Monday, October 26, 2009
Race discrimination
Social dangerousness
Social dangerousness or Pre-criminal danger to society is a legal charge under Cuban law which allows the authorities to detain people whom they think they are likely to commit crimes. The charge carries a penalty of up to four years in prison.[1] The Cuban government has been accused by Amnesty International of using the charge almost exclusively against critics of the government.[2]
People that have been imprisoned under this charge include:
- José Oscar Sánchez Madan, sentenced to four years in prison[3][4]
- Guillermo Espinosa Rodríguez, sentenced to two years of house arrest[5]
In 2008, the punk rock singer and dissident Gorki Águila was arrested by police on a charge of social dangerousness. He was eventually ordered to pay a $30 fine for the lesser offence of public disorder, after prosecutors dropped the charge of social dangerousness.[6]
Darwinism and hypotheses of social change
"Social Darwinism" was first described by Oscar Schmidt of the University of Strasbourg, reporting at a scientific and medical conference held in Munich in 1877. He noted how socialists, although opponents of Darwin's theory, nonetheless used it to add force to their political arguments. Schmidt's essay first appeared in English in Popular Science in March 1879.[10] There followed an anarchist tract published in Paris in 1880 entitled "Le darwinisme social" by Émile Gautier. However, the use of the term was very rare—at least in the English-speaking world (Hodgson, 2004)—until the American historian Richard Hofstadter published his influential Social Darwinism in American Thought (1944) duringWorld War II.
Hypotheses of social evolution and cultural evolution are common in Europe. The Enlightenment thinkers who preceded Darwin, such as Hegel, often argued that societies progressed through stages of increasing development. Earlier thinkers also emphasized conflict as an inherent feature of social life. Thomas Hobbes's 17th century portrayal of the state of nature seems analogous to the competition for natural resources described by Darwin. Social Darwinism is distinct from other theories of social change because of the way it draws Darwin's distinctive ideas from the field of biology into social studies.
Darwin's unique discussion of evolution considered the supernatural in human development. Unlike Hobbes, he believed that this struggle for natural resources allowed individuals with certain physical and mental traits to succeed more frequently than others, and that these traits accumulated in the population over time, which under certain conditions could lead to the descendants being so different that they would be defined as a new species.
However, Darwin felt that "social instincts" such as "sympathy" and "moral sentiments" also evolved through natural selection, and that these resulted in the strengthening of societies in which they occurred, so much so that he wrote about it in Descent of Man: "The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable- namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man. For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them."[11]
After the 1906 election, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill began to reform society according to the Rowntree Report. The report detailed poor people from York and explained that although they tried hard to lift themselves out of their poverty, it was nearly always impossible. This contributed to changing the prevalent social view that the poor were lazy and stupid, and new policies were made concerning the 'Deserving Poor'. These social reforms earned the Liberal Party the title 'Fathers of the Welfare State' and were largely due to the implementation of Social Darwinist philosophies.
Social Darwinists
Herbert Spencer's ideas, like those of evolutionary progressivism, stemmed from his reading of Thomas Malthus, and his later theories were influenced by those of Darwin. However, Spencer's major work, Progress: Its Law and Cause (1857) was released two years before the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and First Principles was printed in 1860.
In regard to social institutions, there is a good case that Spencer's writings might be classified as 'social Darwinism'. He argues that the individual (rather than the collectivity) is the unit of analysis that evolves, that evolution takes place through natural selection, and that it affects social as well as biological phenomena.
In many ways Spencer's theory of cosmic evolution has much more in common with the works of Lamarck andAuguste Comte's positivism than with Darwin's.
Spencer's work also served to renew interest in the work of Malthus. While Malthus's work does not itself qualify as social Darwinism, his 1798 work An Essay on the Principle of Population, was incredibly popular and widely read by social Darwinists. In that book, for example, the author argued that as an increasing population would normally outgrow its food supply, this would result in the starvation of the weakest and a Malthusian catastrophe.
According to Michael Ruse, Darwin read Malthus' famous Essay on a Principle of Population in 1838, four years after Malthus' death. Malthus himself anticipated the social Darwinists in suggesting that charity could exacerbate social problems.
Another of these social interpretations of Darwin's biological views, later known as eugenics, was put forth by Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, in 1865 and 1869. Galton argued that just as physical traits were clearly inherited among generations of people, so could be said for mental qualities (genius and talent). Galton argued that social morals needed to change so that heredity was a conscious decision, in order to avoid over-breeding by "less fit" members of society and the under-breeding of the "more fit" ones.
In Galton's view, social institutions such as welfare and insane asylums were allowing "inferior" humans to survive and reproduce at levels faster than the more "superior" humans in respectable society, and if corrections were not soon taken, society would be awash with "inferiors." Darwin read his cousin's work with interest, and devoted sections of Descent of Man to discussion of Galton's theories. Neither Galton nor Darwin, though, advocated any eugenic policies such as those which would be undertaken in the early 20th century, as government coercion of any form was very much against their political opinions.
Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy addressed the question of artificial selection, but it was built against Darwinian theories of natural selection. His point of view on sickness and health, in particular, opposed him to the concept of biological adaptation, forged by Spencer's "fitness". He criticized both Haeckel, Spencer, and Darwin, sometimes under the same banner. Nietzsche thought that, in specific cases, sickness was necessary and even helpful.[7]Thus, he wrote:
- Wherever progress is to ensue, deviating natures are of greatest importance. Every progress of the whole must be preceded by a partial weakening. The strongest natures retain the type, the weaker ones help to advance it.
- Something similar also happens in the individual. There is rarely a degeneration, a truncation, or even a vice or any physical or moral loss without an advantage somewhere else. In a warlike and restless clan, for example, the sicklier man may have occasion to be alone, and may therefore become quieter and wiser; the one-eyed man will have one eye the stronger; the blind man will see deeper inwardly, and certainly hear better. To this extent, the famous theory of the survival of the fittest does not seem to me to be the only viewpoint from which to explain the progress of strengthening of a man or of a race.[8]
The publication of Ernst Haeckel's best-selling Welträtsel ('Riddle of the Universe') in 1899 brought social Darwinism and earlier ideas of racial hygiene to a wider audience, and its recapitulation theory (since heavily refuted on many fronts [9] ) became famous. This led to the formation of the Monist League in 1904 with many prominent citizens among its members, including the Nobel Prize winner Wilhelm Ostwald. By 1909 it had a membership of some six thousand people.[citation needed]
The simpler aspects of social Darwinism followed the earlier Malthusian ideas that humans, especially males, need competition in their lives in order to survive in the future, and that the poor should have to provide for themselves and not be given any aid, although most social Darwinists of the early twentieth century supported better working conditions and salaries, thus giving the poor a better chance to provide for themselves and distinguishing those who are capable of succeeding from those who are poor out of laziness, weakness, or inferiority.
Theories and origins
Despite the fact that social Darwinism bears Charles Darwin's name, it is also linked today with others, notably Herbert Spencer, Thomas Malthus, and Francis Galton, the founder of eugenics. In fact, Spencer was not described as a social Darwinist until the 1930s, long after his death.[4]
Darwin himself gave serious consideration to Galton's work, but considered the ideas of "hereditary improvement" impractical. Aware of weaknesses in his own family, Darwin was sure that families would naturally refuse such selection and wreck the scheme. He thought that even if compulsory registration was the only way to improve the human race, this illiberal idea would be unacceptable, and it would be better to publicize the "principle of inheritance" and let people decide for themselves.[5]
In The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex of 1882 Darwin described how medical advances meant that the weaker were able to survive and have families, and commented on the effects of this, while cautioning that hard reason should not override sympathy, and considering how other factors might reduce the effect:
Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. ... We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected[6].
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism refers to various ideologies based on a concept that competition among all individuals, groups, nations, or ideas drivessocial evolution in human societies.[1]
The term draws upon the common use of the term Darwinism, which is a social adaptation of the theory of natural selection as first advanced byCharles Darwin. Natural selection explains speciation in populations as the outcome of competition between individual organisms for limited resources, popularly known as "survival of the fittest", a term coined by anthropologist Herbert Spencer, or "The Gospel of Wealth" theory written by Andrew Carnegie.
The term first appeared in Europe in 1877[2] and was popularized in the United States in 1944 by the American historian Richard Hofstadter. The term "social darwinism" has rarely been used by advocates; instead it has chiefly been used (pejoratively) by its opponents.[3]
While the term has been applied to the claim that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection can be used to understand the social endurance of a nation or country, social Darwinism commonly refers to ideas that predate Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species. Others whose ideas are given the label include the 18th century clergyman Thomas Malthus, and Darwin's cousin Francis Galton who foundedeugenics towards the end of the 19th century.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Current practice
One well known contemporary social entrepreneur is Muhammad Yunus, founder and manager of Grameen Bank and its growing family of social venture businesses, who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.[6] The work of Yunus and Grameen echoes a theme among modern day social entrepreneurs that emphasizes the enormous synergies and benefits when business principles are unified with social ventures. [7] In some countries - including Bangladesh and to a lesser extent the USA - social entrepreneurs have filled the spaces left by a relatively small state. In other countries - particularly in Europe and South America - they have tended to work more closely with public organizations at both the national and local level.
In India, a Social Entrepreneur can be a person, who is the Founder, Co-Founder or a Chief Functionary (may be President, Secretary, Treasurer, CEO, or Chairman) of a social enterprise, which is primarily a NGO, which raises funds through some services (often fund raising events and community activities) and occasionally products. Rippan Kapur of Child Rights and You and Jyotindra Nath of Youth United, are such examples of Social Entrepreneurs, who are the founders of the respective organizations.
Today, nonprofits and non-governmental organizations, foundations, governments and individuals also play the role to promote, fund, and advise social entrepreneurs around the planet. A growing number of colleges and universities are establishing programs focused on educating and training social entrepreneurs.
