Social Pathology Research Articles

Sensitivity and specificity of tuberculosis signs and symptoms screening and adjunct role of social pathology characteristics in predicting bacteriologically confirmed tuberculosis in Myanmar

BackgroundGlobally, using tuberculosis signs and symptoms (TB-SS) as a screening tool has become less important due to its low sensitivity and specificity. We analyzed data from the Myanmar National Tuberculosis (TB) prevalence survey in 2010. The various TB screening models were developed to predict TB by using logistic regression analysis, and their performance on TB prediction was compared by the measures of overall performance, calibration and discrimination ability, and sensitivity and specificity to determine whether social pathology characteristics could be used as a TB screening tool.ResultsAmong 51,367 participants, 311 (0.6%) had bacteriologically confirmed TB, of which 37.2% were asymptomatic and 2% had a normal chest X-ray. Out of 32 various combinations of signs and symptoms, having any signs and symptoms gave the best sensitivity of 59.8% and specificity of 67.2%, but chest X-ray (CXR) alone gave the highest sensitivity (95.1%) and specificity (86.3%). The next best combination was cough only with a sensitivity of 24.4% and specificity of 85%. Other combinations had poor sensitivity (< 10%). Among various TB screening models, the overall performance R2 was higher in the combined models of social pathology and TB signs and symptoms as well as the social pathology model, compared to TB-SS models (> 10% versus < 3%), although all TB screening models were perfect to predict TB (Brier score = 0). The social pathology model shows a better calibration, more closer to 45° line of calibration plot with Hosmer-Lemeshow test p value = 0.787, than the combined models while it had a better discrimination ability in area under the curve, AUC = 80.4%, compared to TB-SS models with any signs and symptoms, AUC = 63.5% and with any cough, AUC = 57.1% (DeLong p value = 0.0001). Moreover, at the propensity score cutoff value ≥ 0.0053, the combined and social pathology models had sensitivity of ~ 80% and specificity of ~ 70%. The highest population attributable fraction to predict TB by social pathology characteristics was male gender (42.6%), age ≥ 55 years (31.0%), and underweight (30.4%).ConclusionOver one-third of bacteriologically confirmed TB was asymptomatic. The conventional TB-SS screening tool using any TB signs and symptoms had a lower sensitivity and specificity compared to CXR and social pathology screening tools. The social pathology characteristics as TB screening tool had good calibration and can improve the discrimination ability to predict TB than TB-SS screenings and should be encouraged.

Misrecognising Recognition. Foundations of a Critical Theory of Recognition

ABSTRACT According to Max Horkheimer, a critical theory of society has to fulfil two tasks: the elimination of social injustice and the critical reflection of its own conceptual means. Based on this definition, I argue that Axel Honneth’s critical theory of recognition is at risk of losing sight of the ambivalence of recognition which limits the scope of his analysis of social pathologies. By drawing on the concept of misrecognising recognition it can be shown that recognition itself is an ambivalent concept which can not only serve the purpose of self-realisation but also the purpose of self-subjection. Following the lead of Jean-Paul Sartre in this article I will unfold the concept of misrecognising recognition and put it at work to show how a variety of social pathologies of self-subjection can only be addressed if the ambivalence of recognition is taken into account.

Naturalism against Nature: Kinship and Degeneracy in Fin-de-Siècle Portugal and Brazil by David J. Bailey

