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Due to the 'civilizing process' (Elias), the overall level of violence is decreasing; yet its transforming patterns persist. The article aims at examining the contemporary structures and mechanisms responsible for violence control, while also exploring the newly emerging, naturalized patterns of cruelty. Firstly, René Girard's mimetic theory is overviewed: while in archaic societies, mimetic crisis is controlled by sacrificial rites, modernization reconfigures this paradigm. Secondly, these transformations are mapped: mimetic desire is channelled into the market processes, while mimetic crisis is managed by the state monopolizing violence. Thirdly, the structural transformations of late modernity upsetting the fragile balance of state and market are analysed: secular scapegoating becomes part of the political toolset, while the private sphere is overwhelmed by undetectable new forms of hurting and self-harming. As a culture of cruelty is naturalized, mimetic crisis becomes a continuous threat, which generates a need for the functional equivalents of sacrificial violence control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conspiracy beliefs entail a scapegoating function by attributing the consequences of crises, such as economic downturns, to the secret action of outgroups. While conspiracy beliefs have been described as reactions to economic threats, we argue that this factor alone is not sufficient. Rather, perceiving one's ingroup as unfairly deprived compared to other groups (i.e., group relative deprivation) might be key to explaining the situation in terms of secret, intentional wrongdoings. Furthermore, individuals high in national narcissism (i.e., a perceived lack of recognition of the ingroup's greatness), may be especially sensitive to this dynamic. Three pilot studies (N = 1237) attested the robustness of the link between group relative deprivation and conspiracy beliefs. Then, Study 1 (N = 812) revealed that the effect of group relative deprivation on conspiracy beliefs was moderated by national narcissism. In Study 2 (N = 728), we found effects of induced national narcissism and group relative deprivation on conspiracy beliefs in a fictitious setting. Study 3 (N = 846) replicated the moderation of national narcissism on the link between group relative deprivation and conspiracy beliefs at the cross‐sectional level. Overall, these studies provide evidence that conspiracy beliefs in reaction to group relative deprivation are especially likely among collective narcissists. We discuss the scapegoating function of conspiracy beliefs during crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The context of this paper is family situations where young people are experiencing significant behavioural and emotional problems. Based on a qualitative study, it offers an empirical and theoretical contribution to the understanding of family‐related factors that promote or hinder behaviour change. Data were collected through face‐to‐face, semi‐structured group interviews with nine families (28 participants), all of them mandatory recipients of child welfare services in Croatia. Thematic analysis comprised primary coding designed to elicit information about individual family members' capacity for change and secondary coding of family‐level phenomena. The results indicated 10 phenomena that were judged to represent factors that helped or hindered change. The discussion section suggests three broad categories of capacity to change at family level (Goals and Priorities; Problem solving dynamics; and Development of role relationship). This analysis is offered as the basis for an examination of the concept of family capacity for change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While conspiracy theories have traditionally received attention from the Turkish public and political elite, recently, however, they have proliferated when explaining complex situations. This paper examines conspiracy theories in Turkey and the role of entertainment media, specifically the popular period drama, Payitaht: Abdülhamid, in mainstreaming conspiracy theories. Payitaht: Abdülhamid, as an ideological state apparatus, repurposes anti-Semitism as salient conspiracy theories by creating scapegoats and existential others. This paper argues that the state uses entertainment media to disseminate conspiracy theories and, in effect, endorses anti-Semitism. As a result, anti-Semitism has transformed from a marginal movement to a mainstream movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cahiers Elisabethains: A Biannual Journal of English Renaissance Studies is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Bigotry distractions are strategic invocations of racism, transphobia, or negative stigma toward other marginalized groups to shape political discourse. Although the vast majority of Americans agree on large policy issues ranging from reducing air pollution to prosecuting corporate crime, bigotry distractions divert attention from areas of agreement toward divisive identity issues. This article explores how the nefarious targeting of identity groups through bigotry distractions may be the tallest barrier to health reform, and social change more broadly. The discussion extends the literature on dog whistles, strategic racism, and scapegoating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The story of Lieutenant Leon Gilbert—a Black United States Army officer court-martialed during the Korean War—challenged the United States' self-declared postwar mission to free oppressed peoples across the world, while continuing to subjugate African Americans at home. Although many critics judged Gilbert's refusal to return to battle as an act of cowardice, others viewed him as a victim, and even a hero. The Gilbert case revealed that although African Americans were ostensibly