Origins of the Cold War Essay - 1179 Words

Origins of the Cold War Revisionist historians tend to regard the outbreak of the Cold War as a result of American hostility or, at least , diplomatic incompetence, while the more traditional view lays the responsibility squarely at the feet of the Soviet Union. Assess the validity of each view. The Cold War,said to have lasted from the end of World War II to the dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1991, was one of the most significant political events of the 20th century. For nearly 40 years the world was under the constant threat of total devastation, caught between the nuclear arsenals of the United States, Great Britain, and France on one side and the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China on the other. Any†¦show more content†¦One such act of aggression came when the Soviets attempted to gain complete control of Berlin by forming a blockade against all of the other Allied forces. Despite the barrier, the United States airlifted tons of supplies to those who were in need of them in Berlin. This was the very beginning of antagonistic relations. Another form of aggression that angered the Americans was Stalins refusal to hold free elections in Eastern Europe, while he covertly set up their governments to act as puppet satellites, forming a protective barri er around the U.S.S.R. The Soviets reluctance to reunify Korea and the strong Communist atmosphere in North Korea also disgruntled Americans and hurt diplomatic relations. Overall, each step that the Soviet Union took to strengthen its power and the power of the Communist party was viewed as an act of aggression, and there are many historians who strongly believe that the Soviets were at fault in the instigation of the Cold War due to these immense acts of aggression. The period in the United States following World War II could more aptly be named American Hysteria rather than history according to the more revisionist historians. As the Soviet Union grew more and more powerful, every American grew more frightened of the Communist movement. No event greater exemplified this than McCarthys Communist witch hunt of the 1950s. The Cold War tensions stemmed from the fear and paranoia thatShow MoreRelatedThe Origins Of Cold War1550 Words   |  7 PagesThis research looks at the origins o f Cold war, the political, ideological and economical rivalry between the United States and Soviet Union. This research draws upon mostly primary sources including memoirs, interviews and scholarly studies of cold war era conflicts. Most research on this topic focuses on its connection to the famous events and upheavals, which shaped that era. â€Å"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an â€Å"Iron Curtain† has descended across the continent. Behind thatRead MoreOrigins Of The Cold War1465 Words   |  6 Pages18.1- Origins of the Cold War †¢ Allies Clash o After World War II finally came to an end, the United States and Soviet Union had conflicting ideas of how to restore the world back to normal. ï‚ § Stalin wanted complete and ultimate control over the countries that were within the borders of the Soviet Union, spreading communist regimes. ï‚ § Meanwhile, the United States wished for all these states that were under Nazi rule to have self-determination. o This essentially formed a rivalry between the idealsRead MoreThe Origin Of Cold War1987 Words   |  8 PagesThe Origin of Cold War: Ideology Clashes According to some sources, the fall of the Berlin wall on November 9th 1989 marks the significant ending of the years long Cold war between the two super power; the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War is unlike any other wars as there are no big battles but instead the two superpowers focus their competition on politics, economics, military, and ideological might. Since the Cold War is unique for the aforementioned reason, experts have long debatedRead MoreThe Origins Of The Cold War2356 Words   |  10 PagesHI742/HI747- The Cold War, 1941-1991 How Important were individual figures in the origins of the Cold War? The Cold War refers to a period post World War II characterised by a state of political tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States both supported by their allies from the Eastern and Western blocs respectively. Despite this being such a pivotal point in modern history there is a lack of clarity stemming from much debate regarding the catalyst for the Cold War and the ‘start’Read MoreOrigins of the Cold War Essay1295 Words   |  6 PagesOrigins of the Cold War The purpose of this paper is to explore the origins of the Cold War. To accomplish this exploration, the works of W.A. Williams, Robert Jervis, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. serves as the foundation. Before a closer examination of these works, a short explanation of the three common viewpoints regarding the study of the Cold War is warranted. These viewpoints are Attribution, Structural, and Misperception. With these viewpoints to guide the way, the above authorsRead MoreEssay on The Origins of the Cold War817 Words   |  4 PagesThe Origins of the Cold War The Cold War period from 1945 to 1985 was a result of distrust and misunderstanding between the USSR and the United States of America. This distrust never actually resulted any fighting between the two superpowers but they came very close to fighting on several occasions. The Cold War was a result of many different events and factors including the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Potsdam Conference of 1945, the differences between communismRead MoreOrigin of the Cold War Essay775 Words   |  4 PagesAfter the Second World War America and the Soviet Union gained power in Europe. Though these to countries never fought one another, they waged a cold war of economic, military and ideological rivalry which last through the second half of the twentieth century. The origin of the Cold War began with the Russian Revolution in nineteen-seventeen, which created a Soviet Russia. The Soviet Russia did not have the same economic and ideological state as the United States. The Civil war in Russia in whichRead MoreEssay about The Origins of the Cold War679 Words   |  3 PagesThe Origins of the Cold War The Cold War was a state of extreme hostility and confrontation but without direct militant action between the two world powers, the USSR and the USA. The USSR and the USA were originally wartime Allies during the Second World War; however a string of events and issues caused a built up of suspicion and distrust which finally escalated to what was known as the Cold War. The start of Cold War can be simply defined as the period of time wherebyRead More The Historiography of the Origins of the Cold War Essay2691 Words   |  11 PagesThe Historiography of the Origins of the Cold War There have been many attempts to explain the origins of the Cold War that developed between the capitalist West and the communist East after the Second World War. Indeed, there is great disagreement in explaining the source for the Cold War; some explanations draw on events pre-1945; some draw only on issues of ideology; others look to economics; security concerns dominate some arguments; personalities are seen as the root cause for some historiansRead MoreThe United States And The Origins Of The Cold War1717 Words   |  7 PagesProfessor Calvo AMH2042 23 July 2015 The United States and the Origins of the Cold War Essay Thinking about the decisions, strategies and goals of Soviet Union and the United States views on world domination and the possible accomplishment of such. The first and main would be to think and observe critically concerning the worldwide political scenery in the years after World War II (1945). This moment in history; taking all the way through the Cold War, may be seen as a lapse of severe ideological polarization

Banning the Autobiography of Malcolm X - 1158 Words

I feel that this novel was banned due to its content of drug use, sex, and crime. Although the novel is not explicit in these areas the subject matter is still present. I also feel that this novel was censored due to its portrayal of racism of both the white man against the black man and the black man against the white man. White people are portrayed as devils and there is a constant theme of separation and discrimination. This book holds ideals that most people may find digressive in the sense that integration is almost no longer an issue, given that people tend to not question a black person’s right to be somewhere just as much as a white mans’. Therefore when this book promotes the evilness of a race and how separation is the only way†¦show more content†¦Yet as I continued reading there was still something about the book that I didn’t like and I couldn’t understand. Then I read this paragraph from the book, â€Å"And he taught us that a wifeà ¢â‚¬â„¢s ideal age was half the man’s age plus seven. He taught that women are physiologically ahead of men. Mr. Muhammad taught that no marriage could succeed where the women did not look up with respect to the man. And the man had to have something above and beyond the wife in order for her to be able to look to him for psychological security† (X 263-4). This quote explains that woman should meet a certain physical requirement before the man can accept her in a marriage. The white people would only let a black man into the same work place if they felt that they were better than him. This is paralleled in the statement that a man should only take a woman they knew they were better than. Upon realizing my qualm with this book I searched it find further evidence. â€Å"It seems that some women love to be exploited. When they are not exploited, they exploit the man.[†¦]Always every now and then, I had given her a hard time, just to keep her in line. Every once in a while a women seems to need, in fact wants this, too. But now, I would feel evil and slap her around worse than ever[†¦]† (X 156). I’m sure white people beat and exploited black people just to â€Å"keep them in line.† The hypocrisy this book holds is so obvious it’s rarely noticed. In every way the white people abusedShow MoreRelatedCensorship in Literature and Why We Need to Get Rid of It815 Words   |  3 Pagesspecifically freedom of choice of literature. American Library Association’s President Roberta Stevens says that â€Å"not every book is right for each reader, but we should have the right to think for ourselves and allow others to do the same† (Book Banning Alive And Well In the U.S. 1). An unexpurgated world would be better than this one, as it allows for the materials that would normally be banned because of small issues to be read and learned from. Besides, language isn’t everything, right? The bookRead MoreThe Era Of Freedom : A Generation After The Emancipation Proclamation1599 Words   |  7 Pagesfaced on a daily bases, was one of the greatest events that took a step into a direction that no one would ve imagined during the 1950s. Many activist made themselves known during the movement, activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, just to name a few, were key players in the advancement of the movement, but who was responsible for the being the spark that jump started the entire Civil Rights Movement, and the events that followed. The answer may very depending on the personRead MorePersepolis Essay1883 Words   |  8 Pagessupport for his anti-western ideas and returned Iran back to Islamic fundamentalist roots. Khomeini imposed sharia law in his rule, suppressed freedom of speech, and imposed the Islamic Cultural Revolution. Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis is a graphic autobiography of her life in revolutionary Iran and the challenges she faces in a country in th e midst of the Iraq-Iran war and an ideological crisis between conservatism and modernization while also facing difficulties in her coming of age. Satrapi scrutinizesRead MoreRichard Allen s Influence On African Americans8445 Words   |  34 Pagesfree black living during this time. This society taught how to save to build wealth; it became the model for banks in the African-American community. The Free African Society tried to enhance the ethics of its individuals establishing marriages, banning alcoholism and also adultery. The Free African Society s unique mission was to nurture dowagers and poor people; however the association started to incorporate religious capacities too. On account of separation, African Americans could hardly discoverRead MoreStephen P. Robbins Timothy A. Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words   |  1573 PagesEmotions from Faces? 124 S A L S A L 5 Personality and Values 131 Personality 133 What Is Personality? 133 †¢ The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator 135 †¢ The Big Five Personality Model 136 †¢ Other Personality Traits Relevant to OB 139 x CONTENTS Values 144 The Importance of Values 144 †¢ Terminal versus Instrumental Values 144 †¢ Generational Values 145 Linking an Individual’s Personality and Values to the Workplace 148 Person–Job Fit 148 †¢ Person–Organization Fit 150 InternationalRead MoreOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. 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Yellow Woman Free Essays

