Race, Class, and Gender Rothenbergs book

Race, Class, and Gender Rothenbergs book Introduction Race, class, and gender are issues that many people find incredibly hard to appreciate and recognize as characteristics of diversity that define people not only in the United States but also on global platforms. From this dilemma, this paper focuses on conducting a critique of various articles appearing in Rothenberg’s book Race, Class, and Gender in the United States.Advertising We will write a custom critical writing sample on Race, Class, and Gender: Rothenberg’s book specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Racial Formations by Michael Omi and Howard Winant Michael Omi and Howard Winant discuss issues of class, gender, and race. They see these issues as social constructions as opposed to scientific aspects, which define people’s differences (Rothenberg, 2009, p.11). The authors view race as a concept that is deeply seated in the history of all people across the globe since time immemorial. Although human beings are seen as equal irrespective of their race, gender, or class with the modern approaches to race, gender, and class studies, Michael Omi and Howard Winant wonder why it is possible for one to see people who are different in terms of skin color, gender, and social economic status. Social economic status is a major factor that is used to segregate people into different classes. Although this debate is not consistent with the struggles by many nations including the United States to ensure that all people irrespective of their diverse characteristics are considered equal human beings whose fundamental human rights must be respected, the argument by Michael Omi and Howard Winant holds substance. I agree with it. Despite the extent to which people may decide to deny the realities of racial and gender identities, it is a fact that they identify other people as women or men, or from their place of origin. For instance, some Americans are categorized as Asian-Americans, whites, or Af rican-Americans. Notwithstanding the fact that all these persons are considered part of the rich American diversity, the usage of these terms to distinguish Americans has the aspect of race ingrained within them. Now, consistent with Michael Omi and Howard Winant’s arguments, it is perhaps impossible to see other people as ‘just people’ rather than seeing them as women and men.Advertising Looking for critical writing on social sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More This argument contends with Michael Omi and Howard Winant’s Assertion that â€Å"we utilize race to provide clues about who a person is† (Rothenberg, 2009, p.12). This ability is often navigated from one generation to another based on perceptions of how a particular group of people appears in terms of their faces. It is common during conversations to encounter people putting forward comments such as ‘you really do n’t look like a white’, which indicate that some people have some racial stereotyping, either positive or negative, on the manner in which certain races of people behave or act. I agree with Michael Omi and Howard Winant that perception of class based on social economic status is a major issue that afflicts many nations across the globe including the United States. For instance, the authors argue that interpretation of racial identities is heftily influenced by perceptions of class (Rothenberg, 2009, p.15). This argument often leads to construction of negative stereotypes. For instance, blacks have had an experience of being negatively stereotyped as predominantly belonging to a low social economic status. This matter perhaps reveals why there have been repeated cases for blacks being associated with crime. The question that rises from this issue is, should negative stereotyping of blacks explain why there is a higher prevalence of the blacks is prisons? Does it then n ecessarily mean that blacks belonging in low social economic class, as they are profiled in some media, imply that they engage in crime to earn a living? My position is that these cases are merely habits of thought, which while given public attention end up being legitimized. Consequently, they act as incredible mechanisms of distinguishing wrongly and profiling other people wrongly. This position agrees with Michael Omi and Howard Winant’s position that failure to appreciate that people are equal and similar amid their skin color or social economic status ends pushing for negative gender, race, and class perspectives beyond skin color conceptualizations (Rothenberg, 2009, p.14). How Jews Became White by Karen Brodki Written by Karen Brodki, the article ‘How Jews Became White’ narrates how European immigrants as from 1880s became assimilated into America, what the author terms as becoming white. This discussion is significant in terms of advancement of the debate of race, class, and gender perspectives as major experiences that the U.S. has been struggling to handle.Advertising We will write a custom critical writing sample on Race, Class, and Gender: Rothenberg’s book specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The article explores deeply into one of the dominant issues in America, which marked the beginning of appreciation of diverseness for Americans in terms of recognition of the contribution of every person irrespective