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Constructing “Those”
Author(s) -
Strasser Peter
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
ratio juris
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.344
H-Index - 10
eISSN - 1467-9337
pISSN - 0952-1917
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9337.00120
Subject(s) - deviance (statistics) , normative , sociology , epistemology , politics , context (archaeology) , postmodernism , perspective (graphical) , realism , value (mathematics) , criminology , environmental ethics , political science , law , philosophy , history , statistics , mathematics , archaeology , artificial intelligence , machine learning , computer science
Looking at other people means constructing them by applying a conceptual framework. There are frameworks which depict other people as being essentially different from us—as those . Lombroso's born criminal, as a type of human being, is a kind of those . In our century, several decades were devoted to deconstructing the Lombrosian paradigm by adopting an etiological perspective of deviance. However, since the 1980s, a new realism has been established in western criminology: Again, the central value of criminological research is the sheltering of society against the attacks of those . A new fascination of facing evil is produced, by building up a climate of suspicion against particular groups of people; this climate overwhelms the mass‐media, thereby arousing the public imagination and kindling public resentment. All endeavours to reestablish those are now embedded in a postmodern esthetical context, which turns regressive tendencies into a more or less ironical game: a play with morally alert actors which, at the same time, undermines their belief in the normative concept of ethical and political justification.[Note 1. Abstract by Angelo Salento. ...]