people’s interactions with the antelope, or as she calls them, The Antelope People, and the way her people hunted them. A reader takes away not only a feeling of deep respect, which the Laguna Pueblo people had for their fellow Earth inhabitants, but also a feeling of unity like there really was or is no difference between the hunter and the hunted, just their roles, given to them by chance and instinct. This reverence for animal life reflects a much deeper world view held by Leslie Marmon Silko, an outlook of respect for the Earth itself. We will write a custom essay sample on Yellow Woman or any similar topic only for you Order Now In her book, Silko goes on to tell her people’s tale of the Earth’s origin. The Laguna Pueblo people have a more personal relationship with their planet than most. Perhaps it is the fantastic nature of their origin, or the way the myth was kept through word of mouth, from trusted elder to younger generations, whatever the reason, it is clear that Silko has inherited this unity with the earth and is hurt by the way it and it’s inhabitants are treated both man and animal. In the section of Silko’s book titled: Interior and Exterior Landscapes: The Pueblo Migration Stories, the author describes the Laguna Pueblo people’s relationship with the hunted but more than that, without obviously doing so, she compares the hunting of the animals to the plight of her own people in the modern world. The native people of the Laguna Pueblo used resources sustainably and did so by maintaing a respect for all things, living and dead. Early in the section Leslie Marmon Silko speaks of her people’s burial traditions; she writes â€Å"Archaeologists have remarked over formal burials complete with elaborate funerary objects excavated in trash middens of abandoned rooms. † (Silko 26) The Laguna Pueblo people buried their dead with possessions and often laid them to rest under rooms in their own houses. The Laguna Pueblo had a respect for the dead like many other cultures, but unlike many cultures the passing of a tribe member did not mean a total absence from life, the person was and is still very much present and a member of the tribe. The departed become the world, as they always have been and their body becomes the soil and the plant, so in some respect, the dead are much more present than the living. This failure to differentiate between who is with us and who is not ends up doing a lot for the tribes spirituality. It means that respecting the earth also means respecting one’s ancestors, and to have the dead all around you, in the Earth’s teeming life, allows the tribe to take and give with the Earth in equal amounts. Likewise, the people of the Laguna Pueblo how animals a similar respect that they give to their dead. Silko explains that â€Å"Waste of meat or even the thoughtless handling of bones cooked bare will offend the antelope spirits. † (Silko 29). This goes back to Silko’s sense of earthly and heavenly unity, a true mutual respect for earth, man, and animal requires equality or oneness with everything. This achievement, preached in many religions, most of all Buddhism, is th e product of realizing how much we as humans depend on the Earth. Forgetting that everything we have and all that we consume comes from one planet can cause the degradation of resources and disrespect for populations, be them man or animal. Being constantly reminded, through word of mouth and total interaction with nature, gave the native people an outlook on life rarely mimicked, but in constant need. Silko tells us on page 27 that the Laguna Pueblo people called the earth the â€Å"Mother Creator†, these two titles mother and creator give the Earth a godlike identity. Being both the mother and the father, the Earth is to be respected as one would honor their own parents. Making the Earth your God seems logical considering it contains us and provides for us all, encompassing every need we may have. The ironic thing is the Laguna Pueblo people gave the Earth such huge properties without actually exploring all the territories and oceans the world had. Just by observing the grandeur of nature and its beauty the people knew just how big the world is. By giving the world so much esteem the Laguna Pueblo elders lay the road ahead towards peaceful and respectful livelihoods that could last lifetimes if not corrupted. When one reviews all these ideas and traditions separately they may seem unique but not really an outlook on life. Upon combining these we see a people with a deep reverence for everything natural. The respect for dead lets an outsider know that the people believe in more than they can see and therefore have the philosophical thought to apply meaning to otherwise common objects like animals and plants. It signifies an understanding that the world is more than just what we can see. The respect for animals allows the foreigner to understand the lack of hierarchy that exists for these people. Silko makes it clear that the Laguna Pueblo people do not consider themselves better than the antelope they hunt, only that they have needs that can be met by nature and those that reside in it, and it is only natural for being to take from another in order to survive. In taking though, they remember to always give back to the Mother Creator, with prayer, and to always be grateful, with a constant observation of natural order and the way things ought to be. How to cite Yellow Woman, Papers

