Category: sociology

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Health Systems

Comparing health systems across the EU can be complex at times. However, there seems to be a consensus that the Irish health system is an oddity within the European health systems. On the one hand Ireland is a rather wealthy country in terms of GDP, but the primary care system excludes a high percentage of people from access to it. The scientific journal “The Lancet Regional Health” published a paper and comment on this rather unique exception to the rule to offer a universal health care system to its citizens. The controversy is about the coverage of costs of a visit to a general practitioner. More and probably earlier visits to a GP reduce the (over)burdening of
hospitals later during the life course. Prevention helps a great deal to lower overall costs of a health system.
The roots of the Irish health system have been built upon “subsidiarity”, which means that the public support system should only step in, if the individuals or families are unable to cover costs by themselves. Poor households had to apply for a card giving them access to medical care free of charge. Building hospitals was the next challenge and local communities managed to raise funds in support of such additional structures. In 2025 it can be very costly to enlarge the coverage to a universal access to primary care and the challenge to attract sufficient numbers of general practitioners is a very European one. In this respect Ireland is just like any other European country again.
The question of how to best achieve a universal health care system remains an important one. Apparently, you can be rather “health poor” in an otherwise “economically rich” country.

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Marx Home

The home of an influential philosopher, economist and political scientist is not easily presented like a home of a musician, a composer or an author. However, the home of Karl Marx in Trier on the Moselle river succeeds to present the biographical links of growing up in a historic city, the bourgeois upbringing of the young Marx and his formation as an independent and even revolutionary thinker of the economy and society. In 2025 the home is a museum supported by the Friedrich Ebert Foudation with a great online guide and access to additional scientific material. For authors like Karl Marx it is always of interest to follow not only the origin and evolution of the thought process, but also the shifts in the reception of his writings by subsequent generations. This part of the exhibition and an audio guide (downloadable as App).

In 2025 with an apparently ruthless capitalism at work in the biggest economy of the globe, the reminder that the economy is best to be understood as a political economy, which focuses on self-interest and profitable business deals, we find in Karl Marx still a worthwhile reminder of economic development even in the 21st century. The note-taking and studies in Exile in London are well documented in the tiny home and museum. Studying the misery of exploitation in supply chains and international commerce remains a topic of continuing interest as well. 

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Biased Results

The use of statistics in presenting results of research is common practice. Empirical studies are summarized using statistics and statistical methods based on samples of bigger populations are cost efficient. However, care needs to be exercised when interpreting results to guard against inappropriate conclusions derived from biased estimates. Since the topic has been highlighted and methods proposed to handle them, these methods were deemed worthy of a Nobel prize.  The basic problem of a bias due to a selective sample has been demonstrated by Stockwell et al. (2024). The authors investigate the old question, whether a little bit of alcohol consumption (per day) could be beneficial for our health. The statistical issue which needs careful examination is the construction of the control group against which the results are compared. Apparently many studies have biased control groups which included persons in the not drinking control group who had stopped drinking for bad health previously. Compared to those persons with other health conditions those drinking a little bit compared rather well. But of course such individuals should not be present in a control group. Of the control group is biased due to many persons with below average health the groups of interest consuming higher levels of alcohol do not perform so badly. Hence, interpretation of results from medical or social science studies has to consider carefully the actual or potential sources of bias. Not really a new results in statistics, but still not well known or understood by the public at large. Drug consumption as well as studies of this consumption could deserve the same sticker: handle with care. (Image: Extract from Tenier II David, Les fumeurs, also entitled Chanson à boire, 17th century, Paris Petit Palais).

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Private Intimacy

Intimacy has been reserved for private affairs for centuries. Although in the medieval ages formally the right of so-called noble men could be very far-reaching into intimacy of families when the permission to marry was quite restrictive. The private intimacy is the central theme of the Paris exhibition at MAD (Link) « Private Lives ». The organization into 14 almost private rooms around a larger center piece on design leads us through the major topics of intimacy. Maybe as a surprise to some, the exhibition starts with the major actors of change related to privacy and intimacy, i. e. women. Opening up enclosures gave women more room for intimacy and at the same time it made intimacy a conscious choice and decision. “A room of one’s own” is an important step in personal development of children particularly with respect to one’s intimate life. Restrooms are another issue of intimacy, just consider recent adaptations tor m/f/d people. A whole set of accessories are on display which previously were intimate products or even secrets prepared for public viewing. Of course odors are part of the experience with a test space of noble perfumes. The various manifestations of sexuality has brought about a growing number of pleasure objects, which might also be criticized as a growing commodification of intimacy as well. The connected bedroom and the risk of surveillance are raised to warn on overexposure on social networks. Intimacy in prisons or community shelters closes the exhibition before the final highlight the room on “conversations with oneself”. A whole literary form of keeping an intimate journal has arisen from the conversations not intended to be shared with others, at least not during one’s lifetime. After a person’s death for some persons of public interest even their private intimate journals will be published shifting the balance between the private and public parts of intimacy. (Image below from exhibition, photo bottom left, Matisse painting on wall while in bed in old age). 