making progress in the newly desegregated United States military, the fight for racial justice continued to be impeded by white Americans' perceptions of Black inadequacy. Amidst a war purportedly being fought for principles of democracy and freedom, Gilbert's court martial highlighted the connection between American racism and United States foreign policy, as Black military personnel became scapegoats for their nation's military failures. The prosecution and persecution of Gilbert thus exposed the tension between American rhetoric and American racism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with the direct trauma of their experience, many rape victims also suffer secondary victimization due to the tendency of others to blame victims for their assault, particularly in cases of acquaintance rape. We explored the role of news media coverage in promoting victim blaming tendencies. In Study 1, a content analysis of articles reporting sexual assaults from two newspapers revealed a tendency for media to overreport stranger rapes and underreport acquaintance rapes, perpetuating the stranger rape as "real rape" prototype. More victim blaming language was also used in reports of acquaintance rape than stranger rape. Perceivers responded to these differences; a high victim blaming news article resulted in greater victim blaming compared to an article low in victim blame content (Study 2 and 3), and exposure to a high blaming article produced greater victim blaming in a subsequent unrelated case of rape and increased endorsement of rape myths (Study 3). These findings demonstrate the importance of the media in shaping public perception of rape victims, particularly in cases of acquaintance rape, and suggest that news media, legislators, and other visible communicators can change the culture of victimization through intentional efforts to delegitimize rape stereotypes in their reporting and dialogs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text is a tribute to Patsy Healey, the Senior Editor of the journal Planning Theory & Practice, who recently passed away. It highlights Patsy's vision for the journal, which aimed to enhance the scholarly dimension of the field of planning and improve the quality of academic contributions. Patsy emphasized the importance of combining the perspectives of insiders and outsiders in planning and encouraged good scholarship and clear arguments in academic writing. The text also mentions Patsy's mentoring and support of others in the planning community and emphasizes the need for open conversations and diverse perspectives in addressing challenges such as inequality and the climate crisis. The text concludes by introducing the papers published in the current issue of the journal, which cover topics such as water provision, neighborhood planning, and property development. [Extracted from the article]

The author deals with the theme of aggression taking inspiration from the film plot of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Taking up the conceptualization of various authors in the psychoanalytic field, she argues on the different forms in which aggression can find expression: direct and manifest methods, such as destructiveness and hatred; indirect and coerced forms, such as anger and resentment; the active/passive elements in the dynamics of the social group; the transformative potential in the work of mourning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patsy Healey, a prominent figure in planning theory, has passed away, leaving a profound sense of loss in the planning community. She was known for her extensive research and contributions to the field, as well as her mentorship and friendship to many. Healey's work focused on achieving a balance between process and product in planning, using institutionalism and pragmatism to inform her approach. Her contributions will continue to inspire planners and academics alike. The author of the article recounts their personal experience with Patsy, highlighting her impressive analytical skills and their close academic friendship. They discuss Patsy's pioneering work in planning theory, her belief in the potential for human betterment, and her commitment to caring for places and respecting those deeply attached to them. The author concludes by expressing their admiration for Patsy as an academic role model and a generous person. [Extracted from the article]

This text is a tribute to Patsy Healey, the Senior Editor of the journal Planning Theory & Practice, who recently passed away. It highlights Patsy's vision for the journal, which aimed to enhance the scholarly dimension of the field of planning and improve the quality of academic contributions. Patsy emphasized the importance of combining the perspectives of insiders and outsiders in planning and encouraged good scholarship and clear arguments in academic writing. The text also mentions Patsy's mentoring and support of others in the planning community and emphasizes the need for open conversations and diverse perspectives in addressing challenges such as inequality and the climate crisis. The text concludes by introducing the papers published in the current issue of the journal, which cover topics such as water provision, neighborhood planning, and property development. [Extracted from the article]

