A view from the bridge Essay Example for Free

A view from the bridge Essay The immigrants travelled to America to escape the extreme circumstances in their home countries. They went in search of the American Dream, which was denied them because of the discrimination they suffered under the right wing Government established in America at the time. The policies of the American Government forced the immigrants to live in densely populated slums on the outskirts of the cities. They were wage slaves and were forced to seek day labour, especially in the docks, as is shown in A View from the Bridge. Anyone who became known as a left-wing political activist usually within a trade union was blacked and denied work. What is the social context of the play? The play A View from the Bridge was set in the proletarian slums of Brooklyn harbour, New York during the nineteen-fifties. At this point in time, life for immigrants and other people of the working class was very tough as men received the minimum wage for hard labour in the Brooklyn docks. The immigrants tried to save some of their poor earnings to send home to their impoverished families, which is what Marco sets out to do in the play. However, the conflict between the characters in the play results in the destruction of this goal. What is the cultural context of the play? The play is based on the idea of the laws of the street, which revolved mainly around honour. This creates an alternative society with its own concept of justice, which differs from the constitutional law of America. Eddie upholds the law of the land when he informs the immigration authorities that Marco and Rodolfo are illegal immigrants, however, by doing this, he breaks the social and moral laws of his community. The macho male dominant figure within the family demonstrated in the play by Eddie reflects the culture of Sicilian society and the power of the mores of the Mafia. In his society name is everything and Eddie is destroyed by the loss of his reputation, and he cries out, I want my name! Marcos got my name - (page 62) The tragic outcome of the play is caused by the conflict between trying to maintain traditional Italian values within a very different society, where individuals are driven by desire to achieve the American Dream. Rodolfo and Catherine start to live the American dream, whilst Eddie and Marco cling to their Italian roots. Rodolfo buys American records and clothes as he prepares to settle in America, whilst Marco sends his money home to his family in Italy as is expected of a good Italian father. When Marco wants a traditionally Sicilian blood revenge against Eddie, Rodolfo argues with him for the first time and wants him to compromise so that he can have a future in America: MARCO In my country he would be dead now. He would not live this long. ALFIERI All right, Rodolfo you come with me now RODOLFO Marco promise the man. Please, I want you to watch the wedding. How can I be married and youre in here? Please, youre not going to do anything; you know youre not. (page 58) This last speech by Rodolfo shows how powerless the immigrants are in a society where they are forced to compromise with a culture that is alien to them and to live by rules that go against their concept of justice and honour.

The Theory And Practice Of Organisations

The Theory And Practice Of Organisations Various theories have been significant in forming and recognising organisations. Throughout the twentieth century, the theory and practice of organisations have been modified from a more traditional management approach were efficiency and profits were the main goals to a more networked approach where service and user satisfaction are the focal points (Hughes and wearing 2007). Each organisation is different. Differences relate to varying missions, demographics, location, physical environment, management style, levels of funding and financial conditions, and whether the organisation is public, nonprofit, or for-profit, among other factors. This essay will discuss the importance of organisational mission/vision statements, structure, resourcing and service in distinguishing human service organisation from one another as well as provide theoretical analysis on how this can influence the organisations practices and services. Human service organisation is the word often used to describe health, welfare, and educational organisations, and is generally identified as organisations whose goals are to provide some kind of service for people individually or communities (Gardner 2006). Human service organisations set out influence in structuring the nature of social work practices. The agency provides the decree and authorisation for carrying out societies order in regard to the health and well-being of the citizens and regulates the resources essential to accomplishing this work (Hanson, 1998). Human service organisations obtain their purpose from community needs and priorities, as characterised by the social settings at any given time. In many ways social work practice is established , facilitated, and at the same time controlled by the purposes and operating modes of human service organisations. In theory , purpose is comparatively consistent across all human service organisations in that in a broader sense meet the needs and contribute to the well being of consumers , and to contribute to the overall social welfare (Jones and May 1992,pg.84 , as cited by Gardner 2006).It is imperative that the overall vision does conveys the broad hopes of the organisation as well as comprehend the intricacy of its purpose. Womens Domestic Violence Crisis Service (WDVCS) is a Victorian State-wide service for women enduring violence and abuse from a partner or ex-partner, another family member or someone else they are close to. Women Domestic Violence Crisis Service acknowledge the diversity of women and childrens experience and supplies a response that respects the unique needs of the individual woman and their children. WDVCS will ensure that the response meets the requirements of the organisations funding and service agreement and its legal obligations. The organisation through feminists realised the importance of servicing woman who have been experiencing domestic violence, and the wants for those women to be safe. At the beginning, WDVCS started from several individuals houses, were they would answer phone calls to service the community, to what is now classified as an organisation. The philosophy of the organisation is that violence is not acceptable on the basis of human rights and that women expe riencing domestic violence have the right to be safe. Domestic violence does not affect one