participants, the style of the moderator, and other factors. It poses fundamental questions regarding the democratic process especially in view of rapidly increasing capabilities for large scale community communication, such as are provided by two-way cable TV.

Interest Groups and the Consent to Govern: Getting the People Out, for What?

The original Western liberal approach to govern ment was that as long as there were multitudes of interests with no possibility of any interest becoming a permanent majority, the free interaction of these interests would provide a public good. Very probably, the most important feature of this early liberal approach to government by the consent of organized interests was the coupling of consent with regulation. In the process of aging and spreading, however, the original liberal view underwent drastic transformation. Under the new theory consent is to come from a genuine accommodation of government to the real interests of society; all twentieth century democracies seem to espouse this theory of consent in one way or another. Leaving aside the important issue of the morality of such a view, there is still the question of whether such an accommodation is possible; the closer one looks at this proposition, the more distant appears the possibility of consent by accommodation. One must question the point of view that the group is simply a way of looking at the individual and ask whether individuals are represented accurately or, heavily distorted. Three common distortions in group politics are discussed: (1) organization as distortion; (2) the artificial majority; (3) the illogic of collective action. Suggestions for the adop tion of a view from the perspective of distortion and a return to the posture of regulation round out the analysis.

Unconventional Violence and International Politics

I find myself in agreement with Professor Dugard’s dissent concerning the title given us for discussion, namely the question of “terrorism.” I have titled my discussion instead “unconventional violence and international politics.”Violence has constituted an important aspect of international relations for as long as recorded history. Despite all honest and important efforts, legal or otherwise, to control, regulate, and contain the kind of violence, legitimate or illegitimate, that can be utilized by states there is every likelihood that international relations will continue to be governed by the capacities of states to resort to violence in the pursuit of their real or imagined interests.

The Mindful Peasant: Sketches for a Study of Rebellion

Peasants have confused us. We have in our discussions of them, imposed a structure on their lives, defined their behavior and denied their consciousness. We believe their actions to be predictable, but their irruptions and the extent of their violence inexplicable. Bound by tradition, tied to their village, loyal to their lords, they seem to us simultaneously irreverent, rude, ribald and lacking in respect. We find them shrewd in their economic judgments, but incapable of knowing their own real interests. Though they appear responsive to social and economic change, they also seem bound by symbols and ideologies that tie them to the past. They are never at home no matter where they move. Committed to their own interests, they are nevertheless tricked and cheated by city slickers, seigneurs and nobles.

戦前日本の製鋼業にみられたナショナリズムについて

Although a number of propositions have been made concerning the relationship between “ideas” and “interests”, the concept of “polar coordination” advanced by Max Weber is most persuasive. Otto Hintze summarized this concept as follows : “Wherever interests are vigorously pursued, an ideology tends to be developed also to give meaning, reenforcement and justification to these interests......And conversely : wherever ideas are to conquer the world, they require the leverage of real interests......”In industrially advanced countries, the demand for a certain commodity will result in higher price for that commodity. This will lead to the growth in the number of firms supplying the said commodity. This pattern will repeat itself in a number of different products. In this manner, enterprises will emerge to meet the rising demand for a variety of goods and services, and a greater degree of self-sufficiency will be achieved in the nation's economy. Thus there exists a “polar coordination” between such a pattern of economic development and “the economic individualism”, an ideology which postulates that the search for private profit will ultimately lead to the benefit of the society.In underdeveloped countries, when the demand for a certain commodity arises, it is imported from advanced countries. Under these circumstances, typically, indigeneous firms will emerge to manufacture these products, for which the market has been initially developed by the imports. This will lead to the replacement of imports by locally produced goods. This is an economic development by means of “import substitution”, and is precisely the process whereby a grater degree of self-sufficiency in the national economy was achieved in prewar Japan. On the other hand, entrepreneurs in prewar Japan were highly nationalistic, and this nationalism manifested itself in the form of “developing home industries and in so doing suppressing imports” (“yunyû bôatsu”). For theser easons, there existed a “polar coordination” between the nationalism and the economic development through import substitution in prewar Japan. In this context, the prewar nationalism played the same role in the Japan's economic development as the economic individualism has in the West.The auther sought to examine the foregoing in the context of the steel industry in prewar Japan.

