This paper introduces the concept of the Minimal Paradise, a universal life infrastructure designed to guarantee that every household is free from destitution while preserving and expanding market-based innovation, entrepreneurship, and scientific progress. The paper argues that many political, economic, and moral theories were developed under conditions of genuine scarcity and therefore treated poverty, labor insecurity, and economic pressure as unavoidable features of civilization. Drawing on contemporary global productive capacity and purchasing-power-parity measures of world output, the paper contends that (...) humanity has entered a historical phase in which basic material security for all households is economically feasible. The Minimal Paradise is neither a welfare state, a redistributive project, nor a utopian blueprint. Rather, it is conceived as foundational social infrastructure, analogous to public roads, libraries, or communication networks. The paper distinguishes the Minimal Paradise from Creative Economics, the sphere of innovation, enterprise, science, engineering, exploration, and cultural production. Far from competing, these two domains are presented as mutually reinforcing: universal security expands human participation in creative and productive activity, while Creative Economics generates the wealth necessary to sustain universal security. The paper critically examines historical scarcity-based arguments advanced by thinkers such as Thomas Malthus, Bernard Mandeville, and Patrick Colquhoun, as well as contemporary objections regarding incentives, dependency, and labor supply. It argues that these perspectives underestimate the wealth-generating potential of a secure population and overlook the transformative effects of modern productive capacity. The Minimal Paradise is therefore proposed as an emerging civilizational development that reorients economic thought from scarcity management to the strategic cultivation of human potential. (shrink)

Creativity and civil courage are major dimensions of an intellectual's authority and contribute towards the enrichment of democracy. This book develops a sociological account of civil courage and creative behaviour in order to enhance our understanding of the nature of intellectuals' involvement in society. Barbara A. Misztal employs both theoretical-analytic and empirical components to develop a typology of intellectuals who have shown civil courage and examines the biographies of twelve Nobel Peace Prize laureates, including Elie Wiesel, Andrei Sakharov and (...) Linus C. Pauling, to illustrate acts of courage which have embodied the values of civil society. She advances our understanding of the nature of intellectuals' public involvement and their contribution to social well-being. In the current climate of fear and insecurity, as governments are forced to deal with issues of increasing complexity, this is a pioneering sociological book with a highly original approach. (shrink)

This paper examines how cultural and creative workers in Indonesia negotiate the adoption of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) under conditions of labor precarity. Drawing on sociotechnical imaginaries and scholarship on precarious creative labor, the study explores how workers interpret, appropriate, and constrain GenAI in their everyday practices. The research adopts a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach in collaboration with a creative workers’ union, Serikat Sindikasi, combining focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, and a feedback workshop involving 40 participants (...) across multiple subsectors. The findings identify three sociotechnical imaginaries: GenAI as a bounded assistant, through which workers seek to maintain authorship and professional identity; GenAI as an engine of acceleration, intensifying productivity demands and reshaping temporal expectations; and GenAI as a contested system of governance, raising concerns about fairness, ownership, and regulation. Together, these imaginaries show that GenAI adoption is deeply shaped by existing labor insecurities. The paper argues that workers’ selective engagement with GenAI reflects efforts to navigate precarity, underscoring the need for context-sensitive, labor-centered approaches to AI governance in the Global South. (shrink)