certain type of individual but in fact affects a vast array of individuals from across all levels of society and from all types of religious, ethnic and race groups. The Womens Domestic Violence Crisis Service of Victoria (WDVCS) acknowledges that the staff of the organisation are a vital and valuable resource. WDVCS has an obligation to supporting the growth and preservation of a demographically diverse workforce that is highly skilled, motivated and resourced to ensure quality and continuity of service delivery. All staff of WDVCS are expected to work within the Philosophy, Policies and Procedures of the organisation and abide by the Code of Conduct. WDVCS is not an auspice, it is a corporate association in its own right which means WDVCS has its own board, CEO, coordinators and staff .WDVCS has four coordinators, Telephone crisis coordinator, accommodation coordinator, communication coordinator and Quality committee coordinator. All of whom supervise the phone team and accommodation team. The Communication coordinator works on community development and media projects which was established by WDVCS in 2008, the aim of the project is to educate women on how to share their experience in domestic violence to the public via the media and also to empower women to respond to media in a self-assured way. The board of WDVCS is responsible to set all WDVCS strategic plans of the organisation. The board insures all the risk managements of the organisation, as well as ensures that the CEO utilises the organisation resources, budget in order to carry out the strategic plan. WDVCS has nine female board members who came from diverse factions o f the community. Organisational structure frequently involves an array of values and beliefs about the roles and responsibilities on how decisions should be made by using a criterion. The Womens Domestic Violence Crisis Service of Victoria (WDVCS) has a commitment to feminist, democratic work practices. It is essential that decision-making authority be informed by processes that are participatory, democratic, transparent and responsive to the needs of women who use the service. There are two ways decisions can be made ,formal and informal, the formal part is governed by board .WDVCS is not a very hierarchical organisation as such. The organisation has regular meeting, quality committee which involve staff member who have inputs to the organisation policy and procedures via quality meeting and they make recommendation for same policy to be taken for further discussion on staff meeting, CEO of the WDVCS stated in the interview that they take a more democratic and concise of organisation decision making but the end of the day the final decision lies back to CEO. Workers involvement and input to worker meeting and quality meeting result in less frustration with organisational superiors as participation allows workers to feel somewhat accepted. The community does not have much input on the organisation decision making process , however if user or community member were interested in the organisations decision making process they can be nominated to join the board that way they can become more involved. The only way the organisation receive input from community is the feedback from their clients via telephone service and through women who access the accommodation but it is an area the organisation is working on to improve via WDVCS website. So the community can have an opportunity to have an input and provide feedback. The Womens Domestic Violence Crisis Service of Victoria (WDVCS) is committed to a rights advocacy direct service delivery model. The service model emphasises a crisis intervention response, which prioritises safety, informed choices and the rights of women to control decision making about available alternatives. This service model offers high quality crisis intervention, counseling, advocacy, support, information, referral and emergency accommodation services to women and their children who are victims of domestic/family violence. The service model is primarily focused on reinstating women and their childrens right to live safely in the community. This service delivery model supports the unique role of the WDVCS as the only statewide telephone crisis service and supported emergency accommodation service provider for women and children who are victims of domestic/family violence. The Womens Domestic Violence Crisis Service of Victoria (WDVCS) recognises the basic human rights of all w omen and children to: safety, shelter and food; live free of fear and violence; and dignity and respect. WDVCS is committed to providing responses that respect the rights of women and their children to be supported in their efforts to be free from violence in an environment that is safe from physical, sexual, emotional/psychological, economic and verbal abuse.The primary service users of WDVCS are women and their children who are victims of domestic/family violence. The Majority of the WDVCS service users are self referral, however they might get a hold of WDVCS information from other services in the sector such as the police, other domestic violence services, community health or the yellow pages. WDVCS has a policy to empower women even if other service do initial referral WDVCS staff will make sure to speak to woman to hear her story with empathy Today, viewpoints toward how organisations should be run vary considerably from the classic bureaucracy expressed by earlier theorists. Efficiency has culminated to have its appeal as the most crucial goal or characteristic of organisations. The work environment itself is seen as a critical variable in how much and how well organisations function to attain their purposes. In todays view organisations are dynamic, developing and changing in interaction with external stimuli. Partnerships within and between organisations form and restructure among employees and interest groups as each searches for to improve its own interests. Within this framework, each organisation cultivates a unique philosophy that influences how it functions (Hanson, 1998). Human service organisations are so different; it is not feasible to touch on all the aspects that affect the organisational base of practice. Internal factors have to do with decisions largely made within the organisation about how it will accomplish its business. External factors include social welfare laws and regulations, judicial decisions, funding allocations, and the level of competition among similar agencies in the community. These and other factors determine the parameters in which the organisation functions and set the boundaries for social work practice within them.