Lecture 30-36 Notes free essay sample

This lecture begins with a biographical sketch of Weil’s life, which reveals a complex identity full of contradictions, and then goes on to examine the principal influences on her intellectual formation and early writing. Among the factors examined are her passionate attachment to Greek culture and philosophical thought, especially Plato, and an equally passionate, almost driven commitment to radical reform and social justice. Outline 1. With the introduction of the secular saint we break new ground, both in this course and, to some extent, in cultural discourse. . Question and commitment and looking at search for meaning in a new way. b. We may characterize secular saint as an ideal type of person who lives the question of meaning in human existence fully open to its mystery and fully committed to searching for meaning along the paths of both the hero and the saint. c. We must acknowledge that, as we have presented these two paths and their historical development, they are mu tually exclusive opposites that resist synthesis or assimilation d. This makes the figure of the secular saint an embodiment and affirmation of the human person primarily in terms of his or her freedom of conscience exercised as an absolute responsibility for one’s identity in relation to the mystery of reality as a whole. e. Binocularity –seeing from two distinct perspectives to allow depth of field f. Walking erect – an evolutionary stage of human development – moving from 4 legs to 2 requiring the capacity to balance constant shifts of weight and momentum – opposites, contradictory shifts in stance or place in the world, yet something over millennia that humans have learned to do 2. Simone Weil has been widely regarded as a creative genius by figures as diverse as Albert Camus, T. S. Eliot, Paul Tillich, Hannah Arendt, Dorothy Day, Robert Coles, and Charles de Gaulle. a. Weil was born in Paris in 1909; she died at age 34 in a sanatorium in Kent, England, of tuberculosis, complicated by her refusal of food to demonstrate solidarity with those in Nazi-occupied France. b. Parents were nonreligious Jews, brother Andre illustrious mathematician c. She suffered from a weak constitution and severe physical ailments throughout her life, especially chronic debilitating headaches. She was born both physically and socially awkward and a ruthless strain of self-criticism. d. Her brief life was bracketed by the two world wars and shaped by the political, social, and economic dislocations that dominated the years between them. She registered the anguish of her times with exquisite sensitivity and felt obligated to rethink Europe’s collapsing civilization. e. In the last five years of her life a mystical spiritual perspective unexpectedly opened to her. She came to know the love of God as intimately, she said, as the smile of a friend. 3. Simone Weil’s thoughts on the political and economic dynamics of society have their roots in Greek philosophy and reflect the characteristics of the heroic worldview and the concept of heroic citizenship that evolved from it. a. Weil’s conception of justice is simple and straightforward: Justice, she says, consists in seeing that no avoidable harm is done to any person. b. Weil understands human existence as a whole, and questions of justice specifically, in the context of the impersonal worldview of Greek philosophy. c. She articulates this vision most clearly in one of her last works, the essay â€Å"Draft from a Statement of Human Obligations. Weil designates the essay a â€Å"profession of faith. † d. The essay’s worldview, like Plato’s, is divided into the separate realms of body and of soul. e. The only possible link between the two realms of body and soul is human freedom, the capacity every person always has to consent or withhold consent t o direct attention beyond the world to that transcendent good, which alone can wholly satisfy the fullest desire of the heart. f. Human experience is both meaningful and absurd g. Consenting is the fundamental act of human freedom 4. Weil’s conception of justice is based on the strict obligation of every person to do all in his or her power to meet the needs of both body and soul of every other person. a. The notion of obligation is pivotal for Weil’s idea of justice because it is the expression of absolute respect for that desire for transcendent good in the soul of every person. i. Desire is sacred and inviolable, and is the source of everything that is meaningful and powerful in human beings b. Respect for the universal desire for total good cannot be shown directly; it is not tangible. On the other hand, unless the respect is enacted it is meaningless. . Respect can be shown indirectly c. The needs of the body are food, shelter, clothing, and physical security. The needs of the soul are meaning and value, rooted in freedom of conscience. d. Weil distinguishes sharply between human needs and preferential desires. e. Weil uses the term â€Å"affliction† to designate an intensity of sufferin g, whether naturally or deliberately caused, that does harm not only to personal sensibility but to the universal human desire for good, which is the center and basis for a sense of the dignity and significance of every human life. Lecture Thirty-One Simone Weil—A New Augustine? Scope: This lecture examines Simone Weil’s religious sensibility and writings through a parallel of comparison and contrast with Saint Augustine. Both figures stand at the cultural and personal intersection of classical secular humanism and scriptural religion. They both struggle to respond to the claims of human truths they found in each of these traditions and to mediate the values of both to their contemporaries. But the differences between them in this shared pivotal role are equally telling: Augustine chose to interrelate the two cultures and traditions through the process of onversion; Weil passionately refused to accept conversion because it meant giving up the reality of one ideal for the sake of the other. In so doing she made herself a paradigmatic figure of the 20th century. She appears as a hero without the hope of justice, and a saint without the sustaining bonds of religious community. The tension which her life embodies brings into focus the question of forgiveness at the center of the contemporary search for meaning: Can the impossibility of wholeness which human death both symbolizes and seals be authentically and freely affirmed as the meaning of life? Outline 1. In this lecture we examine the saintly dimension of Simone Weil’s extraordinary identity. 2. Like Saint Augustine, Weil experienced her whole life as a search for the truth of reality as whole; the truth of that transcendent mystery beyond time, space, and matter, which shone with the radiance of perfect beauty and overpowered the heart with unquenchable desire. a. As we have seen, memories of her own childhood held premonitions of the secret she discovered and lived in the last five years of her life. . It was not until she was motivated to read the Christian Gospels, prompted by the simplicity of faith of many of the works she taught and a few humane and intelligent clergy and friends, that she gradually came to discover what she had been searching for all her life. 3. Simone Weil completely rejects the dynamics of conversion and with it any dream of â€Å"catholicity† as universalization of the culture of faith in the secular order of society. a. Weil refused personal conversion to Catholicism and would not accept baptism despite her recognition that she had lived her whole life in the spirit that she discovered in her reading of the Christian Gospels. b. Weil explained her reason for refusing conversion in terms of the demands of love. c. She further explains that what frightened her about the Catholic Church, and by extension all other forms of organized religion, was that as institutions they necessarily fell subject to the forces of collectivism. . Weil’s situation, caught between the universality of justice and the personal intimacy of love, is a powerful example of what we have termed the â€Å"forlorn† condition of existence in context of a world dominated by totalitarian forces. a. Weil heroically refused to prioritize the truth of a personal existence enlightened by love at the expense of the universality of justice. b. Weil’s personality is undoubtedly most characterized by the extremism of her uncompromising demands on herself and others which produced a profound physical, psychological, and spiritual burden that many have noted and some have harshly criticized. c. On the other hand, many claim to recognize a saint for the modern age based on Weil’s willingness to forego the consolations of religious faith in order to keep faith and solidarity with the poor, all those to whom she believed she had an obligation to show respect because they suffered the misery of affliction. Lecture Thirty-Two Identifying the Secular Saint Scope: Without attempting to offer a fixed definition, this lecture explores further the identity of the secular saint by examining the mark made on contemporary society by two other figures who challenge the boundaries between the traditional types of hero and saint: Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Martin Luther King Jr. Although each life portrays a unique identity formed in response to significantly different societal crises, both reveal a shared urgency to address the shared human condition of affliction and vulnerability to the immediate proximity of death as the central focus of the search for meaning. Although both functioned within the mainstream of the Western scriptural religious tradition, they emphasized, each in their own way, the necessity to integrate the absolute reality of death into the very center of the human search for the meaning of life. Mother Theresa did this through her mission to uphold the dignity of the dying homeless, as did King through his advocacy of nonviolent resistance as a response to social injustice. Taken together with Simone Weil, they help identify the secular saint as the metaphor that we use to try to draw our considerations to a conclusion. Outline 1. Although the lives of Martin Luther King Jr. nd Mother Teresa clearly qualify them for inclusion in the category of saint as we are using the term, this lecture explores whether their identities might be more authentically revealed through the designation of secular saint. a. Freedom with two possibilities b. We propose the notion of the secular saint as a counterbalance to the violence against h umanity gendered by the dynamics of totalitarianism. c. The point made here is not to misappropriate the motivations and identities of King and Mother Teresa, but rather, the to probe more deeply their profound contributions to the human search for meaning. . Martin Luther King Jr. ’s famous letter from Birmingham Jail makes clear the dual sources of his inspiration and ideals: both the Christian spirit of agape, or universal love based on the love of God; and the arete, the heroic virtue of citizenship. a. As with Simone Weil, King’s language makes clear that the traditions and values of both ideals, hero and saint, have been so thoroughly intertwined in the Western tradition as to be inseparable even though they are ultimately incommensurable. b. King appeals directly to Socrates as he does to the Gospels to explain and vindicate his course of action. c. At the same time, King impugns racial segregation on moral grounds, which in turn are grounded in divine law. d. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere i. We are caught in an inescapable web of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly ii. Recalls Socrates – universal good, a good which is impersonal – genuinely the same for all, despite differences of perception, naming, etc 3. In his Nobel lecture, King articulates the necessary connection of opposition to racism with opposition to all forms of violence against humanity. . King uses his own version of Plato’s body-soul distinction to identify a type of poverty of spirit, which he claims is particularly characteristic of our time. b. His diagnosis of spiritual failure to thrive in Western culture is rooted in the dynamics of violence and oppression which he detects in the interrelation of racism with poverty and war. c. The practice of nonv iolence and its efficacy in overcoming all forms of totalitarian violence is rooted in the heroic virtue of self-respect and self-mastery. 4. Mother Teresa of Calcutta gained international recognition for her ministry to the poor, orphaned, sick, and dying. a. Mother Teresa experienced early in her religious life a series of personal revelations that convinced her it was absolutely imperative that she refuse Jesus nothing he might ask of her. b. Mother Teresa made it clear in everything she said and did that her purpose was not primarily to alleviate suffering but to recognize it, and thus to communicate to those suffering that they were loved by God through fellow humans. . She had no small number of critics who charged that her priorities were misplaced, that by not working for justice as King did, by not militating for a change of conscience and of institutions, the consolation she offered was merely palliative, not curative of the disease. d. Interiorly, however, Mother Teresa lived immersed in spiritual darkness. i. Entirely abandoned and shut out from Jesus’ presence e. Only in her ministry to the poor, especi ally the dying, did Teresa experience her existence as meaningful. f. Teresa is the opposite of Weil: outside a saint, within a hero; through recognition she made of death not simply a friend but a divine lover. 5. The common theme uniting Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King is the capacity of human freedom to transcend violence and give meaning to life my making peace with death. Lecture Thirty-Three The Secular Saint at the Movies Scope: This lecture seeks to test the emergent identity of the secular saint as a focus of the popular imagination by charging its appearance in the artistic genre most characteristic of the 20th century: film. Using a variety of particularly successful films, including Casablanca, Shane, The Godfather, Star Wars, and the Lord of the Rings, this lecture surveys the ways film draws on isolated fragments of the secular saint archetype to pose the contemporary problematic of the search for meaning: How can life be whole when our culture’s experience of it yields only images of trauma, fracture, and fragmentation? Outline 1. Sense of humor and recreation – share characteristics a. What part of life experience of human existence is at work in these? . One way of understanding is play – play of freedom – freedom plays i. Freedom is what it is for its own sake ii. 2. The emergence of film as the characteristic genre of both art and popular culture in the 20th century offers a distinct and important perspective on the notion of the secular saint. a. The medium of film is uniquely characteristic of 20th–21st-century culture because of its distinctive blending of el ectronic technology with traditional elements of artistic imagination and expression. . Film combines the imagistic richness and depth of texture of the plastic arts with the dynamism and movement of music and dance. c. Competes with live drama theater 3. We begin with a whirlwind tour of the dazzling but also bewildering diversity of images of heroes and saints with which the basic genres of film present us. a. The Western offers perhaps the most specific example of the distinctively American version of heroic identity as articulated in the Myth of the West. i. Western heroes embody the worldview of harsh, impersonal necessity and the warrior’s code, â€Å"A man has to do what a man has to do. † ii. Iconic examples of this figure of the hero are found in films like Shane and films of director John Ford. b. The genre of war films not only explores the traditional image of the warrior-hero in complex ways, but also registers and reinforces the infiltration of total war into contemporary consciousness and conscience. i. This genre of film provides a useful lens through which to bring the problematic theme of sacrifice into sharper focus. ii. Examples of heroes â€Å"sacrificing their own lives† for comrades or for their country include Gary Cooper in Sergeant York, John Wayne in Sands of Iwo Jima, and Vietnam War films such as Deer Hunter and Platoon. c. The genre of Biblical and classical epics offers paradigmatic evidence of the degree to which â€Å"In God We Trust† functions as coin of the realm in 20th century American public cultural values. d. Christmas films offer another portrayal of religion and culture. The iconic film It’s a Wonderful Life demonstrates saintly identity as a normative article of faith in popular culture, independent of explicit religious commitment. . The success of certain fantasy genre films such as the first Star Wars trilogy by George Lucas and The Lord of the Rings trilogy demonstrates the power of mythic heroic identity as an archetype of human cultural imagination in each of its major elements. 