MLR, .,   highlights the creativity of much of the work produced against the backdrop of economic, social, and political upheaval. ‘Contexto, texto e intertexto en Cuaderno de vacaciones (), de Luis Alberto de Cuenca’ by Juan José Lanz analyses the collection in terms of its context, thematic structure, formal structure, and intertextual references, offering a very perceptive reading of the author’s work. Finally, Javier Letrán’s ‘La lírica en los tiempos del neoliberalismo: reflexiones sobre Balada en la muerte de la poesía, de Luis García Montero’ examines the aforementioned prose poems, and presents the death of poetry as evidence of the intrinsic value of literature and, more specifically, the lyric genre. is carefully curated volume offers a superb homage to one of the UK’s most prolific and respected Hispanists. e contributions, both individually and collectively , provide inspiration for the discipline much as Dadson did throughout his career. U  L D C Naturalism against Nature: Kinship and Degeneracy in Fin-de-Siècle Portugal and Brazil. By D J. B. (Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures, ) Cambridge: Legenda. . ix+ pp. £. ISBN ––––. e transnational dimensions of literary Naturalism operating between Brazil and Portugal are explored in this excellently written book by David Bailey. By selecting four authors—Abel Botelho, Eça de Queirós, Aluísio Azevedo, and Adolfo Caminha—the author examines how the scientific gaze in the late nineteenth century sought out the ‘nature’ of human passions and behaviours, especially those that were labelled deviant or served to disrupt the familial, societal, patriarchal, and colonial status quo. Naturalism thus read off the body and its desires the keys for understanding the decadence of society and oen prescribed a set of diagnoses for its recuperation. Between the identification and the prescription, however, different expressions of Naturalism evoked a tangled web of intimacies, kinships, and ties that were not all reducible to, or easily contained by, degeneration or undesirability. As Bailey argues, ‘Naturalism [. . .] formed part of a wider arc of epistemological approaches to the nineteenth century that drew on Positivist principles of reason and logic as the only valid route to truth’ (p. ). is truth was refracted through different literary, cultural, and geographical traditions and, while certain aspects were held in common from one side of the Atlantic to the other, others were not. While all authors concerned may have, in broad terms, accepted the ‘presumed supremacy of “science”’ (p. ), some were also daring enough ‘to dwell upon the insufficiency of the discourses that they nevertheless deploy[ed]’ (p. ). While there was such a phenomenon as Lusophone Naturalism, Eça and Botelho deployed it to reimagine the family in relation to the rest of Europe, echoing the fact of Portugal’s ‘semi-peripheral’ positionality within European capitalism and colonialism. ese authors were also in tune with connotations surrounding the  Reviews ‘decadence’ of fin-de-siècle society and, especially, the visibility of practices such as homosexuality. e illnesses of the country were thus identified. Caminha and Azevedo were, by contrast, more concerned with the viability of the future project of Brazil as a country shot through with racism and the legacy of colonialism. Each chapter could be read in its own right. e one on Botelho, for example, rereads O Barão de Lavos as one of the author’s series on ‘social pathology’, places its representation of ‘pederasty’ within the scientific discourse of the period, and analyses how the tensions around it worked to display and simultaneously disavow the practice as an expression of an atavistic past which threatened the present. It was, therefore, both ‘reductive and productive, surprisingly generative in its obsession with degeneracy’ (p. ). Caminha’s Bom Crioulo seemingly rewrites the notion of the family and subverts what is ‘against nature’ in order to ‘make space for the new citizen, the freed slave fighting for recognition in the wake of abolition’ (p. ). Degeneration theory becomes productive in a Foucauldian sense in terms of the effects it engenders. At times, Bailey perhaps over-emphasizes the internal consistency and the workings of ‘scientific’ thought by pointing to ‘pseudo-scientific’ ideas and...

On modeling actual socio-economic factors and development trends in the Republic of Uzbekistan

As a result of the increased level of uncertainty and variability of the socio-economic environment, the influence of various social pathologies (for example, the COVID-19 pandemic, etc.) has grown, that have significant negative consequences for the functioning of society. Modeling the most important factors and trends in social development will help to resist the impact of modern negative changes. From the analysis of the socio-economic development of the Republic of Uzbekistan, it is obvious that there exists the effect of all those factors and trends in social development that are positive and are primarily associated with STP (including the digitalization of society), as well as the effect of negative factors associated with various social pathologies. The strategy of development of the Uzbek economy is aimed at strengthening the former and limiting the latter.