Pre-civil war land policy and the growth of manufacturing

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the federal government of the United States owned most of the nation’s land west of the Appalachians. The manner in which these lands were distributed to private individuals and found their way into agricultural production was a central political issue in the first decades of the Republic. Indeed, the rate of economic growth as well as the distribution of income and wealth hinged critically upon who got the land and when. The importance of public land policy was further heightened by the fact that it acted as a focus for sectional rivalry until the Civil War. The debates on public land alienation were ostensibly concerned with issues of political philosophy and constitutional law, but perceived differences in economic interest among the industrial Northeast, the cotton South, and the frontier certainly accounted for much of the division.’ Sectional economic interests governed the formation of land policy and in turn helped to determine the pattern of economic growth in the United States. While these perceived interests may serve to explain sectional motives in the struggle over land policy and related issues, the real economic interests of the North, South, and West may have been quite different. This paper will examine the interests of the manufacturing Northeast by use of a two-sector general equilibrium model of the nineteenth century national economy. The goal of the model building will be to provide insights into the rationality of the perceived sectional conflicts and into the influence of the resulting land policy on sectional growth.

The historian's quest: Joseph R. Levenson

Why study China?A number of answers to this question center around two general replies. One asserts that China is far from the real interests of Western civilization, and that study of it serves as an exotic fillip, a proof that indeed we are capable of mastering any subject, no matter how arcane. Hence Sinology. A second justification, growing in importance after the Second World War, claimed that China had a positive importance for the West and should be studied on the principle, “Know thy enemy.” Hence area studies.

View two

Every empire tends to develop a consensus establishment, and the world of education is no exception. This is particularly true in England where education is avowedly a ‘partnership’. However much their real interests may differ, on the really big issues the Department of Education, the local education authorities, and the teachers' organizations tend to gang up in the end and push the same line. Certainly the leading individuals in each of these institutions are quickly on the sort of christian name terms with one another which can enable a whole host of problems to be quietly compromised out of existence at top level. Without quite being aware of what they are doing, educational journalists are often following the same line, as all their sources come more and more to agree with one another. Of course, the line the consensus takes changes. The Black Paper accuses it of being unduly enamoured with modern methods in primary schools and comprehensive secondary education. But it is worth remembering that it is not so long ago that the consensus was defending just as fervently the infallibility of selection procedures and the theory that secondary modern children should on no account be allowed to take any public examinations whatsoever. Their conversion over the last ten years has only taken place slowly.

The Repeal of Fair Housing in California: An Analysis of Referendum Voting

In the summer of 1963 the California legislature passed the Rumford Act, prohibiting racial discrimination by realtors and the owners of apartment houses and homes built with public assistance. California real estate and property management interests, which had fought the Act's passage, then placed on the November 1964 ballot an initiative provision (Proposition 14) that would amend the state constitution to repeal the Rumford Act and prevent the state or any locality within it from adopting any fair housing legislation. During most of 1964 intense and lavishly financed campaigns were fought by supporters and opponents of Proposition 14. Almost 96 per cent of the people who turned out on election day voted on the measure, which passed by a ratio of two to one. In one sense the campaign and balloting were an exercise in futility, for in May of 1967 the United States Supreme Court declared Proposition 14 unconstitutional. Some short-term consequences of its passage were apparent, however. For several years there was a severe weakening of legal sanctions against racial discrimination in housing, resulting in abandonment of many cases that were underway before the 1964 election. For eighteen months the federal government froze $120 million in funds for California urban renewal projects. Less tangibly, it is claimed that the proposition's overwhelming popularity contributed to the Watts riots and other racial violence in California.

Occupational Choice and Vocational Interests

The study concerns the problem of why certain high-school boys make tentative occupational choices which are more congruent with their inventoried vocational interests than do other boys. A sample of eighty-seven eleventh-grade boys was divided between a group with interests which were congruent with their occupational choice and a group with inter ests incongruent with their occupational choice. If the congruent group were found to be higher than the incongruent group in terms of selected variables (e.g., knowledge of one's interests) the variables were considered a likely source of occupational choice-interests congruency. Results suggested the following are possible sources of occupational choice interest congruency: (1) knowledge of one's vocational interests, (2) use of school as one's main source of occupational information, (3) deliberate orientation toward decisions regarding social phenomena, and (4) continuity between the so cialization of upper-middle-class children by their family and by society. Results showed no association between apparent crystallization of occupational choice and occupational choice-vocational interests congruency. THE LITERATURE concerning occupational choice, inventoried vocational interests, and so cialization of children suggests a number of rea sons why some young men make occupational choices which are congruent with their vocational interests while other men do not. Sinnett (9) and Wallace (12) found a positive correlation between the amount of knowledge men have about their chosen occupation and their occupational choice vocational interests congruency. According to Ausubel (1), adolescents must understand their real interests and values before they can make occupational choices which are congruent with their interests, abilities, and values. Wallace's data also pointed to the possibility that use of certain sources of information (e.g., friends) is positively associated with occupational choice vocational interests congruency. According to Ginzberg (5), young men must know how to com promise, to delay gratification, and to appreciate the relationship between ends and means before they can select an occupation which is congruent with their interests, values, and aptitudes. Darley and Hagenah (2) point to prestige drives among youth as an important source of occupational choice-vocational interest incongru ency. The writers do not, however, explain why certain boys with high prestige drives exhibit high occupational choice-vocational interests con gruency while other boys with the same drives exhibit low congruency. According to socializa tion and social stratification theory (7, 10), boys are socialized by society to value prestige and to strive for prestigious occupations. Strong's (11) study suggests that boys internalize many of their father's vocational interests. Because upper middle-class fathers possess the interests attached to prestigious occupational roles, continuity exists between upper-middle-class boys' learning of vo cational interests at home and their learning of occupational aspirations through society's many agents of socialization. The same continuity does not exist, however, in the socialization of lower