4. The character of Rick Blaine in Casablanca effectively embodies the i dentity of the secular saint and forces us to examine what the character tells us about the search for meaning in the popular imagination. a. At the beginning of the movie, Rick is a kind of disillusioned saint. He has become a loner who makes a living from gambling without taking risks himself. b. Rick has been disappointed in love and has renounced relationship as a source of meaning. c. Rick is caught up unwillingly in events larger than him and receives a hero’s call. d. Rick discovers the truth about the enduring fidelity of love and in so doing finds the courage to sacrifice that personal relationship for a higher cause. e. Rick ascends to the hero’s Valhalla as he strides off to a â€Å"beautiful friendship† with Captain Renault. 5. The images of heroes and saints presented on the big screen document both the degree to which the figures have become blended and blurred together in the popular cultural imagination and the extent to which both of ideals need continual reaffirmation in the communal consciousness. Lecture Thirty-Four Ernest Becker—The Denial of Death Scope: In this lecture, we consider whether, in the light of the traumatic experience of contemporary culture, we must recognize that this troubled contrast between hero and saint parallels the question of the relationship between life and death. If so, this recognition would require us to reformulate not only both these dichotomies but also our leading question to ask: What is the meaning of life and death taken together, inseparably interconnected as a whole? Outline 1. We have arrived at a new starting point, a more satisfactory reformulation of our original question: Should the human search for a meaningful life be pursued along the path of the hero or the way of the saint? Does meaning lie in self-fulfillment or is it the gift of love? . The work of Ernest Becker is a basis for asserting that the relationship between the hero and the saint is strictly analogous to the relationship between human death and life. b. One specific corollary of this is that the search for meaning is inseparable from the disillusionment born of the recognition of absurdity as an irreducible reality. c. Every exclusion or partialization of death from the meaning of human identity is a distortion and loss of its reality. 2. At the basis of Becker’s argument in The Denial of Death is his contention that the dynamics of heroism, which he claims are universal to human culture, are inseparable from the even more primal universality of terror in the face of death. a. Death is under our control – Stoics b. Agon – struggle – is a mythical hero system where people serve to earn a feeling of primary value, cosmic specialness, unshakeable meaning – building an edifice that exemplifies human value – a building, a family, whatever c. Becker argues that the heroic self-esteem is a psychological necessity of human identity. d. Culture, according to Becker, is to be understood as the outgrowth of the necessity that self-esteem be sustained by recognition won from others. e. For Becker the so-called life drive expressed as heroism is absolutely correlative to the terror arising from the specifically human self-awareness of the necessity of death. f. The source of all religions and cultural institutions g. Freud-gt;Kierkegaard h. Transcendence is never an escape from finity – it never represents leaving limits or death behind – always signifies the transformation of life drives via lived experience of death – life having a new meaning, aka afterlife, after an old meaning has died i. Those who are saved or chosen remain the same human beings j. Their identity is new 3. Becker introduces as one of his main contributions the idea of character and identity as what he calls the â€Å"vital lie. A sense of identity and self-esteem require the constant repression of the terror of self-knowledge and the certainty of death. a. Repression is a constant, and a necessity in human experience b. We are constantly lying to ourselves – repressing terror – fear of death – so we can live c. It is a vital lie d. Hero represses dependence on others for transcendence and self-mastery e. Drivenness Less of a burden on others – passionate human being  œ how to be a man? f. No one can satisfactorily advise someone else on – ambiguity impossible to resolve – has roots in freedom 4. For Becker the recognition of the life/death relationship as one of both incommensurability and complementarity, and ultimately of freedom as the source of all meaning and identity in human existence, leads to what he offers as a kind of distinctly contemporary spirituality, appropriate to the secular saint, which I would characterize as â€Å"humiliated hope. † a. For Becker all ideal types including hero and saint are â€Å"creative illusion,† and the relations among them are irretrievably ambiguous. b. Becker insists that the only legitimate ground upon which human hope can stand is the â€Å"humiliation† of death. . Both the humiliation and the hope must be constantly pressed to their limit in order to be realistic. Lecture Thirty-Five Terror and Hope in a Planetary Age Scope: This penultimate lecture endeavors to put to the test our reformulated question of the meaning of life and death as a whole, as well as the hope which sustains it. The arena for this fi nal agon of questioning and commitment is the contemporary scene of human culture, marked as it is especially by three characteristics, each symptomatic if the evolutionary imperative of adaptation. First, we consider the specter of worldwide terrorism that has supplanted the mushroom cloud as the seal of mutually assured self-destruction. Next we consider the phenomenon referred to as globalization signaling the ambiguity at the heart of capitalism, particularly in its current evolutionary form loosely characterized as â€Å"late capitalism,† in which economic competition for scarce resources reveals itself to be a more powerful generative force of both societal well being and social conflict than either political or religious dynamics. Finally, we engage the issue of a planetary ecological crisis which credibly threatens to precipitate human culture as whole into the evolutionary catastrophe of species extinction. Outline 1. This penultimate lecture is dedicated to testing whether the reformulation of our central question about the search for meaning in life is adequate to the distinct and extreme circumstances of the beginning of the 21st century. a. Reformulation of hero vs. saint b. Live the question now, so we can live into an answer c. Prototype model is metaphor of secular saint, evolutionary adaptation of both as it has been passed down from our cultural heritage and into our current environment d. Terrorism e. Globalization f. Environmental degradation 2. Following Becker, we have proposed that human existence is always a question of both life and death and a commitment to search for the meaning of life in death and the meaning of death in life. a. This mysterious reality of existence as a whole therefore must be understood as the origin of freedom of the Fundamental Human Question: Is human existence meaningful or absurd? . Meaning and absurdity are both present c. We look to find ourselves at the center, at peace d. There must be a real possibility for meaning and for absurdity in both the way of the hero and the path of the saint, and the human experience of living this question must be genuinely and significantly different for each. e. Therefore, we are proposing reformulating our original question so as to ask: Is it possible—and how is it possible— to live the human search for meaning by following both the path of the hero and the way of the saint, without doing violence to either identity? . The first of the totalitarian forces to which humanity is exposed in the 21st century is the crisis of worldwide terrorism. a. The threat of large-scale global terrorism as we know it today has its roots in the specific trauma of total war. b. Traditionally, war is the province of the hero; peace is the homeland of the saint. c. The total war of World War I first defined the cultural space of no-man’s-land. No-man’s-land now has become everywhere human beings are forlorn as the result of exposure to the extremities of affliction. . Is the secular saint adapted for survival in no-man’s-land, on the heath with Lear, Vladimir and Estragon, and the Compson family? Such adaptation would require not simply endurance but hope born of the vital desire to be precisely t here where affliction lives, not out of compassion, or of obligation, but in the lived experience of the contradiction between the two. 4. The second crisis of totalitarian force that we are exposed to in the 21st century is globalization. a. Globalization is a term without a broadly agreed-upon definition, but can be understood as a cluster of interrelated dynamics and issues. i. Financial markets and multinational corporations out of the control of individual nation-states ii. Digitalization of information allowing instantaneous transfer of financial and data knowledge capital creating alternative centers of power iii. Heightened accessibility of communication media – society of the spectacle iv. Characteristic ambivalence towards meanings and values – skepticism intellectually, ambivalence on values b. The most central impact of globalization may well be its characteristic of ambivalence regarding meaning and values. c. The secular saint may be considered well-adapted for survival in the absurdity of globalized markets that transcend the regulatory authority of either national sovereignty or moral systems. 5. Finally, the third exposure of contemporary humanity’s search or meaning is to the environmental crisis, the progressive degradation of the planet as the organic whole of which humanity is a part. a. It is no exaggeration that the planet as a living organism is dangerously diseased and may be headed toward crippling or even lethal conditions. b. Only an identity that is not simply prepared to endure death—or even to sacrifice its own life so that others might live—but has the total freedom to embrace death, may be capable of spiritual resurre ction of humanity’s relationship to the planetary life. c. The necessity of this call to learn to embrace death, which Mother Teresa exemplified, is rooted in Becker’s unmasking of the source of all human terror and all hope for life in the â€Å"organization† of death in human living. d. Death is the source of all totalitarian forces in human existence insofar as it is the primal source of terror which is an instinctual and evolutionary necessity before it is psychological as the energy of dread or anxiety that is projected onto objects of fear. Lecture Thirty-Six The Secular Saint—Learning to Walk Upright Scope: What do heroes and saints have to do with you and me today? Should I commit my time and energy, my trust and hope, and the substance of my relationships to a lifelong search for meaning? There is good and bad news: The bad news is that there is no answer to these questions; the good news is that, for that very reason, because the questions are universal and fundamental to all human beings, we are absolutely free to respond to them as we decide best according to our responsibility to that freedom to be forever, in life and in death, the singular person whose identity is so decided. Heroes and saints are those who have chosen, no matter how they understood the choice and no matter how they went about living it out, to put all their trust and all their hope in seeking the meaning of their freedom and to fulfilling the responsibility which that freedom imposed on them. The search for a meaningful way of life here, today, for ourselves, has led us to freedom and responsibility for one’s own identity as the way of all its paths, and to binocular vision and a practice sense of balance to alk the way of both hero and saint, despite the impossibility of doing so in the hope of being human. Outline 1. In the last several lectures we have sketched the identity of the secular saint, used that identity to reformulate the leading question of this course, proposed that this renewed experience of the question gives us a new starting point and a humiliated hope. 2. As we review, ask yourself if you recognize yourself in the memory of the journey. a. We began with myster y, not as an idea or a proposition but as the experience of the human condition. b. Beginning with mystery was a decision; in a sense, all that followed proceeded as it did because of the decision to start with mystery. Mystery is the other of freedom. c. Freedom and its necessary other, mystery, have this sort of relationship to one another linguistically, because together they articulate what we mean by language. d. We saw a clear example of this structure of meaning in the opening of the book of Genesis. e. It was not long before someone realized that this was the result of God speaking: the world is God’s creative word; God speaks the language of the world, the language of history. . The word is God. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. g. Christianity uses this formulation to identify Jesus as the incarnate word of God, but for our purposes it also expresses a universal human truth. h. The truth of metaphor – metaphor is the way that truth happens. i. Death is the experience of conscious suffering – it’s the experience of suffer ing freedom, the freedom of another 3. The human search for meaning is embedded in the history of the identities of individual persons and societies. a. Responsibility is the answer to the human search for meaning, the only possible answer for a question framed as ours is, especially after having traced the evolution of heroes and saints to the present. b. Our answer in this course—our response, more accurately—has been the figure of the secular saint, which presents a way of articulating the experience of human responsibility as it is happening here and now. 4. At this point each of us must ask how to go on from here. The question to be decided seems to be something like: Do I see myself in the image of the secular saint, and whether I do or do not, how do I go on from here? . My goal has been to help you equip yourself to live the question and commitment of the human search for meaning differently from here onward. b. Terrorism, globalization, planetary mutation, and other forces will continue to produce traumatic events that will require evolutionary personal and cultural adaptations that effect real changes in human ity as a whole. c. Our situation is different than it has ever been before because, as a result of historical change, we are more consciously aware of the dynamics of human cultural evolution than previous generations have been, less than future generations will be. . But we remain human: We live here and now, in one place and time, which is the culturally situated time and space of our freedom and responsibility. e. The secular saint does not live human questions in terms of their truth or falsehood, but rather in terms of the way his or her participation in the dialogue shapes that one human identity for which he or she alone is responsible, and for the meaning the one life and death that is given to them within the condition of human existence.

