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"Smart, Barry"
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Ontology Matters: Humans and Other Animals in Classical Sociological Thought
An overview and analysis of Salla Tuomivaara's comparison of the respective views of Emile Durkheim and Edward Westermarck on sociology, humans, and other animals. Key words: ontology, sociology, humans, other animals, posthumanism, Tuomivaara, Derrida, Durkheim, Westermarck
Journal Article
Resisting McDonaldization
George Ritzer′s McDonaldization thesis argued that contemporary life is succumbing to the standardization, flexibility and practicability of fast-food service. This book brings together specially commissioned papers by leading social and cultural analysts to engage in a critical appraisal of the thesis. The contributors discuss the roots of the thesis, the rationalization of late modern life, the effects of increasing cultural commodification, the continuing prominence of American cultural and economic imperialism and the impact of globalization on social and cultural life. The strengths and weaknesses of the McDonaldization thesis are clearly evaluated and the irrational consequences of rationalization are pinpointed and critically.
eBook
Foucault, Marxism And Critique
In this work, originally released in 1983, Barry Smart examines the relevance of Foucault's work for developing an understanding of those issues which lie beyond the limits of Marxist theory and analysis - issues such as 'individualising' forms of power, power-knowledge relations, the rise of 'the social', and the associated socialisation of politics. He argues that there exist clear and substantial differences between Foucault's genealogical analysis and that of Marxist theory. Smart thus presents Foucault's work as a new form of critical theory, whose object is a critical analysis of rationalities, and of how relations of power are rationalised.
eBook
Resisting McDonaldization: Theory, Process and Critique
Introduces this collection of essays examining George Ritzer's (1993) McDonaldization thesis, which builds on Max Weber's theory of the rationalization process, contending that McDonald's has replaced Weber's bureaucracy as the dominant expression of the institutionalization of formal rationality. The three factors that Ritzer claims are driving McDonaldization (material interests, sense of intrinsic value, compatibility) are examined, & contrasted with reflections of Karl Marx on the process of development of the capitalist mode of production. The burdens of modernity -- identified as efficiency, calculability, predictability, & control -- are discussed, along with the appropriateness of Ritzer's use of the metaphor, \"iron cage,\" to describe the conditions & consequences of McDonaldization. The benefits & costs that Ritzer associates with McDonaldization are discussed, maintaining that a number of the supposed benefits are questionable. Public resistance to McDonald's is explored as a potential challenge to the McDonaldization process. It is concluded that Ritzer's thesis is not only about McDonald's, but about the social, cultural, & economic consequences of market globalization. 34 References. J. Lindroth
eBook
Comparing traditional and online instruction: Examining developmental coursework at an Alabama community college
The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the effect that course format had on student success rates and withdrawal rates at an Alabama community college from 2012 to 2014. The goal was to determine if students who were enrolled in online, hybrid, or face-to-face developmental courses were more or less likely to withdraw from those courses and to determine if those students were more or less likely to receive higher or lower grades than their counterparts. The study used archived data from the college to collect a sample that included all students who had enrolled in developmental courses at the college between 2012 and 2014 (n = 3,863). To determine the effect, if any, that course format had on student withdrawal rates from developmental classes a chi-square test was conducted that found that course format had a statistically significant effect on student withdrawal rates. To determine the effect, if any, that course format had on student success rates (student grade), a one-way ANOVA test was performed. The results of that ANOVA suggested that course format had a statistically significant effect on student success rates. At the conclusion of the research, suggestions are made for practice, as well as the implications that these results have on future policies and decision-making at the college for students who enroll in developmental education courses.
Dissertation
The Politics of Difference and the Problem of Justice
What is justice in a world of difference(s)? Towards the close of his report on the condition of knowledge presented to the Conseil des Universites of the government of Quebec, a text which is perhaps best known for its introduction of a controversial notion of a 'postmodern condition' into contemporary social analysis, Lyotard remarks that '[c]onsensus has become an outmoded and suspect value. But justice as a value is neither outmoded nor suspect. We must thus arrive at an idea and practice of justice that is not linked to that of consensus' (1986 [1979]: 66), or for that matter, if we follow Lyotard, linked to truth, since he also argues that prescriptions cannot be derived from descriptions, and that a politics of justice is not to be equated with a politics of truth (Readings 1991). In a subsequent work, Just Gaming (1985), Lyotard engages in a dialogue which offers a series of philosophical reflections on the idea of justice, the problem, if not impossibility, of consensus and the endlessness of politics and difference. Lyotard remarks that 'it is no longer a matter ... of reflecting upon what is just or unjust against the horizon of a social totality, but, on the contrary, against the horizon of a multiplicity or of a diversity' (Lyotard and Thebaud, 1985: 87). In short, given the identification of a politics of difference as a distinctive, if not defining, feature of contemporary social life (Young 1990; Taylor 1992) a radical reconsideration of the idea of justice has become inescapable.
Book Chapter
Europe/America
European experiences, understandings and identities have been substantially influenced by American social, economic, and cultural forms and practices. During the course of the twentieth century 'the age of Europe' gave way to the 'heyday of American world hegemony'. Subsequently there have been changes in both the shape and the relationship between a number of geopolitical and cultural unities, changes which continue to provoke controversy and debate. The way in which observers of America resorted to the world that was familiar to them is a timeless response by self when faced with the challenge of the other. American-led 'new world order' appeared to be confirmed, subsequent events that 'a large measure of disorder, loose ends, untidy arrangements' will remain a corollary. Focusing on America and Europe Baudrillard neglects the question of Japan and fails thereby to respond to the 'postmodern' challenge presented by the global articulation of locally inflected forms of modernity.
Book Chapter
1 On The Limits And Limitations Of Marxism
From the beginning any examination of Marxism is likely to encounter and to promote controversy, for Marxism is a veritable cauldron of interpretations and schools of thought. There may have been only one 'biographical' Marx, but the literature abounds with conceptions of the 'total', 'early', 'mature', 'scientific' or 'humanist' Marx. In addition, there are a plethora of clearly differentiated Marxisms, although not quite, as one commentator would have it, 'almost as many Marxisms as there are Marxists' (Bobbio, 1979a, p. 193). However, underlying the cultural and epistemological differences manifested in the form of several national Marxisms (e.g. Austro-Marxism, English Marxism, etc.) and a variety of rigorously differentiated schools of Marxist thought (e.g. 'humanist' Marxism, 'structuralist' Marxism) there are specific common features, reference points and predicaments. My attention will be directed to these more general elements and conditions and will be focused in particular upon the contemporary diagnosis of a 'crisis of Marxism'.
Book Chapter