Discussing motivational insights for Transition with Stephen Rollnick and Chris Johnstone (in 2006) - http://transitionculture.org/2012/01/30/rollnick-johnstone-and-hopkins-discuss-motivational-insights-for-transition/
Tag: cultural theory
How to reach the South Pole before your rivals do
Image via Wikipedia It's 100 years since the British explorer Captain Scott reached the South Pole only to realise his rival Roald Amundsen had just beaten him to it. On the return journey he and his party died, but not before writing about it in journals, thus creating an enduring myth of 'heroic failure'. In his … Continue reading How to reach the South Pole before your rivals do
Why do People play the Lottery?
Well, why do they? It's the kind of question only those who don't do it would bother asking. I admit I'm one of them. The lottery is a mystery to me - self-evidently daft, like a slow-motion version of taking a pile of cash and setting fire to it. Why would anyone do it? One … Continue reading Why do People play the Lottery?
False Signal?
“My father told me the oceans were limitless, but that was a false signal.” NYT on collapsing fish stocks in the South Pacific. In Mackerel's Plunder, Hints of Epic Fish Collapse Related articles In Mackerel's Plunder, Hints of Epic Fish Collapse (nytimes.com)
Science communication and conservative values
Roger Scruton's recent article in Prospect Magazine provides an interesting illustration of what Dan Kahn and Chris Mooney have been discussing on their respective blogs. (Kahn blogs regularly now at the Cultural Cognition Project and Mooney writes at the Desmog Blog.) The topic of their discussion: Is it possible to take the polemics out of … Continue reading Science communication and conservative values
A typology of disagreement
How are differences of opinion to be characterised? That is to say, if there is more than one opinion, what is its status in relation to the others? Are there different types of difference of opinion? It’s hard to write about this matter because as soon as we do so we resort to language that … Continue reading A typology of disagreement
Equality and Hierarchy in Denmark
Hedeby, probable site of the first school in Denmark Further reflections on the concept of horizontal and vertical teaching methods. A recent edition of the journal Social Analysis (55.2, 2011) is entirely devoted to the contrast between hierarchical and egalitarian pressures on Danish Society. The introduction begins with a discussion of the work of the … Continue reading Equality and Hierarchy in Denmark
Explaining Political Judgement
Fourcultures has previously reviewed the work of Perri 6 , Professor of social policy at Nottingham Trent University. The Institutional Dynamics of Culture (which he edited with Gerald Mars) remains the most important compendium of sources on Mary Douglas's cultural theory. His latest book is Explaining Political Judgement, which looks to be a very thorough … Continue reading Explaining Political Judgement
The medium is the bias
We don’t carry cultural biases around in our heads so much as encounter them in our environments. Humans require the flexibility to be able to engage with different cultural biases in different contexts. A person who is acculturated to be biased in one particular way will either gravitate towards that way of working or be … Continue reading The medium is the bias
It matters who presents the message
Who would you trust to tell you what the risks are? Research from the Cultural Cognition project suggests the cultural identity of the presenter matters significantly to the public reception of a particular message about risk. In other words, we need our experts to be our experts, not the other side’s experts. It follows from … Continue reading It matters who presents the message
Four Cultures 