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1 – 10 of over 4000Life and perfection, if far from opposites, by their very nature lack affinity. True perfection is both inanimate and inert; once life and movement manifest themselves, perfection…
Abstract
Life and perfection, if far from opposites, by their very nature lack affinity. True perfection is both inanimate and inert; once life and movement manifest themselves, perfection suffers. Even so, certain man‐made commodities aim commendably at perfection: literature, painting, music, works of architecture — a line drawn at 90° to abase is a work of perfection. But, as it metamorphosises into a thing of beauty and function such as a Nash terrace or Wren church, utter perfection is lost. On another plane, a cricket‐bat, before being eagerly grabbed by man, possesses elements of perfection. It is only when employed in the hope of creating a great sporting performance, its intrinsic strength gives way to mans weakness. So it is with one of mans greatest status symbols — the automobile.
This is the second part of a long investigation under the title of, Principia Oeconomica; the first having appeared in this journal in 1986. The substance of the argument in this…
Abstract
This is the second part of a long investigation under the title of, Principia Oeconomica; the first having appeared in this journal in 1986. The substance of the argument in this contribution is in the form of a dialogue with Henri Guitton, member of l'Institut de France and author of a book in French, De l'Imperfection en Economie (1979). Guitton is leading a new French Economic School critical of a modern economy characterised by ‘Econosm” or “Economy of Counter‐sense”. Economism refers to the practice of conceiving problems of a modern society in strictly economic‐accounting terms and neglecting a host of social and human aspects. The second term means that the sole attention given to growth in production did not increase the happiness of man but on the contrary it created for him new problems (pollution, noise, atomic radiation and other hazards). To cope with these problems, the French school recommends wise policies which Guitton called “creative imperfection”. Guitton's presentation is followed step by step, with an interpretation in terms of stable equilibrium. The recommendation stresses structural reforms to solve the same problems but following a road of “creative perfection” leading to the same goal sought by Guitton: a better world of tomorrow.
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Salar Salah Muhy Al-Dın and Hourakhsh Ahmad Nia
The aim of this study is to extend the rationale and comprehensive understanding in respect of the notion of functionality and beauty in the smart skin buildings. Smart skin in…
Abstract
The aim of this study is to extend the rationale and comprehensive understanding in respect of the notion of functionality and beauty in the smart skin buildings. Smart skin in buildings plays a key role in improving building functionality, and the future lies in the use of innovative smart skin strategies. The methodology focused on the objectivity and subjectivity of human perception to assess the aesthetic value of a building's smart skin. A theoretical analysis has been conducted based on the results of the investigation model and fortified by comparing the results with the findings obtained through the opinions of experts based in AHP methodology. The study demonstrates that there is a relation between both the aesthetic value and the functionality of the smart skin of a building. The findings revealed the difference in the aesthetic evaluation between the subjective functionality and the objective functionality of the building skin. The findings contribute useful evidence for the promotion of our understanding regarding the aesthetic value of the smart skin of a building, based on its functionality.
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Life and perfection, if far from opposites, by their very nature lack affinity. True perfection is both inanimate and inert; once life and movement manifest themselves, perfection…
Abstract
Life and perfection, if far from opposites, by their very nature lack affinity. True perfection is both inanimate and inert; once life and movement manifest themselves, perfection suffers long may it remain the case. Even so, certain man‐made commodities aim, quite rightly, at perfection and, left parcelled, would achieve it. For example, it is only when a golf‐club is eagerly grabbed by man, its implied perfection falls lamentably short. Man continues to aim at perfection by use of his great ingenuity — plus testing!
Yijing Xun, Xiabing Zheng, Matthew K.O. Lee and Feng Yang
The health and survival of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are of paramount concern to stakeholders. It is essential to understand the usage behaviors of exploitative…
Abstract
Purpose
The health and survival of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are of paramount concern to stakeholders. It is essential to understand the usage behaviors of exploitative and exploratory strategies. By combining the typical user experience with psychological mechanisms in MMOGs, this study is devoted to clarifying how technology affordance and digital perfectionistic intention influence reinforcement and variety-seeking orientations of MMOGs use.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopted a sequential triangulation mixed-methods design to explore how diverse usage behaviors of reinforced and varied use in MMOGs are formed. After proposing the theoretical framework from MMOGs affordance, perfectionistic intentions, and diverse use, empirical evidence was initially collected from representative samples through a survey. Qualitative interviews from players in MMOGs and game industry practitioners are conducted to confirm the results, supplement understanding, and gather insights from diverse backgrounds. The quantitative and qualitative inferences are discussed to validate the research focus.
Findings
Findings from various perspectives suggest that perfectionistic intentions are critical antecedents of different usage behaviors influenced by affordances provided in MMOGs. Goal-driven affordance with reward and competition, interaction affordance, and identity affordance are key MMOGs affordances and could affect perfectionistic intentions differently. People with different perfectionistic intentions, which are the psychological outcome of MMOGs affordances, possess diverse usage behaviors.