Modern Industrial Society

Modern Industrial Society This essay will attempt a brief review of the history of the concept culture and its relationship with the concept civilization, in order to understand the two concepts, without making any claims towards offering anything new in the analysis of the chronological account of how the definition of culture changed over time.  [1]  Instead, the essay will attempt to explore the harmonies and dis-harmonies in the utilization of the two concepts, as a way of coming to terms with immanent ruptures and continuities which were explicated in various ways in which the logic and lexicon of these concepts were deployed in the different anthropological traditions over the years. From the outset, I would like to mention that I almost abandoned this particular topic because of the difficulties I encountered in finding a concise definition of, mainly the concept of culture. When, after several weeks of reading, it finally dawned on me that actually there was none, it all started to make sense that the subject of defining the concept of culture has never been closed and was never intended for foreclosure. This meant that understanding how the concept was variously deployed was as important as appreciating the manner of its deployment, especially in ways in which this was always associated with the concept of civilization, whose definition was more straightforward. The notion of Culture: Following a very unsuccessful search for a concise definition of the concept culture, it dawned on me that Terry Eagleton and several others was after all correct when he said that culture was one of the few very complicated concepts to have ever graced the English language (Armstrong, 2010: 1; Eagleton, 2006: 1; Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952). Culture was a very difficult concept to define because the evolution of its etymology and its deployment varied in different contexts and anthropological traditions, both contemporary and classical. Its meaning in one setting was often contested in another. The word culture was first used in America  [2]  , and in etymological terms, its contemporary usage has its origin in attempts to describe mans relationship with nature, through which resources were extracted. It depicted the outcomes of extraction of resources from nature through a process of labor, for example, through crop farming and livestock production (Eagleton, 2006: 1). It was in this sense that the concept was first formally deployed in the 19th century in Germany, where the word used was Kultur, which in German referred to cultivation.  [3]  The early German usage of the word culture was heavily influenced by Kant, who, like his followers, spelled the word as culture, and used it repeatedly to mean cultivation or becoming cultured, which subsequently became the initial meaning of civilization (Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 10). The way the concept was first used in modern English borrowed from the usage first made of the word by Walter Taylor, which dates back to 1871 , although according to Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952: 9), Taylors use of the word culture, which was borrowed from German, was similar to the way the word civilization was used in Germany. The above sense in which the concept culture was for long deployed depicted it as an activity or occupation that entailed a materialist dimension related to the extraction of resources from nature. Coming from Walter Taylor, the modern scientific sense of the word culture no longer refers primarily to the process of cultivation, but more generally as a manifestation of customs, beliefs and forms of government (Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 10). The latter sense signifies some abstraction to the transcendent and divine realm of spiritualism. Over time, the concept was also deployed in other ways that depicted it as an entity (Eagleton, 2006: 1). There was also a sense in which the concept of culture also depicted the transformation that took place in societys experiences with changing technologies of production as capitalism developed, although this understanding was quite often deployed in racist terms to differentiate between less industrialized nations of the non-west from the more ind ustrialized European societies. It is true, as observed by Eagleton that the relationship between nature and culture was such that nature produces culture which changes nature (Eagleton, 2006: 3). In this sense, there is a part of nature that is cultural, and another that is not. The part of nature which is cultural is that part which labor transforms, for example, into works of art, monuments, skyscrapers (or building structures) or cities. Such products of culture are as natural as rural idylls are cultural (Eagleton, 2006: 4). Because culture originally meant cultivation, or managing the growth of crops, which means husbandry, the cultural therefore would imply that which was within ones means to change. As pointed out by Eagleton (2006: 4), the stuff to be altered has its own autonomous existence, which then lends it something of the recalcitrance of nature in much the same way as the extent to which culture transforms nature and also influences the rigorous limits nature imposes on the cultural project. To this extent, I am in agreement with Eagleton (2006: 4-5) that the idea of culture signified a double rejection, of, on the one hand, the representation of culture as an organic (biological) determinism; and, on the other, as an interpretation of culture as an embodiment of autonomous spiritualism. To this extent therefore, culture rebuffs naturalism and idealism founded in biological determinism by insisting that from the point of view of culture, there was also a representation within nature which exceeded and dismantled nature. It also represented a refusal of idealism because even the highest-minded human agency had its humble roots in our biology and natural environment. The resulting contradiction from this rejection of naturalism (emanating from organic determinism) and idealism (as a result of autonomy of spirit) led to a contest between what had actually evolved and what ought to, which transfigured into what Eagleton described as a tension between making and being made, between rationality and spontaneity (Eagleton, 2006: 5). Consequently, although the relation between humans and nature was important to an understanding culture, in this paper, I consider the social relations between humans and nature in the course of extracting from nature, through which humans change nature to be the most important. This is what is central to understanding the concept of culture, which makes it possible to view it as a systematic way of life and living, that humans consciously develop that is transferred from the past to the present and into the future. It depicts some semblance of historically assembled normative values and principles internal to social organizations through which a diversity of relationships are ordered. In this way, it is possible to see how culture becomes an abstraction of itself, in its own right, which does not reify culture as a thing as this essentializes culture. I am inclined to agree with Armstrong (2010: 2) in her definition, which presents culture more as a process of meaning making which i nforms our sense of who we are, how we want to be perceived and how others perceive us. The above said, we also need to recognize that while culture is important, it is also not the only factor that shapes social relations between humans in the course of impacting on nature in ways that change it. Several other social, economic, political, geographical, historical and physical factors come into play. It is necessary to recognize that culture, which embodies as much as it conceals its specific history, politics and economics; is, as also pointed out by Franz Boaz  [4]  , not inert. It is an inherently Boasian conception to view culture as extremely dynamic; as having life, and existing in a continuous state of flux, as new notions of and about culture continues to emerge. This means that cultures cannot be expected to be static and homogenous. As new cultures emerge, tensions are usually generated. The totality of any culture and its individual trait cannot be understood if taken out of its general setting. Likewise, culture cannot also be conceived as controlled by a single set of conditions (Benedict, 1934: xv). It is also Franz Boaz  [5]  who noted that culture is some form of standardized or normative behavior. An individual lives in his/her specific culture, in as much the same way as culture is lived by an individual. Culture has a materiality that makes it manifest in diverse patterns implying that it meaningless to try and generalize or homogenize about cultural patterns (Benedict, 1934: xvi). Thinking of culture as socially constructed networks of meaning that distinguish one group from another implies not only a rejection of social evolution but also an endorsement of cultural relativism, which is also a Boasian tradition.  [6]  Boaz  [7]  rightly argued that perspectives that view culture in evolutionary terms tend to end with the construction of a unified picture of the history of culture and civilization, which is misleading. Tendencies which view culture as a single and homogenous unit, and as an individual historical problem is extremely problematic (Benedict, 1934: xv). I consider the distinctive life-ways of different people as the most basic understanding of the notion of culture. Cultural relativity is a recognition that different people have cultures and life-ways that are distinct from those of others. The notion of civilization: The concept of civilization, like culture, also has a complex etymology. By 1694, the French were already using the verb civiliser, and referred to the polishing of manners, rendering sociable, or becoming urbane as a result of city life (Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 11). The French notion of civilization referred to the achievement of human advancement manifest in certain customs and standards of living. The French considered civilization as the end point of a process of cultivation that took place over centuries (Elliot, 2002). The English lagged behind the French.  [8]  In 1773, Samuel Johnson still excluded civilization from his dictionary, preferring civility, and yet civilization (from the word civilize) captured better the opposite of barbarity than civility. The English subsequently adopted the concept of civilization deriving it from the verb to civilize and associated it with the notion of civilizing others. The 1933 Oxford Dictionary defined civilization as: A developed o r advanced state of human society; a particular stage or type of this (Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 12). By the 18th century, the word civilization in German was associated with the spread by the state of political developments akin to the German state to peoples of other nations. It was somewhat similar to the English verb to civilize (Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 11). For the Germans and English, the concept of civilization invoked an imperial political agenda that was apparent in the way they deployed the concept. The harmony and dis-harmonies in deployment of concepts of culture and civilization: The evolutionary thinking about culture and civilization in the philosophy of Durkheim: Among the scholars who attempted a very rigorous narrative intended to distinguish between culture and civilization was Émile Durkheim, whose writings were first published in 1893. In trying to come to terms with the complex division of labor and associated behavioral changes that occurred with the industrial revolution in England, Durkheim, argued that inside modern industry, jobs were demarcated and extremely specialized, and while each product was a specialty, it entailed the existence of others in form of the labor they input into its production. As society evolved from agriculture to industry, so did culture of the pre-industrial era give way to civilization associated with the conditions of progress in human societies. Durkheim extended the concept of division of labor from Economics to organisms and society, from which its association with culture was derived, arguing that the more specialized an organisms functions were, the more exalted a place it occupied in the animal hierarchy. For Durkheim, the extent of division of labor in society influenced the direction of the development of the evolution of mankind from culture to civilization (Durkheim, 1984: 3). Durkheim used division of labor to make the distinction between culture as a preserve of the pre-modern mediaeval society and civilization as belonging to the modern industrial society. Durkheim argued that all societies are usually held together by social solidarity. In the pre-industrial societies, where social bonds were based on customs and norms, this solidarity was mechanical while in the industrial societies, which were highly individualistic, the solidarity was organic, and social bonds were maintained by contracts which regulated relations between highly individualistic beings. To Durkheim, societies transition from relatively simple pre-modern societies to relatively more complex industrial societies (Durkheim, 1984: 3). Durkheim argued that division of labor influenced the moral constitution of societies by creating moral rules for human conduct that influenced social order in ways that made industrial societies distinct from the pre-industrial ones. It created a civilized, individual man, capable of being interested in everything but attaching himself exclusively to nothing, able to savor everything and understand everything, found the means to combine and epitomize within himself the finest aspects of civilization. For Durkheim, tradition and custom, collectively defined as culture were the basis of distinction of the simpler societies which defined their mechanical form of solidarity that they exhibit. The modern societies, according to Durkheim, were characterized civilization (Durkheim, 1984: 3-4). Durkheim advanced an essentially Darwinian argument. In the biological determinism of Durkheim, it is argued that the shift from mechanical to organic solidarity was comparable to the changes that appeared on the evolutionary scale. Relatively simple organisms showing only minimal degrees of internal differentiation ceded place to more highly differentiated organisms whose functional specialization allowed them to exploit more efficiently the resources of the ecological niche in which they happened to be placed. The more specialized the functions of an organism, the higher its level on the evolutionary scale, and the higher its survival value. In similar ways, the more differentiated a society, the higher its chances to exploit the maximum of available resources, and hence the higher its efficiency in procuring indispensable means of subsistence in a given territory (Durkheim, 1984: xvi). There were fundamental contradictions in the perspectives of Durkheim. If Durkheim denigrated culture to the pre-modern, and viewed society as developing in evolutionary terms to the industrial, it could be assumed that he also believed that the solidarity which was associated with the industrial society was better. What then explains the fact that Durkheim was deeply convinced of and concerned about the pathology of acquisitiveness in modern capitalist society? Durkheim did not believe that the pathological features of the industrial society were caused by an inherent flaw in systems built on organic solidarity. Rather, he thought that the malaise and anomie were caused by transitional difficulties that could be overcome through the emergence of new norms and values in the institutional setting of a new corporate organization of industrial affairs (Durkheim, 1984: xxi). For Durkheim, the flaws in industrial and class relations did not mean that the pre-modern characterized by culture was better. That the class conflicts which were inherent in the industrial society and were associated with the structure of capitalist society would be overcome by the emergence of a new corporate society in which relations between employers and employees were harmonized. Beholden to none of the political and social orientations of his day, Durkheim always attempted to look for a balanced middle way (Durkheim, 1984: xxii). The contemporary play of relationships between culture and civilization has, to say the least, rendered wanting, the ideas which were advanced by Durkheim. For example, if culture is a preserve of the pre-modern, what explains the pervasiveness of barbarism within civilized formations of the industrialized world? Can we have culture in societies that are characterized as civilized or with