Society, Politics and Philosophy

Academic Philosophy
Bertrand Russell made a very apt point when he stated that:

“Morally, a philosopher who uses his professional competence for anything other than a disinterested search for truth is guilty of a kind of treason.”

An academic article that you will not find in our academic philosophy section of the Society, Politics and Philosophy category was written by Steven Yates and entitled ‘Academic Philosophy Today: Thanks, but no thanks’. Steven Yates has a Ph.D. in philosophy and published a scathing treatise in which he describes his disgust at what he saw degenerate into academic philosophy. I happen to agree with him. One book of his that you will find there is ‘Civil Wrongs: What Went Wrong with Affirmative Action’. Basically, Steven Yates writes exactly what other people think, and he does it quite scathingly!

When we think of civil rights, one of the first things that comes to mind is racial discrimination, followed by racial integration and even racial equality. However, people, being people, do not always think along the ‘party line’: people see rising levels of crime, high murder rates in certain neighborhoods, and employers whose hands have been tied to some degree, cannot they no longer discriminate in the labor market. Steven Yates writes about community autonomy, about certain standards within society that have, in effect, created an ‘underdog’, which was never the intention of the Government.

Steven Yates, in line with the concepts of Ludwig von Mises, recognizes how politically dignified the underdog is, where the victim, as a result of government intervention. [interference?] emerges victorious over education and other more attractive attributes. Steven Yates’s book is about modern life and how injustice reigns, including compulsory discrimination, filtered from the central government, of the white middle-class male. Employers are now being sidelined to hire black workers instead of having complete freedom to choose the best one for the job instead of facing the possibility of a potential lawsuit. Steven Yates defends freedom and the right to choose, and has little respect for current concepts in academic philosophy.

academic sociology
Academic sociology seems to have split into several factions, each eager to make their own positions known and recognized as the only true direction academic sociology should go. One of these factions has been led by feminist lobbyists like Caroline Bartlett Crane and Jane Addams. Is this a valid goal for academic sociology? Not all women are rabid feminists, and many women watch the antics of the feminist lobby with nothing less than scorn in some quarters! Sociology must be about social justice and social reform per se, rather than focusing solely on one aspect of the social argument.

When sociology first developed as a discipline, there was a rapid growth in industrialization. As a result, urbanization was developing, and to keep pace with demand, immigration was encouraged, and as historical events unfolded, it was essential. None of this needed to isolate the feminist cause as the sole thrust of sociology: it was just one view among many. Academic sociology was considered a progressive subject to study the rapidly changing state of society in the 20th century and more recently in the 21st century.

I’m certainly not referring to the feminist cause here just to sound irrelevant: you’ll find one of Linda Rynbrandt’s books among our Academic Sociology pages, with Caroline Bartlett Crane. The book is titled ‘Caroline Bartlett Crane and Progressive Reform’, published by Routledge. To illustrate what I mean about linking the feminist cause to academic sociology, this book has been subtitled ‘Social Housekeeping as Sociology’.

psychology textbooks
Psychology is about individuals and how their behavior impacts the people around them. It involves how they think and how they act and the reasons why they think and act the way they do. You’ll find a range of interesting and diverse psychology textbooks within our Society, Politics and Philosophy category, such as Leil Lowndes’s book on relationships and body language: ‘How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks to Great Success in relationships’. An entirely different type of psychology textbook, written by Richard Gross is ‘Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behavior’. This book covers everything from substance abuse to health psychology, and has been described as the “pioneer of the psychology textbook revolution.”

true accounts
This section on true stories simply would not be complete without discussing the book on the life of Harry Patch, who recently passed away at the grand age of 111. Harry truly embodied the spirit of his generation as explained in the book he wrote before he died: ‘The Last Fighting Tommy: The Life of Harry Patch, the only surviving veteran of the trenches’. The Times describes the book as a “deeply moving tribute to the courage and suffering of all involved and those who fell.” A generation later and another World War: ‘A Young Girl’s Diary: The Definitive Edition’ was written which explains what life was like in a small Dutch town for a young Jewish woman and her family, who were hiding in fear for the lives of she.

Newer times bring newer accounts of true stories: everyone has a story they could tell, and many have told the true stories of how their lives have unfolded. You’ll find many more sections within our Society, Politics, and Philosophy category, from sections on War and Defense to Women’s Studies, Social Sciences, and Audiobooks. They’re all there for you to explore, so happy browsing!