Daniel Juarez Essays (1791 words) - Diets, Health, Nutrition

Daniel Juarez Professor McMillen English 101 3 May 2017 What Should We Eat There are many things that contribute to the make up of your health. Your health can be based on your physical, mental and emotional wellness. Maintaining a healthy diet is the most important factor in ones overall health because healthy food gives one more energy and enables weight control. A healthy diet cuts down on diseases such as diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, etc. Another benefit to eating healthy is an improvement of ones overall mood. One might argue that physical exercise is the most important factor for being healthy, but that is just not quite true. Eating healthy is most important. The healthiest way to eat is a diet called the Ketogenic Diet which consists of eating little carbohydrates, high amounts of healthy fats, clean proteins, and low to no intake of sugars regardless of if it is natural sugars or added sugars is a great way to ensure premium health. The word diet tends to have a bad connotation but a diet is simply what you eat and what foods yo u choose to live off. A diet is not meant to be a temporary or quick way to lose weight. A diet is meant to keep you healthy and improve yourself and the overall longevity of your body. There are many new diets, supplements, and health trends that appear all the time, but how are you to know what is really healthy for you? The ketogenic diet goes against what we have been taught throughout our lives. But dare to be different and throw away fundamental teachings and be open to knew ways and new ideas that go against conventional thinking. The way you feel, what you eat, how you stay healthy, and what you do is the concern of the individual. Your diet is by far the most important thing for your overall health. What is health? A vague definition of health is; the overall wellness of ones self. Your health is comprised of your physical, mental, and emotional status. Each component of health can be broken down even further, but what we want to concentrate on is the physical aspect of it. Your physical health can increase, decrease, and be maintained based off two very important factors being, physical fitness/activity (exercise) and nutrition. Maintaining a healthy diet is the most important factor in your physical health. The article "Healthy fats for healthy nutrition" elaborates on the importance of ones health saying, "Unhealthy diet is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and a major contributor to the development of cardiovascular risk factors. It also may increase the incidence of other non-communicable-diseases such as osteoporosis, neurodegenerative diseases and some types of cancer" (Volpe 1). Your body turns what you eat into energy in order for you to move, breathe, proce ss information, and simply live in general. One might argue on the contrary and say that physical fitness is the more important factor of the two. The truth of the matter is yes your physical fitness may be important but without proper nutrition, your body cannot exert the appropriate amount of energy needed to exercise proficiently. How you eat, and what you eat allows for adequate energy conversion that fuels your body enabling peak performance. Eating healthy foods that contain healthy fats, clean proteins, low carbohydrates, and low to no intake of sugars is a great way to ensure premium health, supplemental and efficient fuel for your body. This type of eating is what is known as a ketogenic diet. In the article "Escape from the Western Diet," author Michael Pollan states that scientists who supported carbohydrates told him that he should not allow himself to be swayed by the "omega-3 cult" (Pollen 420). Omega-3's and Omega-6's are what you would call a healthy fat found in such foods as avocados, fish, olive oil, nuts, seeds and many other healthy food items that your body needs. Clean proteins include fish, beef, bison, venison, chicken, and my other animals we consume. One would preferably choose to eat grass fed or naturally raised animals which consume the foods they would in the wild. These animals tend to be leaner and more healthy options due