of his or her place of origin, race, or class in economic development of the American nation. However, the author makes it clear that the substantive growth of America as a nation has not come into being in an easy way, but has entailed many struggles to deal with identities of people who make up the nation. In the studies of gender, class, and racial differences of persons, the developments made by the article on the process that was followed by the Jewfish emigrants before they were assimilated into America is incredibly significant. Jews were emigrants from Europe. Here, they were treated as an inferior class of people. Such perceptions of inferiority emanated from the fact that Jews provided the much-needed labor to the Native American. This case made the ‘white’ even more wealthy especially during the era of industrial boom in the United States (Rothenberg, 2009, p. 61). The usage of the word ‘white’ is strikingly significant in the perceptions of race and class. Indeed, Jews are white in terms of skin color. However, when it is argued that the white owned the factors of production while Jews provided the necessary labor to keep the industries moving on, it implies that persons in the low social economic status were not considered as real whites, although their skin color could be white. Education is one of the essential factors that determine the social economic status of an individual. Educated persons have better chanc es of acquiring better jobs. Hence, their social economics status is also likely to be higher. This argument coincides with the Karen Brodki assertion, â€Å"prior to the civil war, a college degree was still very much a mark of the upper class† (Rothenberg, 2009, p.61). This idea means that schools could only be accessed by those individuals belonging to higher social economic status, whether Native American or immigrants.Advertising Looking for critical writing on social sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The situation even became worse for immigrants such as the Jews when colleges in 1930s had minimal rooms to accommodate immigrants irrespective of their social economic status. This argument is significant by noting that 1930s marked a significant time when racism was at its peak. In this context, I agree with Karen Brodki that perception of race and class are essential factors, which help to explain the struggles that America has gone through in the effort to reach its current state of embracement of various socio-demographic diversities of her inhabitants and integration of different cultures of a diverse number of people (Rothenberg, 2009, p.66). Today, the racially and culturally diverse people have a common culture referred to as the American culture. This culture does not segregate people along tribal, racial, gender, or even socio-economic class. All people have the rights to access justice and basic human needs including education and employment opportunities. The Social Con struction of Gender by Judith Lorber Authored by Judith Lorber, in the article Night to His Day: the Social Construction of Gender argues that people create gender through their social interactions. This argument means that gender is acted and performed. Judith Lorber supports this assertion by claiming that acting of gender involves prescription of various roles for different gender. For instance, the author says that it sounds awkward to some people who still believe that the roles of women and men are different in the society to think of men strolling children in the city of New York (Rothenberg, 2009, p.54). The manner in which people describe the dressing code and other characteristics of people also acts as a means of acting gender. For instance, thinking of description of a child as wearing certain clothes, which are thought of being supposed to be worn by a girl child is a mechanism of acting gender. This argument means that people have particular things that they expect one gender to do and not the other. Indeed, it is until the last two decades that people across the globe have appreciated that men could also put on earrings. This means that the history of people has always dictated things that are supposed to done by one gender as opposed to the other. In this extent, gender is performed and acted by people. Although gender may be seen from the perspective of Judith Lorber as an issue that can be evaded, the manner in which evading it can be done supersedes the reality of the manner in which gender is constructed within the minds of people. Judith Lorber posits, â€Å"Gendering is done from birth, constantly, and by everyone† (Rothenberg, 2009, p.55). This position means that immediately people are born, they are introduced to the debate of gender perspectives so that, by the time children learn to talk, they know the gender they belong to, mostly male or female. Arguably, the process through which this process takes place is beyond the contr ol of people since gender is implied even in the language that people use to communicate right from the usage of nouns to pronouns that refer to different genders. This kind of gender categorization of persons often gives rise to conflicts. For instance, based on normalization of the only two types of gender, transgendered persons may end up having whole life internal conflicts amongst themselves in the attempt