civilization? Or are societies that are said to possess culture devoid of civilization? The contradictions in the etymology and deployment of concepts of culture and civilization: The usage of culture and civilization in various languages has been confusing. Websters Unabridged Dictionary for English defined both culture and civilization in terms of the other. Culture was a particular state or stage of advancement in civilization. Civilization was called advancement or a state of social culture. In both popular and literary English, they were often treated as near synonyms, though civilization was sometimes restricted to advanced or high cultures (Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 13). As early as the 1950s, there were some writers who were inclined to regard civilization as the culture of urbanized societies characterized by cities. Often, civilization was considered a preserve for literate cultures, for instance, while the Chinese had civilization, the Eskimo were seen as in possession of culture (Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 13). The English language distinction between civilization and culture made in the past was different from that made in the German language. In German, civilization was confined to the material conditions, while the English expression sometimes included psychic, moral, and spiritual phenomena (Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 13). The German Kultur also referred to material civilization, while culture in English over time came to mean something entirely different, which corresponded to the humanities. The German Kultur also related to the arts of savages and barbaric peoples, which were not included in any use of civilization since the term civilization denoted a stage of advancement higher than savagery or barbarism. These stages in advancement in civilization were even popularly known as stages of culture; implying that the word culture was used synonymous with the German Kultur (Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 13). In English, culture was a condition or achievement possessed by society. It was not individual. The English phrase a cultured person did not employ the term in the German sense. There was a sense of non-specificity in the way in which the concept culture (Kultur) was deployed in the German sense (Krober Kluckhorn, 1952: 13). From its etymological roots in rural labor, the word culture was first deployed in reference to civility; then in the 18th century, it became more or less synonymous with civilization, in the sense of a general process of intellectual, spiritual and material progress. In Europe, civilization as an idea was equated to manners and morals. To be civilized included not spitting on the carpet as well as not decapitating ones prisoners of war. The very word implied a dubious correlation between mannerly conduct and ethical behavior, which in England was equated to the word gentleman. As a synonym of civilization, culture belonged to the general spirit of Enlightenment, with its cult of secular, progressive self-development (Eagleton, 2006: 9). Form my reading of the literature on this subject, it was not clear at what point culture and civilization begun to be deployed interchangeably. Suffice to mention, however, that in English, as in French, the word culture was not unconditionally interchangeable with civilization. While it was not entirely clear, between the two concepts of culture and civilization, which predated the other, they both shared a transcendental association with the notion of cultivation, as something which is done to (or changes in) humans in the course of exacting labor upon nature to change it, that leads to the development of human qualities to suit the needs of collective humanity. Culture, which emerged in German from the notion of Kultur, which meant cultivation, appeared as a form of universal subjectivity at work within the particularistic realm of our separate individualities. For Eagleton (2006: 8), it was a view of culture as a component of civilization which was neither dissociated from socie ty nor wholly at one with it. This kind of focus also portrayed an essentially Kantian notion of man as becoming cultivated through art and science, and becoming civilized by attaining a variety of social graces and refinements (or decencies), in which the state had a role to play. This Kantian conception therefore distinguished between being cultivated and being civilized. Being cultivated referred to intrinsic improvement of the person, while being civilized referred to improvements of social interrelations (interpersonal relations), some kind of ethical pedagogy which served to liberate the collective self buried in every individual into a political citizen (Eagleton, 2006: 7; Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 11). There was a sense in which the concept of civilization had an overwhelming French connection (coming from the concept civilizer), in the same way culture was associated with the Germans (from the concept Kultur). To be described as civilized was associated by the French with finesse with regards to social, political, economic and technical aspects life. For the Germans, culture had a more narrowly religious, artistic and intellectual reference. From this point of view, Eagleton (2006: 9) was right when he observed that: (i) civilization was deployed in a manner that played down national differences, while culture highlighted them; and, (ii) the tension between culture and civilization had much to do with the rivalry between Germany and France. I am reminded here of Eagletons famous phrase that: civilization was formulaically French, while culture was stereotypically German (Eagleton, 2006: 10-11). Towards the end of the 19th century civilization and culture were invariably viewed as antonyms. If, however, the description by Eagleton (2006: 9) of French notion of civilization as a form of social refinement is acceptable, then one can also accept Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952: 14) description of civilization as a process of ennobling (or creating nobility) of humanity through the exercise by society of increased control of the elementary human impulses. This makes civilization a form of politics. In the same light, I also agree with Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952: 14) that cultures German connections link it with the control of nature through science and art, which means culture embodies technology (including equipment) as well as knowledge systems (including skills) relevant for subduing and employing nature. The implications of the above are two-fold: (a) culture and civilization, can not be looked at as antonyms or binary opposites, in the sense in which evolution theorists would want us to view the relationship between these two concepts with culture as being akin to an inferior status while civilization is ascribed to the superior; (b) both tend to depict not only elements of normativity in advance in life-forms, but also constantly improving internal conditions of the internal elements of these concepts that define humanity which they embody. There is a way in which the elements embodied by these concepts depict superiority in their respective life-forms. Even when there are tendencies for overlaps in the elements depicted by these two concepts, for example, their association with politics, art, technology and urban living, there is a sense in which both concepts cannot be viewed as stages of development one from the other. It appears to me that Eagleton viewed civilization as a value-judgmental concept that pre-supposed an improvement on what went before, to whatever was not only right, but a great deal better than what was (Eagleton, 2006: 10). Eagleton was also non-presumptive when he pointed out that historically, the deployment of the term put it within the lexicon of a pre-industrial European middle class, which used the concept to justify imperial ambitions of mercantile and early industrial European capitalism towards those they categorized as of inferior civilization (Eagleton, 2006: 10). This fact has to be borne in mind if the concept when the concept is deployed today. Culture on the other hand, required certain social conditions that bring men into complex relationships with natural resources. The state becomes a necessity. Cultivation was a matter of the harmonious, all-round development of the