By Kim on August 24, 2011
I don’t always agree with Bernard Keane but I think he is right on the money on the question of the demographics and motivations of participants in right wing rallies such as the recent ones in Canberra, in his first [...]
Posted in Activism, Featured, Politics, Sociology | Tagged 1975, barack obama, bernard keane, Coalition, convoy of no confidence, Julia Gillard, Politics, Race, rallies, right wing, roundtable, sexism, Sociology, Tea Party |
By Kim on August 17, 2011
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s speech to the House of Commons in the aftermath of the English riots set the tone for a bizarre crackdown: Responsibility for crime always lies with the criminal. But crime has a context. And we [...]
Posted in Authoritarianism, Crime, Europe, Featured, International, Law, Media, Politics, Race | Tagged Axel bruns, benefits, Blackberry, Boris Johnson, civil disorder, Conservative Party, crackdown, criminal justice, David Cameron, evictions, facebook, Guy Rundle, law and order, London, london burning, Noel Pearson, Owen Hatherley, Race, riots, riots aftermath, sentencing, social exclusion, social housing, social media, social theory, Sociology, Tories, twitter, welfare policy |
By Mark Bahnisch on August 10, 2011
It’s time for another thread on the English riots, since the last one is now rather long.
To update on some of the analysis, the prediction that a number of the usual suspects would turn the events into a partisan football has unsurprisingly been borne out. So let’s ignore that, and have a look at what we know about what’s happened and what it means.
Posted in Crime, Europe, Featured, Politics, Sociology | Tagged civil disorder, collective behaviour, Daniel Hind, England, feminist philosophers, London, order, political sociology, Politics, riots, roundtable, social disorder, Sociology |
By Mark Bahnisch on August 9, 2011
Underlying all this is deep inequality, which creates the subcultures where setting the town alight can be perceived as a rational action. Addressing those causes would require a different form of society altogether, and a politics which would take us there.
Posted in Crime, Europe, Featured, Masculinity, Politics, Race, Sociology | Tagged austerity, civil disorder, Crime, cultural sociology, deviance, inequality, london burning, Mark Duggan, Mary Farrell, Nina Power, ordering, Race, riots, roundtable, social control, social exclusion, social order, Sociology, Stafford Scott, subcultures, Tariq Ali, Tottenham |
By Mark Bahnisch on August 8, 2011
I intend to write on Erik Olin Wright’s important book Envisioning Real Utopias, but I thought it might be useful to make it a five part series, rather than the world’s longest blog post. I’d also like to have a [...]
Posted in Featured, Philosophy, Politics, Sociology | Tagged Charles Fourier, Enlightenment, envisioning realistic utopias, erik olin wright, Hayek, imaginary, John Locke, Marx, Marxism, neo-liberalism, philosophy, political philosophy, political theory, Popper, social change, social democracy, Sociology, Thomas Hobbes, utopia, utopian socialism |
By Mark Bahnisch on July 31, 2011
Writing at Open Democracy, Sara Silvestri makes an excellent argument about the massacres in Norway, and how we should act to avoid their repetition.
Posted in Disasters, Europe, Featured, Politics, Religion, Sociology, Terrorism | Tagged Anders Behring Breivik, Culture, Europe, norway, Religion, Sara Silvestri, Sociology, Terrorism, violence |
By Anna Winter on July 25, 2011
WA’s Attorney General wants to give parents legal rights over their children’s Facebook pages. Miranda Devine, in her typically careful way with words, describes social media as “barbarism, unleashing the worst elements of human nature, with no restraints” and quotes [...]
Posted in Culture, Featured, Relationships, The Web | Tagged anonymity, bullying, christian porter, Culture, cyber-bullying, email, facebook, google, Marshall McLuhan, Miranda Devine, pseudonyms, social media, Sociology, trolls, twitter |
By Mark Bahnisch on July 24, 2011
Winehouse’s struggles will have been compounded by the world she found herself in. Her death should stimulate reflection on how myths surrounding mental illness have a cruel hold over real lives.
Posted in Creativity, Culture, Disasters, Featured, Health, Life, Medicine, Music, Sociology, Women | Tagged addiction, amy winehouse, celebrity, gender, jim morrison, mental health, mental illness, myth, social care, Sociology |
By Kim on July 21, 2011
Post-GFC, there are now arguments in places like The Economist and the New York Times that we’ve passed Peak Consumerism.
Posted in Consumerism, Creativity, Featured, Life, Politics, Sociology, USA | Tagged Consumerism, consumption, economic growth, GFC, household economies, production, slow, Sociology, two speed economy, value |
By Mark Bahnisch on January 17, 2011
My colleague in several incarnations, Dr John Harrison, has a neat post on social capital and the SEQ floods at jmaced: The good thing is that communities with high levels of social capital recover from adverse circumstances faster than those [...]
Posted in Activism, Blogging, Brisbane, Disasters, International, Sociology | Tagged #qldfloods, Anna Bligh, brisbane floods, communications, donations, equality, facebook, giving, Hurricane Katrina, inequality, mentalities, queensland floods, queensland government, Queensland police, social capital, social media, Sociology, trust, tsunami, twitter, volunteering |
By Kim on September 28, 2010
We really must be in a new paradigm when some people on Twitter end up thinking Sophie Mirabella speaks truly and I find myself feeling some sympathy with Stephen Conroy. But that’s perhaps by the by. I think one of [...]
Posted in Culture, Media, Politics, Sexuality, Sociology | Tagged censorship, filter, fiona patten, ideology, internet, liberation, Marcus Lockard, Mungo McCallum, Q&A, Qanda, sex, sexualisation, Sexuality, Sociology, Sophie Mirabella, stephen conroy |
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