Some people are prepared to take high risks with their lives and those of others. Should this be surprising? Is it more normal to be risk-taking? or risk averse? The argument below will be that the risk taking facet and the risk-averse facet of the personality each emerges in the course of a public debate on freedom and control. It is not psychology but anthropology that shows how the community forces sharp and clear ideas about the self upon its members.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AronJean-Paul (1988), Mon SIDA, Bourgeois, Paris.
2.
BourdieuPierre, (1979), La Distinction, Critique Social du Jugement, Paris, Minuit.
3.
CalvezMarcel, (1989), Composer avec un Danger, approche des reponses sociales a l'infection au VIH au SIDA, Rennes, IRTS de Bretagne.
4.
DouglasMary, (1970), Natural Symbols, Explorations in Cosmology, Penguin.
5.
DouglasMaryWildavskyAaron, (1982), Risk and Culture, University of California Press.
6.
DreuhilleEmmanuel, (1988), Corps pour Corps: Journal de SIDA, Gallimard; Mortal Embrace, Hill and Wang, NY.
7.
MarsGerald, (1984), Cheats at Work, Allen and Unwin.
8.
MarsGeraldMarsValerie, (In press). The Cultural Theory of the Household.
9.
MastersWilliam H.JohnsonVirginia E.KolodnyRobert C. (1988) Crisis: Heterosexual Behaviour in the Age of Aids, Grove Press, NY, and Grafton Books.
10.
ShiltsR. (1987), And the Band Played on, Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic, St Martin's Press, New York, and Penguin.
11.
SlackPaul, (1988) ‘Responses to Plague, In Time of Plague: The History and Social Consequences of Epidemic Disease, edited MackArien, Social Research, 55, 3.
12.
ThompsonMichael, (1984), ‘Among the Energy Tribes, A Cultural Framework for the Analysis and Design of Energy Policy’Policy Sciences17, 3.
13.
WildavskyA. (1982) ‘Choosing Preferences by Constructing Institutions: A Cultural Theory of Preference Formation’, University of California, Survey Research Center, Working paper Series.
14.
WynnBrian, (1982), Rationality and Ritual, The Windscale Inquiry and Nuclear Decisions in Britain, The British Society for the History of Science: 168.