personality. Because there was overwhelming recognition that nobody could do this in isolation, this helped to shift culture from its individual to its social meaning. Culture had a social dimension (Eagleton, 2006: 10). Whichever was, between culture and civilization, the progenitor of the other, there is a dual sense in which these concepts appear linked by their enlightenment era roots; and also not linked at the same time. I agree with Eagleton that civilization sounds abstract, alienated, fragmented, mechanistic, utilitarian, in thrall to a crass faith in material progress; while culture seems holistic, organic, sensuous, autotelic and recollective. However, I have reservations with Eagletons postulation of, first, a conflict between culture and civilization, and secondly, presentation of this conflict as a manifestation of a quarrel between tradition and modernity (Eagleton, 2006: 11). One of the greatest exports from the Enlightenment era was its universalism. Post-enlightenment political philosophy contributed significantly to critiques of enlightenments grand unilineal narratives regarding the evolution of universal humanity. We can look at the discourse of culture as a contribution to understanding the diversity inherent in different life-forms with their specific drivers of growth. Increasingly, it had become extremely perilous to relativize non-European cultures, which some thinkers of the time idealized as primitive (Eagleton, 2006: 12). In the 20th century in the primitivist features of modernism, a primitivism which goes hand-in-hand with the growth of modern cultural anthropology emerged, this time in postmodern guise, in form of a romanticizing of popular culture, which now plays the expressive, spontaneous, quasi-utopian role which primitive cultures had played previously (Eagleton, 2006: 12). While todate the concepts civilization and culture continue to be used interchangeably, there is also still a sense in which culture is still deployed almost as the opposite of civility (Eagleton, 2006: 13). It is not uncommon to encounter culture being used in reference to that which is tribal as opposed to the cosmopolitan. Culture continues to be closed to rational criticism; and a way of describing the life-forms of savages rather than a term for the civilized. If we accept the fact that the savages have culture, then the primitives can be depicted as cultured and the civilized as uncultured. In this sense, a reversal means that civilization can also be idealized (Eagleton, 2006: 13). If the imperial Modern states plundered the pre ­-modern ones, for whatever reasons, is it not a statement of both being uncultured and lack of civility, quite antithetical to what one could consider as civilization of the west. What sense doe it therefore make to posture as civilized and yet act in an uncultured manner? Can viewing culture as civilization, on one hand, and civilization as culture, on the other hand, help to resolve the impasse in the contemporary deployment of these concepts? One fact is clear, either way; it has potential to breed postmodern ambiguities of cultural relativism (Eagleton, 2006: 14). Alternatively, if culture is viewed, not as civilization, but as a way of life, it simply becomes an affirmation of sheer existence of life-forms in their pluralities (Eagleton, 2006: 13). Pluralizing the concept of culture comes at a price the idea of culture begins to entertain cultural non-normativities or queer cultures, in the name of diversity of cultural forms. Rather than dissolving discrete identities, it multiplies them rather than hybridization, which as we know, and as Edward Said observed, all cultures are involved in one another; none is single and pure, all are hybrid, heterogeneous, extraordinarily differentiated, and non-monolithic (Eagleton, 2006: 15). Attempts to valorize culture as a representation of particular life-forms associated with civility can also be perilous. There is a post-modern sense in which culture can be considered as an intellectual activity (science, philosophy and scholarship), as well as an imaginative pursuit of such exploits as music, painting and literature. This is the sense in which cultured people are considered to have culture. This sense suggests that science, philosophy, politics and economics can no longer be regarded as creative or imaginative. This also suggests that civilized values are to be found only in fantasy. And this is clearly a caustic comment on social reality. Culture comes to mean learning and the arts, activities confined to a tiny proportion of humanity, and it at once becomes impoverished as a concept (Eagleton, 2006: 16). Concluding Remarks: From the foregoing analyses, it is clear that understanding the relationship between culture and civilization is impossible until we cease to view the world in binaries in which the West (Europe) was constructed as advanced and developed with the non-West perceived as primitive, barbarous and pagan. Historically, the Wests claim of supremacy was always predicated on their provincialization of the non-west, whose behavioral patterns were judged from the experience of the West, and characterized in generalized terms as traditional customs and therefore culture. I agree with Benedict, that the West did all it could to universalize its experience to the rest of the world, even when this experience was different from that of those from the non-west (Benedict, 1934: 5). Assumptions of the mutual exclusivity of culture and civilization in society are premised on perceived irreconcilability of values and beliefs. Religion was always used in the West to posit a generalized provincialism of the non-west. It was the basis of prejudices around which superiority was justified. No ideas or institutions that held in the one were valid in the other. Rather all institutions were seen in opposing terms according as they belonged to one or the other of the very often slightly differentiated religions. In this contemporary era of highly globalized populations of footloose movements an

Odyssey Theme Paper :: essays research papers

The Odyssey Theme Paper   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Odyssey is mainly about the tribulations of a great hero; that hero would be Odysseus. Although Odysseus does not appear in this epic until the fifth book, he is still the main character. Odysseus, whom I will call the hero, has many tribulations in this epic. Read on to see what I mean.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This story starts right after the Trojan War; the Greeks have won, thanks to one of Odysseus’ great ideas. All the kings are now trying to get back home to their families. Odysseus, however, will have the most problems.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The first place Odysseus goes after the war is the land of the Ciconians. He and his men raid the island and destroy the village. However the next day, more Ciconians arrive and defeat Odysseus and his men. Several men are killed, and Odysseus experiences his first of many sorrows and tribulations. Next, the hero goes to the land of the lotus-eaters. Some of his men eat the lotus plant and instantly want to stay there and never leave. Odysseus manages to get his men away from the island, and they leave. Then the hero arrives at the home of Polyphemos. Polyphemos is a huge cyclops and also a cannibal. Odysseus and twelve of his men are trapped inside Polyphemos’ cave and can’t get out. Polyphemos comes back and eats some of the hero’s men. The next night Odysseus gets the cyclops drunk on wine, and when it falls asleep, Odysseus and his remaining men blind it with a large pole. He and his men barely escape with their lives and continue on the voyage. The hero soon lands on Aeolus’ island. (Aeolus is the Keeper of the Winds.) He helps Odysseus on his way by giving him the right winds to take him home to Ithaca. The hero gets within site of his home but a hurricane blows him all the way back to Aeolus’ island. This time Aeolus turns Odysseus away, and he is forced to continue his journey. The hero and his men next end up in the Land of the Midnight Sun, where the Laestrygonians live. The Laesrtygonians attack the men and sink eleven of the twelve ships. Only Odysseus’ ship and forty-four men escape to safety. This is one of the most painful tribulations Odysseus faces on his journey. Soon afterwards, Odysseus and his now small crew arrive on Circe’s island.

