On the malleability of ideology: Motivated construals of color blindness.

The authors propose that the content of certain sociopolitical ideologies can be shaped by individuals in ways that satisfy their social motivations. This notion was tested in the context of color-blind ideology. Color blindness, when construed as a principle of distributive justice, is an egalitarian stance concerned with reducing discrepancies between groups' outcomes; as a principle of procedural justice, however, color blindness can function as a legitimizing ideology that entrenches existing inequalities. In Study 1, White people high in antiegalitarian sentiment were found to shift their construal of color blindness from a distributive to a procedural principle when exposed to intergroup threat. In Studies 2, 3A, and 3B, the authors used manipulations and a measure of threat to show that antiegalitarian White people endorse color blindness to legitimize the racial status quo. In Study 3B, participants' endorsement of color-blind ideology was mediated by increases in their preference for equal treatment (i.e., procedural justice) as a response to threat. In the Discussion section, the authors examine implications of the present perspective for understanding the manner in which individuals compete over the meaning of crucial ideologies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

From Habermas's communicative theory to practice on the internet

Abstract. Communication plays a crucial role in influencing our social life. However, communication has often been distorted by unequal opportunities to initiate and participate in it. Such conditions have been criticized by Habermas who argues for an ideal speech situation, i.e. a situation of democratic communication with equal opportunities for social actors to communicate in an undistorted manner. This ideal situation is partially being realized by the advent of the internet. The paper describes how an internet‐based tool for collaborative authoring was conceptualized, developed and then deployed with Habermas's Critical Social Theory as a guiding principle. The internet‐based electronic forum, known by its acronym GRASS (Group Report Authoring Support System), is a web tool supporting the production of concise group reports that give their readers an up‐to‐date and credible overview of the positions of various stakeholders on a particular issue. Together with people and procedures, it is a comprehensive socio‐technical information system that can play a role in resolving societal conflicts. A prototype of GRASS has been used by an environmental group as a new way in which to create a more equal exchange and comparison of ideas among various stakeholders in the debate on genetically modified food. With the widespread use of the internet, such a forum has the potential to become an emergent form of communication for widely dispersed social actors to conduct constructive debate and discussion. The barriers to such a mode of communication still remain – in the form of entrenched power structures, and limitations to human rationality and responsibility. However, we believe that the support provided by the comprehensive system of technological functionality as well as procedural checks and balances provided by GRASS may considerably reduce the impact of these obstacles. In this way, the ideal speech situation may be approximated more closely in reality.     

先有鸡还是先有蛋?——对目前我国城市规划编制审批中某些做法的疑惑

城市规划的编制与审批既要依据上层次规划并与相关规划协调 ,又不可脱离实际。教条地依据某规划或与“相关规划”协调 ,会堕入循环论证的谬误之中。犹如下面这幅埃舍尔的画中 ,究竟是哪只手在画哪只手 ?