The Real Interests of the Peasant Boy: The Development of Education

(From the evidence of the Lord Chancellor, Lord Brougham and Vaux, before the Parliamentary Committee on the State of Education, 1834.)‘. . . Any universal compulsory system appears to us neither attainable nor desirable.’(Report of the Newcastle Commission, 1861.)‘. . . Even if it were possible, I doubt whether it would be desirable, with a view to the real interests of the peasant boy, to keep him at school till he was 14 or 15 years of age. But it is not possible. We must make up our minds to see the last of him, as far as the day school is concerned, at 10 or 11. We must frame our system of education upon this hypothesis; and I venture to maintain that it is quite possible to teach a child soundly and thoroughly, in a way that he shall not forget it, all that is necessary for him to possess in the shape of intellectual attainment, by the time he is 10 years old. . . .’(Evidence of the Rev. James Fraser, later Bishop of Manchester, quoted with approval by the Newcastle Commission, 1861.)

Human and Murine Leprosy

This moderately surprising work on leprosy is published in Germany, but written by Japanese authors in an English which exhibits many characteristics of an edited translation. The principal topics are the biological features of leprosy and the infection of rodents known as murine leprosy. Clinical leprosy is the subject of some chapters, but from them it would be difficult for the reader to obtain a ready concept of the disease. The real interests of the writers are the investigative problems of leprosy, to which they themselves have contributed lifetimes of devotion. Accordingly, although the orderly arrangement is that of a textbook of leprosy, three fourths of the work on human leprosy covers its immunology, pathology, serology, clinical chemistry, and microbiology. Japanese contributions to leprosy have not always been available to the English reader, and it is pleasant to find them well documented here, especially in the chapters on murine leprosy.

Idealism and Disillusion in Grabbe's Aschenbrodel

Grabbe's Aschenbr6del has been very largely ignored in the secondary literature. The fairy tale comedy as a dramatic mode has never enjoyed a high critical estimate and the somewhat cursory studies on this genre fail to distinguish Grabbe's play from numerous experiments of the later Romantics.' Specialist studies on Grabbe's work as a whole also give little attention to Aschenbridel. The tendency of earlier critics, exemplified for instance by Otto Nieten,2 was to see the play as another example, like the earlier Nanette und Maria, of Grabbe's cynical attempts to attract the public by experimenting in popular forms far removed from his own real interests and problems. The recent biographer Fritz B6ttger3 largely continues this interpretation in suggesting that the play is a somewhat irresponsible by-product outside Grabbe's true development. Even F. J. Schneider,4 whose study of 1934 still provides the most serious estimate of Grabbe's work, finds much of the play derivative and insincere, although he does pay respect to the effectiveness of many of the comic figures. Yet Aschenbrodel may well justify a more sympathetic approach. The play has, above all in its comic scenes, a curious attraction and vitality. It is the only other work besides Scherz, Satire, Ironie und tiefcre Bedeutung in which Grabbe gave free vent to his irrational and often grotesque sense of farce. Moreover, despite the limitations of this somewhat constraining literary form, we see here as clearly as anywhere in Grabbe the clash between idealist and skeptic, between the dreamer and the man of bitter and desperate disillusion. An appreciation of

Some Ethical Problems of Congress

A recent Gallup poll illustrates the fact that the profession of politics continues to be held in low esteem by the American public, an opinion probably reinforced by the Bobby Baker case. The President has issued an Executive Order set ting high standards for federal government employees, but Con gress lags behind the Executive branch. Among the ethical problems which confront the congressman are obligations in curred during the campaign; pressures from constituents, both as individuals and as groups; the conflicts which sometimes occur between the national interest and that of his district; low ethical conduct on the part of some colleagues; and occasional conflict between the real interests of his constituents and their expressed ideas as to what those interests are. There are four general areas where reform is needed to raise the ethical stand ards of Congress and its reputation with the public: legisla tion requiring comprehensive disclosure of the congressman's finances; legislation overhauling laws dealing with election campaign finances; diminution of the errand-boy aspects of the congressman's job; and elimination of political patronage at the federal level. Politics is a fundamental activity of our society, and if its ethical practice is not at as high a level as we might wish, the fault is in ourselves.—Ed.