Contemporary societies are dominated by the discourse of the risk which refers to potential threats associated to feelings of insecurity, uncertainty, and fear, introduced by modernization itself (Beck, Risk society. Towards a new modernity. Sage, 1992, p. 21) and instigated by the mass media. The concept of risk can, however, connote other dimensions. Austen (The social construction of risk by young people. Health, Risk & Society, 11(5), 451–470, 2009, p. 452) states that “now risk taking is much more diverse, (...) not centred on survival but pleasure and the relief of boredom. In this sense risk taking is now regarded as fun, a way of coping with the increased instabilities and uncertainties of living at risk”. The author highlights that young people in the new millennium face a wider scope of uncertainties (being at risk) and choices (risk taking) on how to run their lives. On the one hand, they are regarded as autonomous and knowledgeable and, on the other, as dependent and passive (p. 452).Theoretical frameworks about risk have been influencing many discourses (economic, technological, political…) and social groups, an example being young people’s risk management (Cieslik & Pollock, Introduction: Studying young people in late modernity. In M. Cieslik & G. Pollock (Eds.), Young people in risk society: The restructuring of youth identities and transitions in late modernity. Routledge Revivals, 2002/2018). This chapter aims at carrying out a critical analysis of perceptions of risk associated to the negative dimension of fear and insecurity, which is widely accepted. It, thus, searches for elements that can give answers to the question how do young people perceive risk?, to determine appropriations anchored in the life of the Other, the young, as an example of a specific context.In terms of methodology, the chapter adopts a qualitative approach to research as action that places creative intervention (photography, graphic representation, writing) at the centre of empirical observation, as a form of expressing worldviews. The research sample includes a group of young people and is examined to understand how the concept of risk can suggest different appropriations and how artistic intervention can promote individuals’ awareness of their participant voices. (shrink)

Unemployment exacts a high cost to its victims, not only in lost income, but also in terms of quality of life (insecurity, depression, abandoned families, divorce, poorer health, suicide). It also exacts a high cost to society in terms of lost output, foregone tax revenue, depreciating skills (human capital), and increased costs of welfare, crime, and health care. Yet, it exists because it serves the interests of the owners of productive wealth by holding down wages and disciplining the workforce. (...) If workers are not content with their wages or work conditions, there are the unemployed who can replace them. But unemployment is morally wrong and socially irrational. It can be eliminated by guaranteeing employment at living wages with benefits and reskilling where necessary. In addition to ending the personal and social costs noted above, guaranteeing employment would eliminate poverty, limit welfare to those unable to work, reduce inequality, improve work quality, better enable meeting the challenges of robotization and globalization, stimulate entrepreneurship and serve as a powerful automatic stabilizer (reducing the boom-bust swings of the economy). This chapter also reveals guaranteed employment’s superiority to a universal basic income, addresses its costs and implementation, and clarifies why it has not been enacted before, even though it is broadly supported by the public. (shrink)

The main response to the multiple crises besetting Western societis in the past decades has been the attempt of the academic and scientific as well as political circles to gain a sense of orientation—and of social cohesion—by two main modes of thinking: identity politics and evidence-based knowlegde. Regarding the latter, I argue that if scientific knowledge is reduced to facts, data and numbers, as the basis for political decisions without any alternatives, it would become a dogma propagating the truth—that is, (...) a new religion. Politicians will no longer have to struggle with other perspectives, once there is a consensus about following the line that “the numbers or the facts speak for themselves.” While many people would perhaps find in this new religion a guarantee of security in an insecure world, this sense would be illusionary. I argue that the role intellectuals should play in a spiritual crisis of this kind is paradoxically to cultivate a sense of more security by strengthening a culture of “insecureness” or docta ignorantia against the dogmas within science and religion. To create and encourage a new art of questioning and listening, and of learning to appreciate non-knowledge as the basis of coming together. This notion is found in the Greek and Christian as well as the Jewish tradition of European thought, and it continues in the works of modern thinkers such as Paul Ricoeur, Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Hartmut Rosa, and of philosophers who focus on the question of the ineffable. My aim is to present this quality of certainty within uncertainty by examples from different fields, including philosophy, art and psychotherapy, and to elaborate on the paradoxical question: does a troubled Geist need more trouble in order to help us find a sense of orientation through disorientation? (shrink)

A single lecture setting forth the authors's view of excellence as "creative insecurity."--J. A. B.

