Orwell and the Oligarchs: George Orwell Memorial Lecture, 26 November 2010

The unique quality of George Orwell's political journalism is to force us to examine not just the utterances of our opponents, but what we say ourselves, in particular how we deceive ourselves as well as deceiving others. What would Orwell diagnose as our major self‐deception if he were alive today? Orwell was much taken with James Burnham's 1941 bestseller The Managerial Society. He agreed with Burnham that the predominant drift in modern society was towards oligarchy, and not towards democracy as we like to flatter ourselves. Whether in business or politics, decisions today rest in fewer hands. Power is concentrated, not dispersed. As in Russia, the emerging system enables oligarchs to collar a disproportionate share of the rewards. Management becomes a self‐remunerating elite. Inequality of income increases sharply as a result. Oligarchy is a perversion of liberal capitalism and not a natural development of it. It can be reversed. The Coalition government has set out in a liberal and localist direction. It remains to be seen whether these promising signs will develop into a sustained and effective programme.     

CONSULTANT CONDUCT IN ANTICIPATION OF A CHILD CUSTODY EVALUATION: ETHICAL AND SOCIAL DILEMMAS AND THE NEED FOR NEUTRAL PARENT EDUCATION

Mental health professionals are being retained with increasing frequency as “custody consultants” to prepare a parent for a child custody evaluation. While this practice may serve a legitimate function, no ethical guidelines clearly govern the conduct of a consultant in such circumstances. This lack of guidance has led to professional disagreement regarding the ethical implications of the practice. This ethical ambiguity is accompanied by social concern regarding the high cost of custody consulting, which has the practical effect of denying consulting services to low‐income or self‐represented litigants. This Note will describe the growing practice of custody consulting and the ethical and social unease currently associated with the practice. This Note will then propose that mandatory parent education programs be developed for parents preparing to undergo a custody evaluation. This type of educational program would provide many of the benefits of custody consulting in an ethically neutral fashion and would ensure that all parents have access to the benefits of this growing practice.     

The Queer Jew: Gender,Sexuality and Jean-Paul Sartre's Anti-Antisemitism

In an attempt to understand the mechanisms that enable the perpetuation of racism, Judaken examines how antisemitic stereotypes can be reiterated in the discourse of those individuals most committed to the eradication of antisemitism. He argues that typologies - mythic images of collective identity - depend upon an associative logic. These associations are engendered in the construction of the Self (both individual and collective), by demarcating it-self from the Other(s), generally through tropes of gender, pathology and race. Judaken focuses on Jean-Paul Sartre's Anti-Semite and Jew,a text which Sartre called 'a declaration of war against antisemitic motifs', and argues that this unintended effect is the result of how Sartre conceptualizes both consciousness and the relation between the Self and Other in Being and Nothingness. This work of existential phenomenology, that sought radically to critique the western metaphysical tradition, nevertheless reinscribes dominant assumptions within western culture about gender and sexuality. Judaken shows how Sartre's re-citation of these assumptions fundamentally determines how he conceives of the relation between the antisemite and 'the Jew'. He concludes, however, by suggesting that imminent to Sartre's own position, there is an-other way of conceiving of the relation between Self and Other that might offer hope beyond the impasses of the western tradition's failures in embracing difference, singularity and particularity.     

Promoting Data Protection Standards through Contracts: The Case of the Data Security Council of India

Data protection has emerged as a major corporate and government concern worldwide. The focus is on secure handling of data so as to ensure privacy of customer data and security of corporate data. Privacy and security laws in countries are not harmonized; compliance regulations are different too. As the global hub of outsourcing, India is faced with a challenge of demonstrating compliance with varying compliance regulations in countries. The Data Security Council of India (DSCI) considers the Best Practices Approach as a practical and realistic way to enhance adherence to data security and privacy standards, and to enable a service provider to demonstrate compliance. Getting these standards recognized through contracts can promote data protection. An industry association can act as a third party self‐regulatory organization to promote these standards and enforce them among its members through certification or privacy seals, thereby helping implement data protection in international data flows.     

What Distinguishes Single from Recurrent Sexual Victims? The Role of Lifestyle‐Routine Activities and First‐Incident Characteristics

An unsettling reality is that a substantial proportion of women who have been sexually victimized are recurrent victims who experience more than one sexual victimization while young adults. What is not well understood is why some women experience a single sexual victimization whereas others experience recurrent sexual victimizations. Using a sample of 4,399 college women from the National College Women Sexual Victimization study, we examine lifestyle‐routine activities and first‐incident characteristics that could place women at risk of being recurrent sexual victims during an academic year. Our results show that none of the lifestyle‐routine activities variables differentiated single and recurrent victims; the factors that predicted being a single victim are similarly predictive of being a recurrent victim. However, women who used self‐protective action during the first incident reduced their likelihood of being a recurrent victim. Implications for the development of sexual victimization risk‐reduction and prevention programs are also discussed.     

Self‐control,peer relations,and delinquency

This paper addresses gender-specific treatment in juvenile justice processing, an important topic in view of new funding opportunities to develop female-specific programs. This topic is controversial and includes many unresolved issues. To provide context, we relate this study to lessons from the initiative to address disproportionate minority confinement: that it is impossible to understand confinement without understanding the process by which youths are confined, that structural and demographic traits facilitate the process, and that benevolent interventions can have unintended negative consequences. We present empirical findings that juvenile justice cases are “gendered,” but that court treatment of those cases shows more gender similarities than differences. In contrast, interviews with officials suggest large gender gaps in opportunities for services, and indicate some gender biases. Bias and disparity also are themes among delinquent and “at-risk” girls who participated in focus groups; in addition, girls expressed preferences for treatment comparable to that given to boys. Finally, we evaluate what has been advocated as female-specific programming and recommend how best to proceed.     

略论和谐自我的构建

和谐社会的根基是自我和谐。自我和谐就是一个人身心的和谐协调，即人的生理和谐与心理和谐的统一。     

A comprehensive method for the assessment of industrial injury events

Because work‐related injuries are infrequent and often poorly documented, injury event operationalizations beyond recorded rates would be beneficial. This study describes a method that uses self‐reported and recorded events.

Researchers interviewed workers and obtained recorded events from personnel files to develop the near miss and unreported injury events measures. The self‐reported event measures, with other safety variables and demographics, were then administered to two groups of plant workers (N = 115 and N = 120). Results indicated that self‐reported events differed from recorded events and are related to other work injury variables (e.g., work hazards, overtime). An expanded safety protocol such as this one may provide additional tools to investigate the injury event process.