Love in the Time of Tamagotchi

2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 189-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic Pettman
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Modern Technology ◽  
Text Messages ◽  
William Gibson ◽  
Mobile Media ◽  
Perspective Change ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Future ◽  
High Esteem

There is a popular conception among many Zeitgeist watchers, especially in places like the US, Western Europe and Australia, of the urbanized East as existing somehow further into the future. As William Gibson once stated: `The future is here; it just isn't equally distributed yet.' This kind of cultural fetishism extends to not only technolust, but the practices that new gadgets and electronics encourage. The specific phenomenon explored in this article is that of virtual girlfriends and boyfriends: whether in the form of avatars or automated SMS text messages. This particularly Japanese `craze', if we can call it that, fascinates and appals people who still hold P2P romance IRL in high-esteem. It seems like an insult to the intrinsically human and humanist discourse of courtship; and indeed it is. How does this perspective change, however, if we consider `love' as a technology? That is, as both a code with its own algorithmic parameters, and a discourse that also challenges the hyper-rational assumptions of the `merely machinic'. Extending the argument articulated in my book, Love and Other Technologies, this article asks how the emergence of virtual dating and other techno-inflected treatments of romance are working to undo our jealously held notions of intimacy and identity. It concludes that all sex can be considered cybersex, given the communication flows that occur both before, during and after the act. For, as we continue to enframe the discourse of intimacy via new and mobile media, we find it increasingly difficult to deny that intensified inter-subjectivity is always already a matter of technics. Indeed, what Heidegger says of modern technology can effectively be applied to modern love: that it embodies an `unreasonable demand' of nature (and thus has the capacity to reveal something essential about the posthuman condition).

Searching for new Sources of growth. Are the Developing Countries Catching up with the Developed ones?

2015 ◽  
pp. 30-53
Author(s):  
V. Popov
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Gdp Per Capita ◽  
The West ◽  
Catching Up ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Economic Divergence ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Relative Standing

This paper examines the trajectory of growth in the Global South. Before the 1500s all countries were roughly at the same level of development, but from the 1500s Western countries started to grow faster than the rest of the world and PPP GDP per capita by 1950 in the US, the richest Western nation, was nearly 5 times higher than the world average and 2 times higher than in Western Europe. Since 1950 this ratio stabilized - not only Western Europe and Japan improved their relative standing in per capita income versus the US, but also East Asia, South Asia and some developing countries in other regions started to bridge the gap with the West. After nearly half of the millennium of growing economic divergence, the world seems to have entered the era of convergence. The factors behind these trends are analyzed; implications for the future and possible scenarios are considered.

The Meanings of Life and Value Priorities of the Post-Soviet Society in the Republic of Belarus

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (10) ◽  
pp. 25-37
Author(s):  
Alexander N. Danilov
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Modern Technology ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
The World ◽  
Value Priorities ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Republic

The article discusses the meanings of life and value priorities of the post- Soviet society. The author argues that, at present, there are symptoms of a global ideological crisis in the world, that the West does not have its own vision of where and how to move on and has no understanding of the future. Unfortunately, most of the post-Soviet countries do not have such vision as well. In these conditions, there are mistrust, confusion, paradoxical manifestation of human consciousness. The main meanings that determine our life-world are: the desire of citizens for social justice and social security, the desire to figure out and understand the basic values of modern society, how honestly and equally the authorities act toward their fellow citizens, and to what extent they reflect their interests. The meanings of life, which are the answers to the challenges of the time, are embodied in the cultural code of each nation, state. The growth points of new values, which will become the basis for the future sustainable development of a new civilization, have yet to be discovered in the systemic transformative changes of the culture. In this process, the emergence of a new system of values that governs human life is inevitable. However, modern technology brings new troubles to humans. It has provided wide opportunities for informational violence and public consciousness manipulation. Nowadays, the scenario that is implemented in Western consumer societies claims to be the dominant scenario. Meanwhile, today there is no country in the world that is a role model, there is no ideal that others would like to borrow. Most post-Soviet states failed to advance their societies to more decent levels of economic development, to meet the challenges of the modern information age, and to provide the population with new high living standards. Therefore, in conditions of growing confrontation, we should realistically understand the world and be ready to implement changes that will ensure sustainable development of the state and society without losing our national identity.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frédéric Grare
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Slow Pace ◽  
Centre Of Gravity ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Future ◽  
Economic Interaction ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
The Relationship

India’s relationship with the United States remains crucial to its own objectives, but is also ambiguous. The asymmetry of power between the two countries is such that the relationship, if potentially useful, is not necessary for the United States while potentially risky for India. Moreover, the shift of the political centre of gravity of Asia — resulting from the growing rivalry between China and the US — is eroding the foundations of India’s policy in Asia, while prospects for greater economic interaction is limited by India’s slow pace of reforms. The future of India-US relations lies in their capacity to evolve a new quid pro quo in which the US will formulate its expectations in more realistic terms while India would assume a larger share of the burden of Asia’ security.

Religion and Religiosity in the US

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Detlef Pollack ◽  
Gergely Rosta
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Empirical Analysis

Although the countries of Western Europe are very similar to the US in terms of their social, political, and economic conditions, they differ greatly when it comes to religion. Chapter 10 discusses how these differences can be explained. The empirical analysis shows that, besides the considerable differences in the level of religiosity between the US and Western Europe, there are also surprising similarities in the weakening church ties and religious practices. The findings demonstrate that it is in many respects not Europe but America that is the exception. This relates among other things to the level of social inequality, which is unusually high for a modern society, the strong tendencies towards functional dedifferentiation, such as between religion and politics, and the traditionalism of the culturally accepted system of values.

scholarly journals Structuralism, Post-Structuralism and New Hermeneutics

MANUSYA ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-67
Author(s):  
Eberhard Lämmert
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Poetic Text ◽  
High Esteem

When in European scholarship natural sciences have separated from humanities during the 19th century the concept of hermeneutics won the distinctive mark characterizing the special methods of the humanities in contrast to explanation practiced by natural sciences. The high esteem in literary studies for the individuality of a poet or writer implied that the most important aim of understanding and interpreting was to find the authorʼs secret intention. Maintaining the results of such research in literary studies necessarily must remain subjective or even ideologically determined made the Russian formalists - -later the structuralists from Prague and Western Europe- -try to find a more scientific constitution of a poetic text.

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