Book Review of The Things they Carried Essay -- essays research pape

Tim O’Brien’s, The Things they Carried is a riveting tale of struggle and sacrifice, self indulgence and self pity, and the intrapersonal battles that reeked havoc on even the most battle tested soldiers. O’Brien is able to express these ideas through eloquent writing and descriptive language that makes the reader feel as if he were there. The struggle to avoid cowardice is a prevailing idea in all of O’Brien’s stories.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In â€Å"On the Rainy River†, O’Brien writes of intrapersonal struggle in its most profound form. The gripping torture of indecision seemed to paralyze Lt. Jimmy Cross in every move he made. Fear is what kept him away from the war, and fear is what made him join his countrymen in battle. A pacifist who did not support the war, the narrator Jimmy Cross was forced to make the difficult decision of what was more important to him. In the end, it was Cross’s reluctancy to deal with the consequences of pacifism which made his decision to go to war. That indecision seems to stay with Cross throughout the book and causes him much hardship in many of the short stories.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The struggle to avoid cowardice is very important to the narrator. In his time near the Canadian border, he has much time for self reflection. That self reflection seemed to be something very necessary for Lt. Jimmy Cross. While there, he discovered that devotion to his family, his hometown, and his country was stronger than devotion to his own mora...

ISO 9000 :: Business Companies Essays

ISO 9000 Introduction In order to stay competitive, businesses have to be the best at what they do. Company's must be efficient and presise in all aspects of the job. (Metcalfe 1). ISO 9000 is made up of management's responsibility, the producers involved in the Quality Management System, the contract review, the design control, document and data control, purchasing, process control, inspection and testing, control of non-conforming product, corrective action, handling, storage, packaging and delivery, internal quality audits, training, servicing and statistical techniques (Prasanna 1). Quality control and quality assurance is very important there are certain requirements that take time and money to be met but in the end there are benefits. Types of specifications are very significant and the documentation of those is even more. Manufacturers and purchasers have major responsibility in the process of being successful. The quality of a product is so important, especially to the customer. A company's quali ty management system must become the documented proof of a firm's commitment to quality management. A plan put together with quality procedures and work instructions is provided to help companies design their own quality management system. After completing the quality procedures, companies are audited and then determined if they should be certified for ISO 9000 or not (Parsanna 2). ISO: International Organization of Standards Founded in 1947 in Geneva Switzerland, ISO developed international standards and helped exchange goods and services worldwide. It is made up of over 90 countries including the US, which is called the American National Standards Institute. The name ISO came from the Greek word, "isos," meaning equal (Henkoff 2). ISO was created by business men (Henkoff 2). These business men knew what businesses needed to become more competitive and how they could get higher customer satisfaction, so ISO was developed. ISO is not government regulated, but is ran by organizations like the US Registrar Accreditation Board. Such organizations authorize registrars which issue ISO certificates (Barrier 2). In Europe some organizations are government regulated. The American National Standards Institute runs the ISO in the US and authorizes the US Registrar Accreditation Board (Barrier 2). ISO's job is to set standards for companies all over the world so that their products come out efficiently and to the best quality. This helps the customers who receive the exports know exactly what they are getting and are satisfied with the product. Setting these standards is done by ISO members at assembly meetings.