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Intimate change

Society changes and with it so does intimacy. The major changes pass through the behavioral changes of persons and sooner or later the whole society adopts such changes as the new normal. Trends of individualization have moved over centuries as the exhibition in the Museum of decorative art (MAD) in Paris demonstrates. At the same time the changed individual approaches to intimacy have become more widely spread quickly over time. Social media have accelerated such new trends again. Social class is yet another intervening variable in this context which created different speeds of adjustment as well as sustaining differences in kind. 

Religious beliefs and practices have made claims about how individuals should handle intimate relationships and affairs. Legal issues are defined by each society to guide moral practices as well. Hence, the sociology of intimacy is a huge topic and comparing societies an interesting topic. The development of intimacy over a person’s life course, however, is given little attention due to a lack of adequate longitudinal data. From the exhibition we are encouraged to think about the relationship of hygiene and intimacy. Bathrooms accompany us throughout our lives and privacy was originally a bourgeois concept. Over the life course we move from dependency to independence and maybe dependency again in very old age. The images (below) from the MAD exhibition range from basics of bath tubs to a painting of Edgar Degas in the background. Instagramer or YouTuber share lots of images and stylized arrangements of bathrooms on social media. It seems that intimacy is moving further into the public domain. 

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Guidelines Follow-up

The are many professional organisations which agree after thorough discussions on guidelines how to conduct professional services. As long as we have such guidelines, the adherence to the guidelines is an issue as well. This is part of a research program of organisational sociology, but there is a rather strange paradox in this field of compliance with guidelines. In the most highly educated professions like medical doctors, the rate of compliance to guidelines is below average. A study of 20+ years ago published in the JAMA Journal: Cabana et al. (1999) “Why Don’t Physicians Follow Clinical Practice Guidelines?” highlighted this paradox among medical doctors. The lack of awareness of existing or changed guidelines is one of the major reasons mentioned in this respect. Self-efficacy is also an issue, but mentioned less frequently for not following guidelines.
Besides a professional bias, related to the above average educational attainment of physicians, (believed) superior coping mechanisms compared to the average population might be at work. Mastering advanced technology might lead to a behavior that assumes to be able to handle higher risks as well.
For a profession that is used to confront issues of life and death on a regular basis some adherence to a very specific medical guideline might appear a negligible risk. However, maybe comparable to some cases among politicians or priests a logic: “rules or guidelines are for others to follow” rather than the physicians bear obvious risks to these persons themselves, but even to others in specific circumstances like the spreading of infectious diseases.
Drug or substance abuse has been evidenced before in relationship with specific professions or in historical time periods. We should take care to repeat similar studies (Cabana et al. (1999) every now and again.

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Law and Witches

Medical and chemical authorities have been questioned for many centuries. As far back as Friedrich Spee (1591-1635) in the early 17th century there were even among the clergy men with enlightened views on what might be helpful ways to assist people on their journey to better health or simply pain relief. This did include many unhelpful or detrimental methods as well. Scientific rigor was not well established at that time, which opened up many doors for alternative diagnosis and treatment. From a historical and sociological perspective the closing procedures of professional organizations are interesting as well as opposition to them. Early moderators between hardliner positions are rare at the times of forceful and fierce competition between opinions and doctrines that characterized medieval history. In the absence of an independent judiciary earlier moderation could be influential in specific instances. A testimony for can be found in a documentation of the biography of Friedrich Spee and the society that promotes the memory of such exemplary behavior.

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Berlin Mind

For a long time now, I have been asking myself the question: What is like to be in a „Berlin state of mind“. The exhibition of the 2 photographers of the Berlin Landesarchiv as part of the Berlin activities of the EMOP contributed to understanding and more precise description of the „Berlin state of mind“. As we shall celebrate in 2025 the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Europe, Germany and Berlin from Nazi rule and terror, we have seen endless reconstruction and reshaping of the city. The ever growing need for housing and space-grabbing office buildings bring about a permanent feeling of change, of becoming, of under construction. The years of the separated city as well as the building and taking down of the Berlin wall created many new opportunities for developers of the city and its structure of quarters, arrondisements or „Bezirke“ and „Kieze“ within the districts. 

Due to the continuous urban renewal also of basic infrastructure Berliners have the impression that there is construction work all around us all the time. With the abundant construction works come the construction fences. They too have changed. Some fences show digital prints of virtual worlds of the Berlin living in some future time. However, the promises often mask the reality that fences will be replaced by concrete walls and inaccessible buildings for most people of the neighborhood as gated business space or city blocks grab the space to form and reform the metropolitan landscape. The construction fences themselves become the contested areas where different strata of society interact or intersect. The „Berlin state of mind“ is one of becoming. Longing to become something else, something aware of the overwhelming historical duties, but still rising from the ashes. The experience to see a wall come down between cold war enemies liberates a belief that we can overcome frontiers. However, this in-between state of mind has brought us multiple fences of all sorts. Construction fences are only the most visible ones that surround the many spaces under construction. In the imagery of Berliners and visitors beyond the wall, fences are continuously on our minds in the „Berlin state of mind“.