Chemical Definition - Chemistry Glossary

Chemical Definition - Chemistry Glossary There are two definitions of the word chemical as the term is used in chemistry and common usage: Chemical Definition (adjective) As an adjective, the term chemical indicates a relationship to chemistry or to the interaction between substances. Used in a sentence: She studied chemical reactions.They determined the chemical composition of the soil. Chemical  Definition (noun) Everything which has mass is a chemical. Anything consisting of matter is a chemical. Any liquid, solid, gas. A chemical includes any pure substance; any mixture. Because this definition of a chemical is so broad, most people consider a pure substance (element or compound) to be a chemical, particularly if it is prepared in a laboratory. Examples of Chemicals Examples of things which are chemicals or consist of them include  water, pencil, air, carpet, light bulb, copper, bubbles, baking soda, and salt. Of these examples, water, copper, baking soda, and salt are pure substances (elements or chemical compounds. A pencil, air, carpet, a light bulb, and bubbles consist of multiple chemicals. Examples of things which are not chemicals include light, heat, and emotions.

Immigrants from Eritrea Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Immigrants from Eritrea - Essay Example Immigration occurs when the nationals of one country cross over to a foreign nation with a view to settle there permanently; this involves that they become nationals of the new territory that they are now part of however the process is tough because legally it is extremely tough to immigrate from one country to another. Immigrants may be both legal and illegal; some undergo the proper process of moving elsewhere however others might not have a home to live in and thus cross the border illegally in order to find a place to stay or escape from the lives that they have been leading in that country. Immigrants flee their countries because of the oppression and lack of opportunities that they are presented with; this is one of the main reasons as they might not be happy with the government or the ruling party and not being able to get anything substantial out of their lives. Thus they feel that in order for their families, children and future generations to lead a better lifestyle, they c an start afresh in another country. There are various terms to describe the different kinds of immigrants; an economic immigrant is that which flees one country in search of a job opportunity somewhere – in order to make a livelihood and produce and give back to the society. A refugee on the other hand maybe an individual suffering a persecution and flees the country of his nationality in order to avoid that – he may do so due to the pressure on him and his family or the lack of financial resources to support himself and may feel that his family can live a better life somewhere else rather than die in the territory where they have been living. The definition of a refugee according to the Convention of the United Nations is â€Å"a person who is outside his/her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail himself/herself o f the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.†Ã‚  In a different country, people are able to gain different perks from the manner in which the government has been existing there. They may adjust their lifestyles to a better form of government, gain access to education and health resources and in this fashion, lead a happier and more fulfilling life. Other reasons for immigration might be relocating families due to natural disasters, re-unifying with families living elsewhere, and political reasons or social reasons like poverty. According to immigration statistics, Eritrea, in Africa, has till date had a large outflow of refugees, almost 377,000 people with an inflow of only about 4,100 refugees into the country. The worst problem that immigrants face is not being able to settle their lives in the new country – even though they might have relocated to a better place, it is tough to find a job and emerge out of the socially deprived state of affairs, especially for an illegal immigrant. Even if the immigrants have the skill to work, they would have to produce proper documentation in order to be able to sign contracts and be part of legal proceedings in a proper workplace. However, since they are not able to produce these, they mostly tend to get into illegal forms of working like drug and human trafficking; they are used as servants in homes and paid meagre amounts of money, just enough to get them by with minimum food and shelter. Immigrants consist of both men and women and out of the two, the women face a much higher risk of not being able to survive especially as illegal immigrants; this is because of the gender disparity created between the two on a social and political level. Socially speaking, women immigrants may be sold to others as slaves or workers in people’s homes in order to earn their daily bread and thus are at the receiving end of improper treatment and even sexual abuse many a times. Men on the other hand, are better equipped to get jobs

Education. What issues can arise during 'transition' Essay

Education. What issues can arise during 'transition' - Essay Example The difficulties are based on mental growth development and educational curriculum demands which calls for young learners to make the transition, or else be left behind in the educational system. For most young learners, the transition difficulties are only seen during the first few days or weeks of the school year, however, for others, the difficulties may persist throughout the school year. There are different issues encountered during the period of transition for students and these issues shall be discussed in this paper. The transition focused on would mostly be on the transition from primary to secondary school in the UK. Possible suggestions on how the transition may be eased would also be discussed in this text in order to provide some clarity and recommendations based on the issues noted for transitioning learners. Body Transition, as was mentioned above refers to the child’s move and adjustment period from primary to secondary schools. The transition process here also includes not just the transition of students from primary to secondary school, but any other transitions these children may make which eventually causes a change in venue (change schools), including transfers to different schools due to family moving from one home to another. The transfers may also be attributed to a family death or parental divorce/separation. Various studies have been carried out on the issues encountered during the transition process (Graham and Hill, 2002; Galton, Gray and Ruddock, 2000). Reviewing studies on the subject matter has revealed various themes or issues during such transition period. Alston, Sammons, and Mortimore (1985) carried out a longitudinal study for children from 50 primary schools in the London area, assessing the transition experiences of the children. About 1600 students were evaluated for their study, evaluating their attitudes, behaviour, attendance before and during their transition period to secondary school. The study revealed that m ost of the students transitioned well into secondary school and had favourable attitudes towards secondary school (Alston, et.al., 1985). Most of them were also pleased with their work in their new school. Admittedly, most of the students initially had reservations about secondary school, however, most of them gradually settled well into their classes and were actually happier than was expected for transitioning students. This study however has contrasting results with the Fouracre (1993) study which indicates the presence of a discontinuity between primary and secondary school as teachers often underestimate the abilities of their pupils. There also seems to be a mismatch between the student’s expectations of the work in secondary school and their actual experiences in the classroom (Fouracre, 1993). One of the issues encountered during transition are elements relating to social class. Studies reveal that those belonging to the lower income communities are likely to have tro uble transitioning into the secondary school system (Keating and Hetzman, 1999). Socioeconomic status as well as parental social class has a huge role during the transition period as students with lower social status likely to have trouble transitioning and eventually leave the educational system early (Ferguson, Tilleczek, Boydell, Rummens, Cote, & Roth-Edney, 2005). As discussed by Keating and Hetzman (1999), there is less extracurricular participation among these students, as well as limited school personnel support for these students. Some of them also increasingly experience daily hassles from school personnel (Keating and Hetzman, 1999). It was also established by McGee, Ward, Gibbons, and Harlowe (2003) that children having higher socioeconomic status

MULTINATIONAL CORP-EVOL & CUR ISSUE Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

MULTINATIONAL CORP-EVOL & CUR ISSUE - Essay Example (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN) and PowerShares QQQ Trust Series 1 (QQQ). This report entails a transaction involving 500 quantities of Google shares, 10000 quantity of Amazon and 1,000 quantity of PowerShares Trust Series 1. Google Inc. is a global technology company that mainly focuses on areas such as advertising, operating systems and platforms, enterprise and hardware products. Its main source of revenue is online advertisement. By the close of business on April 06, 2014 @ 3:59:59 PM, 500 shares of Google Inc. were selling at $545.25. This resulted to an amount of 573,000. The buying price of Google Inc. equity was $545 at a currency/exchange of USD/1.00. It is worth noting that price paid is quoted in the currency of the security’ exchange while the buying powers change and transaction amount are quoted in the currency of the portfolio. As per the start of the business day 7th April 2014, the share price for Google Inc. stood at $539.31 representing a price change of $-5.94 (-1.09%). At the current market price, buying 500 shares of Google Inc. will cost me 272,500. Selling the same quantity will get me a reward of 273,135 hence making a profit equivalent to $635. The profitability nature of the Google’s shares make motivated me to buy the portfolio. Amazon.com serves consumers through its retail websites and focus on selection, price, and convenience. It offers programs that enable sellers to sell their products through the company’s websites. Amazon offers its customers the lowest prices daily product pricing and shipping offers. The last buying price for Amazon.com is $320.22 as opposed to the current price of $320.52. The 52-week high is $408.06 while the 52-week low is $245.75. Going by the previous price, the estimated cost for 10,000 shares will be $ 3,203,310.00. The last selling of Amazon stock is $320.68 representing 187,268 volumes. Considering this selling price, the estimated cost stands at 3,197,090.00. This represents an income gain