On the Necessity of Rationalism

In the process of considering the various means of justification, a relativistic conception of reality assumes that the truth and hence the validity of a statement may only be assessed in relation to the perspective of the discipline which holds a particular belief. In this sense, truth is dependent upon the internal coherence of beliefs within a system of thought. In his The Last Word, Nagel claims that such is not the case. He argues that the truth and hence the validity of statements are dependent upon an unqualified notion of reason.He claims that the truth of a statement is independent upon any particular perspective. If such is the case, it follows that the truth of any statement is independent from the schema [truth schema] presented by any system of thought. In relation to scientific claims, it thereby follows that the truth of scientific claims ought to be assessed through the unqualified notion of reason as opposed to merely their internal coherence within the scientific co nception of reality [scientific framework].The aforementioned argument is based upon the critique of the intrinsic limits to subjectivist doubt since challenges to the independent validity of reason must themselves assume the independent validity of reason. Any explanation of reason deriving from outside the mind can itself be explained only from inside the mind, as having its own independent validity. In the case of scientific knowledge, he argues that it is mistaken to assume that the scientific discipline has freed itself from the limits of the Cartesian problem through the replacement of judgments about rules of practice from objective judgments.Nagel argues that if science will continually adhere to a subjectivistic and hence relativistic framework, the discipline will fail to provide an objective account of reality. He claims, â€Å"the general aim of such reasoning [scientific reasoning] is to make sense of the world in which we find ourselves and how it appears to us and ot hers† (81). If such is the case, it is necessary to conceive of the conception of the world which is not based upon an a priori conception of reality dependent upon a preconceived and limited conception of the word. According to Nagel, such an account is not provided by science.The reasons for this lies in the subjectivism of science (Nagel 84). Subjectivism within science [scientific methods] is apparent if one considers that the scientific â€Å"demand for order cannot itself be rationally justified nor does it correspond to a self-evident necessity† (Nagel 84). He notes that scientific subjectivism can only end if it adheres to rational means of knowledge acquisition. It is only through the defense of rationalism that an objectivist account of evidence is possible.Nagel further argues that the appeal of subjectivism arises out of a certain reductionist impulse in modern explanation as this reductionist impulse enables the explanation of things to hinge on their reduc tion to local and finite terms thereby ensuring subjectivist conclusions. Although this enables the assurance against rationalist explanations that refuse to make reason into something irrational or that conceive of reason as a capacity for grasping the universal and infinite principle, the reductionist explanation is in itself dependent on an irreducibly nonlocal and objective understanding of reason. Nagel argues that doubt about reason presupposes reason’s independent validity hence reason’s independent validity cannot be coherently doubted.He rightly argues that to object to reason on the grounds we cannot strictly explain it in naturalistic terms is to misunderstand the irreducible nature of the concept since reason cannot be so explained without losing its meaning or validity and that, as such, it is justified in a different way, by showing it to be necessary to intelligible thought and action. Science thereby must opt for a rationalistic as opposed to a subjecti vistic account of reality for it to maintain its value as a discipline.Work CitedNagel, Thomas. The Last Word. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.Essay Number TwoEdmund Gettier’s Counterargument Against thePlatonic Tripartite Account of Propositional KnowledgeThe Platonic tripartite definition of propositional and fallibilist knowledge found in the last section of the Theaetetus states that knowledge of P occurs when an epistemic agent S knows that P if and only if (1) P is true, (2) S believes that P, and (3) S is justified in believing that P (90). A well-known opposition to such an account of propositional knowledge questions the sufficiency of the aforementioned conditions.It is argued that although the aforementioned conditions are necessary in the definition of propositional knowledge such conditions are insufficient due to their failure to ensure S against conditions wherein knowledge of P occurs as a result of mere epistemic luck (Gettier 123). This critique is b est known as the Gettier type counter examples towards the tripartite definition of propositional knowledge mentioned above.A logical problem is posited by the Gettier type counter examples. This logical problem is evident in the lack of successful coordination between the truth of P and the reasons that justify S in holding P. Floridi notes that Gettier type counter examples arise â€Å"because the truth and the justification of P happen to be not only independent but also opaquely unrelated that they happen to fail to converge or agree on the same propositional content P†¦without S realizing it† (64). In order to understand this, it is important to lay down the main assumptions of Gettier’s counter argument that seeks to explicate the aforementioned logical problem.Gettier’s argument against the tripartite account of propositional knowledge, which involves the conception of knowledge as justified true belief arose as a result of the following claim: knowl edge [propositional knowledge] does not merely involve justified true belief. Such a claim is based upon the following assumptions. First, there are instances wherein the warrant is not a sufficient condition for a belief in P. This is evident if one considers that instances of belief and knowledge of P are in some respects epistemically different [other than in terms of truth] from belief of P without knowledge of P. Second, there are instances wherein warrant is fallible.This is due to the insufficiency of truth and justification as warrants for knowledge. The evidence of such, according to Gettier is apparent if one considers that it is possible for P to be false even if S believes that P possesses epistemically significant properties such that whenever a belief possesses such properties and is true the belief may thereby qualify as knowledge. Lastly, there is the closure of knowledge under obvious and known entailments. The last assumption argues that if S is justified in believ ing P and a deductively valid inference is drawn from P to another belief Q then S is justified in believing Q. This is a result of the entailment of Q from P.From what was stated above, it is possible to present the usual form of Gettier’s attack against the tripartite account of knowledge. Gettier’s counter argument is based upon the critique of warrant, fallibility, and closure. Note that combination of the three claims mentioned above leads to a contradiction. From what was mentioned above it follows that it is possible to believe in an obvious deductive consequence of P, which is Q, while in the process retaining the epistemically significant properties of the belief in P.If such is the case, it is possible to have a justified true belief of any property which has led S to have a belief in Q or any other type of belief which has Q’s epistemic characteristics. Note that this contradicts the assumed necessity that P and Q differ from each other since one qual ifies as knowledge [S believes and has knowledge of P] whereas Q merely qualifies as a belief [S believes but does not have knowledge of Q].Works CitedFloridi, L. â€Å"On the Logical Unsolvability of the Gettier Problem.† Synthese 142(2004): 61-79.Gettier, E. â€Å"Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?† Analysis 23(1963): 121-23.Plato. Theaetetus. Trans. M.J. Levett. Indiana: Hackett Publishing Co., 1992.