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Digital Visions

Urban planning has been digitalized for a long time. 3D modeling of places and buildings including their interiors are state of the art. As urbanization is also about investment, speculation and anticipation, digital imaging has entered the public spheres in form of cover up of building sites behind fences and in form of large digital prints for information, curiosity and advertising purposes. The inner cities are frequently an avantgarde and microcosm of societal developments. Some dream of full or total flexibility for office spaces (see image below), others experience the inner cities as the spotlight of inequality in society. The best paid executives are catered for by the worst paid delivery personnel. The photographers of the Landesarchiv Berlin, Grönboldt and Wunstorf, brought together a documentary exhibition entitled „Pixel aus Beton“, pixel made of concrete.

With a bird‘s eye view they reveal past, present and future details of how Berlin is experienced and envisioned by investors, architects and people living through the seemingly endless construction going on in the city. The keywords list as part of the exhibition creates a link to scientific literature and to the TU Center for Metropolitan Studies. Photography and even more so digital photography offers a social science perspective to the digital images exhibited. Cities are data spinning areas and a formidable place for digital visuals and visions.

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Suicide Prevention

The annual mortality statistics and special reports on suicidal tendencies are a tough reading. OECD Statistics give a at least an approximate, comparative perspective. Reporting routines and medical confirmation of a suicide or suicidal behavior still vary quite a bit between countries. Nevertheless, the usually reported incidents per 100.000 persons remain rather abstract.
Absolute numbers speak a clear language. For example in Germany there were about 10.300 recorded suicides in 2023, France had to mourn about 9200 in 2022. To put the size of the problem in perspective it is helpful to know that in Germany all other not aging related causes of death like traffic accidents, drugs or murder make up for around 7.000 deaths per year. The targeting of resources and prevention efforts on these vulnerable people seems inevitable. However, we see only limited additional efforts to curb the problem.
A more detailed analysis of the frequencies reveals the gender and age differences. More men commit suicides and older (very old) people have higher risks. The oldest age group of men is most at risk.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic young women show rising trends in many countries again of suicidal attempts and self-inflicted wounds. Despite a continuing effort of research (Links) there is no single cause to explain the occurrences.
As a working hypothesis, which awaits empirical tests, I would look into societal factors that stigmatize persons who are made to believe or feel like they are beyond the normal spectrum of society. The lack of acceptance of diversity concerning gender, age, ethnicity, body shapes or mental states like anxiety. Poverty might cause immense distress and suffering. Large shifts in wealth in both directions cause additional risks.
It seems as if our minds and society are constantly in a kind of „regression towards the mean“ posing challenges to those furthest away from the average or perceived norms. Percentile ranks or percentile scores are commonly used to express a person’s position in a frequency distribution. For example you are better/lower than 90% of persons of your age group. Such statements might cause further distress for persons. However, summarising across several (psychological) measurements, they may yield encouraging indications as well. Actual and perceived positions in such percentile ranks add another “social risk” as perceived positions may govern behavior.

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Endless Questions

The winner of the Niépce prize 2024 has been awarded to Anne-Lise Broyer and features prominently at the BNF in Paris. The exhibition of the professional photographer reflects by way of photographic “still images” on the historic fate of the mediterranean basin. Each and every image has no answers, but keeps posing questions. In the long alley of the BNF in honor of Julien Cain, we walk through history of more than 2 thousand years in photographs up until today and even beyond. Let’s keep asking the most fundamental questions again and again. The exhibition entitled “Est-ce-là que l’on habitait ?” invites us to ask ourselves about the historic origins of so-called Western culture in the mediterranean basin. Ancient philosophy and arts are the foundations even of our current ideas of democracy and freedom.
However, what has become of this in the 21st century? The original statue of freedom has suffered badly. What has become of the freedom of mobility at a time of barbed wire fences rising between countries that influences each other over thousands of years? How about nature? How about religion and freedom of expression? Where is progress? Where is regression?
For centuries we have sought answers in libraries starting from the Library of Alexandria to the treasures of art and knowledge of today across the world. Let’s make more intensive use of these treasures where we shall find answers to most of our questions of the past, to the past and of future interest.

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Nazis bipolar

Thanks to the exhibition « How Nazis photographed their crimes in Auschwitz 1944 » in the Mémorial(Link) of the Shoa in Paris, the biased photographer’s view of what happened in Auschwitz is evident. The inhuman, factory-like organization of these concentration camps were constructed and managed with the primary aim of humiliation of Jewish people and other inmates. Careful reading and interpretation of these images is necessary to spot the sometimes small signs of resistance to be taken on photo by a Nazi photographer.