This is an essay based on a story with observations, about present and sparkling moments from everyday life coexisting with a mother living with dementia. The story is used to begin philosophical underpinnings reflecting on ‘how it could be otherwise’. Dementia deploys brutal existential experiences such as cognitive deterioration, decline in mental functioning and often hurtful social judgements. The person living with dementia goes through transformation and changes of self. Cognitive decline progressively disrupts the foundations upon which social connectedness is (...) built, often creating a profound sense of insecurity. The challenge for carers and healthcare professionals is therefore to find ways of clarifying a concept of agency. It will be worthwhile developing the ability of attuning into ‘what is there’ arising from every corner of the care situation. Understanding and practicing this can strengthen existence and the experience of connectedness and meaning, empowering the person with dementia. It is important to find ways, relational moves, in which carers and healthcare professionals can embed the creativity appearing in mundane everyday situations filled with surplus of meaning, sharing mental landscapes (and embodied relational understanding) with the person living with dementia – seizing and sharing aesthetic moments (verbal and nonverbal) being present together. We argue that carers and healthcare professionals may find this understanding of care useful. This implies looking into a phenomenological‐hermeneutic perspective developing competences as well as practical wisdom understanding and being aware of the creative and innovative possibilities (often preverbal and unnoticed small things) in everyday life of what we, inspired by psychoanalyst Daniel Stern, call sparkling moments of meeting, creating experience with the other that is personally undergone and lived through in the present. (shrink)

This is an essay based on a story with observations, about present and sparkling moments from everyday life coexisting with a mother living with dementia. The story is used to begin philosophical underpinnings reflecting on ‘how it could be otherwise’. Dementia deploys brutal existential experiences such as cognitive deterioration, decline in mental functioning and often hurtful social judgements. The person living with dementia goes through transformation and changes of self. Cognitive decline progressively disrupts the foundations upon which social connectedness is (...) built, often creating a profound sense of insecurity. The challenge for carers and healthcare professionals is therefore to find ways of clarifying a concept of agency. It will be worthwhile developing the ability of attuning into ‘what is there’ arising from every corner of the care situation. Understanding and practicing this can strengthen existence and the experience of connectedness and meaning, empowering the person with dementia. It is important to find ways, relational moves, in which carers and healthcare professionals can embed the creativity appearing in mundane everyday situations filled with surplus of meaning, sharing mental landscapes (and embodied relational understanding) with the person living with dementia – seizing and sharing aesthetic moments (verbal and nonverbal) being present together. We argue that carers and healthcare professionals may find this understanding of care useful. This implies looking into a phenomenological‐hermeneutic perspective developing competences as well as practical wisdom understanding and being aware of the creative and innovative possibilities (often preverbal and unnoticed small things) in everyday life of what we, inspired by psychoanalyst Daniel Stern, call sparkling moments of meeting, creating experience with the other that is personally undergone and lived through in the present. (shrink)

