Suchergebnisse

By 1950, the US foreign policy objective of containing the perceived irresistible expansion of Soviet power was tied to the strategy of nuclear deterrence. Acceptance of deterrence by Americans depended on the credibility of the view that, even if US threats to counter Soviet provocations by employing atomic bombs led the Soviets to respond in kind, the results would not be catastrophic. But what would a Soviet nuclear assault hold in store for the American people? This question posed the problem of how the theater of WWIII -- US society under nuclear bombardment -- should be envisioned. Here, the response to this question produced by civil defense planners in the mid-1950s is analyzed: the Cold war conception of nuclear reality, an interpretation of US society under nuclear attack designed to sustain the view that Americans were capable of confronting a nuclear emergency through their own efforts. Modified AA

Considers the annual testing of the plans of the civil defense community for managing a nuclear attack, "Operation Alert," and the futility of these exercises given the nature of nuclear warfare.

The concepts of "media logic" & "media culture" are explored as they are used in David L. Altheide's & Robert M. Snow's Media Worlds in the Postjournalism Era (New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 1991). Media logic is a form & process of communication that generates a framework of assumptions on which media artifacts & strategies are conceived. Through the vehicle of media logic, all social institutions have been transformed into media institutions or the media culture. The concept of media logic rests on four propositions: (1) modern media are oriented toward rational means-end communications; (2) modern media require rapid dissemination of information at low cost; (3) audience expectations require media information to be accurate, current, & entertaining; & (4) media information must be dependable & relevant. It is argued that all of these claims are mistaken. The media culture thesis rests on spurious, unsupported claims as well, eg, the proposition that the media have caused the death of organized journalism. In Media Logic and Culture: Reply to Oakes Altheide (Arizona State U, Tempe) & Snow repeat their premise that electronic communications have changed all aspects of US culture, reiterate the distinction & importance of media logic & media culture, & critique Oakes's suggestion that the infrastructure of politics continues to work as usual. D. Generoli

An examination of the moral demands that training programs in personal sales impose on sales personnel, the tensions these demands produce in the work world of the salesperson, & the ways the personal sales industry & sales personnel themselves respond to these tensions, based on analysis of training materials produced in the US by the Life Insurance Marketing & Research Assoc & other documentary & interview data collected in 1987 & 1989 from life insurance sales agents in NY & Pa. It is argued that the life insurance industry expects its agents to endeavor to act as if they were professionals & prove their professionalism to the prospect. The industry responds to the discrepancies between the ideal of professional service inculcated in training programs & the realities encountered by the sales force in the field by means of three strategies: a philosophy of financial security that enables the agent to endure the psychic stress & metaphysical emptiness of life in personal sales; sales conventions, which are carefully staged productions designed by the industry as rituals of recognition that celebrate the virtues of the service ideal, reinforce a commitment to its principles, & reward agents who measure up to its requirements; & a sales force ethic of toughness, imperturbability, & nonchalance that endows agents with the iron-clad defenses & hardened sensibilities required to act with poise & affability in the face of insult & humiliation. Modified AA

Training programs in life insurance sales are investigated, with focus on how training programs define the sales process, & concomitantly form the identity of the salesperson. The bipolar character of the sales process is demonstrated: ie, sales is both a strategic interaction driven by the maximization of commissions & the performance of a service driven by fiduciary obligations to clients -- along with the dual identity of the salesperson -- who is conceived both as a ruthless opportunist & as a service professional. It is argued that the bipolar conception of the sales process & the dual identity of the salesperson generate antinomies that are irresolvable in principle. Modified AA

A refutation of four claims made by Luciano Pellicani (see SA 41:1/93Z4078; & see abstract in this section of SA 41:2) about Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism ([TPE] see SA 7:1/595444): (1) that Weber's essays on the Protestant sects written after TPE simply repeat its basic thesis, about which it is argued that the essays explain the relation between the Protestant ethic & the spirit of capitalism by means of premises not employed in TPE; (2) that Weber's replies to German critics of TPE, Karl Fischer & Felix Rachfahl, add nothing of significance; (3) that Werner Sombart's thesis that Leon Battista Alberti offers proof of a pre-Reformation spirit of capitalism is correct, against which it is argued that it is a mistake to conflate the economic ethos exemplified by Alberti with the spirit of modern capitalism; & (4) that Weber's position must be rejected because most historians have concluded that it is mistaken, against which it is argued that this mode of criticism is invalid. Modified AA

The impact of the southwest German school on Max Weber's methodological work between 1903 & 1907 has already been well-established. An attempt is made to discern how this came about -- through the books he read, his acquaintances, or more systematic means. It is argued that the influence of the Baden neo-Kantians lies in the immanent requirements of Weber's thought: their philosophy offered a connection between the problem of knowledge of the historical individual, the problem of concept formation, & the theory of value. However, Weber maintained that cultural & ethical values were entirely separate, while the neo-Kantians -- primarily Heinrich Rickert -- supported a doctrine of objective values; the difficulties this posed for Weber's methodology are explored. In Weber and the Southwest German School: The Genesis of the Concept of the Historical Individual, Ahmad Sadri explores these methodological implications further, focusing on Oakes's criticisms of Weber for: (1) adopting Rickert's theory of objective cultural values without acknowledging its incompatability with his other assumptions, (2) misinterpreting Kantian epistemology, & (3) dichotomizing (along with Rickert) value/valuation. In Commentary on Oakes's Paper, Godehard Czernik asks whether the Kantian assumption that the function of human consciousness (or more precisely, the intellect) is to categorize otherwise unorganized sensations is valid, particularly in light of the problems of value relationality & value judgment that Oakes presents. How would these notions be affected if the individual were conceived of as the subject of ongoing historical processes? Differences between Weber's & Rickert's views on these issues are discussed, with focus on their conceptions of the individual, reality, & historical science. In Commentary on Guy Oakes's paper on "Max Weber and the South German Neo-Kantians," Joseph Bensman expresses doubt that Weber failed to fully understand the neo-Kantians, suggesting that he actually chose not to contradict his friends & mentors, downplaying the methodological & epistemological differences between them. The problem of avoiding the value-reliance of social scientific inquiry & establishing objectivity & logic is addressed, & solutions are offered in the concepts of the historical individual & the ideal type. In Remarks on Weber and Rickert, Guy Oakes reiterates his position on the consequences of Rickert's theory of concept formation for Weber's theory of ideal types, & justifies his critique of Rickert's distinction between values & value judgments. It is concluded that Weber's adaptation of neo-Kantian thought extended far beyond epistemological & methodological issues to a basic concern over the nature of cultural reality. 1 Reference. K. Hyatt