The revelation of a kind of bipolar disorder of the Nazi murderers shows up in the seemingly normal family meal of officers in their nearby homes. You might be surprised that many of these family members even decades later report on normal and comfortable lives despite their pitiless exercise of mass killings by the Nazi officials and their hired staff. Bipolar disorder is maybe the result of such split personalities, although we already have ample evidence that doing drugs was quite common at the time as well.

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AI Images

The creation of images using any AI system is fast and easy. Many people have tested the systems and experimented with the more or less explicit prompting needed for LLMs to come up with several suggestions. Through the use of AI in the creation of images you are indirectly become your own curator of these creations as you choose among many suggestions of AI for the same prompt. The next step in the process of these artifacts it to assemble several ones and submit your selection of images to a gallery for an exhibition. If you have a coherent approach or a specifically interesting creative idea you might get selected in a competition to show your AI assisted images in a gallery with a reputation to  exhibit photography.  The Brussels Photo Festival (2025) presented the submissions to a call for AI images with a broad range of AI assisted imagery. The focus of this project was on „historical events and figures“. In situations where images are absent such a newly created imagery might be helpful in re-creating narratives about undocumented wars or conflicts. Speculative fiction about other historical options or „roads not taken “ have found their way into museums of history even. Decolonizing imagery is an interesting aspect to get a grip on another way to view historical evolutions. Projecting biological growth processes into the future with pervasive bio-engineering allows is to imagine potential future scenarios. As AI in biology, pharmacy and nutrition is only about to rake off, the AI artists play an interesting role of new avantgarde in the 21st century before we shall be submerged by AI images on all social media platforms. (Image taken at Hangar.art 2025)

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Synthetic opioids

Across the globe there are many tough lessons to be learned about synthetic opioids. These psychoactive substances fall under special legislation and can only be used with medical prescriptions. The strength of these substances is usually compared to heroin and the risk of addiction to these substances is very high.
A recent paper in International Review of the Armed Forces Medical Services (2024) has highlighted also “the abuse of the synthetic opioid U-47700” at times of military conflict. The power of these drugs to suppress the feeling of pain is helpful for medical operations. The abuse, however, may consist in the use of the drug to “keep fighting whilst pain is suppressed”. Such use of synthetic opioids increases the risk for addition and the fatal consequences of overdoses. The reporting of such occurrences in a specialized medical journal is an important warning against the conscious and willingness to abuse the drugs for war purposes.
The finding reminds us of the abuse that was already widely spread during the Nazi led 2nd World War (“Der totale Rausch“). The addictive potential was experiences even after the war time in terms of active combat was over. The costs to society of such abuse as well as use of supply chains of provision of opioids during peace times remain a problem for many years after the war. After a war, the war on drug abuse continues. Fighting addiction is a lengthy and painful process.

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Cheatflation

There are many ways to study inflation. You may start by looking through your collection of bills. Economists like to swear by the consumer price index or indices, if you are even more into inflation. In textbooks like “economics for dummies” we learn about rational behavior and price adjustment mechanisms through the “invisible hand” to find some sort of equilibrium.
Advanced economics courses will teach you about strategic behavior inspired by game theory and the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of cheating. For advanced economists it is, therefore, inevitable that “cheatflation” should be part of the economists’ vocabulary. Of course, a profit maximizing entrepreneur is likely to way the risk of being found out contributing to cheatflation against the potential gains.
How to cheatflate? Too easy. Any producer of a product can cheat by using, for example, other ingredients than those printed on the product label, usually cheaper ones. Instead of fruit juice (wine) you may just sell colored water with lots of sugar (ethanol) in it, but still label it fruit juice (wine) and get away with this, until a consumer protection group makes a fuzz about it. A more sophisticated way is to sell investments in ESG-rated funds, but then include dirty stocks without proper notification in the fund, which probably increases profits based on wrong labels.
There is a specific quality to cheatflation, which makes it different from shrinkflation or enshittification. The drive to “obtain unfair advantages” through cheating across a whole country or region makes cheatflation an economy-wide process and subverts general fairness rules as well as trust in a society.
(Image Saccharometer, DTM Berlin 2024)

