Most respondents who were willing to donate their organs had not talked with their families about their donation wishes. Conversations that did occur were typically about the patient's donation wishes and moral and altruistic reasons for donation, or included a story about donation. These approaches, as well as talking about the reasons for wishing to donate, were associated with positive responses from family members, whereas discussing fears about being declared dead prematurely or about the medical establishment were associated with negative responses.
This article considers the manner that families come to accept the collapse of identity in a family member who has entered a medical crisis with no hope of returning from it. The transformation is regarded as a "right of passage" and is characterized in terms of both the conditions that bring about resistance to the passage as well as the sorts of symbolic activities that ultimately allow the transformation to occur. The theoretical source that is used to discuss both these issues is Kenneth Burke's (1969) theory of Dramatism, regarded herein as a template that guides both interpersonal action and experience. The primary text used to illustrate these points is the story of Karen Ann Quinlan, a young woman who fell into persistent vegetative state in 1975, as told by her parents. A general goal of this article is to illustrate some of the characteristics of Dramatism as a theory of interpersonal action, especially after the collapse of routine. More particularly, it is hoped that the analysis will aid health professionals in sense making and interacting with families in crisis.
Was Durkheim an apologist for the authoritarianism? Is the sociology founded upon his work incapable of critical perspective; and must it operate under the presumption that social agents, including sociologists themselves, are incapable of reflexivity? Certainly some have said so, but they may be wrong. In this essay, I address these questions in the light of Durkheim's revisionary sociology of morals. I elaborate on unfinished elements in Durkheim's abruptly concluded (because of his early and unexpected death) scholarship, pointing out Durkheim's recognition that co-present moral spheres always exist in an organically complex society, and explaining how these co-present spheres obligate social agents to untether from any absolute moral affiliations. Ultimately, then, the argument shows how the solidarity/social-order relationship is transcended within Durkheim's sociology, even by Durkheim himself.
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