The barbarism of civilization: cultural genocide and the 'stolen generations'

Norbert Elias suggested that 'civilization' involves the transformation of human habitus so that violence of all sorts is gradually subjected to greater and more sophisticated forms of management and control, whereas 'decivilization' encompasses processes which produce an increase in violence and a breakdown in the stability and consistency of on-going social relations. What remains unexplored is the extent to which 'civilizing offensives', the self-conscious attempts to bring about 'civilization', have revolved around essentially violent policies and practices. This paper examines the systematic removal of indigenous Australian children from their families, largely for the social engineering purpose of the gradual and systematic annihilation of Aboriginal cultural identity. At the time, these policies and practices were constructed by most observers as contributing to the 'welfare' of Australian Aborigines, and this intersection of welfare and violence raises the possibility that civilization and decivilization, rather than being different processes which may or may not run alongside each other, interpenetrate each other so that, under certain circumstances, societies are 'barbaric' precisely in their movement towards increasing civilization. It may also be possible to describe the move away from the systematic removal of Aboriginal children since the 1970s as itself part of a civilizing process, an increasing recognition of the human rights of Australian Aborigines and of the inhumanity of those policies and practices. The paper concludes by addressing the implications for theories of civilization and decivilization, as well as more generally for our contemporary understanding of what it means to be a 'civilized' modern citizen.     

Blackmail,boycott and genocide: The language of group conflict

This article examines the mis‐use of language that is often encountered in conflict situations involving ethnic and national groups. The various abuses of the words ‘Blackmail’, ‘Boycott’, and ‘Genocide’ are examined in the context of a number of recent conflicts. It is pointed out that the protagonists in such disputes frequently alter the meaning of words in an effort to make a special plea for their position. The author further warns of the serious consequences for the analysis of such conflicts should observers, journalists and commentators adopt the partisan terminology of the disputants.     

Twenty years on: finding a place for the Rwandan genocide in education

The Rwandan genocide was perhaps the most paradigmatic human rights catastrophe in the post-Holocaust era, which challenged the mantra of ‘never again’. Yet as we approach the twentieth anniversary, it remains a relatively marginalised entity within mainstream English education. This paper argues that a study of the Rwandan genocide introduces a number of important issues, which are not emphasised within Holocaust education. It also draws upon a small-scale empirical study of 41 teachers’ attitudes in England, perceptions and experiences of teaching the genocide in a range of disciplines and demonstrates emerging patterns on how it is integrated into curricula and individual lessons. It concludes by advocating the study of the Rwandan genocide in its own right and the importance of students appreciating its contemporary relevance.     

Confidence and action: a comment on Barbalet

John Maynard Keynes is widely recognized as one of the greatest economists of the 20^th century. For a growing number of his interpreters, Keynes’s emphasis on uncertainty and on the psychological aspects of expectations about the future are among his most significant contributions. References to Keynes’s notions of confidence and animal spirits, for example, have increasingly appeared in the economic literature. In sociology, a stimulating recent book by Jack Barbalet (1998) tries to improve our understanding of social structure by redefining the role of emotions in social life. Barbalet also wants to correct what he understands as an insufficient attention to time on the part of social theorists. This double objective leads him to deal with confidence and some of Keynes’s ideas. His book represents a most valuable contribution to the sociology of emotions, time and uncertainty.The purpose of this paper is to comment on Barbalet’s discussion of confidence and the theory of action, and to contrast it with an alternative approach. Both Barbalet’s position and the alternative presented here involve an interpretation of Keynes’s theory of economic behavior under uncertainty, but go beyond doctrinal-historical issues and formulate original theoretical propositions. The present paper is intended as a positive contribution to the interaction between economists and sociologists interested in these issues. Barbalet’s book already represents an important step in this direction, for his social analysis considers, and incorporates insights from, the work of several economists, in addition to conveying well-founded criticisms of standard economic theory.As far as Barbalet’s interpretation of Keynes is concerned, the paper points out Keynes’s ambiguity regarding important issues and identifies interesting points of Keynes’s theory that Barbalet does not discuss or emphasize. The paper produces evidence against Barbalet’s equation of confidence and animal spirits in Keynes. It also shows that Keynes distinguished between expectations and confidence, a distinction not explicitly made by Barbalet. In addition, the paper enriches Barbalet’s discussion of Keynes’s monetary theory by relating uncertainty to the precautionary motive for liquidity preference.Moving from the history of thought to theory, the paper proposes an alternative analysis of confidence and action, and contrasts it with Barbalet’s approach. This alternative approach distinguishes between confidence and expectations, and suggests that these two elements are ultimately determined by three factors: knowledge, animal spirits (redefined as an optimistic disposition to face uncertainty) and creativity. The first two factors are seen as determinants of confidence through their influence on what is called uncertainty perception and willingness to face uncertainty (or uncertainty aversion). The paper is organized as follows. It begins by summarizing some aspects of Barbalet’s views on confidence, in section 1. It proceeds, in section 2, by presenting Barbalet’s interpretation of Keynes and discussing it. The next step is to present, in section 3, another theory of action in which confidence plays a crucial role. This alternative approach, which uses Keynes’s insights but goes beyond his work, is then contrasted with Barbalet’s views.     