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Science and Fiction

We associate with science and fiction the extrapolation of scientific trends into some futuristic settings. The most striking examples of science fiction in novels or video use some scientific findings (dinosaurs, genetic engineering) and project this knowledge into another fictional setting. The usual personal relationships follow rather predictable plots of romance, deception, violence or war.
The novel “Wellness” (Hill 2024) is also a kind of science fiction as it is based on social science evidence and builds its fictional plot firmly embedded into the social and psychological research. The attachment of references (and defending the print of those in translation) underlines the commitment to write a new type of “social science fiction”.
In this innovative style the scientific basis of psychology and sociology is then extrapolated into a fictional arrangement. Research on subjective well-being with the U-shaped form over the life course and the extrapolation of the placebo effect, which is instrumentalized for a business, derive from key topics in the social sciences. In fact, the novel and the background scientific literature in the bibliography could well figure in a social science course at university entry level. These readings constitute a 360-degree-view on personal development and social structures. Of course, social sciences move on and add new evidence on an almost daily basis, but the selection and arrangement of the characters create an innovative social science fiction, without some unrealistic technological extrapolation.
It strangely feels like we are already part of this social science fiction (compare “Klara and the sun” by Ishiguro) as politicians advocate and campaign with placebo topics in elections and project us into some more happy past or future.
The social science fiction of Nathan Hill resembles for me the great utopian novel by George Orwell “1984” published in 1948. A title “2032” instead of “Wellness” could have worked quite well, as the first edition of Nathan Hill’s social science fiction was published already in 2023. (Image: Extract of: Lo Spagnolo, 1665-1747, Hecuba makes Polymnestor blind, MRBAB).

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Animal Longevity

  1. From time to time it is interesting to study animals from many species to maybe learn from them about longevity. Roberto Salguero-Gómez (LINK) developed a sociality continuum and compared 152 species across 13 taxonomic classes. The study reiterates and generalizes the many studies of single species and finds that „more social species live longer, have more generation time and longer reproductive windows“.  Social structures amongst animals of the same species influence survival and reproduction as basic demographic processes. These processes determine to a large extent the size of animal populations. Sociality appears to be a major contributor to longevity compared across species. These processes determine the survival of rather solitary species like panda bears (running higher risks of extinction) compared to populations of bees with rather hierarchical predefined social structures. The spotted hyenas developed cooperative hunting and communal care which allows for effective survival compared to other species. Sociality is specific to species and therefore largely determined by genetic factors. Nature rather than nurture is at work. However, species where reproduction occurs later allow for learning curves of sociality. In other words even within species there is scope to improve longevity through sociality. Migration patterns or experience with migration might be yet another determinant of survival or longevity as climate change poses new challenges to many species.
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More Battles

In 2025 we continue with the same battles as in the previous year. However, the way armies fight military battles has evolved. New types of weapons like drones have entered the stage. These precision weapons (Horowitz, 2024) have the advantage to be not only less costly than other heavy mass and costly artillery, they can also be guided in swarms to their targets. A further advantage is the steering of drones needs differently qualified persons rather than advancing with heavy armored vehicles on battlefields. Upskilling of defense forces is an important side effect. Jamming technology of radio frequencies was applied before, nowadays this has turned into a crucial defense strategy to intercept and derail drones and rockets off their intended targets.
Other than heavy weight arms, even laser beams enter the arsenal of weapons, if targets are sufficiently static in nature. These high-energy beams are still more in the research and testing realm rather than used on the battle field, but it becomes clear that research capacities play and played an important role throughout military history. The next generation of robots, not only in production processes, but more those walking on the battlefields is likely to change wars to less manned interventions. The technological innovations shall further move the spiral of new generations of weapons forward. Fewer soldiers, but more robots in the air, at sea and on the ground might increase the risks of “restrained”, less costly, but longer duration conflicts across the globe.
I always thought of robots as rescue robots to save lives. The flip side of the coin, however, is destruction before rescue as well. Technology can be put to both purposes. It is us who decide, which one takes the upper hand.

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Career Criminals

From a life course perspective it is not easy to define a colloquial term like career criminal. A person who has been convicted for a single crime and has served his/her sentence should be allowed full integration into society. Even a repeated offender should not be stigmatized or labeled as career criminal. However, this is exactly what the NS-state did (traveling exhibition across Germany and Austria: „Die Verleugneten“). These persons were subject to targeted charges for criminal offenses they „might“ commit eventually. The term „community alien“ or „asocial“ were also used to refer to persons that did not fit into the dominant Nazi doctrine of „Volk“. It took 75 years until these persons could receive a recognition and a recompense for their unfounded discrimination and incarceration. In concentration camps the so-called asocial or career criminals were at the highest risk of further prosecution and death. Great that the stumbling Stones include these victims as well, as a way to remember these crimes against humanity. Beware of definitions of social groups which are based on totalitarian ideologies.