Моделирование социально-экономических факторов и тенденций в условиях новых патологических вызовов и процессов цифровизации (на примере Республики Узбекистан)

In the context of the increased level of uncertainty and variability of the organizational and economic environment, the importance and influence of various kinds of pathologies of a social nature (for example, the COVID-19 pandemic, various color revolutions, etc.), which have significant negative consequences for the functioning of society and its most important structures, has increased. The use of the latest achievements of STP, such as comprehensive digitalization and modeling of the most important factors and trends in social development, can counteract the impact of modern negative challenges. The article analyzes and models some of the most important parameters of the functioning of the Uzbek economy, the results of which can be used in the development of a strategy for action in priority areas of development of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Thus, as a result of the conducted research, it became obvious that the factors of social development and the socio-economic trends that arise as a result of their action can be divided into two large groups: the first should include factors and trends of a negative nature associated with the action of various social pathologies; the second group, on the contrary, can include positive factors and trends, primarily related to the progressive influence of STP, including such an important modern direction as the all-round digitalization of society.

The Failure of Anticorruption Campaign as a Failure of Law Reform in Nigeria

Since 2003, anticorruption war has become a major plank of Nigeria’s governance reform. As part of the war, Nigeria has enacted anticorruption laws and established anticorruption agencies. This marks the triumph of ‘law enforcement’ over ‘change management’ approach to fighting corruption. This approach has not produced significant improvement in the integrity of governance and state institutions. Despite massive investment in law enforcement efforts, corruption remains prevalent and Nigeria’s standing in Corruption Perception Index (CPI) has not improved. This casts doubt on the potential of law as effective tool in the fight against corruption. The paper briefly reviews the history of Nigeria’s failed engagement with anticorruption campaigns and identifies the reasons for failure in the law enforcement approach to fighting corruption. Utilizing insights from culture studies and institutional economics, the paper argues against legal formalism as it manifests in excessive reliance on law enforcement techniques and tools to counter corruption in Nigeria. The paper argues further that law enforcement is too limited to constitute the main strategy for fighting corruption because it faces mainly on the symptoms rather than on the underlying causes of corruption as a social pathology. Therefore, an exclusive focus on law in the sense of what prosecutors and judges do, is ill-suited as a cure for pervasive corruption. To effectively control or contain corruption, the paper recommends abandoning legal formalism and contextualizing and socializing law in the light of insights from culture studies and institutional economics to change political culture and improve collective action.

Aliénation, entfremdung - and alienation. Hegel’s solidary displacement of Diderot

Hegel?s Phenomenology of Spirit put alienation high on the philosophical agenda, as was readily recognized by Marx. Relatively well-known is also that Hegel?s concept of alienation was inspired by Goethe?s translation of Diderot?s dialogue Rameau?s Nephew, but the details and the conceptual implications of these details typically escape scholarly attention. Recognizing the basic idea of alienation as not-belonging to or being deprived of something, I emphasize that alienation implies a movement towards the limits of the human being, in which the mental suffering this involves is conditioned by social pathologies. To substantiate this claim, I show how Diderot?s satire implies uncompromising materialist social criticism, but that it does not employ the term ?ali?nation? but instead reserves it for a kind of frenzy that borders on insanity. My claim is then that, in Goethe?s translation of Diderot?s dialogue, and in his translation of ?ali?nation? to ?Entfremdung?, Hegel found a general key for the conceptual critique of the spirit of Modernity. I therefore argue that, in the Phenomenology, Hegel employed alienation in more than one sense, raising madness to the level of a characteristic of Modernity, stressing the detrimental implications for consciousness under such living conditions, emphasizing how alienation works as negation, and, finally, pointing nevertheless to the possibility of embracing social and political reality.