to come to an understanding of why they divert from the normalized gender categories. Should this case then reveal why some persons who are transgendered strive with the problem of looking for mechanisms of transforming their gender identity so that they can fit into one of these two-gender categories: male or female? Despite the challenges that are introduced in the society by gender acting, I agree with Judith Lorber that gender is inevitable in some aspects. Judith Lorber argues, â€Å"As a social institution, gender is one of the major ways that human beings organize the ir lives† (Rothenberg, 2009, p.55). The collective progression of a society is dependent on divisions of labor. People can be selected to fit into different areas of economy based on motivations, talents, and even their academic qualifications. However, can people run away from the culture of classifying some jobs as more prevalent to certain gender relative to the other? This question is perhaps more important by considering that, even today, while people claim that there is no specific job that needs to be the province of a given gender, people still allocate tasks in a work environment to different persons based on age and gender demographic factors. Arguably, it is not surprising to encounter a job opening being advertised stating that the most preferred candidate should be a male or a female. Nevertheless, I agree with Judith Lorber that people are born with determined sex, with gender being socially induced (Rothenberg, 2009, p.57). Although one is born with the awarenes s that he or she is a girl or a boy, or even transgendered, it is from social interactions that one comes to learn than boys or girls dress in a certain manner, play certain games, have certain names, which are feminine and masculine, and the unique characteristics that best explain their sameness. The argument here is that, consistent with Judith Lorber’s presentation of gender identities along with how they are constructed, people perform and act gender. It is through such performance that one becomes cognizant of his or her sex. The Invention of Heterosexuality by Jonathan Ned Katz In his article The Invention of Heterosexuality, Jonathan Ned Katz traces the historical development of the concept of heterosexuality. To the author, studying the history of this concept is important since, â€Å"by not studying the idea of heterosexuality in history, analysts of sex, gay, and straight have continued to privilege the ‘normal’ and ‘natural’ at the expe nse of the ‘abnormal’ and ‘unnatural’† (Rothenberg, 2009, p.150) . From this assertion, it is evident that the author sees the concept of heterosexuality and the entire sexuality concept as being characterized by different interpretations as time progresses from when the biblical story of creation took place to the modern world. I subscribe to the above school of thought. There has been a change of what people consider a normal sexual inclination. The history of American experiences with sexuality struggles perhaps reveals it all. In the early 19th century, being a gay or a lesbian was a big crime. It was seen as both ethically and morally inappropriate. It was considered one of the ways of tearing the social fabrics that had been binding the American society together. The only socially justifiable sexual inclination was heterosexuality, which is now being described by the term straight. A century later, homosexuality including lesbianism and gay sexu al orientation are considered as normal sexual orientations. Indeed, it is an offence to discriminate people on the grounds of their sexual orientations in America. Jonathan Ned Katz also believes that there has been a big change in the manner in which sexuality is visualized. During the early Victorian age, 1820 to 1860, the author claims, â€Å"the actors in the sexual economy were identified as manly men and womanly women and/or as procreators† (Rothenberg, 2009, p.151). This description means that, if procreation did not fit in the equation of any relationship between two people, such a relationship was condemned. This case was to change later in the 1960s to 1980s when recognition of only one sexual orientation began to raise attraction of sexuality movements such as those staged by homosexual with the objective of acquiring the rights of being recognized (Rothenberg, 2009, p.158). This case clearly showed that sexuality is not a function of procreation but eroticism. In this regard, I agree with Jonathan Ned Katz since desire is the main driver of one’s sexual orientation. People have the freedom to satisfy their own desires subject to the limitation that they do not harm other people. Why should people fail to recognize homosexuality and other sexual inclinations? Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History by Douglas Baynton In this article, Douglas Baynton argues that disability encompasses one of the main aspects that are used historically to treat people unequally. According to him, discrimination of people has called into question the aspect of disability to ensure that such discriminations are justified (Rothenberg, 2009, p.33). Careful scrutiny of developments in the political arena of various nations makes this assertion of Baynton important. Analysis of how different groups of people have struggled to gain their freedoms reveals that disability is not just a physical incapability. For instance, women were de nied suffrage rights in America until 1930s on the ground that they had flaws that were related to their gender, which incapacitated them from making good decisions. Such deficits provided amicable responses to why male members of the society were not only valid and capable for making decisions such as voting the right people but also why they needed to domineer over women. Considering also the mass killing of Jews during the Nazi regime, the question of disability also arises. People who were killed during this time, mainly of Jewish origin, were considered an inferior race. Hence, the Jewish question was worth resolving. The solution was to mass slaughter Jews on the accounts of the perceived disability. From the above discussion, it intrigues one to think of how gender, race, and class are interrelated in terms of disability. Baynton provides an adequate response to this noble challenge by discussing the experience of black Americans with slavery. He argues, â€Å"The most commo n disability arguments for slavery were simply that African-Americans lacked sufficient intelligence to participate or compete on an equal basis in society with white Americans† (Rothenberg, 2009, p.37). Therefore, there was a misconception that skin color could indicate the degree of one’s intellectual intelligence. Consequently, skin pigmentation, other than white, was a disability. In this extent I agree with Baynton that disability is a crucial discriminatory issue that the society has always attempted to handle. Baynton evidences the darkest part of the historical relationship between disability and incapability when he argues that African-Americans were also considered having the risks of developing physical disabilities when they were given freedom. While this argument is important in developing the arguments for justification of denial of freedom among black Americans on the grounds of the perceived and actual disabilities, it is questionable whether indeed skin color may be indicative of one’s proneness to certain disability challenges such as deafness yet biologically there is evidence that skin color is due to melanin. This chemical component of the human body is not related to other aspects such as intelligence and susceptibility to situations that may make an individual disabled. Reference Rothenberg, P. (2009). Race, Class, and Gender in the United States. New York: Mac Higher.

10 things you get from our custom term paper writing service Essay Example

10 things you get from our custom term paper writing service Essay Example 10 things you get from our custom term paper writing service Essay 10 things you get from our custom term paper writing service Essay With every new academic year lessons are getting harder, amount of assignments is increasing and free time is getting more limited. Sleepless nights of study, missed classes and many other reasons are necessitating students to turn themselves to the custom writing services to get qualified writing help with their assignments. Once you choose to use our writing service, you will be entitled to a long list of advantages you get with us. In this short article, 10 things you get from our custom term paper writing service will be touched on briefly. First of all, with us you will get excellently written custom term papers which match all your needs and requirements. 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Reaction Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Reaction - Essay Example According to Dr. Audrey Young, the type of training and experiences that are taught in medical school skip basic elements that facilitate communication and understandability of the patients. The book bases its initial principles on the fact that medicine originates from the patient. The ability for a doctor to listen to the feelings and perceptions of the [patient is a step towards the healing and recovery process. However, medical school has taught doctors to have a minimum interaction with the patient. Particular emphasis is laid on disease diagnosis through research and treatment as opposed to the soothing and communicative nature doctors must possess in order to reassure their patients of a quick recovery of the various types of diseases that they may be experiencing (Young, 2009). Communication and maintain a good rapport with the patients is the foundation of medicine. Great lessons in a career such as what Dr. Audrey Young is pursuing teach the professionals to be humble and sympathetic. It also should teach them to be tolerant and brave since there are many instances that will require them to have a lion’s heart in order to deal with them. According to my evaluation of the experiences that Young passed through during her years in Medial school, I view medicine to be a calling rather than a profession (Young, 2009). It requires a great initiative by the individual to acquire knowledge about the facts of the course and knowledge on how to blend into different cultures and people’s lifestyles in pursuit to give treatment and better health care. It was therefore prudent for the curriculum of the institution to expose the students to different environments with people of various beliefs, ailments and origins. Dr. Young worked from the regions of Seattle in the United States of America, Swaziland, Pocatello and Idaho. She encountered patients with