The Port Of Durban From An Economics Perspective Economics Essay

The Port Of Durban From An Economics Perspective Economics Essay 3.1 Introduction This chapter will examine the Port of Durban from an economics perspective and will seek to expand on the general theory presented in the literature review and apply it specifically to the Port of Durban. This chapter will also serve as a foundation for the proceeding chapter which will analyse the various CBA options and data for Durban. The ports significance and impact will be examined in the context of the South African and local economy through its income and employment generating effect. Though the quantity of cargo moving through a port is important, of more interest is the type of cargo that a port focuses on. 3.2 The South African Port Sector Before examining the Port of Durban in isolation, it would be prudent to briefly discuss the South African Port scenario in a broader sense. In South Africa, ports are considered national assets and are managed by the government run recently by SAPO. South Africa is a major sea-trading nation comprising of approximately 8 trading ports, namely, Durban, Richards Bay, East London, Port Elizabeth, Mossel Bay, Cape Town, Saldanha and the under construction Coega. South Africa has evolved into a major sea-trading nation over the last four or so decades and in 2002 handled 3.6% of world sea trade by volume. In terms of ton miles or real activity, this figure increases to 6% of global trade, placing the country within the top 12 globally and resulting in a global maritime activity share that is more than 20 fold its global GDP share. Sea trade constitutes more than 90 percent of trade in South Africa and ports play a critical social and economic role both nationally and regionally. The majo rity of the port activity is concentrated on the east coast of South Africa. A stark illustration of this fact is that Durban and Richards Bay together make up 76% of sea trade in the country. Traffic growth in the 1990s was derived from two primary regional points and sources, namely Durban from a general cargo perspective and Richards bay from a raw materials perspective. Richards Bay, which deals primarily in bulk goods, such as coal, ore and steel, has seen its annual tonnage increase from 55 million tons in 1989 to in excess of 90 million in 2000. Viewing perceived value in terms of tonnage is a flawed approach since in terms of economic linkages and value-adding, handling a ton of coal is not the same as handling a ton of refined goods. The figure below illustrates the breakdown of sea trade activity by port in South Africa. It can be seen clearly that Durban and Richards Bay are giants in comparison to the other ports. (Chasomeris, 2003 and Jones, 2002) Fig 17: Total Traffic Volume in South Africa Source: Department of Transport, 1998 and Jones, 2001 The South African Ports sector experienced significant capital intensive investment in the 1970s and 1980s, which was biased towards the bulk shipping sector. However, world trends have seen a migration towards containerisation and unitisation and South Africa is no exception, with the country utilising containers for the first time in1977. Up until 1990, the available capacity could cater for national traffic levels of approximately 1 million TEUs level. The lack of adequate container capacity, combined with growing demand, brought with it a multitude of problems. On the demand side, South Africa became a democracy and re-entered the globalised world, resulting in a noticeable rise in seaborne container volumes, due to liner carriers returning to the South African trades and increased trade liberalisation. The upsurge in volumes produces inevitable negative consequences of delays and vessel queues. By 2000 the combined amount of annual TEUs handled in South African ports was 1.8 mil lion and this was encompassed using with the same basic container quays that had been constructed in 1977. There was some limited capital investment in strategic areas in the 1990s, such as cargo extensions to bulk and neo-bulk facilities in Richards Bay. The new millennia brought with its bolder and more ambitious port investment initiatives. A new industrial hub status port in the Eastern Cape, which was earlier envisioned but never actioned upon, was now being constructed. Secondly, the Durban general cargo infrastructure has received significant upgrades and extensions such as extensions to landside facilities as well, deepening and extending cargo handling superstructure and infrastructure as well as deepening and widening the harbour entrance. Because of the age and mismatch of the cargo handling infrastructure, productivity has lagged that of international levels, resulting in congestion that is a constant feature of local ports. There were also supply side issues to deal wit h such as liner route becoming more specific and centred around hub status ports. As such, hub status ports have to provide capacity that exceeds national demand, making attainment of hub port status difficult in capacity constricted scenarios. This is compounded by the reluctance of ship-owners to migrate shorter routes such as Port Elizabeth in South Africa. South African ports relative competitive stance with their southern hemisphere counterparts can be gauged from the table below. Looking at both indicators, South African ports emerge as clear leaders on both the African and Southern Hemisphere front. Richards Bay is ranked first on the table in terms of total traffic, as it has a large amount of coal and other bulk cargoes passing through its doors. Durban, although ranked 3rd overall, is ranked 1st in the container category it is clear that Durban is the leading multi-purpose port in South Africa and the Southern Hemisphere. (Jones, 2003; Jones, 1997; Department of Transport, 1998 and Lawrence, 2000) Figure 18: African and Southern Hemisphere Port Traffic Port Total Port Traffic (m tons) Rank Container Traffic (TEUs 000s) Rank Richards Bay 91.5 1 5 15 Newcastle 73.9 2 9 14 Durban 49.7 3 1291 2 Santos 43.1 4 945 4 Sydney 24.6 5 999 3 Melbourne 22.3 6 1322 1 Casablanca 19.8 7 311 9 Abidjan 14.6 8 434 7 Auckland 13.3 9 561 6 Cape Town 11.8 10 395 8 Lagos 9.1 11 1782 11 Mombasa 8.9 12 219 10 Buenos Aires 7.8 13 716 5 Dakar 7.2 14 149 13 Port Louis 4.7 15 161 12 Source: ISL, Bremen, 2001, Jones 2003 (Selected ports, 2000) 3.3 History of the Port of Durban The port is situated on the east coast of South Africa at coordinates 31o 02E in longitudinal and at 290 52S in latitudinal terms. Trading activities in the port of Durban can be traced back since 1824, with the port quickly gaining a favoured status among seafarers amd traders due to it being a natural harbour. Interest in Durban Bay grew tremedously in the early years of its operations, with imports doubling between 1849 and 1850. This, coupled with larger vessels, resulted in a much needed expansion to the harbour entrance. Over a century later, Durban has 63 berths and 6 repair berths, which can be broadly seperated into five main segments of the port. The first segments has two piers and has a multipurpose function thats handles general, parcel and unitised cargo. The second segment of the port is located by Salisbury Island and Island View. A third segment is the Maydon Wharf area, which contains private terminals as well as terminals controlled by Transnet. The Point terminal area and the Bayhead area are the fourth segment and fifth segment respectively. Below is a picture of the port of Durban that illustrates the five segments discussed. Figure 19: The Current Layout of Durban Port Source: Google Earth, 2010 3.4 Economic Significance of the Port of Durban As, can be seen in figure 17 above, the logistical strength of the national shipping infrastructure, rests primarily in KZN. The port of Durban, like all other public ports in South Africa, is an example of a port under national jurisdiction, its official name being the National Ports Authority (NPA), thereby allowing centralised planning. Durban is a port of choice because of its infrastructure in place enabling it to be a full service general cargo and container port . In addition to this, durban is well serviced by an adequete rail and road infrastructure, which links it to the economic hub of South Africa, Gauteng. In addition to this, the KZN region is a large economic region in itself and is second only to Gauteng in South Africa. Figure 21 below, illustrates a snapshot of the South African port sector for 2009. In terms of total cargo tonnes handled, Durban has 20% of the market and is dwarfed by Richards which has more than double Durbans tonnage handled, at more than 40%. Ri chards Bay, which was constructed in the 1970s, has had an enormous impact on Durbans port planning and functions. The primary reason for its existence was to serve as high-mass export point for raw materials such as coal. Richards Bay also diversified its goods base to include, at a lower cost, goods types that were traditionally the domain of Durban such as neo-bulk cargo like steel, alloys and forest type products. At the time of Richards Bay construction, Cape-sized bulk vessels were too large to enter Durban. (Jones, 2003 and Stats SA, 2010) Figure 21: Port Cargo and Vessel Statistics in South African Ports RICHARDS BAY DURBAN CAPE TOWN SALDANHA BAY TOTAL SA PORTS Durban as a % of Total TOTAL CARGO HANDLED: 77,631,154 37,419,282 3,058,601 56,475,625 182,735,369 20% GENERAL CARGO VESSELS: 247 705 220 373 1,648 43% BULK VESSELS: 1257 930 320 921 3,603 26% CONTAINER VESSELS: 42 1883 897 784 4,233 44% TANKERS: 184 646 159 344 1,542 42% VESSEL TOTAL: 1874 4848 2440 3489 15,879 31% TOTAL TEUS HANDLED: 6,273 2,395,175 1,382,052 NA 4,334,612 55% Source: NPA, 2009 (Note table has been edited) Looking again at figure 21 above, it can be observed that even though Durban lags other ports in gross tonnage of cargo, it still has by far the most number of vessels docking. One of the major reasons for this was the emerging dominance of Richards Bay, which forced Durban to concentrate on lower-volume bulk, break-bulk and liquid-bulk. This enabled great diversity within the port in terms of cargo type as well vessel type and quantity. Additionally, vessels that carry break bulk are traditionally far smaller than that of traditional bulk, thus explaining why more vessel docking are in Durban than Richards Bay for the same amount of cargo ceterus paribus. With reference to the figures above, it can be observed that Durban has 43% of total general cargo vessels, 42% of total tankers and 44% of total container vessels. The most important figure, in relation to Durban, is that of TEUs handled since this is where its dominance and significance come to the fore. Durban has the ideal stru cture to handle containers and since Richards Bay has inadequate structure for containers, Durbans dominance in containers was from the outset. Jones (2003) show that a growing international trend of shipping lines with regards to containers is to organise trade and activities around so called hub ports which meet and cross at sub-regional transhipment nodes. This arrangement is biased for the existence of a single hub type port on the eastern shores of the Southern region of Africa. Since, Durban is the countrys major container port, is well frequented by major shipping lines, has terminal and hub status, it is quite reasonable for it to remain South Africas primary container port. The other alternatives on the eastern sea board are not really competitors when it comes to containers. Richards Bay is primarily a bulk port and does not have the adequate infrastructure to extend its activities beyond this scope. Maputo has large deviation costs from traditional shipping lines as well as limited depth and capacity. Port Elizabeth has weak land side links to Gauteng as well as having limited local demand to justify a major port there. (Suykens, 1984; Jones, 2001 and Jones, 2003) Even though Durban lags Richards Bay in terms of pure tonnage, this in itself is a poor yardstick of economic impact and significance since no account is taken of cargo value or employment propensities of infrastructure required. Generally, in terms of economic and employment impacts, general cargo provides the most followed by dry-bulk cargo and lastly liquid-bulk. Bearing this in mind, comparing two ports only on the basis of tonnage is frivolous and more specifically in Durbans case it can be seen that from a ports perspective, it handles higher valued cargo than Richards Bay. This is especially evident when one considers one job is created per 47000 tonnes of cargo handled at Richards Bay, whereas in Durban, one job is created per 7500 tonnes of cargo handled. Figure 22 below further illustrates the economic richness and opportunity that containers present. Additionally, in 2004 an average container vessel spent R2.94 million per port call, far exceeding the R1.8 million for a br eakbulk cargo vessel as well as exceeding the R1.3 million for a bunker vessel. (Suykens, 1984; Jones, 2001, Tempi, 2006 and Jones, 2003) Figure 22: Port of Fremantles Economic impact by Cargo Type Cargo Type Output ($m) Value Added ($m) Household Income ($m) Employment (no.) Direct Effects Containers 177 121 73 1331 Other General Cargo 45 30 18 340 Liquid Bulk 35 20 8 158 Dry Bulk 83 44 25 459 Other 1 1 0 7 Total 341 215 124 2294 Direct + Indirect Effects Containers 382 240 125 3195 Other General Cargo 96 59 31 800 Liquid Bulk 67 38 17 441 Dry Bulk 181 100 50 1339 Other 2 1 1 19 Total 728 440 223 5792 Source: Bureau of Economic Transport Economics Australia, 2000 As is the case with South African ports, the port of Freemantle in Australia, shown in figure 22 above, derives the most economic prosperity from containers from both a direct and indirect perspective. Even though containers account for only 13% of activity in the port, they contribute 55% to economic activity. Consequently, containers have the greatest employment generating effects, followed by dry bulk and the liquid bulk. Though dynamics differ from port to port in terms of infrastructure, administration, socioeconomics and geography, a broad consensus can be reached from the figure above encompassing a kind of rule of thumb approach. As such, containers offer the most economic opportunity for a port and since Durban already focuses on this area, it would be prudent to continue with this trend. Thus, it is quite evident that both the present and future comparative advantage of Durban port rests in the realm of containerised cargoes due to reason shown above. Also, since the port i s so aptly designed for and dependant on containerised cargo, the removal of this great economic magnifying source would be particularly devastating on the Durban region as a whole. (Jones, 2001 and Jones, 2003) Looking at figure 23 below, it can be seen that the Durban port has seen an extraordinary increase in containers, with annualised growth of between 8% and 10% for the last decade.  As was shown above, containers form an integral cog in the Durban port machine from an economics and social perspective since they provide a source of trade, income and employment. Container growth has been driven by a range of factors such as rising volumes of world trade and reduced trading barriers, the migration of cargo to containers from other handling systems, South Africas improved economic performance and rising per capita incomes.  The facets examined below are containers landed, shipped and empty and as the diagram shows, all three categories have increased from 2002-2007. The growth between 2002 and 2007 is nothing short of spectacular, but this growth has not come without costs and constraints. However, needing containers and providing adequate space for them are two entirely different thi ngs and this will be explored below. Also, we have seen that general cargo is the richest form of cargo and has the largest employment benefits. South Africa needs extended general cargo capabilities and in this respect, Durbans needs are similar to national needs. It is thus clear that Durban needs the container industry for continued survival and prosperity, but whether the container industry needs Durban as much remains to be seen. (Jones, 2003) Figure 23: Total TEUs Landed, Shipped Transhipped Source: NPA, marketing graphs, 2008 Durbans greatest strengths, namely its ideal location, good economic linkage and strong infrastructure, have also evolved to be its Achilles heel, since its popularity especially for containerized cargo, has seen demand surge amidst mostly fixed infrastructure. With the growth of sea trade demand, the real problems of Durban are the lack of adequate marine infrastructure, but its role as port with terminal capacity, and the managerial capacity and willingness to operate the present container terminal at acceptable performance levels. A supply side response by the authorities to these demand pressures has been slow and limited. The growth of containerised cargo volumes has put the ports container terminal under sustained pressure since the mid-1990s, and at times has overwhelmed available capacity. The consequences of which have been frequent queues of container vessels, unduly high berth occupancy rates, and delays to container vessels and their cargoes. The port area is inundated wi th industrial and commercial development, making space an expensive premium, above all for neo-bulk space intensive cargoes like steel and forest products. It is therefore no surprise to see certain of these cargoes migrating to Richards Bay, where space is at less of a premium. The Durban-Gauteng rail line possesses substantial spare capacity, but operating problems associated with the availability of Transnet have reduced the reliability of rail. This problem is particularly serious for certain bulk terminals that are reliant on rail since for bulk commodities rail is the cheapest and most efficient form of transport. Previously, Durbans major economic disadvantage was its inability to host Panamax size-threshold ships due to its lack of depth. However, after recent capital investments, the entrance width has been increased from 110m at its narrowest to 220m and the depth in the outer channel from 12m to approximately 19m. However, this is far from adequate and as can be seen in I rcha (2006) which states that hub status type ports must have the following in order to remain relevant: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Container-stacking densities of 2000-4000 TEUs per hectare; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Sustained ship-to-shore gantry crane productivity of 50 moves per hour; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Three day dwell times; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ 30-minute truck turnaround times; à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ On-dock rail service; and à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ Water depths by the berth of 15 metres and more. Currently, Durban subscribes to one of these parameters, and if it wishes to become efficient and remain productive and relevant, authorities should try to subscribe to all of them. Doing so would require significant capital investments such as infrastructure expansions. (Lawrence, 2000; ISL, 2001; Fairplay, 2003, Ircha, 2006, Transnet, 2010 and Jones, 2003) 3.5 Multiplier Model The theory of the Keynesian multiplier was covered quite extensively in the literature review. Figure 22 above touched on the multiplier process for the port of Freemantle, but the concept will now be explored and applied in far more detail. The economic impact of port activities on the local economy can be subdivided into three broad areas. The first area is that of directly port-related or port generated activities, that would cease to exist if the port were to close. The second area is that of indirectly port-related activities and pertains to backwardly-linked services and infrastructure. The third and final broad category is termed induced effects, and is in fact the multiplier effect from other inputs. It arises as those employed in the previous two categories, re-spend their money in the local economy, thereby increasing the original economic impact. Jones (1998) conducted a study so as to ascertain the Port of Durbans economic impact on the local economy. Figure 24 below is t aken from that same study and as can be observed, 24 000 direct port related jobs from approximately 360 businesses are created through first round inputs. Of the 24 000 jobs, approximately 8500 are from Transnet, which is an indication of the significant role that the institution plays in the local region. The 24 000 figure translate into a wage bill of approximately R950 million rand in 1994 wage level. Assuming an inflation rate of 10% per annum, this figure would equate to approximately R4 Billion in 2010 terms! Coupled to this, many port activities were in fact excluded from the above calculation such as insurance, financial services, medical services and legal services. (Jones, 2003) Another reason why the employment figure is conservative is that it fails to account for the induced or multiplier effect. As shown in the literature review, the economic or employment effect is extended far beyond the initial spending impetus whereby the final round of total expenditure normally far exceed the initial input. The multiplier varies from region to region depending on the average marginal propensity to consume, taxes, and how much money is kept within the local region. Jones assumes that since the majority of port employees are in fact low to middle income earners, which is not an outrageous assumption. Bearing this in mind, an average tax rate of 20%, MPC of 0.85 and a retention rate of 0.85 is used to formulate the multiplier value. The data is substituted into the multiplier equation from the literature review and yields a multiplier value of 2.4. The port of Seattle conducted an economic impact analysis and depending on which assumptions they used, the multiplier ra nged from 2.9 to 4.4. The port of Lake Charles Harbour also conducted an economic impact study and used a multiplier of 2.6 and the port of Hastings derived a multiplier of 1.58. Thus, the figure use by Jones is in no way over the top when one looks at other port economic impact papers and it even falls on the lower end of the spectrum. The box below illustrates the calculations that were used to obtain the multiplier. At 1994 prices total income generated by the port is approximately R2.3 billion. Once again, if we assume a 10% increase per annum, in 2010 price terms, this would equate to R9.6 Billion! (Jones, 2003; Meyrick Associates, 2007 and Martin Associates, 2007) Figure 24: Multiplier for Durban (1994 prices) ÃŽÂ ± = 1 1 -c [(1-t) r] Substituting the various values = 1 1 -0.85[(1-0.2)0.85] =2.4 Calculating Equilibrium income for wages only: Yo = ÃŽÂ ±A Yo= 950 X 2.4 = R2.3 Billion Calculating Equilibrium income for all expenditures: Yo= (950+500) X 2.4 = R3.5 Billion Source: Jones, 2003 Even with the multiplier effect, the regional economic impact of the port is under estimated since wages and salaries are not the only costs in a port. Industries which provide inputs and services to port establishments are excluded. In the same paper, Jones attempts to calculate these very costs and some of the examples include paper, ropes, cranes, hooks and property costs. Jones does this by working out that on average 48% of total costs are non wage costs and based on this assumption, a 1994 figure of R500 million is generated from port related expenditure which is not linked to wages. This amount extrapolated to regional labour elasticitys, induces a labour figure of approximately 7000 jobs. The refineries around the port employ around 1800 people and the Island View area about 500 as well. Thus, as Jones rightly says, the port and port related activities generate around 40000 jobs in the local economy, a figure which eThekwini online concurs with. Looking at the box above, it c an be calculated that the total economic impact of the port is R3.5 Billion in 1994 prices. In 2010 monetary terms, this equates to roughly R14.62 Billion. Additionally, eThekwini online states that the port and related industries contributes over 20% of Durbans GDP and approximately 1.5% of national GDP! Thus, it is quite evident that the port and its related clusters are integral to the Durban community in terms of employment and social stability. (Jones, 2003 and www.thekwenionline.org.za, 2010) Figure: 25 Durban Port Employment and Output (all data at 1994 levels) Industry/Sector Number Employment Wage bill (R mill) Portnet 1 5400 240 Portnet dredging 1 112 6 Spoornet 1 3217 115 Terminal operators 11 2213 90 Liquid bulk terminals 3 275 16 CF agents 138 3600 135 Ships agents 37 1350 65 Ship chandlers 17 400 ns Container depots 3 366 13 Container parks 7 260 ns Container logistics 3 140 6 Shipowners operators 5 11002 ns Ship repairers builders 5 9603 34 Stevedores 24 1650 45 Cargo equipment suppliers 2 200 ns Road haulers >75 15001 ns Bunker services 2 110 5 Offshore services 3 80 3 Tallying services 5 1204 ns Security 3 3001 ns Marine contractors 2 114 5 Customs Excise 1 300 ns Other State 3 1001 ns TOTAL >360 23867 ~R950 Source: Jones, 2003 3.6 Constraints to Expansion As shown in Figure 18 above, Durban is the largest general cargo port in Africa and the second largest in the southern hemisphere, and Durban being a port city will benefit from any growth in international trade volumes especially of the general cargo type. Although Durbans port infrastructure is extensive, at present it suffers from critical capacity limitations. The port currently provides 63 berths that can be used for cargo related activities as well as repair facilities for a further 8-9 vessels. These capacity constraints are encountered in respect of the ports marine infrastructure, cargo-working facilities and its overall articulation with landside cargo distribution systems. The constraints are indicated in the figure below, which illustrates the situation for Durban in 2004/5, considering that the teu amount was 2,395,175 teus for 2009, it becomes clear how grave the capacity situation is. Considering how grave the capacity situation is, it is indeed surprising that only sh ort term capital investments have been undertaken over the last two decades. Towards the end of the previous century, there were some capital extensions such as gantries, larger container areas and straddle carriers. In 2002, more gantries were added as well as 20 straddle carriers. The second part of the 2002 project was the relocation and specialisation of areas within the port, namely pier 1. All these short term improvements will result in the port having a present day capacity of 2.5 million TEUs. Already in 2005 the container terminal were operating at 90% capacity and now 5 years hence, with TEUs handled being 2.4 million in 2009 or 96% capacity, there is a pressing need for Durban to increase and improve its container handling operations. (NPA, 2009 and Muller, 2004) Figure 26: Port of Durban Capacity Constraint Terminals Current traffic M ton Theoretical capacity M ton Spare Capacity Percentage used Bulk Liquids 23,800,000   Unlimited Unlimited Motor vehicles units 171,365 220,000 48,635 77.89 Coal 1,800,000 2,500,000 700,000 72 City 2,400,000 5,200,000 2,800,000 46.15 Containers 1,724,218 1,900,000 175,782 90.75 Break bulk 4,200,000 6,300,000.00 2,100,000 66.67 Total excl vehicles 33,924,218.00 16,120,000.00 5,824,417.00 Source: NPA, 2006 Though this paper views the port from