Where does social research in Osaka come from and where does it go?: Focusing on Social pathology and Osaka Sociological Group Surveys

Where does social research in Osaka come from and where does it go?: Focusing on Social pathology and Osaka Sociological Group Surveys

The Expansion and Deepening of Regional and Urban Studies in Social pathology

The Expansion and Deepening of Regional and Urban Studies in Social pathology

The problem of defining personal identity in Vytautas Kavolis’s studies of social pathology

The problem of defining personal identity in Vytautas Kavolis’s studies of social pathology

Deciphering Crypto-fascism

Fascism is a virulent historical social pathology that presents itself as a political ideology or a component of general ideology. It is historical in a double sense. It is actualized at specific times and places. It is also, a recurring feature of history itself. Crypto-fascism is the manipulation of the ambiguity of language for the purpose of fascistic actualization. Crypto-fascism is often an early “tell” or warning of the presence of more widespread fascism. There have been several powerful and deep studies of fascism and its co-optation of the ambiguity of language. Two of these approaches are of particular importance. In both instances fascism is addressed as a potentiality or susceptibility tied to the human condition per se. The first is Freudian and the second is existential. These approaches both meet the historical criteria noted above. In this essay I follow the work of Erich Fromm and Jean-Paul Sartre to understand the ground of fascism and its crypto variant. Camouflage is the hallmark of crypto-fascism, and it is exactly this that Fromm’s analysis and that of Sartre discloses.

Meaning and Embodiment: Human Corporeity in Hegel’s Anthropology by Nicholas Mowad

Reviewed by: Meaning and Embodiment: Human Corporeity in Hegel’s Anthropology by Nicholas Mowad Elisa Magrì Nicholas Mowad. Meaning and Embodiment: Human Corporeity in Hegel’s Anthropology. Albany: SUNY Press, 2019. Pp. xxvi + 313. Cloth, $95.00. Readers of Hegel’s philosophy will welcome Nicholas Mowad’s interpretation of Hegel’s anthropology not just as a fundamental addition to Hegel scholarship, but also, and more fundamentally, as a necessary invitation to read Hegel in a new key. This entails paying attention to questions of embodiment, race, and gender that are intrinsic to Hegel’s philosophical anthropology. The book’s chief merit lies in the way Mowad convincingly shows that issues of race and gender cannot be avoided while reading Hegel, and that Hegel’s approach to such themes is firmly rooted in the experience of nature as a locus of transformation and critical distance from entrenched racial and gender disparities. Mowad concentrates on the sections of the Anthropology that form the first part of Hegel’s Philosophy of Subjective Spirit in his Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1830). Through a careful reading of Hegel’s annotations and the lecture notes of the winter semester of 1827–28, Mowad sheds light on the role of corporeity in Hegel’s thought as a necessary condition for the development of spirit and particularly for the constitution of social community. Most notably, Mowad argues that Hegel’s dimensions of embodiment (mechanical, chemical, and biological) involve cognitive relations to what is corporeal in a way that produces both unreflective absorption in natural life and the possibility of a critical distance from nature. Far from advocating a romantic disenchantment from nature, however, Hegel’s view of embodiment calls for normative assessment without alienating individuals from their natural foundation. [End Page 156] Mowad’s analysis is clearly articulated in the eight chapters of the book, which detail Hegel’s idea of the body, his view of spirit, the different aspects of embodiment that explicate spirit’s natural constitution (such as natural qualities and racial determination, sleep, self-feeling, habit, and mental illness), and the social dimension of embodiment. Mowad’s original and thought-provoking insight is that Hegel’s view of racial determination does not lead to either racial hierarchy or bioregionalism, for it is best understood in terms of a natural foundation of culture, which points to the abandonment of any normative racial or national identity. Similarly, with regard to the notion of gender, Mowad argues that Hegel’s account of self-knowledge in the Anthropology displays a characteristic tragic evolution, revealing the necessary failure of any determinate masculine character that posits itself as independent and sovereign with respect to the feminine character. Mowad’s analysis of Hegel’s theory of race and gender culminates in the final chapter, where Mowad argues that the social dimension made possible by human embodiment is not founded on the nation-state in the sheer sense of biological determinism. For Mowad, the possibility of a social community that is based on the rejection of both racism and sexism rests on the possibilities opened up by human embodiment, and specifically by human habit, once the latter becomes the vehicle for the aims of spirit’s self-determination. Indeed, one of the most interesting and fundamental implications of Mowad’s book is that his diagnosis of the social pathologies characterizing Western society calls for the use of habit as a form of therapy. Such a therapeutic process involves acknowledging the concrete causes of social derangement in order to liberate individuals and groups from cultural fixations, including, for instance, the assumption that one’s culture or society is superior to others. Since Mowad’s interpretation compels us to reconsider the foundational role of Hegel’s anthropology, a couple of aspects seem worthy of further discussion. On the one hand, Mowad argues that Hegel’s anthropology is neither descriptive nor normative in that it has no external object on which it can be applied, because it rather reflects spirit’s natural and spontaneous development. On the other hand, Mowad’s account of race and gender shows that some form of critical distance from nature is required in order to establish the social dimension...

