Society

In The Civilizing Process (1939), sociologist Norbert Elias traces the emergence of the idea of “civility” to a single book by Erasmus of Rotterdam, De civilitate morum puerilium (1530), which itself underwent numerous editions and was subject to a “multitude of translations, imitations and sequels.” The book, Elias writes, “is about something very simple: the behavior of people in society — above all, bur not solely, ‘outward bodily propriety.’” It gives advice on how one should dress, how one should stand, how to eat, and how to behave in public places, going into nitty-gritty details about what to do with greasy fingers, how to deal with snot, when you should and shouldn’t fart and vomit, and so on. “Much of what he says, Elias notes delicately, “oversteps our threshold of repugnance.”

Getting back to my series of posts on understanding economics when scarcity is removed from some goods, I wanted to address the ridiculousness of the “can’t compete with free” sta…

If a grand jury does indict Donald Trump, it will finally confirm, as the Founders expected, that ordinary citizens have the power to treat former commanders in chief like anyone else.

The Silicon Valley Bank bailout has tech elites feeling attacked. Author Malcolm Harris reminds us of a time when the weapons they feared were bombs, not mean tweets.

Workers will benefit from technology when they control how it’s used.

It has been a truly bizarre week. We’ve watched three banks die, and then a fourth bank almost died (Credit Suisse) before being scooped up by UBS for the rock-bottom price of $3.2bn. Credit Suisse’s fall from grace is especially remarkable given that it was

A Black man who spoke up at the workshop shared that a white woman told him to leave the country, and in response, a trustee asked him to be removed instead.

I look at the class battle between wage workers and creditors, and how this struggle relates to inflation.

In an exclusive Fast Company-Harris Poll, only 11% of Americans said they defined wealth as being able to afford extravagant purchases.

America’s anti-alcohol experiment cut down on drinking and drinking-related deaths — and it may have reduced crime and violence overall.

In a fascinating 1966 interview with Marshall McLuhan, the visionary media theorist discussed the future of information, expressing ideas that now find resonance in the age of ChatGPT and generativ…

This is an excellent 2014 book on how men differ from women: In Warriors and Worriers, psychologist Joyce Benenson presents a new theory of sex differences, based on thirty years of research with young children and primates around the world. … boys and men deter their enemies, while girls and women find assistants to aid them in coping with vulnerable children and elders. … Human males form cooperative groups that compete against out-groups, while human females exclude other females in their quest to find mates, female family members to invest in their children, and keep their own hearts ticking. In the process, Benenson turns upside down the familiar wisdom that women are more sociable than men and that men are more competitive than women.

Earlier this month a homophobic smear campaign seeded in the press by the likes of AT&T, Comcast, and News Corporation successfully killed the FCC nomination of popular reformer Gigi Sohn. The …

Combating disinformation has been elevated to a national security imperative under the Biden administration, as codified in its first-of-its-kind National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism,

Leave it to the conspiracy theorists to ruin even the best ideas that seem so straightforward and helpful, such as 15-minute cities. The idea behind 15-minute cities is that everything you might ne…

technology and society, communities and tech, ChatGPT, jobs and ChatGPT, technology and jobs, impact of ChatGPT, UBI, Universal basic income, green

Feelings of loneliness prompt changes in the brain that further isolate people from social contact.

When Deepika Shergill was about 20 years old, she commuted by bus to her office job. A man in his 40s would regularly grope her on the bus. “He would always come and stand next to me, lean ov…

A federal judge will soon decide if digital lending violates copyright laws.

Incorporating internet literacy can be a challenge.

It sucks and you know it

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