Goal Statement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Goal Statement - Essay Example Growing up in this situation opened my eyes to the fact that my town, my country, my neighbors, needed help. My sense of responsibility for my fellowman became my inspiration in school. I knew that if I wanted to help my community, I would need to have a job in the future that would allow me to enact changes that would benefit those whom I love. It was this goal in particular that became the driving force of my educational career. I consider myself lucky to have been able to successfully complete my grammar and higher education in record time. My decent grades and academic accomplishments allowed me to apply for and gain entry into Makerere University in Uganda as a student of Urban Planning. The reason that I enrolled in Urban Planning as a college major was really quite simple. Since I knew that the town I came from had a problem in terms of population control that led to the lack of facilities and financial budget with which to improve the lot of our community, somebody needed to develop a plan that would directly address the problems of the community and hopefully, remedy the situation. I worked as an Urban Planning Engineer for a number of years after my graduation. At the time I felt that I was doing a tremendous amount of good for my fellow Ugandans because I was able to help better plan communities, facilities, and projects that directly affected their daily lives and the lives of future generations. I took great pride in seeing my suggestions and recommendations coming to life as it was adapted by local city governments and the like. There was extreme degree of personal satisfaction that I managed to glean from this particular job. I knew I was doing well and I was able to improve the lives of my fellowman but, as I slowly walked the various towns and cities of Uganda, all of whom I was tasked to create various urban development projects for, I came to realize that urban planning was not all that I thought it could be. It had its limitations when it ca me to proper care of communities. Although I was able to help improve lives by building roads and structures that helped modernize the areas and bring in much needed jobs. There was still a lot of work to be done. Mostly because the modernization projects that I was involved in did not help improve the health of other Ugandans. Rather, the developments made their health worse as they became exposed to various elements and air borne viruses that came to fore during the construction period of various projects. That was when I knew that I had to change careers. I needed to help Ugandans where they needed it the most, in the field of medical healthcare. But where would I begin? Coming from a family of healthcare professionals, they reminded me of my childhood dream that got derailed when I developed an interest in engineering and urban planning. It took very little to remind me that I originally wanted to become a medical professional because of the influence of my other relatives who a ll worked in the medical field in various positions. I have relatives who are doctors and nurses. I had the grades for medical school, I just needed to decide upon which particular medical field I wanted to become involved in. The decision to center my second career in the nursing field was something that came to me almost automatically. Although I could have

The Postmodern Proletariat Essay Example for Free

The Postmodern Proletariat Essay ABSTRACT Although the landscape of the business world has changed dramatically, there is disagreement among scholars as to whether Marx’s theory of alienation still applies to the current workplace environment. Although the advent of unions and teamsters groups, employee stock options and ownership sharing plans, and job benefits seem to ameliorate working conditions thereby minimizing the existence of alienation, some scholars believe that other inventions from capitalism such as globalization and information technology communications offset the balance gained from these improvements in labor relations thereby further promulgating its effects. Using historical observation from the early years of capitalism in America, social identity theory, and literature on information technology and corporate cultural diversity, a disparity emerges regarding how the social alienation of minorities differs from that of non-minority members. A dialectical inquiry is made to determine how the history of capital labor in America is related to social alienation based on a worker’s racial or cultural heritage. INTRODUCTION Some scholars suggest that Marxian theory is antiquated and that due to advances in technology, the evolution of industry and the change in the way business is conducted, individuals in the workplace may experience less alienation than before. The evolution of organizational and employee developments such as the unions and teamsters groups, employee stock options and ownership sharing plans, and job benefits may offer explanations as to why symptoms of alienation have yet to birth a proletariat revolution as theorized by Marx. Additionally, socio-economic â€Å"safety nets† established by legislation to save