Japanese society and psychology during the COVID-19 pandemic:

The purpose of this study was to investigate the cognitions, behaviors, attitudes, and living conditions of Japanese people during the severe novel coronavirus pandemic that reached the country in January 2020 and to publish the data related to the study. Using experiential data gathered from 612 Japanese nationals in late March 2020, we conducted an exploratory analysis of the associations between the variables measured in order to capture an authentic portrait of a society grappling with an infectious disease. We found that infection preventive behaviors and exclusionary attitudes toward foreigners were associated with individual differences in the cognitive responses specific to infectious diseases and pathogen avoidance. In variables directly related to the pandemic, there were some differences by gender, but not by generation or area of residence. This study provides practical, essential information that could give academic researchers, policymakers, and social support agencies valuable insights into the social pathologies specific to infectious diseases, managing public health, and improving lives.

"Importance of effective communication during COVID-19 Infodemic"Are we prepared enough? A reality check!

"Importance of effective communication during COVID-19 Infodemic"Are we prepared enough? A reality check!

Почему «этическое государство» Канта может оказаться полезным в борьбе с современными социальными патологиями

As recent social research demonstrates, the life world is increasingly impacted by a corrosion of social bonds and aggressive habits expressed, for instance, in hate speech in the social media. Significantly, such phenomena have not been prevented from evolving within the framework of constitutional liberal states. In search of an appropriate mode of challenging the current social pathologies, we should examine Kant’s claim that, alongside the “juridico-civil (political) state”, an “ethico-civil state”, uniting human beings “under laws of virtue alone”, needs to be established and cultivated. Kant’s claim is discussed in comparison with “postmetaphysical” conceptions of morality, as maintained by Rawls and Habermas. These prove deficient owing to their contract-based approach. Important in the examination of the key idea of the “state of virtue” is Kant’s thesis that such a state “cannot be realized (by human organization) except in the form of a church”. In view of the fact that, today, in many parts of the world significant segments of the population adhere to agnostic or atheistic convictions, the focus is placed on Kant’s specific conception of “church” that is clearly distinct from “historical” creeds and religious practices, and on the way in which he addresses non-believers, since he insists on the intrinsic relation between morality and the “purely moral religion”. Based on these reflections, the relevance of Kant’s argument that it is “a duty of the entire human race” to establish a community in which people mutually support one another in the cultivation of moral sensitivity is scrutinised.

From the ethology of animals to the human ecology

The title “From the ethology of animals to human ecology” acknowledges both the theories of evolution developed in numerous scientific fields of science, and the academic achievements of Konrad Lorenz and his partners, the development of which are shown through the order of studies they published, from the scope of classical ethology and the row of humanities, to philosophy and human ecology. Lorenz conducted an ethological examination of human culture, thereby uncovering its biological bases, its dynamics, social pathologies and means for overcoming them. Thanks to this Lorenz gained an insight into the character of the crisis of contemporary civilization, described and diagnosed it, presented the causes and proposed a cure. Lorenz recommended mobilizing efforts to create an ecological ethos for those surviving on Earth. Today it isn’t possible to predict the future of Homo sapiens on our planet, however, it is our duty to prepare for our struggle to survive. It is not only about survival but also about the preservation of the human way of life. This is a matter of biological and spiritual survival. Therefore, Lorenz’s ethological humanism takes on the mantle of a new ‘evolutionary humanism’.