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Zerreissprobe

The term „Zerreissprobe“ has been chosen by the curator team of the Neue Nationalgalerie In Berlin for the Retrospective of „Art between politics and society“ in the years 1945-2000. In this time period after the 2nd World War until the other „fin du siècle“ the politics of creating a new world order, the cold war and the liberalization of societies had profound impacts on art as well. The positioning of art in the dynamic context and conflicts of these decades is quite well reflected in the title of the exhibition. The English title „extreme tension“ suggests somehow that these years were rather extreme compared to ?, probably today? Although on the territory of Ukraine we witness a hot war rather than a cold war initiated by Putin‘s Russian imperial illusions. The cited work of Günter Brus „Zerreissprobe“ is translated as „stress test“. And maybe, this translation characterizes the post war period even better as these years are a forerunner of what happened after 2000. We continue to be put to tests in politics and societal developments. Accomplishments from the last century are put to crude tests again. Solidarity of people and nations are under pressure to demonstrate their reliability under extreme tension or stress. Art throughout the 5 decades of the last century was a precursor of stress tests for politicians and challenged society in its basic understandings. The comments on the notice board next to the exhibition show the themes of tension in the 2020s. Tensions in families and partnerships, often more extreme around christmas trees, have taken center stage for younger visitors of the exhibition. Sociological research has observed such trends and coined this societal phenomenon „individualization“.  Art embedded in society seems to be part of that evolution as well. Art movements are less visible as collective movements. Artists appear more individualistic or ideosyncratic nowadays, just less inclined to be part of a defining larger group. If artists are no longer avantgarde but rather followers of societal trends, the whole „raison d‘être“ of art changes as well. We are likely to witness yet another „ Zerreissprobe“. Cuts to art and culture budgets constitute an additional „ Zerreissprobe“ in the original sense of the word and of art between politics and society in 2024/2025.

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Sociology in Art

Sociologists study and teach a lot about social capital. James Coleman and Pierre Bourdieu each have coined social capital as a major foundation of societies. Therefore, the exhibition of the artist Rirkrit Tiravanija “happiness is not always fun” in the Martin Gropius Bau (Image below) is interesting beyond a justification art for art’s sake.
What does Tiravanija tell us about happiness and social capital we did not know before?  The artist went to a Chicago based art school, hence, it is likely that he has been confronted with the concept of “social capital” by Chicago sociologist James Coleman. The Berlin exhibition of Tiravanija can be walked along and experienced through the lens of the creation of social capital as a form of art. Art raises awareness to the importance of social capital for the ways we live together and form communities. The Berlin exhibition, meeting place or play ground is worth multiple visits as the participatory experience changes each time.  In each of the rooms we reflect on our cultural practices like sports, music, printing or cooking as forms to create community. Each time we take home a little bit of social capital as well. “Happiness is not always fun”, but for sure You’ll have many happy moments throughout the visit of the exhibition. The guided tour by curator Yasmil Raymond (2024-12-19) added yet another little bit of spice to the exhibits. For a few moments we felt like a strong link between Chicago and Berlin, just like those sociologists in Berlin who studied and continue to study James Colemen’s foundations of social theory.

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Degré zéro

As all of us use GPS systems to navigate across the world or just in your city, “degré zéro” might nowadays be associated first of all with the prime meridian 0° longitude, which runs through Greenwich near London and around the globe.
In « Le degré zéro de l’écriture », Roland Barthes (1953) challenges the bourgeois kind of writing of literature. He introduced the pertinent distinction of the verticality of writing styles in the sense of social classes as well as the horizontal form of spoken language He further distinguished écriture as a person’s style which is embedded into the historical and social context of her/his time. As a radical change, Barthes proposed to use scriptor instead of writer as the latter expression is too much loaded with the historical package of the person. Barthes inserts the scriptor as écrivain into her/his time and insists on the intellectual and social context of writing or the author.
As the scriptor (p. 26) does not escape to become a writer « écrivain «, the degree zero de l’écriture postulates a homogeneous society, which obviously is an ill-conceived vision of reality. Language and texts, therefore, are not universal in kind, but bound to situations, which are defined in historical time and space (p. 67). Semiotics was a major field of his analyses of literature and language.
Whereas in a talk you might focus on the person you are talking to, in a written text the other person is « the many » readers, wherever they are and maybe at a much later time as well. There is a qualitative difference and yet modern “voice to text” transcription makes all spoken words immediately available as written document or “compte rendu”. (Source: Roland Barthes: De la parole à l’écriture. in Le grain de la voix, Entretien 1962-1980. p. 12).
Let’s watch our language as we follow the longitude or latitude around the globe and even small deviations from degree zero matter a lot.

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Spectacularization

Guy Debord (1967) has outlined in “In the society of spectacle” the importance to analyze societies from the perspective of “le temps spectaculaire”. Today we might frame this as “eventism” or the running of society through events. The regular spectacle of religious festivities, new year’s celebrations, Olympic games or even elections and election campaigns have been transformed into ceremonies of enthronization, where the reach to ever larger crowds is the prime goal. The critique of mass media of the 1960s can be deployed to the criticism of the facebook, Instagram and tiktok media campaigns of today. If you are not present on these platforms, you do not seem to exist in the view of the many. Debord highlights under his concept of separation the increasing isolation of persons and thereby a domination of people through technology (Debord para 24,27). Put in today’s terminology form of psycholinguistics we speak of loneliness of the old and young who, through the use of social media technologies, are prosumers even or especially in their free time. They serve the accumulation of massive benefits to the platforms of the spectacle more than their own fulfilment or socializing experiences. The consequence is the isolation of persons, with the paradox to be potentially the winner in the lottery of the algorithms to suddenly reach millions of people. The ephemeral popularity is a curse more than a blessing for most persons. The result is the “singularization” of crowds and within society.
Spectacularization is a process that is accompanied by singularization. Both terms have the merit to stress the process of evolution of societies. Comparing societies turns into an empirical exercise to measure amounts of spectacular events, degrees of spectacularization of individuals and the singularization of individuals within society. The antidote of solidarity and sharing is on the rise as well, which is reason to believe that not all is lost.
(Image: Debord’s annotation on extract of image by Gozzoli, BNF Manuscrit, Paris)

