Search results

Wisdom is a very difficult construct to work with in research and practice. One reason for this is that wise people can deal with metaphysical questions and experience spiritual phenomena, both of which are hard to measure meaningfully. Although metaphysical and spiritual matters are not imponderable, they have significant measurement problems that are also part of the shortcomings of standard social science statistical frameworks. A second reason is that for many wisdom theorists, wisdom is context-dependent because wisdom is defined by and responds to what its context presents to it. We can therefore argue that wisdom is essentially context, which in quantum physics is theorised as a superposition of random variables that interact. This chapter, therefore, ponders the ‘immeasurable’ from the perspective of quantum-like social science and quantum theory to render wisdom, including its spirituality component, in formal mathematical models. The mathematical formalism of quantum physics allows for the presence of metaphysical phenomena in its ontological foundations and its mathematical models. This chapter, therefore, also presents an argument for understanding wisdom from the superposition perspective and, in particular, the internal interactions between random variables contained within it. If the challenge of measuring wisdom as a nondeterministic system is met, we may finally have an opportunity to measure wisdom in ways that embrace wisdom's complex ontology. A third reason is that wisdom depends on people making first-person subjective judgements. Subjectivity is central to many interpretations of quantum theory, and we can borrow the analytical formalism used in quantum physics for wisdom research. Finally, the chapter discusses future approaches to empirical wisdom research that adopt quantum-like social science methods.

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.

Creates a future history of the evolution of the US telecommunications network infrastructure, by combining a scenario approach with the tool of concept mapping to explain how optical fibre technologies became the dominant technologies in that infrastructure.

Development pathways for Latin American and the Caribbean countries have been the subject of debates, analyses and controversies. For several decades, countries in this region have struggled with structural barriers to development associated with social inequalities, political turmoil, colonialism, corruption and a dependence on exploiting natural resources, among others. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened some of those obstacles, which when added to the global climate crisis and its environmental impact, leaves the region in a highly stressed situation, with many of its countries on the edge of a deep economic depression. This chapter discusses some of the socioeconomic challenges that Latin America and the Caribbean currently face; the roles of COVID-19 and climate crises on these challenges and some opportunities for recovery.

The term “social media” generally refers to the multi-point creation and distribution of electronic communication. It is understood in opposition to broadcasting. This chapter explains the history of media studies as a means of comprehending these newer media in the context of tourism. They need to be studied in the light of existing media, even as we seek a new form of truly interdisciplinary work that brings existing approaches together. Taking its agenda from social movements as well as intellectual ones, and its methods from social sciences and humanities, Media Studies 3.0 should focus on gender, race, class, sexuality, sustainability, and pleasure across national lines—an apt setting for those working on tourism.

From 1953 to 1961, the South Korean economy grew slowly; the average per capita GNP growth was a mere percent, amounting to less than $100 in 1961. Few people, therefore, look for the sources of later dynamism in this period. As Kyung Cho Chung (1956:225) wrote in the mid‐1950s: “[South Korea] faces grave economic difficulties. The limitations imposed by the Japanese have been succeeded by the division of the country, the general destruction incurred by the Korean War, and the attendant dislocation of the population, which has further disorganized the economy” (see also McCune 1956:191–192). T.R. Fehrenbach (1963:37), in his widely read book on the Korean War, prognosticated: “By themselves, the two halves [of Korea] might possibly build a viable economy by the year 2000, certainly not sooner.”

Cincinnati manufacturers before World War I displayed substantial unity in pursuing the open shop. San Francisco employers were divided, in both their attitudes and their actions, on how to deal with unions. I treat these differences in terms of business class formation. My explanation emphasizes how racial dynamics, class relations, and citizenship practices, acting in cumulative historical sequences, shaped employer solidarity and ideology.