capitalism such as the creation of the â€Å"living wage†, welfare, child labor laws, equal employment opportunity and affirmative action programs, and social security have also assisted in the maintenance of capitalism thereby minimizing the impact alienation has on individuals in the workplace. However, for most minorities and women these developments that have occurred throughout American history have done little to ameliorate alienation because until approximately the last 30 – 40 years few labor laws were designed with minorities in mind. As a matter of fact, even legislation designed to protect minorities and women is often challenging to enforce, allowing alienation to exist from factors including unequal employment opportunities, a lack of diversity in the workplace, and unequal pay between men and women or based on race. Research suggests that women and minorities on average still make as little as between 75% 80% of white men’s wages in paid labor. Marx has been criticized for overlooking this stratum of alienation based on race and gender that illuminates a different face of capitalism. Marx proposed four dimensions of alienation that can be classified as self, social, product, and means of production. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how alienation occurs in different ways overlooked in the literature by redefining the worker through the lens of social identity theory which may explain how alienation is a relative concept. Questions will be addressed such as which workers may experience relative alienation? What other forms of alienation exist and to whom may it apply? And how can the new proletariat be effectively managed in efforts to reduce anxiety as a result of social or cultural dissonance? Following a brief literature review of Marxian theory, social identity theory, and literature on information technology, I will examine how the expansion of capitalism has spawned a modern more diverse proletariat that still experiences alienation, but in varying degrees that differ from non-minority workers. This paper will theoretically demonstrate how time affects the social alienation of minorities in a manner different than non-minority members resulting in a dialectical inquiry of how the history of capital labor in America is related to social alienation. LITERATURE REVIEW The link between capitalism and labor Throughout the history of the world, it is labor power which has elevated any so called civilized society. According to Marx, before the emergence of capitalism, society was more communal and each person in society contributed his/her own labor where it was needed and in the way best suited for his or herself (Marx Engels, 1951). For example, there were blacksmiths, hunters, fisherman etc. and each bartered and traded with one another for their sustenance. Approximately 2,000 years before the dawn of capitalism â€Å"false needs† (those needs that the culture capital industry makes us to believe are real (Marcuse, 1964) did not exist apart from necessary ones such as food and shelter. For almost all of human history people and communities grew, hunted, and traded for what they needed (Agger, 2004). The creation of money changed this, according to Marx (Marx Engels, 1951a), because it could be saved and used for many purposes as it became an intermediary in the trading proces s. Instead of simply being used as a tool of value to acquire necessary needs like basic food and shelter, money began to signify success or social status which gradually distanced individuals from one another (Agger, 2004), hence the term alienation. Another type of labor Marx termed free labor (Marx Engels, 1951b), although the term â€Å"free† is a misnomer. This form of labor was one in which slaves provided labor. They were bought and sold along with their labor power once to a slave owner thereby becoming a commodity such as a dishwasher or a tractor. It is important to note that the slave is the commodity so his labor power is no longer a commodity that belongs to him. Marx’s account of history explains how the bourgeoisie capitalist emerged (Marx Engels, 1951a) but for the purposes of this paper I will fast forward to capitalism in colonial America which includes the most recognized form of labor that still exist today, wage labor. Although wage labor is labor that is at first owned by the worker, it can be sold by the worker thereby making it so that the labor is no longer under the worker’s control. â€Å"The worker receives means of subsistence in exchange for his labor power, but the capitalist receives in exchange for his means of subsistence labour, the productive activity of the worker, the creative power whereby the worker not only replaces what he consumes but gives to the accumulated labour a greater value than it previously possessed.