Illusionism's discontent

Frankish positions his view, illusionism about qualia (a.k.a. eliminativist physicalism), in opposition to what he calls radical realism (dualism and neutral monism) and conservative realism (a.k.a. non-eliminativist physicalism). Against radical realism, he upholds physicalism. But he goes along with key premises of the Gap Arguments for radical realism, namely, 1) that epistemic/explanatory gaps exist between the physical and the phenomenal, and 2) that every truth should be perspicuously explicable from the fundamental truth about the world; and he concludes that because physicalism is true, there could be no phenomenal truths, and no qualia. I think he is wrong to accept 2); and even if he was right to accept it, the more plausible response would be not to deny the existence of qualia but to deny physicalism. In either case, denying the existence of qualia is the wrong answer. I present a physicalist realist alterative that refutes premise 2 of the Gap Argument; I also make a general case against the scientism that accompanies Frankish’s metaphysics

Perceiving and Feeling Personal Discrimination: Motivation or Inhibition for Collective action?

Relative deprivation and group consciousness theories differ in their predictions of how personal discrimination and personal discontent will be related to taking collective action. According to relative deprivation theory, assessments of personal status should be unrelated to taking collective action. In contrast, group consciousness theories suggest that while perceiving personal discrimination is necessary for collective action to occur, feelings of personal discontent may inhibit it. Female students completed questionnaires assessing their perceptions of, and affective responses to personal discrimination, as well as their participation in collective actions. A hierarchical regression analysis found that personal discrimination and discontent interacted such that among women who perceived personal discrimination, women took the most collective actions when they did not feel personally discontent with their status. Implications for the relationship between negative emotions and intergroup behavior were discussed

Predictors of Physicians\u27 Discontent

No abstract available

Harbouring discontent: Activism in 1930s Fremantle

The 1930s was a period of huge economic and political turmoil, with the Great Depression and the rise of fascism in Europe, leading to the Second World War. Western Australia has been portrayed as a place of relative calm and consensus during this decade. This research challenges this view, and examines local community activism in Fremantle in relation to unemployment, industrial strife and the rise of fascism in Europe, particularly the civil war in Spain. The research indicates a highly active and politically conscious labour movement in Fremantle in this decade

The rise of secessionism in Catalonia has emerged out of the will to decide the region’s political destiny as a nation

Will Catalonia secede from Spain? Montserrat Guibernau explores why many Catalonians now hope that it might. She argues that Catalonia’s subsidization of less affluent regions, which leaves the region worse off, is a major root of discontent

Technological unemployment and its educational discontents

�� 2020 The Authors. Published by Helsinki University Press. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher���s website: https://doi.org/10.33134/HUP-4-9This chapter introduces a post-digital perspective to relationships between technological unemployment and its educational discontents. It examines a possible future where digital technologies will destroy more jobs than they will create in three steps. First, an extensive literature overview identifies why people from various historical periods and working in various fields have perceived technological unemployment as a threat. Second, it distils six main areas of educational discontent in current literature: discontent with neoliberalization, discontent with automation, discontent with dehumanization, discontent with acceleration, discontent with content of work and discontent with educationalization. Concluding that educational discontent with technological unemployment identified in our work seems to have surprisingly little to do with either technology or with employment, it returns to the post-digital perspective to explain this result. Finally, it examines educational discontent of technological unemployment as an agent of change, and concludes that the notion of educational discontent with technological unemployment has the potential to help formulate new post-digital critical rage pedagogy.Published versio

Why are Latin Americans so unhappy about reforms?

This paper uses opinion surveys to document discontent with the pro-market reforms implemented by most Latin American countries during the 1990s. The paper also explores four possible sets of explanations for this discontent: (i) a general drift of the populace’s political views to the left; (ii) an increase in political activism by those who oppose reforms; (iii) a decline in the people’s trust of political actors; and (iv) the economic crisis. The paper’s principal finding is that the macroeconomic situation plays an important role in explaining the dissatisfaction with the reform process.political economy, reforms: crisis, Latin America

Disentangling Societal Discontent and Intergroup Threat:Explaining Actions Towards Refugees and Towards the State

In debates about migration in Western countries, citizens’ concerns about immigrant groups often go hand in hand with concerns about the decline of society as a whole. Societal discontent, however, is a distinct concept and may have its own relations with immigration attitudes, over and above the role of perceived immigrant threat. In a survey of a representative sample of Dutch people (N = 1239), we disentangled societal discontent from intergroup threat with respect to their relationship with different kinds of action intentions regarding refugees (both pro and anti) and intentions regarding the government. Unsurprisingly, societal discontent predicted support for anti-government protest (which was strikingly high). More importantly, societal discontent independently predicted both pro-refugee and anti-refugee action intentions, over and above intergroup threat. These associations were moderated by intergroup threat: only when refugees were experienced as a threat did discontent predict anti-refugee action intentions. On the other hand, societal discontent predicted more pro-refugee action intentions, but only when people experienced refugees as an enrichment. Thus, despite populist rhetoric, societal discontent is not always tied to anti-immigrant actions. This suggests that refugee sentiments and societal discontent are not exchangeable: societal discontent plays an important role in reactions to immigration

Empirical Evidence on Satisfaction with Privatization in Latin America: Welfare Effects and Beliefs

Since the 1980s, privatization of formerly state-owned firms has been extensively implemented by governments across Latin America. Despite the fact that most evaluations of the process fail to find significant adverse welfare effects, there has been a strong surge in public discontent with such policy in the region. This paper performs a systematic empirical analysis of the determinants of such discontent with privatizations in Latin America, using survey data from Latinobarometro covering 18 countries over the period 1995-2005, complemented by country level data on macroeconomic, political, and institutional aspects as well as data on privatization. Dissatisfaction appears to respond to absolute and relative welfare effects, as well as to individual beliefs and expectations.

Of losers and laggards: The interplay of material conditions and individual perceptions in the shaping of EU discontent

Two principal strands of scholarship analyse the material roots of European Union (EU) discontent. Some focus on the effects of regional decline, while others examine the role of individual socioeconomic factors. This paper brings these two perspectives together. We argue that EU discontent is a multifaceted phenomenon structured by the spatially-rooted interplay between individual and regional material conditions and subjective perceptions. We apply PLS-SEM to Eurobarometer public opinion data (2018-2019) and find that the geographical location and the socioeconomic position shape EU discontent directly. However, material factors' relevance for EU discontent is the greatest in structuring individual future expectations. Furthermore, democratic dissatisfaction turns out to be a key factor, pointing to the importance of institutional perceptions in the geography of discontent