Interpersonal security in social interactions

Nowadays interpersonal safety in social interactions is becoming increasingly significant. Words and phrases such as hatred, hate speech, discrimination, contempt, verbal aggression, and bias-motivated crimes have been constantly present in our daily life and public discussions, which led to the new forms of social pathology. These phenomena pose a considerable danger to the social continuity, especially to the constantly evolving democracy in Poland. The main aim of the article is to attract the reader’s attention to the danger triggered by verbal aggression, which has a detrimental impact on people’s safety and their interactions in different spheres of social life.

Selected ethical dilemmas and legal problems in autoethnographic research in social rehabilitation pedagogy

The aim of this article is the presentation and analysis of the selected ethical dilemmas and legal problems of a researcher in the study of the difficult way of life. There are a lot of questions about the ethical, decent and legal manner of research and behaviour in relation with the participators of the research. The practical aim of this article is the answer to the question – what should we do when we have various ethical dilemmas in our studies. A special difficult situation concerns the researcher – a pedagogue of social rehabilitation, because by conducting research on the phenomena of social exclusion or social pathology, he/she describes and analyses situations related to crime, para-criminal behaviours, addictions, touches the problems of deep diagnosis of disorders or therapy. During scientific research, he / she ‘goes deeper’ into difficult situations, ethical dilemmas, and brushes against legal problems. The guarantee of his/her safety, but above all the safety of respondents, is the legal awareness and ethical responsibility of the pedagogue. Although the article is not a complete and comprehensive study, it responds to the needs of researchers who themselves have to answer many questions about legal issues and solve any ethical dilemmas themselves in the process of collecting and developing data.

ТЕОРИЯ СОЦИОЛОГИЧЕСКОЙ ДИАГНОСТИКИ АКАДЕМИКА М.К. ГОРШКОВА: ВОЗМОЖНОСТИ ЕЕ ИСПОЛЬЗОВАНИЯ ДЛЯ АНАЛИЗА ПАНДЕМИИ COVID-19

In the article it is shown that the history of the development of the sociological science is inseparable from the creation and permanent improvement of tools for diagnostics of social and cultural realities. The integral theoretical and methodological instruments of the sociological diagnostics, offered by the academician of RAS M.K. Gorshkov, take a special place in this series that organically combine both the interdisciplinary and contextual approaches for the analysis and curing of the society. As a doctor by his basic education, he is now focused on the search and development of the innovative methods of curing of the society. The methods proposed by him allow obtaining the valid results of the real states of both the social norm and pathology in the context of the implementation of socio-cultural and economic objectives facing society, as well as the prospects for its humanization. He substantiates the road map of the transition to a new type of management which includes the development and reproduction of the human capital on the basis of highly developed spheres of science, culture and education as the most important socio-humanitarian components. The instruments of his diagnostics single out and substantiate the means for the optimization of social and healthy life, among which: the social and humanitarian expertise; the creation of the conditions for the free activity of people; the reproduction of social trust of citizens to political institutions; the establishment of permanent education as a means of overcoming the challenges to Russia – nowadays there are epidemiological, socio-cultural and economic traumas which are carried by COVID-19. The theory of the sociological diagnostics, developed by academician M.K. Gorshkov, allows to make the social diagnosis, according to which the Russian society has become complex and Russians have formed the awareness of their belonging to the European and Eurasian world. Today these qualities of our society are extremely important for the development of consolidated efforts of Russians and the world community aimed at overcoming the consequences of the pandemic.

Desfazendo o Reconhecimento? Além de concepções negativas e positivas de intersubjetividade

O objetivo deste artigo é discutir deslocamentos teóricos na obra tardia de Judith Butler tendo em vista o modo como desafiam a distinção entre teorias positivas e negativas de intersubjetividade, conforme a distinção proposta por Rahel Jaeggi. A principal hipótese a ser defendida aqui é a de que a noção de ambivalência que Butler tem sustentado desde meados dos anos 2000, inclusive em seu debate com Axel Honneth, oferece uma contribuição crucial para a teoria crítica contemporânea diagnosticar patologias sociais e buscar potenciais emancipatórios em tempos de profunda e violenta polarização.