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Juridification

Law has entered almost all domains of life. This has a lot of positive effects. Law in general, we tend to believe, has an intrinsic link to justice. If you go to court after failed attempts of mediation you will get a judgement(s) from several instances at times and with substantial delays. Justice, however, is a much more complex issue. Ethical concerns enter the stage as well as the ability and willingness to devote substantial resources to support a legitimate or legal claim. A kind of balance of power appears to be a necessary precondition for justice to be achieved. Of course, jurisdification is a process, where time plays to the advantage of one or the other side of contestants. The book by Katharina Pistor, “The code of capital. How the law creates wealth and inequality” has highlighted the importance of the legal intermediaries in the juridification and codification of modern societies. The basis of today’s capitalism relies on an expansive definition of what constitutes capital. The transformation of debt into a product, which can be traded by a “second hand” rather than the “invisible hand”, had created a warning to societies that the extension of rights and volumes led to a financial crash of the most powerful economies. The states, i.e. taxpayers, had to step in to guarantee credits taken out by banks and other financial institutions and ensure the solvability of underwritten debt. The state guaranteed for losses of capital and enforced the rule that deficits had to be shared among all. A well calculated bankruptcy of the system was then managed by lawyers and bankers rather than the politically elected representatives of the people.
The juridification has been extended to intellectual property rights as well. This made the fruits of intellectual property tradeable. It is rarely the authors that negotiate translation rights or the use of a novel as a screenplay. You better rely on a specialised lawyer to assist you in the national or transnational defence of intellectual property rights.
Artificial intelligence relies on huge data inputs. It is not an easy task to define ownership of data, especially of what we believe are “your own” data. Juridification means that a process of narrowing down definitions or the opposite, absence of a proper definition, creates market opportunities to trade data and the right to collect or use those data for specific or encompassing purposes.
Are we still all equal in front of the law? Or do the better informed have a significant advantage over the rest of society? Financial resources play a vital in the legal system as well. Collective solutions, like associations of consumers or trade unions, have demonstrated that they may operate as a societal antidote in the biased codification of capital. Democracies are well advised to open their eyes to the blind spots in the “regard” of justitia.
(Image: Auguste Rodin, Cariatide à la pierre, enlarged bronze statue in Paris)

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Cupid at Work

The last 11 entries in this blog focus on  conceptual thoughts as a contribution to the history of ideas with an extension to modern concepts. Our societies, management of companies and personal  development are conceived under the conceptual framework of these concepts. Take the 1st letter of each term and it reads like “cupid at work“, easy to remember and enumerate.
Take each term as  a prism through which you frame your life course, an enterprise or a society. The 3 levels by 11 concepts matrix is a starting point to scan empirical examples for substance.
Complexity, Uncertainty, Plurality, Intersectionality, Dosage.

Ambiguity, Temporality,

Woke-ability, Organics, Resilience, Keys,
(Image: Peter van Lint, Jupiter embraces Cupid, 1636, MRBAB 2024)

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On Woke-ability

The past particle of “to awake” is “woke“. As early as the 1960s the term woke has appeared in a New York Times article to reflect the idea that in the African-American History movement you woke up to a new movement, leaving behind discriminatory practice and rhetoric. The definition of woke in dictionaries refers to an awareness of social facts and injustices. Additionally, the use of woke has implied a need to act upon injustices due to social and/or ethnic origin. Elements of the woke movement were the use of more general non-discriminatory terms like people of color (POC) in official documents and revisions of textbooks for pupils. Subsequently, the application of the term woke spread to other social concerns like the discrimination of LGTBQ+ people in many societies.
The underlying concern was and still is (1) to recognize the discrimination and disadvantages faced by many groups in society and (2) a call for changing the way we talk about it and (3) a shift of policies to counter social injustices. Societies differ in the capacity of “woke-ability”, i.e. the capability to address social inequalities of various types including intersectionality. Societies have never simply been only homogenous. Heterogeneity, plurality and complexity are much better suited to represent societies, regions or countries.  It is our willingness to deal with these complexities in an open way which includes the “woke-ability” of social phenomena. Acknowdge a social problem and act upon it. Change the way we talk about a problem and the discoursive practice in general are important steps to address old and new social problems. For example, over the last 50years the discourse with respect to handicapped persons has evolved and the Paris 2024 Paralympics have made this clear to the public on a global scale.
(Image: Installation of Daniel Boyd in the Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin 2023)