In the UK in 2002 seven leading not for profit organisations established UnLtd - The Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs. It holds a £100 million endowment especially to invest in social entrepreneurs in the UK. UnLtd provides individuals with cash awards and practical support that includes coaching, training and networking opportunities to help develop community projects. UnLtd Ventures is the in-house consultancy division of UnLtd and focuses on a number of outstanding social entrepreneurs, providing them with business support and helping them to scale up or replicate their organisations or get investment ready. Another of their operations, UnLtd Research, is fast becoming the world's primary source of evidence and thinking around Social Entrepreneurship. Its central purpose is to lead the global business, public policy and academic debates about the role of Social Entrepreneurship in community regeneration, employment and growth strategies.
The Social Enterprise Coalition (SEC) is another coalition in the UK which represents a wide range of social enterprises, regional and national support networks and other related organisations.[8]
South East Asia Pacific based Global Indian Foundation Global Indian Foundation which is headquartered in Singapore runs schools for gifted tribal or adivasi students in Gujarat, India. The Public Private Partnership project aims to lift the education standards of the tribal students and make them employable in public or private sector.
The George Foundation's Women's Empowerment program empowers women by providing education, cooperative farming, vocational training, savings plan, and business development. In 2006 the cooperative farming program, Baldev Farms, was the second largest banana grower in South India with 250 acres (1.0 km2) under cultivation.[9] Profits from the farm are used for improving the economic status of the workers and for running the other charitable activities of the foundation.[9]
By Stupid Common Man is a volunteer online association of Business professionals from various Industries for revival of sick industries in Andhra Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh is the biggest producer of entrepreneurs in India but also has the largest history of entrepreneurial failure. This is an open forum with free membership and seeks the participation of a broader intellectual population. This is a unique social entrepreneurial initiative for a noble cause.
Some have created for profit organizations. A recent example is Vikram Akula founder CEO of SKS Microfinance, the McKinsey alumnus who started a microlending venture in villages of Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Though this venture is for profit, it has initiated a sharp social change amongst poor women from villages. Another great example is Brent Freeman, Norma LaRosa, and Nick Reder the Co-Founders of MARCsMovement [1] an online retail site for Moral And Responsible Companies (MARCs) that donates 5% of every sale to non-profits in the US that help teach today's youth to be the leaders of tomorrow. This online site aims to empower everyday online shoppers to make a difference in the world around them through everyday purchases.
There are continuing arguments over precisely who counts as a social entrepreneur. Some have advocated restricting the term to founders of organizations that primarily rely on earned income – meaning income earned directly from paying consumers. Others have extended this to include contracted work for public authorities, while others still include grants and donations. This argument is unlikely to be resolved soon.Peter Drucker, for example, once wrote that there was nothing as entrepreneurial as creating a new university: yet in most developed countries the majority of university funding comes from the state.
Organizations such as Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, the Skoll Foundation, the Omidyar Network, the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, Root Cause, the Canadian Social Entrepreneurship Foundation, New Profit Inc. and Echoing Green among others, focus on highlighting these hidden change-makers who are scattered across the globe. Ashoka's Changemakers "open sourcing social solutions" initiative Changemakers uses an online platform for what it calls collaborative competitions to build communities of practice around pressing issues. The North American organizations tend to have a strongly individualistic stance focused on a handful of exceptional leaders, while others in Asia and Europe emphasize more how social entrepreneurs work within teams, networks and movements for change. The Skoll Foundation, created by eBay's first president, Jeff Skoll, makes capacity building "mezzanine level" grants to social entrepreneurial organizations that have already reach a certain level of impact, connects them through the annual Skoll World Forum and Social Edge, the Foundation's online community, and highlights their work through partnerships with the Sundance Institute, Frontline World, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and other film and broadcast outlets. Skoll also supports the field of social entrepreneurship, including through Skoll's founding of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the Said Business School at Oxford University.
Youth social entrepreneurship is an increasingly common approach to engaging youth voice in solving social problems. Youth organizationsand programs promote these efforts through a variety of incentives to young people.[10] One such program is Young Social Pioneers, which invests in the power and promise of Australia's young leaders. The program, which is an initiative of The Foundation for Young Australians, strengthens, supports and celebrates the role of young people in creating positive change in their communities. About Face International[2]has a program that promotes youth social entrepreneurship amongst middle school, high school and college students by providing interest-free loans, grants and mentorship. They also help middle schools, high schools and colleges form youth social entrepreneurship after school clubs onsite. The MARCsMovement[3] business model parallels such an approach by paying it forward with their commitment to help educate today's youth about the fundamentals of socially responsible businesses so that they can become progressive leaders of tomorrow.
Fast Company Magazine annually publishes a list of the 25 best social entrepreneurs, which the magazine defines as organizations "using the disciplines of the corporate world to tackle daunting social problems."[11] In 2009, BusinessWeek followed suit, publishing a review of American's 25 most promising social entrepreneurs, defined as "enterprising individuals who apply business practices to solving societal problems."[12]