The Postemotional Bully

Stjepan Mestrovic holds three degrees from Harvard University (in psychology, education, and theology) and a PhD in sociology from Syracuse University. He is the author of twenty books and numerous scholarly articles on classical and contemporary social theory, war crimes, and culture.

Stjepan Mestrovic has always been worth reading, and here is Mestrovic at his very best. Written with passion and principle, this book builds on the sociological tradition to explore the darkness of these postemotional times. A shining example of sociology as it should be - and so rarely is.

• CHAPTER: 1 THE PROBLEMDefining bullyingForce versus obligation: Revisiting Marcel Mauss’s The GiftThe forced gift—the connection to bullyingCHAPTER 2: MODERNITY AS A BULLYAuguste Comte: positivism at war with theologyCharles Darwin, emotions, and cooperationDurkheim’s application of Darwin’s insightsFerdinand Tonnies on the extinction of communityMax Weber on the disappearance of charismaWilliam James and the bullying inherent in vicious abstractionismThe Chicago School of sociology and the movement from primary to secondary groupsDavid Riesman and the society of samenessThe battle hymn of the lonely crowdThe Buffy television series as the Shakespearean drama of the postemotional ageGeorge Ritzer and the McDonaldization of societyMcDonaldization as the postemotionalization of PuritanismPostemotional charismaCHAPTER 3: POSTMODERNISM AS NEGATION OF THE GIFTDeconstruction: tear down, but do not rebuildDecentering: everything and everyone is marginalizedThe Marxist basis for postmodernismWalter Benjamin: the loss of aura, and simulacraThe postmodern theme of disenchantmentTruths are cut down to sizeCHAPTER 4: POSTEMOTIONALISM ILLUSTRATEDRevisiting David Riesman and Marshall McLuhan on oral, written, and screen image societiesPostemotionalism in Dostoevsky’s “The Grand Inquisitor”Dostoevsky’s Notes From the UndergroundThe narrative in the film, Idiocracy, as an example of postemotional societyThe pharmaceutical control of emotions in The Giver and EquilibriumCHAPTER 5: ABU GHRAIB AND POSTEMOTIONAL SOCIETYThe digital photographs, or screen image elementThe postemotional carry-over of Zimbardo’s theoryPostemotional soldiers as “fungible assets”The lawyers as fungible assets, and postemotional lawThe postemotional smileHolding back emotions, and reliance upon techniquesPostemotional manipulationThe scripted, postemotional societyCHAPTER 6: DRIVEN TO SUICIDE BY BULLYINGImmediate desiccation of emotional importDisavowal by Johnny’s parentsPostemotional suicide preventionDefinition of hazingWhat is the conduct of corrective training?Jury selection: over as soon as it startedRacial slurs postemotionalized into nicknames and terms of endearmentThe social disorganization at the outpostCHAPTER 7: BEATEN TO DEATHPostemotional groupthinkThe dysfunctional social system that will not self-correctPostemotional anomieThe postemotional panopticonCHAPTER 8 CONCLUSIONS: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?