Destructive messages

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Patricia J. Williams

In these pages we encounter figures and images plucked from headlines -from Tonya Harding to Lani Guinier, Rush Limbaugh to Hillary Clinton, Clarence Thomas to Dan Quayle - and see how their portrayal, encoding certain stereotypes, often reveals more about us than about them. What are we really talking about when we talk about welfare mothers, for instance? Why is calling someone a "redneck" okay, and what does that say about our society? When young women appear on Phil Donahue to represent themselves as Jewish American Princesses, what else are they doing? These are among the questions Williams considers as she uncovers the shifting, often covert rules of conversation that determine who "we" are as a nation.

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Lawrence M. Friedman

"The book concerns a fundamental question in the study of the relationship between law and society: under what conditions does a law, rule, decision, or doctrine actually make a difference in the behavior of those who are subject to this aspect of the legal system. There is a large body of scholarship which, in one sense or another, deals with this issue. The two main sources of scholarship on impact are, first, studies in criminal justice; and second, studies of business regulation. The goal of the book is bring some conceptual clarity to an awkward, unwieldy, and unruly subject. In any discussion of impact, one has to begin with the issue of communication; a rule or law that never reaches its audience, or which is vague, or difficult to understand, will have no impact. The book discusses some of the factors that influence the process of communication. But once a rule is communicated, what happens then? Sometimes the subjects comply; sometimes they fail to comply; sometimes they adjust or evade. There are three clusters of motives that affect the reaction of subject: first, deterrence (rewards and punishments); second, peer group influence; and third, issues of conscience, legitimacy, and morality. When all of these move in the same direction, the effect is quite powerful; if they conflict, it is impossible to predict which will prevail"--

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Michael Dahlem

"This work combines an analysis of the Western philosophical tradition with the insights of Eastern mysticism and modern physics to offer a series of recommendations aimed at achieving the goal of human happiness."--BOOK JACKET.

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Matthias Gross

"The image of the addict in popular culture combines victimhood and moral failure; we sympathize with addicts in films and novels because of their suffering and their hard-won knowledge. And yet actual scientific knowledge about addiction tends to undermine this cultural construct. In What Is Addiction? leading addiction researchers from neuroscience, psychology, genetics, philosophy, economics, and other fields survey the latest findings in addiction science. They discuss such questions as whether addiction is one kind of condition, or several; if addiction is neurophysiological, psychological, or social, or incorporates aspects of all of these; to what extent addicts are responsible for their problems, and how this affects health and regulatory policies; and whether addiction is determined by inheritance or environment or both. The chapter authors discuss the possibility of a unifying basis for different addictions (considering both substance addiction and pathological gambling), offering both neurally and neuroscientifically grounded accounts as well as discussions of the social context of addiction. There can be no definitive answer yet to the question posed by the title of this book; but these essays demonstrate an advance over the simplistic conception embedded in popular culture."--Jacket.