Wilhelm Worringer's landmark study in the interpretation of modern art, first published in 1908, has seldom been out of print. Its profound impact not only on art historians and theorists but also for generations of creative writers and intellectuals is almost unprecedented. Starting from the notion that beauty derives from our sense of being able to identify with an object, Worringer argues that representational art produces satisfaction from our "objectified delight in the self," reflecting a confidence in the world (...) as it is--as in Renaissance art. By contrast, the urge to abstraction, as exemplified by Egyptian, Byzantine, primitive, or modern expressionist art, articulates a totally different response to the world: it expresses man's insecurity. Thus in historical periods of anxiety and uncertainty, man seeks to abstract objects from their unpredictable state and transform them into absolute, transcendental forms. Abstraction and Empathy also has a sociological dimension, in that the urge to create fixed, abstract, and geometric forms is a response to the modern experience of industrialization and the sense that individual identity is threatened by a hostile mass society. Hilton Kramer's introduction considers the influence of Worringer's thesis and places his book in historical context. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.2 (2003) 161-167 [Access article in PDF] Social, Cognitive, and Neural Constraints on Subjectivity and Agency:Implications for Dissociative Identity Disorder Peter Q. Deeley In this commentary, I consider Matthew's argument after making some general observations about dissociative identity disorder (DID). In contrast to Matthew's statement that "cases of DID, although not science fiction, are extraordinary" (p. 148), I believe that there are natural analogs of (...) the disorder that, when considered, make it seem less puzzling and exotic. After discussing these examples, I examine the relations between social, cognitive, and neural processes supporting subjectivity and agency, to identify sources of personal identity in cases of DID that can be used as a basis for assessing Matthew's points against Behnke and Sinnott-Armstrong. I am not proposing a comprehensive theory, but rather identifying what I believe are components of such a theory. I then outline an approach to determining criminal responsibility in DID, drawing on analogies with other psychiatric disorders. Dissociative Identity Disorder DID is a disorder described in DSM-IV, which "is characterised by the presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states that recurrently take control of the individual's behaviour accompanied by an inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness" (American Psychiatric Association, p. 519). Recognizing Personal Identity How is personal identity recognized in normal cognition? If we take personhood to involve recognition of continuity of social, psychological, and physical identity for a given individual, then such judgments are routinely made rapidly and automatically as an aspect of what has come to be termed social cognition (Adolphs 2003). There is likely to be considerable redundancy in [End Page 161] the types of information used to make judgments about whether a person is the same as one who was previously encountered, or perhaps heard about—for example, facial features, movement patterns, speech prosody, dress, speech content, gender, ethnicity, social role, among other features, all provide information about individual identity, and hence personhood. When uncertainty exists, it is likely to reflect a loss or alteration of cues that would ordinarily be used in a rapid, automatic, unexamined way (Adolphs 2003). In such extreme cases (for example, severe mental illness or disfigurement), the problem of identification becomes the subject of explicit reasoning (and hence of potential disagreement, because we then engage in post hoc rationalizations to establish criteria for determining personhood, whereas normally we rely on essentially automatic, implicit abilities that work in most circumstances, some of which make little use of linguistic representations and formal reasoning—for example, individual facial identity recognition, which may occur as quickly as 170 ms after stimulus onset [Adolphs 2003]). Nevertheless, examining our judgments and intuitions in cases that force us to explicitly consider whether personal identity is preserved may provide analogies and clues for how we should proceed with DID. Let us consider, then, some natural analogs of DID. Natural Analogs of DID Method Acting I suggest that method acting is an analog of DID (Manderino 1985). Method acting refers to an approach to acting training and performance in which emphasis is placed on intensely imagining and identifying with the mental life of the character being portrayed. Training courses and manuals list many techniques and practices that can be used to facilitate absorption in a role, drawing on different kinds of memory—for example, experiential memories, memories of others, general knowledge (semantic memory), and memories of sensations and feelings, to creative a vivid sense of the subjective experience and actions of the character. Manderino, a method acting teacher, comments: "it is important to investigate the way in which your own mental makeup can improperly influence a character. Insecurities, self-consciousness, shyness or self-doubts can maintain a strong hold, and permitting any of these feelings to enter a performance is to remain the actor and not enter into the mental life of the character. For some, acting allows personal problems to be left behind, and they are thankful for the complete escape that... (shrink)

The evolution of schizotypy/psychosis-proneness has rarely been empirically investigated despite there being several conceptual propositions about its potential to be targeted by natural selection: mutation-selection balance, adaptiveness via creativity, and adaptiveness within fast life history evolution. We tested these hypotheses by examining the associations between psychosis-proneness (measured by trait Disintegration) and fertility (the number of children and age of first reproduction - AFR), physical health, mating behavior (short-term mating, long-term mating, and romantic attachment), environmental conditions, and creativity in two studies (...) conducted in Serbia. Study 1 (N = 685) showed negative associations between psychosis-proneness and the number of children and AFR, followed by positive links between insecure attachment and environmental harshness. Study 2 (N = 2490; the sample was representative for the Serbian population) resulted in negative associations between psychosis-proneness and AFR and physical health, followed once again by positive links to insecure attachment and harsh ecological conditions. Interaction between psychosis-proneness and creativity in the prediction of fertility was not significant in either study. Hence, both studies show congruent results suggesting that variation in psychosis-proneness may be maintained by mutation-selection balance, but also possible adaptive features as a part of fast pace-of-life, expressed primarily by an earlier age of first reproduction. The results have implications for our understanding of the current evolution of psychosis-proneness. (shrink)

