God forbade...must reading!

Lifeworld




  In anthropology, the study of people, the German term verstehen means an interpretive process an observer relates and understands another culture.

  It roughly translates to a meaningful understanding, putting yourself in other's shoes for their perspective.



  Lifeworld is the state of affairs the world is experienced, in which the world is lived. Lifeworld is a grand theater of objects arranged to perceiving subjects. It is already-always there, the ground for all shared human experience. The lifeworld, the horizon of our experiences, the background which our meaningful lives appear. It is not unchanging, but a dynamic horizon we live and lives with us, in that it's experiential.



  When a lifeworld has been colonized by an instrumental rationality, by accepting some social norm and distorted communication a legitimate, but unjustified power is assumed. This happens when the means of mediating instrumental ideas gains communicative power, when a group of people are paid to keep quiet during a debate or money is allocated to advertise a social viewpoint. The word colonization implies a steering media toward social consensus not native to the lifeworld- imperialistic.



  We are inevitably lifeworldly, we draw from custom and traditions to construct identity, define situations, coordinate action and create social solidarity. This happens in communicative understanding, but also in pragmatic negotiations.



  Early feminist movement argued women were isolated from each other, many of women's problems misunderstood as personal or the result of conflict between the sexes, rather than systematic forms of oppression. Raising consciousness means helping yourself and others to become politically conscious.



  Marx theorized a false consciousness the result of control the working class is unaware of, or disregard looking to their own possibility and probability of upward mobility.



 Ruling elites suffer false consciousness in that they see the social orders they command as predetermined or inevitable.



  Early justification theory focused on compensatory stereotypes. Experiments suggested endorsement of  'poor, but happy' or  'rich, but miserable'  balanced the gap between low and upper status. These stereotypes preferred by the political left. The political right prefer the non-complimentary stereotypes 'poor and dishonest',  'rich and honest'  to turn around inequality, rather than compensate for it.





Wikipedia