Why Do Girls Cut? Essay -- Psychology

Why do people hurt themselves? In a journal article from the American Journal of Psychotherapy, Louise Ruberman notes that about 2.1 million teens suffer from nonsuicidal self-injury, or NSSI. Young women between the ages of 14 and 18 years old take part in NSSI due to poor development of the relationship with their mothers, childhood abuse, and psychiatric disorders. Although there are multiple ways of causing injury to oneself, cutting of the skin as a means of self-mutilation is said to be the most common (Ruberman 119). We will start out by examining the problems that occur during the relationship development between a mother and a daughter at a young age. Gender role identity and body image are directly related to the relationship a young girl has with her mother while she is growing up. During the young ages, a girl needs to feel accepted and positively identified by her mother in order to be happy with her femininity. Mothers play a very important role in helping young girls establish their self-esteem, because a young girl’s first role model is most often her mom (Daniluk & Usmiani 47). If this relationship somehow goes astray, the young girl may easily form a negative body image of herself. Behaviors of self abuse often occur right around the age of puberty, and the reaction to a negative self-esteem may result in NSSI and cutting. According to Ruberman (120), girls who choose cutting as their means of self-injury are using their skin as a â€Å"canvas† to cut open and obtain some control over their own body. This behavior is derived from the lack of control they feel they posses. Ruberman (120), states in her artic le that a mother’s job is to stand by her daughter as she grows from birth without interfering with her own fea... ...ans of communication when less intense strategies have failed, such as yelling or speaking. All in all, the decision to take part in self-punishment is highly influenced by the behavior of others as we are growing up. Works Cited Glassman, L. H., Weierich, M. R., Hooley, J. M., Deliberto, T. L., & Nock, M. K. (2007). Child maltreatment, non-suicidal self-injury, and the mediating role of self-criticism. Behaviour Research & Therapy, 45(10), 2483-2490. doi:10.1016/j.brat.2007.04.002. Ruberman, L. (2011). Girls who Cut: Treatment in an outpatient psychodynamic psychotherapy practice with adolescent girls and young adult women. American Journal Of Psychotherapy, 65(2), 117-132. Usmiani, S., & Daniluk, J. (1997). Mothers and their adolescent daughters: Relationship between self-esteem, gender role identity.. Journal Of Youth & Adolescence, 26(1), 45.

Mythology and literature Essay

The definition of mythology is deprived from the word ‘myth’. The word itself comes from the Greek word ‘mythos’, which means fable, legend or sagas. The word â€Å"myth† is a story that seeks to rationalize the universe and the world around us, passed down orally from generation to generation explaining religious origin, natural phenomena or supernatural event. Mythology is a collection of myths that concerns with cosmogony and cosmology, shared by a particular society at some particular time in human history. Literature is a body of written works of language, period or culture. Literature can be divided into fiction (e.g. fairty tale, gothic, saga etc) and non-fiction (e.g. essays, journal, science fiction etc). There are many distinctive natures of mythology and they seek to describe what a particular person or society believe during that period of time. Myths serves as an charter for their institutions, customs and beliefs. The typical mythology is the explanation of the universe and its ethology. Normally, the setting is set in a previous proto-world (simliar to the current world but also different) and they often revolve around non-human or â€Å"extroadinary† people such as god, goddess, supernatural beings (e.g. zeus, adam and eve, prometheus etc). These story explains why things are and how they became to be. It ‘rationalised’ our way of thinking, reconcile us to reality and establishes our pattern of life. Apart from the explanation of the creation of the universe, mythologies seek to explain everyday natural phenomena. Certain myths explains way the sun exist and why there is night and day. Some explains the existance of seasons: Spring,Winter,Summer and Autumn while others shows of mother nature providing us with food and shelter. These myth suggest a way of understanding nature and organizing thoughts. For example, structualism recognizes different contrasting aspect (light and dark, good/evil) as centres to myths which charters for social order or value within a society (functionalism). Myth have been created by human beings for many reasons over thousands of years. They are an intellectual product of humanity and a rich resource for the ideas and belief of past generations. Their extroadinary and unbelievable aspect combined with the constant thought that there might be something ‘out their’ is what keeps mythology functioning and is what keeps literature moving. There are also many differences between literature and mythology. For instance, they were used for different purposes and existed in different times. Myth several purposes, including to socially/politically control society (e.g. to spread a myth about something to control people, to scare people when facts were not available). Literature on the other hand, is more about persuading and informing people. There are also other benefits to mythology that cannot be achieved in literature, such as there is no boundary to the world, there is no such thing as ‘false’ and there is low risk of anyone challenging your theory. The sets of beliefs also differ and the way they view the world differs. For example, literature’s audience are educated modern people while mythology’s one is from the old generation where there was not much information about the world and how it works. This would mean that the two different texts have different intended audience which would inev itably show why they differ so much. Both are products of humans but during different time frame. The arrival of the modern era would inevitably mean the death of mythology. The transformation from one to another was the belief that myth was useless, false and outmoded and that it did not ‘work’. Science (regarded as a ‘fictional literature’) was the objective explanation of how the world around us work while the subjective myth was about faith and believing something ‘unfounded’. Scientific rational thought was based on empricial knowledge, a priori (not falsifiable) and our way of thinking is based on facts. Myth is ultimately a different knowledge, an ideology, a set of ‘belief’. Systems of myths have provided a cosmological and historical framework for societies that have lacked the more sophisticated knowledge provided by modern science. Myth is related to science, however it only provide basis for a theory, not knowledge. For example the myth of how the origin was created would have lacked modern day rational scientific belief because they would prefer a more ‘true’, superior and more authority theory, which is the big bang theory. Our modern rational paradigm thought is based on observation. Scientific rational thinking is based on logic to solve or explain how the world works and as it becomes a part of our everyday thinking, mythology will be inevitable cast aside. Carl Jung invented modern scientific theory and for him, the world of dream, and myth represented the most fascinating and promising road to deeper understanding. The significance of literature in mythology as said ‘We need the stories of myth to make sense of the confusion of our society and our own psyches. Myth voices the truths of our unconscious selves, and the gods, goddesses, and heroes of myth embody aspects of creativity, cleverness, grief, joy, aggression, and ecstasy. Carl Jung believes that even the most sophisticated and important literature requires some mythological aspect. (E.g. the Lord of the Ring depends on mythical characteristic to drives the ideas; horror movies have a ‘message’ and some urban myth taps into child’s fear of a ‘bogyman under the bed’) Northrop Frye criticises literature and states the importance of cultural myth underlying literature (E.g. Sea, land and sky, control, creation, decay, regeneration, our ‘fear’). Mythology evokes our sub-conscious mind (e.g. dream) which is employed by reference to mythology in literature. Frye states that mythology provided themes for some of the world’s greatest drama, and similar themes can be traced back to the Renaissance literature, through to Shakespeare (E.g. Hamlet, Midsummer Nights Dream) and finally to modern poetry and thus mythology plays a significance role with literature. One could even say that literature is based on mythology. Karen Armstrong book â€Å"A Short History of Myth† is about how literature and mythology were shaped by the problems of the society people lived in. Armstrong states that the existence of Mythology from an early period: ‘Human beings fall easily into despair, and from the very beginning we invented stories that enabled us to place our lives in a larger setting, that revealed an underlying pattern, and gave us a sense that, against all the depressing and chaotic evidence to the contrary, life had meaning and value.’ With the coming of the ‘great revolutions in human experience’ science was used to explain ‘facts’ as opposed the theory of myth, which became ‘useless, false and outmoded.’ Literature, which could explain things that was never thought possible, was regarded as the next ‘step’ from mythology (from an uneducated society to a civilized society). The relationship between literature and mythology is one of similarities as well as differences. They are both important creation by human beings and will continue to play an important role in the intellectual world. Literature will always include some aspect of myth which will continue to shape our modern world like it did in the past.