My title refers to a very modern problem, for what else is modernization than a process of rational differentiation of society in autonomous, mutually isolated sub-spheres, to the point where no one any longer knows what the unity of it all is? We differentiate, we specialize, we hyperspecialize, and then we get puzzled over the fragmentation we have produced around us, between ourselves and even within ourselves. Look at our own area. You cannot even specialize in practical ethics any more. (...) You have to limit your attention to medical ethics, for example, the ethics of engineering, or business ethics. And within business ethics, my own field of research, the homo universalis is also threatened with extinction. You can do marketing ethics, ethics of finance or computer ethics, until you finally become the typical ‘expert’: someone who knows almost everything about almost nothing.From the despair over hyper-differentiation, the call for integration arises: the call for meaning, for reconfiguration, for making sense of our world and our lives again, the call for reconnection with the great traditions of our culture, the call for community.If we read the great theorists of modernization — Weber, Durkheim, Parsons, Habermas, Münch — we learn that the quest for integration is in fact an equally important aspect of modernization as is differentiation. They are two sides of the same coin. In this sense, I think, the integrative endeavour of the EEN can still be considered a modern one.We are presently facing an escalation, or a climax, of modernity. We live in a state of hypermodernity, in which technological, economic and cultural forces dynamize our society on an unprecedented scale. We are really living high up on the dazzling slopes of the exponential growth curves that the Club of Rome predicted over 25 years ago. Everyone speaks of change. Everything is changing, and with institutionalized change, everything has become uncertain. Within uncertainty, however, social disintegration is lurking. Does not the structural uncertainty that we are introducing in our society bring us back to a state of nature, to a state outside the hypothetical social contract on which modern social communities are based? Is not the life of the individualized, flexible wanderers on the labour market again resembling the pledge of man which Hobbes described as ‘solitary, nasty and brutish’ . Has not the life of many in our society again become ‘very unsafe and very insecure, full of fears and continual dangers’, in the way that Locke depicted the state of nature .I understand business ethics as an integrative undertaking in our society, integrative in particular with respect to the economy and the realm of formal organization, integrative also at the interface between life-world and system, to use the terminology of Habermas.Integrative endeavours in our society have an ambiguous relation to change. Change is a key challenge to business ethics. Should we accept disruptive forms of change as inevitable, in order to remain on speaking terms with the economy and its spokesmen? Or should we fiercely resist certain changes? Is change on our side, perhaps? Business ethics is sometimes presented as a way to help managers cope with the many paradoxes of our time. One-dimensional technological rationality, we say, is no longer adequate to grasp the complexities, ambiguities and paradoxes of our world. Successful management requires more flexible, more creative forms of thinking. Philosophy and ethics are then presented as alternatives. But then aren’t we, the philosophers, simply promoting ourselves as the new masters of change for our time? Isn’t the so-called postmodern consciousness in fact an ideological underpinning of hyper differentiation, and in this sense the ultimate self-realization of the spirit of modernity? What sense of direction do we offer, as business ethicists?I would like to speak about the integration of micro, meso and macro-levels in business ethics, from the perspective of social change. My basic thesis is that only an adequate ethics of responsibility can integrate a highly differentiated and ultra-complex society like ours. This integration through responsibility opens up new directions of social change, that proceed simultaneously at the micro, meso and macro-level.In order not to complicate matters too much, I will limit myself to two dimensions of change which are important for business ethics at the moment: economic change ; organizational change . In relation to these changes, I will conclude with some reflections on changes in business ethics itself, the ones that I think are needed. (shrink)

