Sociology Theory

Did the Covid-19 lockdowns and mandates serve society’s best interests? Science alone can’t answer the question. Philosophers have important things to say about it. So do psychologists, economists, novelists, and lawyers.

We live in a time where the world is facing an invisible enemy. The pandemic surges, and social relations are fraught with turmoil. Emotions are on edge, and people fear for their lives. We face turmoil, but turmoil does not come without emotions. Little has been written about the power of emotions and emotional contagion in this time of global turmoil—until now.

Imagine if it was possible to have the perfect sexual relationship without compromise, eat meat without killing animals, have babies without the need to bear them, and choose the time of our painless death. Life would be better, right? All over the globe, people are trying to make this a reality. They want to use technology to solve the thorniest problems of humanity. But what if these ‘problems’ are the very things that make us human?

En este audiolibro la periodista, filológa y escritora Joana Bonet, nos ofrece una radiografía de los primeros años del siglo XXI, analizando el impacto del momento que vivimos en nuestra forma de pensar y de actuar, cuáles son los motores vitales por los que vale la pena luchar y qué tendencias sociales acabarán por imponerse mientras buscamos el equilibrio entre el mundo de fuera, el mundo de dentro y el mundo que sentimos.

La pandemia de covid-19 parece hoy lejana; incluso hay quienes afirman que es historia pasada. Pero si bien la “nueva normalidad” nos ha permitido retomar la vida de manera prácticamente idéntica a como era antes de 2020, las secuelas emocionales, espirituales y sociales son muy evidentes hay duelos que aún no sanan; vivimos más conectados con la tecnología, pero más aislados unos de otros; la desigualdad se agudizó en todo el mundo. Y por si fuera poco, existe la siempre latente posibilidad de una nueva pandemia. Ante este escenario, Marcelo Rittner nos invita a la reflexión.

Spite seems utterly useless. You don't gain anything by hurting yourself just so you can hurt someone else. So why hasn't evolution weeded out all the spiteful people? As psychologist Simon McCarthy-Jones argues, spite seems pointless because we're looking at it wrong. Spite isn't just what we feel when a car cuts us off or when a partner cheats. It's what we feel when we want to punish a bad act simply because it was bad. Spite is our fairness instinct, an innate resistance to exploitation, and it is one of the building blocks of human civilization.

Parenting for a Digital Future moves beyond the panicky headlines to offer a deeply researched exploration of what it means to parent in a period of significant social and technological change.

In the first half of the twentieth century the Keynesian brand of economics, which saw government spending as a necessary spur to economic growth, prevailed. Then in the 1970s, conservatives fought back. Once they got people to believe a few simple ideas instead—that only the free market could produce growth, that taxes and regulation stifle growth—the battle was won.

Money gives us freedom. It may not buy us happiness, but having it allows us to make choices.... The choice to live where you want. The choice to do what you love for work. The choice over how you spend your free time. But what if you knew that you would earn less than your male counterparts for the rest of your life? Today, being a woman means that you will. Few of us ever talk about it, but great economic inequality still exists between men and women.

Everything we know about solving the world’s problems is wrong. Out: Plans, experts and above all, leaders. In: Adapting - improvise rather than plan; fail, learn, and try again. In this groundbreaking new book, Tim Harford shows how the world’s most complex and important problems - including terrorism, climate change, poverty, innovation, and the financial crisis - can only be solved from the bottom up by rapid experimenting and adapting.

On Being Unreasonable mounts a vital and spirited defence of why and how being unreasonable can help improve the world. It examines and parses the pros and cons of our rules around reason, but leaves us with the rousing question: What if behaving unreasonably at times might be the best way to bring about meaningful change that is long overdue?

The 2008 financial crisis crystallized for people around the country the fact that something was wrong. Americans had already been losing faith in elites who had failed to protect them from crisis after crisis and disaster after disaster. After the collapse, we expected someone to have a solution but were inevitably disappointed. Instead, we got high and rising unemployment, foreclosures spiraling out of control, and, as the protest chant went, "banks got bailed out, we got sold out."

This audiobook narrated by Jennifer Woodward explains why acknowledging diverse eco-social relationships can help us overcome the political polarization that undermines our ability to protect the environment.

Thirty years ago, “greed is good” and “maximizing shareholder value” became the new mantras woven into the fabric of our business culture, economy, and politics. Although, around the world, free-market capitalism has lifted more than a billion people from poverty, in the US, most of the benefits of economic growth have been captured by the richest 10 percent, along with providing justification for squeezing workers, cheating customers, avoiding taxes, and leaving communities in the lurch. As a result, Americans are losing faith that a free-market economy is the best system.

Like no book before it, Preachers of Hate uncovers an ancient hatred that threatens the life and livelihood of every American. The "new" anti-Semitism targets not only Jews, but Americans specifically and the West in general. It targets our values, our lifestyle, and our freedoms. It is the single most important issue we face when trying to make sense of the Arab world.

In The Forgotten, Ben Bradlee, Jr., reports on how voters in Luzerne County, a pivotal county in a crucial swing state, came to feel like strangers in their own land - marginalized by flat or falling wages, rapid demographic change, and a liberal culture that mocks their faith and patriotism.

The Last Days of New York: A reporter’s true tale tells the story of how a corrupted political system hollowed out New York City, leaving it especially vulnerable, all in the name of equity and “fairness”. When, in the future, people ask how New York City fell to pieces, they can be told - quoting Hemingway - “gradually, then suddenly”. New Yorkers awoke from a slumber of ease and prosperity to discover that their glorious city was not only unprepared for crisis, but that the underpinnings of its fortune had been gutted by the reckless mismanagement of Bill de Blasio.

تفرد الدكتور والمفكر علي الوردي في طرح بعض الإشكاليات والمواضيع الاجتماعية الهامة والتي كان الناس يأخذونها مأخذ اليقين، في هذا الكتاب يُناقش بعض القيم التي تهدد البنية الاجتماعية وتتسبب في تآكل دور المدينة في مواجهة زحف الريف.

In Faking It, Lux Alptraum tackles the topic of seemingly dishonest women; investigating whether women actually lie, and what social situations might encourage deceptions both great and small. Using her experience as a sex educator and former CEO of Fleshbot (the foremost blog on sexuality), first-hand interviews with sexuality experts and everyday women, Alptraum raises important questions: Are lying women all that common - or is the idea of the dishonest woman a symptom of male paranoia? Are women trying to please men, or just avoid their anger?

We all try to influence others in our daily lives. We are all marketers, whether you are a manager motivating your team, an employee making a big presentation, an activist staging a protest or a company executive selling the next big thing. In For the Culture, Marcus Collins argues that true cultural engagement is the most powerful vehicle for influencing behaviour. To effectively engage with communities we first need to think hard about what we will contribute to those communities and how we align with their core values.