Thomas Revel Johnson was a pioneering Australian sports journalist in the mid-19th century who also conducted a professional career as a surgeon. This article aims to examine Johnson's achievements in Australian sports reporting as an emerging genre before it was taken seriously by the mainstream press. It also examines his place in a watershed libel case that cast him as a scapegoat and resulted in an unduly harsh two-year jail sentence. The article situates Johnson as part of a pre-Federation commercial media that attempted to establish a distinctly "Australian" voice, championing the underdog and working to undermine imported societal hierarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Research in Contemporary World Literature is the property of University of Tehran and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This essay distinguishes democratic melodrama from authoritarian melodrama. We argue that the distinction between the two forms of melodrama is not merely located in the "eye of the beholder," but can be found within the rhetorical form based on the way that the melodrama is figured. First, we argue that democratic melodrama is characterized by the use of a double gesture, which polarizes and offers the possibility of affirmation and reconnection—a key difference from authoritarian melodrama, which seeks primarily to exclude and condemn. Second, democratic melodrama generates monopathy, a unity of feeling, in its audience that enables interdependency with the other, while authoritarian melodrama engages in contempt for the other, which enables repression and oppression. Finally, the villain in democratic melodrama is typically a behavior, ideology, or institution, while in authoritarian melodrama the villain is typically scapegoated as a member of an "outgroup" that is dehumanized. In sum, democratic melodrama emphasizes interdependency while authoritarian melodrama engages in dehumanization and separation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with risk and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). AMR is considered to be one of the major global public health threats in the twenty-first century. This article applies the ideas of Ulrich Beck and Mary Douglas about the relation between risk and blame to competing discourses about AMR. AMR is closely connected to the use of antimicrobials in livestock production and for preventing/treating human infection. Using qualitative interviews with professionals from the human medical sector and the agricultural sector in Denmark, the article shows how representatives from the two sectors frame and construct AMR risks by blaming each other. Our study shows how experts within the human medical and veterinarian fields construct their own risk assessments in relation to AMR by making claims that shift blame to the other sector. They create a distinction between 'us' and 'them' and a kind of 'otherness' that is used to identify risky behaviour and the overuse of antimicrobials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data stream clustering is integral to contemporary big data applications. However, addressing the ongoing influx of data streams efficiently and accurately remains a primary challenge in current research. This paper aims to elevate the efficiency and precision of data stream clustering, leveraging the TEDA (Typicality and Eccentricity Data Analysis) algorithm as a foundation, we introduce improvements by integrating a nearest neighbor search algorithm to enhance both the efficiency and accuracy of the algorithm. The original TEDA algorithm, grounded in the concept of "Typicality and Eccentricity Data Analytics", represents an evolving and recursive method that requires no prior knowledge. While the algorithm autonomously creates and merges clusters as new data arrives, its efficiency is significantly hindered by the need to traverse all existing clusters upon the arrival of further data. This work presents the NS-TEDA (Neighbor Search Based Typicality and Eccentricity Data Analysis) algorithm by incorporating a KD-Tree (K-Dimensional Tree) algorithm integrated with the Scapegoat Tree. Upon arrival, this ensures that new data points interact solely with clusters in very close proximity. This significantly enhances algorithmefficiencywhile preventing a single data point fromjoining too many clusters andmitigating the merging of clusters with high overlap to some extent. We apply the NS-TEDA algorithm to several well-known datasets, comparing its performance with other data stream clustering algorithms and the original TEDA algorithm. The results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves higher accuracy, and its runtime exhibits almost linear dependence on the volume of data, making it more suitable for large-scale data stream analysis research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The practice of beating willows on Hoshanah Rabbah is a very unusual one, with no explanations offered in the Talmud or Midrash. In the ancient world, the willow represented both fertility and infertility, life and death, and the beating of willows can be connected both to beating with plants as a fertility ritual and as a form of scapegoat ritual. Echoes of both of these ideas are found in Sephardic folk practices associated with beating people with willows as well as the earliest Gaonic explanation for this practice, in addition to the later explanations found in the Zohar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the neurological and evolutionary mechanisms that contributed to the transition from natural violence to structured rituals in human development. Topics include the mimetic mechanism, which describes how mimetic desires and conflicts are resolved through scapegoating; the theory of hominization, which suggests that the creation of rituals marked the transition to human culture; and the role of prefrontal synthesis in enabling complex symbolic thought & cultural practices.

The article focuses on French historian René Girard and Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben's approaches to categorical violence, examining their views on the role of sacred victims in society. Topics include Girard's mimetic theory and its focus on the scapegoat mechanism; Agamben's political philosophy and the concept of homo sacer; and the differing ontological perspectives each thinker brings to their interpretation of violence and the sacred.