_Purpose__._ The article is devoted to the study of the phenomenon of generation, which is a necessary condition for the birth of the modern open society, taking into account the risks that accompany this process. _Theoretical basis._ The research covers a wide range of concepts (K. Mannheim, J. Ortega y Gasset, M. McLuhan, B. Anderson, P. Connerton, etc.), which reveal the temporal aspect of the analysed phenomenon, in particular, the insecurity of its constitution (the risk of a "lost generation") (...) in the horizon of modernity as an unfinished project (J. Habermas), and the growing degree of responsibility associated with the formation of the creative social class. _Originality__._ For the first time in the research literature, the author analyses the connection between the study of the phenomenon of generation and the establishment of a consensus in the modern world on the observance of the rules of win-win games as the value foundation of Western civilization. One of the key points of this process is the processing of the traumas of modernization. The omission of this task in the agenda of the transition society, despite the warnings evident in retrospect, releases the element of resentment, with consequences that can be qualified as an anthropological catastrophe. _Conclusions._ Ukrainian society, opening up to the world and working through the traumas of modernisation (Chornobyl, the Holodomor, the Fall of Lenin), which has become a kind of hermeneutical cycle of healing the "humanitarian aura of the nation" (L. Kostenko), in the process of which new layers such as the creative class appeared on the public scene, has demonstrated the European identity of the Ukrainian community. In the new horizon after 02/24, when, according to A. Yermolenko, it is no longer possible to talk about the postmodern situation, the Ukrainian agenda irreversibly acquires globality and should be rethought in the dimension of the "big time" and its global responsibility. This affects, in particular, the entire legacy of Russian-Soviet modernisation, to the extent that it has become an integral part of modern Ukrainian identity, including such controversial pages as the "Afghan" trauma. (shrink)

Local food systems seem virtuous in the larger context of the neoliberalization of global food systems and increasing food insecurity. However, local food systems are critiqued for reproducing neoliberalism when they prioritize niche-market consumerism over enhancing access for poor people. Advocates, in contrast, insist local food systems contribute to an equitable political economy of food if they are place-based and inclusive. Local food systems must not, according to them, be condemned monolithically in light of their neoliberal tendencies, but evaluated (...) instead on a case-by-case basis regarding their potentially innovative solutions to food insecurity. We heed this call by investigating how a regionally-renowned local food system addresses food insecurity in an impoverished corner of rural Appalachia. Specifically, we use qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, to evaluate the local food system in Athens County, Ohio. Our findings indicate that extra-local processes under neoliberalism, including austerity and economic marginalization, create a large-scale context of malign neglect in which local food security initiatives operate. Place-based strategies for food security, in response, emphasize producer profitability and consumer responsibility as solutions to extra-local constraints. These localized processes of benign neglect, however, reproduce stifling neoliberalisms within the Athens local food system, giving it a defensive stance that fails to promote innovative modes of inclusion despite its sustainable reputation. Malign and benign forms of neglect, working in creative tension, perpetuate a problematic paradox of food insecurity amidst a seemingly robust local food system as neoliberalization operating at a variety of scales remains unchallenged. (shrink)

In this chapter, I reflect on the influence of autoethnography as a methodology for a self-study in improvisation. Learning to improvise as a classical musician fulfilled a long-standing ambition to become creative and agentic. Yet the path of learning, once started, could not be reduced to skill learning or described purely through cognitive processes as originally planned: improvisation itself was something I’d been trained to avoid. Thus, the act of improvisation, I discovered, provoked emotions of guilt, insecurity and (...) inadequacy. However, through the exercise and discipline of autoethnographic data collection (practice journals, audio and video recordings), I discovered sense-making tools for charting the uncertain steps of blind experimentation, for providing clear feedback and for setting my steps on the pathway of skill learning. (shrink)