The displaced and dispossessed of Darfur: explaining the sources of a continuing state-led genocide

The millions of survivors who fled from attacks to Sudanese-controlled displacement camps and the refugee camps in Chad are the living ghosts of the Darfur genocide. The 1948 Genocide Convention incorporates extermination by mass killing and elimination through forced migration as two distinct elements of genocide. Genocide scholars and public discourse emphasize extermination by killing, but they give far less explanatory attention to the elimination processes that the Genocide Convention describes as 'deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction'. (Article II United Nations 1948.) In Darfur, understanding the latter processes requires theoretical attention to the history of food, water, and famine and detailed methodological attention to temporal processes of displacement. We demonstrate how intentional state-led attacks on food and water massively dislodged Black Africans in Darfur from February 2003 to August 2004. The political leadership of the Sudanese state dehumanized and forcibly displaced Black Africans from their homes in Darfur to camps where they largely remain, not only through mass killings and rapes, but also by destroying life-sustaining access to food and water, leading to the genocidal elimination of group life in this region.     

Kaiser Permanente's manifesto 2005 demonstration: the promises and limits of devolution

In 1996, the eight-million member Kaiser Permanente HMO adopted a vision statement that said by 2005 it would expand its services to include home- and community-based services for its members with disabilities. It funded a 3-year, 32-site demonstration that showed that it was feasible to link HMO services with existing home-and community-based (HCB) services and that members appreciated the improved coordination and access. This private-sector project showed that devolution can produce innovative and feasible models of care, but it also showed that without federal financial and regulatory support, such models are unlikely to take hold if they are focused on "unprofitable" populations, for example, those who are chronically ill, poor, and/or disabled.     

The context of correctness: A comment on rushton

According to Philippe Rushton, the equalitarian fiction, a scientific hoax that races are genetically equal in cognitive ability, underlies the politically correct objections to his research on racial differences. He maintains that there is a taboo against race unequaled by the Inquisition. I show that while Rushton has been publicly harassed, he has had continuous opportunities to present his findings in diverse, widely available, respectable journals, and no general suppression within academic psychology is evident. Similarly, Henry Garrett and his associates in the LAAEE, dedicated to preserving segregation and preventing race suicide, disseminated their ideas widely, although Garrett complained of the equalitarian fiction in 1961. Examination of the intertwined history ofMankind Quarterly, German Rassenhygiene, far right politics, and the work of Roger Pearson suggests that some cries of political correctness must be viewed with great caution.Preparation of this paper was not supported by any grant, foundation, political, or religious organization.specializing in the history of psychology and psychological aesthetics.     

Researching non-profit organisational effectiveness: A comment on Herman and Heimovics

Conclusions This brief paper has both welcomed the work of Herman and Heimovics on the criteria of organisational effectiveness of VNPOs, and provided a critique of it. In doing this it has presented an alternative approach developed from the work of these authors and situated it within the evolving critiques of the rationalist tradition of organisation management. The intention, however, has not been to provide a final codification of organisational effectiveness. Rather, it has been to stimulate further debate on this important issue. Only through such a dialogue can we hope to develop truly representative and robust frameworks within which to situate the evaluation of the organisational effectiveness of VNPOs and its definition by key stakeholders. The alternative approach offered eschews normative propositions about the implicit or assumed effectiveness of VNPOs and rejects a wholly quantitative approach to its analysis. Instead, it provides a framework within which to situate and debate the differing criteria, perceptions and loci of effectiveness within such organisations.