Copyright of Enthymema is the property of Enthymema, International Journal of Literary Criticism, Literary Theory & Philosophy of Literature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Enthymema is the property of Enthymema, International Journal of Literary Criticism, Literary Theory & Philosophy of Literature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Contrastes: Revista Internacional de Filosofia is the property of Contrastes: Revista Internacional de Filosofia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is currently the most prevalent childhood psychiatric diagnosis. This article reports how 10 young adults in Norway positioned themselves before they were diagnosed with ADHD either during early childhood or adolescence. A central theme is how these subject-positions relate to societal norms and mental well-being. Method: Individual interviews were conducted, and the transcriptions of the interviews were analysed according to discourse theory. Result: Six central subject positions were identified which in turn related to two major positions: 1) failure with schoolwork and 2) struggle in social interaction. The findings indicated specific emotional and environmental needs and that individuals were confronted with societal norms related to the criteria for ADHD prior to and regardless of whether one had received a formal diagnosis. Conclusion: We argue that analysing subject positions provides important knowledge regarding ADHD that is useful for individuals, parents, teachers, practitioners, policymakers, and helping professionals in the field of mental health and education when it comes to interventions that support children who possess different temperaments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based in Bowen theory (Kerr, 2019; Kerr & Bowen, 1988), this study examined differentiation of self as a moderator of the relationship between anxiety and current triangling among a sample of adolescents. It also explored the relationship between specific triangle subtypes and psychological symptoms. We hypothesized that higher levels of anxiety would be associated with higher levels of triangling, and that this relationship would be weaker for participants who report higher levels of differentiation of self. Additionally, we hypothesized that psychological symptoms would be significantly lower for those who indicated a balanced triangle configuration to characterize their family structure (as compared to those selecting scapegoating, cross‐generational coalition or mediator patterns). Results partially supported our hypotheses; differentiation performed as a moderator in two analyses, but not in others. Higher levels of psychological symptoms were associated with experience with mediator and cross‐generational triangling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Veche is the property of Ataturk University Coordinatorship of Scientific Journals and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Taking a largely thematic approach, this reflection aims to demonstrate the richness of Julia Kristeva's theoretical work in relation to questions of justice and injustice. Injustice becomes primary because a definition of justice continues to be open to debate, whereas injustice as incarnate in the scapegoat as depicted by René Girard is far less so, if at all. Through her analyses of the work of Mallarmé and the Paris of the Dreyfus affair, Céline and abjection and anti-Semitism, the 'need to believe' as a key component of subjectivity, the foreigner as the other in ourselves, Dostoyevsky and forgiveness, a vista is opened up onto injustice and how it might be combatted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is, through the perspective of historian René Girard, to establish the existing dialogue between the concepts of sacredness and violence. Such concepts are relevant in the main myths of Classical Antiquity. From the play Oedipus Rei, by the Greek playwright Sophocles, it will be possible to observe a structure in the mythological narrative that is repeated at the same time that it denounces the reality of social violence. This means that the myth can point to reality itself through its symbolism. From this interpretation, even the sense of myth as a simple fantastic narration of origins (cosmogony and theogony) or moral-religious teaching expands into a myth semantics as also a denunciation of real violence. René Girard will call this phenomenon that structures the narration of myths as "scapegoat". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Sejarah Melayu or Malay Annals , the fall of Singapura is widely appraised as an act of divine retribution unleashed upon rulers who have committed injustice. Implicit in this theodicy is the promise of moral justice enshrined in the Bukit Siguntang covenant, which ensures mutual reciprocity between the rulers and the ruled. But a cautious approach to the narrative of Singapura's demise reveals how justice is suspended, rather than upheld, in service of power. Enabling this suspension of morality is the transformative capacity of violence. This article performs a close reading on three consecutive episodes of unjust violence inflicted on a foreigner, a child, and a concubine, respectively, prior to the sacking of Singapura by Majapahit. In scrutinising the symbolic significance of these victims as persecuted by injudicious rulers, this article posits that violence functions as a rhetorical trope in the retelling of a Malay history. As victims are made scapegoats, unjust violence brings about the fall of Singapura and, by the same token, necessitates the birth of Melaka. Violence impels the forward movement of a royal genealogy by permitting an uninterrupted sequence of reigns through a sequence of crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]