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On Intersectionality

Society deals with individualization or individualism in various forms. One way is to take each social group as a specific singular case. This is reasonable and justified in many instances. There are cases where this form of dealing with specific social groups comes to limits. Following the rationale of plurality and individualism it has become common practice to address each target group in a specific manner. Intersectionality, however, acknowledges the overlapping of target groups, which necessitates a more specialized approach to intersecting (social) phenomena. Gender might not be the single most important factor to describe a person, just as age is a concept of various intersections. Chronological age versus age defined through biomarkers demonstrate the variety and potential for intersectionality. The Paralympics 2024 in Paris gave another positive example of intersectionality as extraordinary persons achieved previously unimaginable world records in specicialized disciplines. Individualization and classification is only a first step in the scientific endeavour, the analysis of intersectionality is an additional step to consider in a broad range of fields beyond the social sciences.
(Image: Exposition Isa Genzken 75/75 in Neue Nationalgalerie 2023)

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Science Fraud

It is a big issue if publications in science in high reputation journals have managed to pass a rather lengthy and thorough peer review process and still contain evidence based on fraudulent data. The worst case scenario that based on this wrong evidence tests of useless drugs are performed on patients in hope of an honest concern for their health. In fact the financial rewards and even academic rewards have been achieved only through the successful publication of a bias introduced into the data and/or analyses of the data. The fraudulent researcher became subsequently Director of the institute of agingwhoch is part of the American National Institute of Health (NIH) and an academic reference in health sciences far beyond the USA. It is the merit of Charles Piller and his team to persist in challenging the treatment recommendations which were concerning Alzheimer and Parkinson diseases. The checks and balances in the academic research have failed and a serious reconsideration of the procedures should follow, not just business as usual. The reputation of scientific research is at stake beyond the natural sciences and medicine, although the normal way of proceeding is just to qualify such events as singularity and specific to a single discipline. Aging is also not just treated by one single discipline. Hence, there is a need to review the review process and publication practices. The Boeing airplane control failures were also indicating that reviews of technology are subject to high risks. Independent checks and control are hard to ensure in advanced subject matters, but sufficient time and resources have to be devoted to the process. (Image Repair Lab Deutsches Technikmuseum DTM2024).

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Of or about

There exists a fundamental difference between taking a picture of something or someone as opposed to taking a picture about someone or something. With the term about we denote or refer to a more abstract category of trees, animals or human beings. The use of of, however, refers to a specific realization within a specific category. Painters or photographers have applied this distinction for a long time. It is similar to social scientists who consider persons or relationships as belonging to more general categories. Gender is such a category which has preoccupied us for years before concluding that just 2 gender categories are not enough to come up with reasonable descriptions and predictions of behavior. The realizations of gender are manifold and not necessarily or only binary in nature as well appearances. Eventually social categories are enlarged to fit empirical patterns in more adequate ways. The image of someone/something therefore is something very different from an image about someone/something. (Image of: Children’s corner at Musée Rodin Paris. Image about: Pedagogic approaches to art, here sculptures « Le penseur », Rodin 19th century)

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Happy Maths

The link of maths and happiness is not straightforward. Individual accounts of a happy (euphoric) or unhappy (dismal) life are mostly referred to psychologists for treatment. The biografies (documentaries) or fictional biografies told in novels or cinema allow to trace the changing moods of the personalities over time. This resembles life course research. In happiness research social scientist ask questions like “Overall, how satisfied are you with your life“. Measured over time or coded from biografies this allows to reconstruct happiness trajectories. At this point the maths of happiness enter the stage. Long periods of observations yield interesting patterns of curved lines, rarely simple linear trajectories. Social scientist speak of within person variability in contrast to between persons variability. After all, the (short-term superior) happiness of your neighbor might simply be due to the fact that they are doing drugs.
Whatever, try to remember a bit of your high school maths and the bore to deal with “curve discussions or sketching” beyond the manifold shapes of your classmates. Lots of interesting information derives from growth or decline rates, tangent lines, stationary or inflection points. Different starting points or so-called intercepts vary between individuals as well as he potential  to cross the Zero-line on one of the axes. Additionally, in geometry you would compare syncronicity of curved lines as well as forms of symmetry for the curve(s). This will simplify or comlexify your perspective on the happiness trajectories of people or characters in a novel.
We are so used to narratives or videoss with a happy end, yet we appreciate the complex trajectories and (multiple) troughs main characters have to pass. Novels teach us about tricky inflection points and subsequent trajectories as well. The maths of happiness, however, is rather simple in comparison.
(Image from Toronto District Christian High School -pdf p.207).