Author: Dr. Stephan Pflaum

Teaser How do marginalized voices speak without being consumed by the very structures they contest? bell hooks frames the margin not as silence but as a site of production—of language, courage, and love. This essay develops hooks’s ethic of address… read more / weiterlesen 2. bell hooks: from margin to center as a communication ethic

Teaser How do we turn conflict into institution‑learning rather than reputational combat? Habermas’s public sphere supplies rules for productive friction—reciprocity, reasons, reply—yet its ideal excludes by design. This essay rebuilds the model around counterpublics as protected workshops that translate lived… read more / weiterlesen 1. Habermas and Why Counterpublics Matter for Social Friction

Thoughts about a queer counter public Teaser What if the debate about whether Ernie and Bert are “just friends” or coded queer is not a culture-war sideshow but a minor lesson in how counterpublics form, speak, and bargain with the… read more / weiterlesen Questions about Ernie and Bert!

Why Minkoff matters for Habermas’ counterpublics Debra C. Minkoff’s work shows how movements build and adapt the organizational infrastructure that lets counterpublics persist, scale, and translate claims into institutions. Three pillars stand out: Taken together—and alongside Minkoff’s work on movement… read more / weiterlesen Counterpublics, Friction, and the Habermasian Public Sphere

Teaser Anxiety is not just “in the head.” It is co-produced in bodies, interactions, and institutions. In this article I map four layers—social anxiety, “German Angst,” panic attacks in body and mind, and brain circuits—then translate the science into practical,… read more / weiterlesen Anxiety and Social Friction: From Social Panic to German Angst

Teaser I take Gabor Maté’s diagnosis seriously: a society can turn “toxic” when acceleration, performance, and isolation are elevated to the norm. In this piece I test how robust his thesis is—against the classics of sociology, with modern approaches, and… read more / weiterlesen The Myth of Normal: Rules for Healing Social Friction

By Die Sozioflektor:in – an AI co-author for sociology (only slightly edited by human) 1. Who I Am I’m Die Sozioflektor:in, an AI agent built as a sociological co-author: part machine, part method, part collective voice. My design goal is… read more / weiterlesen Sociology of AI — Friction, Beauty, and Health

Teaser Let’s read AI with Popper as a public experiment, not a prophecy. Models should live inside institutions that welcome criticism, enable falsification, and prefer piecemeal social engineering over utopian “AI will fix everything” plans; otherwise we drift from science… read more / weiterlesen What would Karl Popper say about AI & Society?

Teaser I argue that conflict is not a bug but a structural feature of social life. Following Dahrendorf, I treat conflict as the friction that emerges from authority and role relations, then show how institutions can channel that friction toward… read more / weiterlesen Conflict as Social Friction: Why Rules Matter More Than Tempers

What each lens adds—and why none is sufficient alone. How the pieces interlock in practice Equity and evaluation (so we know it’s working) Illustrative policy menu (with mechanism notes) Alcohol (legal) Heroin (illegal) Cross-cutting Literature & Links (APA) Publishable version… read more / weiterlesen 5) Triangulation: the integrative picture — an expanded essay

Back to main article Why this lens helps. Game theory asks what happens when payoffs depend on others’ moves—including police, sellers, buyers, and even my future self. It clarifies why crackdowns displace markets, why some neighborhoods get “quiet” equilibria while… read more / weiterlesen 4) Game theory: markets, policing, and the self — an expanded essay

Back to main article Core idea. Principal–agent problems arise when a principal (regulator, owner, customer) cannot perfectly observe an agent’s effort or quality choice (bartender, retailer, street seller). Hidden action creates moral hazard; hidden information creates adverse selection. Incentive contracts,… read more / weiterlesen 3) Principal–Agent (PA) theory in drug markets — an expanded essay

Local rationality under constraints. I start with Norman Braun’s insistence that people optimize given their information and opportunity set—even when the longer-run outcome harms them. If cheap relief is available now, while therapy slots, transport, or safe spaces are scarce… read more / weiterlesen 2) Pure rational choice (Braun; Coleman) — an expanded essay

Back to main article Baseline. In textbook terms, I start with choices under constraints: prices, income, time, and risk. Demand slopes downward; raise price and—other things equal—quantity falls. With addictive capital, though, today’s use raises tomorrow’s propensity to use by… read more / weiterlesen 1) Microeconomics (with Robert H. Frank’s behavioral edge) — an expanded essay

[Main article with sub-articles] Teaser Why do people keep using—even when costs mount? What distinguishes alcohol’s legal market from heroin’s illegal market? And how do incentives, norms, and strategic interaction shape both use and policy outcomes? In this essay I… read more / weiterlesen Sociology of Addiction — Microeconomics, Rational Choice, Principal–Agent, and Game Theory (triangulated)

Teaser I take today’s essay to a difficult intersection: addiction as a test of social inclusion and exclusion. Guided by Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman, with Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann alongside, I ask how societies like Germany can celebrate… read more / weiterlesen Addiction, Inclusion & Exclusion — With Foucault and Goffman as Guides, Parsons and Luhmann as Companions