ドイツ三月革命と自由主義

The object of this article is to illustrate the particular process of dynamic development which the German liberalist movements showed during the Revolution 1848/49. It is as follows.The intellectual liberals sought to realize their pre-March mission of drawing government and people together as the real agents of their ideals, were progressively isolated from both of these powers and were subsequently themselves torn apart into their three generic divisions as they fell into dependence upon divergent real interests or remained impotently suspended about them. The dissolution of intellectual liberalism under the solvent of conscious self-interest in its agents meant the beginning of the end for the philosophical approach to politics, and introduced the general reorientation toward the frank and direct appreciation of interests and power which the Revolution had shown to be decisive in German society and politics. Such fundamental reorientation led to a political positivism, which meant the intellectual decline of German liberalism, because it undermined the comprehensive appeal of the liberal political ethic and, in consequence, diminished the force of assault upon the prevailing state-system in Germany.

Henry Miles, F. R. S. (1698-1763) and Thomas Birch, F. R. S. (1705-66)

Henry Miles was the epitome of the eighteenth century’s version of the virtuoso, a perfect pattern to which many Fellows (and more would-be Fellows) aspired. In the Dictionary of National Biography he is succinctly characterized as ‘dissenting minister and scientific writer’. Little record of his clerical activities remain, though he was a highly esteemed member of the learned dissenting world. He spent his active life in Tooting (Surrey), where his only published sermon was preached under the gently pious title Doing Good, and Communicating Sacrifices Well-pleasing to God (London, 1738) to the ‘Society for the Relief of the Widows and Orphans of Dissenting Ministers’. He was made honorary D.D. of Aberdeen in 1744, for what reason is not clear. Even the clergyman who preached his funeral oration could find little beyond conventional platitudes to say of his professional life, though his character was clearly above reproach: ‘the simplicity of his spirit and manners, was very remarkable. He was free from all guile himself, and absolutely unacquainted with the deceitful ways of man. His conversation, though instructive and entertaining, was the furthest possible from being assuming. His countenance was always open, mild and amiable; and his carriage so condescending and courteous, even to his inferiors, as plainly discovered a most humane and benevolent heart’ (1). Like his younger contemporary, Gilbert White, Miles’s real interests lay far from his duties. ‘Scientific writer’ is certainly an exaggeration: yet Miles was the author of some thirty papers in the Philosophical Transactions after 1741. Many of these are meteorological; some are microscopical; the most important are electrical.

Images of Muscovy

In this essay Professor Florovsky brings a rare combination of sympathetic understanding and restless questioning to the study of Russian culture. Cutting through a century of scholarly cliches about he finds inadequate not only the cultural provincialism of erudite liberals like A. Pypin and S. Soloviev, whose real interests lay in post-Petrine Russia, but also the simplified explanations of Old Russian cultural development presented by church historians like Golubinsky and sympathetic students like Buslaev and Fedotov.1 As in his penetrating Ways of Russian Theology, he quietly draws attention away from easy answers to difficult but important questions. It would be presumptuous for anyone-let alone a non-Slav far inferior in age and wisdom to Father Florovsky-to pretend to answer them, but one can at least gain valuable guidance for a fresh appraisal of old Russia by facing up to four major tasks that his discussion sets before us: (1) distinguishing different periods and regions within pre-Petrine Russian culture, (2) accounting for its intellectual silence, (3) analyzing its inner structure, and (4) appraising separately its historical fate and its intrinsic worth. (1) Any consideration of Old Russian culture invites one major division-which is both chronological and regional-between Kiev and Muscovy. There is, to be sure, a bridge between them through Vladimir-Suzdal; but the cosmopolitan, urban culture of the former centered on the Dnepr and the southwestern steppe is clearly distinct from the more monolithic and monastic culture of the latter centered on the Volga and the northeastern forests. The culture of Kievan Russia has been, as Professor Florovsky points out, exhaustively studied and somewhat idealized in recent years; but the impression has been created of a kind of cultural vacuum between the fall of Kiev and the rise of Petersburg.2

