The Parallelometer: a mechanical device to study curvature

A simple mechanical device is introduced, the parallelometer, that can be used to measure curvatures of surfaces. The device can be used as a practical illustration of parallel transport of a vector and to study Berry phase shift when it is carried along a loop on the surface. Its connection to the Foucault pendulum is discussed. The experimental results can be successfully compared with the theoretical expectations. The experiment is inexpensive and conceptually easy to perform and understand for a beginner

Work, Violence, Injustice and War

This essay explores links between work, societal violence, social and economic injustice at home and abroad, and the propensity to resort to war. It clarifies the concept societal violence and traces its roots to coercively established and maintained exploitative modes of work, exchange and distribution. It suggests that overcoming violence in human relations requires transformations of work, exchange, and distribution in accordance with egalitarian, democratic, humanistic and ecological values in order to eliminate obstacles to human development. Social policies and political strategies toward these ends are discussed in the concluding sections of the essay

Work Place Collectives: A Strategy Toward Decentralized Democratic Socialism

I explore in this essay a possible strategy for the transformation of democratic, capitalist states into decentralized, democratic, socialist societies. The strategy suggested here can be pursued now within the United States and similar nation-states whose formal legal frameworks provide for certain civil and political rights including freedom of speech, press, assembly, association and life-style, due process, etc. More specifically, I will examine the notion of voluntary, social, economic, and political collectives, and networks of such collectives, organized in and around existing urban and non-urban places of work -- fresh cells of participatory democracy and socialism within the aging, crises-ridden bodies of liberal, capitalist states, a notion akin to the Kibbutz model and federation among Kibbutz settlements. (1) I will also touch on a related issue, namely, who is to benefit from a revolution toward democratic socialism, and hence, who should be encouraged to join transformation movements and the proposed work place collectives

Common Rooms and Functions of the Warfare and Welfare State

Warfare and welfare are usually assumed to serve contradictory ends and to be rooted in antithetical values, institutions and dynamics. In this essay, I propose to challenge this notion and to advance, instead, the thesis that, in spite of significant differences between them, warfare and welfare serve, nevertheless, identical and complementary functions, and are both rooted in identical societal values, institutions and dynamics. As with other phenomena which are considered to be social problems, such as poverty, crime, unemployment, inflation, mental illness, etc., but which are merely by-products of the normal workings of certain social systems, warfare and welfare can not be understood and overcome unless their philosophical and institutional roots and functions are first unraveled. This requires studying warfare and welfare from a holistic-evolutionary perspective which treats social, economic, political, psychological, and ideological dimensions of human societies as variables rather than as constants, settled once and for all. When warfare and welfare are explored in this fashion and are placed within the context of universal essential processes, the extent to which they tend to fit the internal logic of certain patterns of these processes should become discernible, and their presumed inevitability can then be demystified. What, then, are tie general functions of warfare and welfare, and from what philosophical roots and values do they derive? To explore these questions, I will focus first on welfare and then on warfare

Review of \u3cem\u3eThe Idea of Justice.\u3c/em\u3e Amartia Sen. Reviewed by David G. Gil

Book review of Amartia Sen, The Idea of Justice. Harvard University Press, 2009. 468 pages, $29.95 hardcover

A Holistic Perspective on Child Abuse and Its Prevention

In recent decades, child abuse has come to be considered a social problem of significant scope and has, therefore, attracted intense public and scholarly interest. Yet, in spite of efforts by scholars, professionals, government agencies, concerned individuals and organizations, and the media of public communications, misconceptions prevail concerning the nature, sources, and dynamics of this destructive phenomenon and concerning effective approaches to its primary prevention. Such conceptual shortcomings, and a related persistent failure to design effective policies and programs for the primary prevention of child abuse, seem to be due to a number of obstacles

Implications of Conservative Tendencies for Practice and Education in Social Welfare

This essay explores the meanings, sources, dynamics, and ideological themes of conservative tendencies in societal evolution and traces the dominance of these themes and tendencies in social welfare practice and education. The essay also suggests approaches for moving beyond these tendencies in our society and proposes an agenda for transition policies. Finally, the essay examines principles and elements of social-changeoriented political action and their implications for practice and education in social welfare

Individual Experience and Critical Consciousness: Sources of Social Change in Everyday Life

Social scientists tend to interpret social change as the result of collective action. However, all collective action is at some level and time initiated and carried out by individuals, who, of course, are rooted in particular social contexts. A theory of social change needs to derive, therefore, not only from the study of collective action, but also from the study of individual initiation of, and involvement in, social change oriented practice. The following observations on individual involvement in social change practice are based on personal experience and study over several decades. They are not a theory of social change but merely subjective contributions to the development of such a theory. I will first summarize a set of assumptions I have come to accept concerning societal evolution, continuity and change. Next, I will sketch one particular approach derived from these assumptions, which social change oriented individuals may want to pursue in everyday life. Finally, instead of listing references throughout the text, I will suggest a selection of sources which I found helpful in studying societal evolution and change, for readers interested to explore these issues further

Social Policies and Social Development - A Humanistic-Egalitarian Perspective

This essay explores the relationship of social policies and of policy-relevant societal values to social development. Its thesis is that the scope, direction, and quality of the social development process are largely shaped by the social policies and the dominant value positions of societies

Common Roots and Functions of the Warfare and Welfare State

Warfare and welfare are usually assumed to serve contradictory ends and to hie rooted in antithetical values, institutions and dynamics. In this essay, I propose to challenge this notion and to advance, instead, the thesis that, in spite of significant differences betwcn them, warfare and welfare serc, nevertheless, identical and colilementary functions, and are both rooted in identical socittal values, institutions and dynamics