†(Marx Engels, 1951b, pp85) This type of relationship between the worker and the capitalist along with the creation of currency creates what Marx termed as alienation (Giddens Held, 1982). Marx’s theory of alienation Marx attributes four types of alienation to labor under capitalism (Giddens Held, 1982). According to Marx, when the worker gets paid for completing an assigned task, he is actually selling his labor as a commodity. This commodity is a form of capital that Marx terms as having social power because the power is transferred from the proletariat or worker to the capitalist (Marx Engels, 1951b). Once this transfer of labor power occurs, alienation develops for many reasons as outlined by Marx (Giddens Held, 1982). The first includes the alienation of the worker from his or her true self as a human being rather than a machine due to the lack of opportunity for self expression and directly benefitting from the fruits of one’s individual labor. The profit or commodity created as a result of one’s labor is privately owned by someone other than the creator. The second form of alienation, social alienation, occurs between workers since capitalism reduces labor to a commodity to be traded on the market and disrupts the social relationship among workers. Thirdly, since the product is controlled by the capitalist, alienation exists between the worker and the product itself. The worker no longer has control of his own life because he no longer has any control of his own work. Before the emergence of capitalism, labor was a person’s life activity. According to Marx a worker never become autonomous or experience self-realization because their life activity or work becomes controlled by someone else. The manifestation of their life through the fruits of their labor is no longer realized by the worker herself. Now their labor is only significant in the way the bourgeois want it. Lastly, alienation exists from the act of production itself due to high specialization and the division of labor (Smith, 1991) among workers that results in high efficiency for the capitalist but becomes a meaningless activity, offering little intrinsic satisfaction for the worker. Marx also noted that religion strengthens the alienation process by causing individuals to accept their lot in life no matter its condition. Social identity theory Tajfel (1978) defines social identity as â€Å"that part of an individual’s self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his membership of a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership.†(pp. 63). Tajfel and Turner (1979) further described social categorization as one of three processes that underlie social identity theory (SIT). Social categorization is the process by which individuals categorize others into groups in efforts to organize social information (Ellemers, De Gilder, Haslam, 2004; Tajfel, 1978). According to Tajfel (1978), social categorization is the underlying process of SIT that is sufficient as well as necessary to induce forms of in-group favoritism and out- group discrimination. The second process, social comparison, occurs when people make comparisons between the self–perceived categories of groups in relation to the group’s perceived values and their own individual values ( Tajfel, 1978). Social identification, the final process, allows people define themselves based on their level of affiliation with a group that they believe shares the same values they wish to attain. The choice of group affiliation is also based on the perceived value that the group holds in expectation of receiving personal benefit from such membership (Ashforth Mael, 1989). Ashforth and Mael (1989) also note that this categorization process serves the purposes of (a) helping people make sense of their environment by defining other in relation to their group membership, and (b) enabling individuals to define themselves in comparison to other groups. People are then more likely to identify with a group with whom they share similarities, because their identification is based on how they categorize themselves as similar to those within the group (van Knippenberg van Schie, 2000). Turner (1978) demonstrated in various experiments where groups were created with minimal categorization, when there is no category placed on them, participants artificially created in- groups and out- group dynamics. This showed evidence that individuals in groups will create artificial divisions between themselves and individuals from other groups even when no observable differences are salient. Other experiments demonstrated that since race is a very salient characteristic, its social categorization may induce in-group favoritism and out-group discrimination as well. One such example of how inter-group bias is resolved through an understanding of SIT is taken from what is known as the Robber’s Cave study in which two groups of boys campers were placed on two different sides of the campgrounds unaware one another (Gaertner, Dovidio, Banker, Houlette, Johnson, McGlynn, 2000). Upon each group’s awareness of each other, they immediately began to discriminate against each other for no salient reason other than the fact that they were in different groups. This resulted in each group creating an in-group and out-group condition. However, using decategorization, conflict between the two groups was ameliorated (Gaertner, Dovidio, Banker, Houlette, Johnson, McGlynn, 2000). Decategorization is the process by which individuals in groups are isolated from their group and placed in a situation in which they must interact with a member from another group they deem as the out-group. Over time, surface level differences erode and deep level similarities emerge which helps them to decategorize themselves in relation to their group membership. Isolation from the influence of their group members enables this decategorization to