Tariff and Technology: The Foundation and Development of the American Tin-Plate Industry, 1872-1900

IN 1890 THE UNITED STATES imported from Wales over 300,000 tons of tin plate-virtually its entire consumption and nearly three quarters of the Welsh product. Just ten years later America was herself producing nearly 400,000 tons, and the Welsh product had been driven from the domestic market.' In order to produce this transformation, the American tinplate manufacturers had to overcome two formidable obstacles. First, they had to master a complex technique of production, and second, they had to produce at a price which could compete with that of the Welsh plate.2 Both of these problems were solved against the backdrop of the McKinley tariff of 1890. Neither polemicists nor scholars have been able to agree on what role tariffs have played in American life generally or to define their role in promoting or preventing technological innovation. Circumstantial evidence, however, points to the fact that those manufacturers who sought to establish an American tin-plate industry counted on the McKinley tariff to aid in the solution of their problems, both economic and technological. Their views were not unopposed, and much of the ensuing debate was carried on in terms far removed from the real interests of the participants. But the fact remains that with the political discussion of tariff and technology emerged a new American industry. Essentially, tin plate is merely black iron or steel rolled into thin sheets, and covered with a protective coating of tin. Once a relatively exotic material, it was fast becoming abundant, and therefore more widely used, in the years following the Civil War. The rapidly growing dairy and petroleum industries were shipping their products in tin containers, and tin plate was found useful as a roofing material.3 Perhaps the most startling development in the use of tin plate * Mr. Pursell is a member of the research staff of Dr. A. Hunter Dupree's investigation of the role of science in the Federal Government, 1940-1960.

Wilfred Eade Agar 1882-1951

Wilfred Eade Agar was born on 27 April 1882, at Wimbledon, the seventh of nine children of Edward Larpent Agar and his wife Agnes, nee Henty. On his father’s side the family showed considerable legal ability. His father, a man of pronounced artistic talent, practised for a while as solicitor, but turned later to a more lucrative business career, and was able to retire quite early, devoting himself to various charitable enterprises. But especially will he be remembered as one of the founders—indeed the principal founder—of the game of hockey in its present form, and was chairman of a meeting of Hockey Clubs, held in the Holborn Restaurant, London, which in 1887 resulted in the formation of the Hockey Association in Britain. A great-grandfather was William Agar, K.C. (died 1838), of Elm Lodge, in the Parish of St Pancras, London, who was himself grandson of Charles Talbot, Lord Chancellor, created Baron Talbot of Hensol. On his mother’s side he was related to the Sussex family Henty, noted for their pioneering in three Australian colonies. G. A. Henty, the best known writer of boys’ story books at the time, was a cousin of his mother. His earliest education in reading and arithmetic was undertaken by his mother, and it was not till the age of eight that he went to school—a ‘dame’ school—where all but the mysteries of Latin and football were entrusted to women. This school he left at the age of ten, to attend a private school for boys conducted by a Mr C. D. Olive. Teaching was strictly classical, and began daily with two hours of Latin and Greek, and some short Bible reading, and at the age of thirteen or fourteen the boys were already composing Latin verses in elegiac couplets. From here he went, at fifteen, to Sedbergh, and was admitted direct into the upper school, his proficiency in Latin being favourably commented upon. Of this period at Sedbergh he writes in later life: ‘I think I enjoyed my three years there as much as any normal boy can enjoy the restricted and disciplined life of a boarding school—especially a boy who combines the disadvantages of being better than the average in class work, with smallness of stature and incompetence at organized games. It was at Sedbergh that I first began to enjoy my school work, though I think what I really enjoyed was the intellectual exercise. So far as I can remember I did not find—and did not expect to find—that it bore any relation to my real interests. For them, I lived for my holidays.’

SECURITY CLEARANCE AND THE SCIENTIST

SECURITY clearance is an important subject which has, in one way or another, engaged the attention of a very high percentage of the scientists in America; a large number because of their participation in work of a restricted character or their intention to participate in such work. Others have been concerned as citizens and members of the scientific fraternity because of the relations of our policies and procedures on security to individual freedom and peace in the world. Some of the addresses will be confined to present security procedures and the way in which they work out in practice, with the assumption that our present philosophy and policies concerning security are established and not debatable. Lest this attitude pervade too much of our discussion, I would like, in these introductory remarks, to pose a few questions which I believe are debatable from the standpoint of the real long-range interests of the United States and its ...