This article describes in candour, the journey of a novice researcher deciding which methodological approach to apply to her doctoral research. Eager to commence fieldwork, she considers five options: ethnography, phenomenology, biography, grounded theory, and case study. Upon discovering however, that none of the described alternatives satisfactorily fits with her envisaged mode of research, she embarks on an unplanned journey into more creative possibilities and solutions. It is a process that requires critical analysis both of methodological options and the (...) self, culminating in a mixed yet considered combination of phenomenology, grounded theory, and feminist research approaches. The journey ultimately proves to be a lesson for the student, not only in terms of research design but also how such decisions are inextricably linked with individual passions, fears, insecurities, and values. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted food systems, exacerbating ethnoracial and socioeconomic disparities in food insecurity, exposing food industry workers to increased health risks, and threatening the livelihoods of small-scale food businesses. We explored how nonprofit organizations responded to such disruptions in the Chicago, IL, USA metropolitan region through analysis of 127 reports from 104 organizations and focus group discussions with 26 representatives of 20 organizations. We find that organizations that modified their operations based on their social ties with the communities (...) with whom they work–what we refer to as nonprofits’ community embeddedness–allowed them to adapt and innovate strategies to provide emergency food assistance, often in ways designed to strengthen local food systems. Embeddedness created the conditions to: (1) apply local knowledge for creative problem-solving that values community culture and assets, (2) integrate food across a range of social issues like mental health or jobs training operating from an ethic of care that extends beyond fulfilling basic needs, and (3) act as social brokers mobilizing external resources and advocating policies to address community priorities. The study suggests that community embeddedness supported nonprofit organizations’ efforts to address pandemic-induced crises by designing and implementing adaptive strategies with potential to increase social equity within food systems. (shrink)

The problem for many troubled youths seeking help within a Christian context is that their need for meaningful connections and spiritual growth is attached to relationships with their significant others. When needs of attachment are not adequately met due to the effect of an insecure attachment working model in a relationship with God, the teen may end up leaving the faith community seeking a new caregiver or regress into spiritual struggles, depression, anxiety, self-doubt and other negative emotions. This paper responds (...) to the issues associated with youth attachment behaviour towards God using a caregiving theology that draws on the 'power of two' through incarnational creativity and pneumatological ecclesiology. This proposed theology first supplements the work of the pastoral counsellor to create a transformative container through which young people, already within a redemptive Christian community, can grow spiritually and deepen their relationship with God. Secondly, pastoral juxtaposition targeting the spiritual needs of hurting youths serves to create a magnet space within the church community that models incarnational love, pastoral care and support for young people by entering their world order to reframe their personal stories of grief, abandonment and insecurity through creative means. Finally, we theologise that pastoral juxtaposition also integrates the power of the Holy Spirit, as the ultimate caregiver in times of conflict, into each youth's unique journey of faith and healing. Implications of this pastoral theology are discussed and applied to everyday life. (shrink)

In Quiet, Fearne Cotton explores why so many of us question whether we are, or will ever be, 'good enough.' This beautiful book, filled with Fearne's creative hand-drawn illustrations and thought-provoking activities to still your mind, will silence your inner-critic and stop you from continually self-sabotaging. Quiet includes interviews with people who have helped Fearne to accept her flaws and love her own imperfections, as well as advice on how to drown out misinformation and the, sometimes, pressurizing noise from (...) family, work and friends, which can fuel our insecurities and self-doubt. Fearne talks honestly and openly about what it's like to live in the public eye and shares some of the methods and practical activities she uses to ignore negative online chatter and trolls. She acknowledges the terrifying stats and research linking social media to rising levels of depression, anxiety and other mental health issues in young people and offers advice about how to listen more selectively to what we are told in an era of constant-sharing, over-sharing and general misinformation about what is 'good' or 'bad' for us. Stop competing with all the noise out there and accept that Quiet might be your most formidable force yet"--Publisher's description. (shrink)