Originality/value
This study is the first to consider diverse usage behaviors in virtual worlds such as MMOGs by combining lenses of perfectionistic intentions and technology affordance. Findings from mixed-methods analysis significantly enrich the research on online game usage behavior, offering valuable theoretical and practical implications for studying usage behaviors within the virtual world.
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Yijing Xun, Xiabing Zheng, Matthew Lee and Feng Yang
The rise and popularity of digitalization have made the addictive use in the virtual world more common, which has aroused wide attention from academia and public. Uncovering the…
Abstract
Purpose
The rise and popularity of digitalization have made the addictive use in the virtual world more common, which has aroused wide attention from academia and public. Uncovering the underlying mechanism of addictive use is essential to address this serious issue.
Design/methodology/approach
By utilizing the context of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), this study developed virtual-domain perfectionism of seeking excellence and avoiding failure from the dual process model of perfectionism and identified four affordances in MMOGs from the perspective of technology affordance. The authors surveyed 302 valid samples in MMOGs to empirically test the research model.
Findings
The results demonstrate that two processes of virtual-domain perfectionism influence addictive use positively in MMOGs. Technology affordances perform as the antecedents of virtual-domain perfectionism and conduct distinct impacts in MMOGs. Specifically, affordances of interaction and identity are positively related to virtual-domain perfectionism, while achievement affordance is unrelated to virtual-domain perfectionism. Immersion affordance is positively related to virtual-domain perfectionism of seeking excellence and negatively associated with virtual-domain perfectionism of avoiding failure.
Originality/value
This study identified virtual-domain perfectionism and specific MMOGs affordances. The research model provides insights into addictive use in MMOGs by leveraging context and combining lenses. Research findings help elucidate the role of virtual-domain perfectionism on the addictive use from MMOGs affordances with the corresponding technical features.
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A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balanceeconomics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary toman′s finding the good life and society enduring…
Abstract
A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.
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Consider the means available to us for enjoying a piece of music, such as this, which I am about to play, Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave—a cassette recording made on a machine costing…
Abstract
Consider the means available to us for enjoying a piece of music, such as this, which I am about to play, Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave—a cassette recording made on a machine costing £10; an EMI studio tape played through equipment costing £3,500, or better, through £8,000 worth of stereo or quadrophonic equipment; or even a live rendition by the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall. If you were to compare these versions of Tchaikovsky, what you would experience is a quick and simple demonstration of the law of diminishing returns: As each step towards perfection is taken, costs escalate dramatically. Now this law happens to be universally applicable and stands squarely in the way of man's innate desire to attain perfection. The urge towards perfection is so powerful that the law, acting as an unwelcome barrier, is usually either deliberately ignored or conveniently forgotten. Your hi‐fi enthusiast, for example, continues to pore over equipment specifications and buys bigger, more sophisticated and cosdier items regardless of the facts that his small lounge will not accoustically fit a thirty‐two‐foot organ pipe and that unless he is young he cannot hear notes above seventeen or eighteen kilohertz. How many of you, I wonder, would realize it if the studio recording of Marche Slave had been rolled off by EMI at fifteen kilohertz? Certainly I could not detect it, nor could anyone else above the age of fifty‐five. So why strain so hard for perfection? Indeed, why bother?
Yiwei Lai and Milda Perminiene
Fashion advertising as a contemporary ideological form has the power to deliver semiotic messages, which frames individuals' perception. Promoting perfection in consumer culture…
Abstract
Purpose
Fashion advertising as a contemporary ideological form has the power to deliver semiotic messages, which frames individuals' perception. Promoting perfection in consumer culture has resulted in the creation of unrealistic self-image and negative effects that led to psychological illnesses and pathological behaviours. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ideology behind the contemporary fashion advertising that embraces imperfection and is linked to consumer subjective well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
Nine fashion ads were selected based on the WGSN consumer report Embracing Imperfection. A sample of images was analysed applying semiotic analysis combined with the criteria of content analysis.
Findings
The results supported the notion that some contemporary fashion communication brands are challenging the conventional idea of perfection. Five themes were identified as the characteristics that bridged the visual surface of advertising with its hidden ideologies of imperfection. By supporting “anonymity”, fashion brand communication is against excessive self-focus and helps reducing anxiety due to being imperfect. By promoting “rawness”, it encourages authenticity and uniqueness. “Banality” rejects materialism and promotes the beauty of the boring day. “Ugliness” advocates for removal of the single standards and celebrate individual differences, and “spontaneity” is interchangeable for humanity, freedom, openness and acceptance of self.
Originality/value
This study is among the few attempts to conduct semiotic analysis of fashion advertising images aiming to identify the visual components and ideologies that could potentially be linked to subjective well-being in fashion communication.
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