occur, thereby reducing conflict between the members from different groups. The contemporary workplace Managing diversity. Some diversity scholars suggest that a demographically representative workforce results in more innovation and creativity (Jackson, 1991; Cox Blake, 1991). There has been an increased recognition of the need for more diversity as it is not only ethical, but is also good for business. A diverse workforce assists companies in attracting customers by having sales teams that â€Å"speak the language† of the minority consumer. Marketing and promotion becomes more effective because a company with a diverse workforce has a greater understanding of the culture and values of its consumers helping them to connect with them. Overall, this paradigm shift in the hiring practices of current companies occurs as it heavily impacts their bottom line in a profitable manner. This new shift is very evident as the backlash from majority group members such as White males mounts. Protests against affirmative action programs and blaming minorities for economic crises such as job layoffs, falling real incomes, and diminished access to quality education have resulted in racial profiling and hate crimes (Agger, 2002), other ways to alienate minority members. Information communication technology (ICT). Communication via technologies has been shown to change group interaction. It tends to equalize participation, because group members participate more equally, and charismatic or higher status members may have less power (Kiesler, Siegel, McGuire, 1984). Social psychological aspects of computer- mediated communications studies of groups that make decisions via computer interaction have shown they were more uninhibited and there was less influence from any one dominant person. It appears that groups that communicate by computer experience a breakdown of social and organizational barriers. This may occur because we as individuals can recreate ourselves forming a new identity, a cyber self (Agger, 2004). The cyber self is described by Agger as the self-assembled, manipulated persona that â€Å"accesses† the world via online. According to Agger, a capitalist system thrives off consumer self-invention as we create status and false needs for ourselves. In a cyber-capitalism (Agger, 2004) this still occurs but with one’s true identity hidden. This may be beneficial for minorities who still may become socially alienated even after reinventing themselves. THEORETICAL DEVELOPMENT Karl Marx said â€Å"the history of all hitherto-existing society is the history of class struggles† (Marx Engels, 1951a). Although many scholars acknowledge overlaps between class and race, I believe the salience of racial color and distinct racial features helps to further explain dynamics regarding the relationship between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and its effect on promulgating capitalism and alienation. As we have observed, the history of social economic systems depicts changes in how labor was utilized. Consequently, it may also demonstrate the extent of alienation exhibited by workers. The majority of the first settlers and later most immigrants of European ancestry up until present day experienced alienation as theorized by Marx. But unlike the worker who sold his labor as the commodity, the slave laborer was the commodity, providing free labor while the worker or the serf earned a wage. Although Marx does make the distinction between wage labor and slave labor to some degree (Marx Engels, 1951b), he does not delve into the consequences or the degree of the difference between the two regarding the consequences of alienation. According to Marx, the capitalist society leads to the alienation of workers by not allowing them to express themselves through their work. The proletariat is alienated because she is compensated less for her labor versus profiting from her own entrepreneurial efforts. Smith argued that this arrangement is fair because the capitalist assumes the risk (Smith, 1991). This debate may be arguable for the average laborer at that period in history, but can this same argument of fairness hold true for the slave laborer? Although Marx spoke about alienation among working class, he failed to detail the condition of the slaves at the time who one could argue were the most alienated. At best, Marx related that the Negro slave is a commodity only if used as one, such as a sewing machine or any other commodity (Marx Engels, 1951b). In reality SIT demonstrates how the saliency of race attaches a stigma to the slave as being only a slave, with skin color serving as an identifier. The result is that not only was the labor of a slave a commodity, but the slave itself was the commodity who could not profit from his/her own labor. This is the first example of how alienation differs between minorities and other workers. A dialectic exists because although alienation exist for all workers, it is greater for minorities, ergo the slaves, due to social injustice. This oversight in Marxian theory is important to recognize as it may mean that levels of strength of alienation should be identified. Ironically, capitalism, the economic force that initially promulgated slavery, became the economic force that would ameliorate the condition of alienation among minorities in a dialectical sense. According to Marx, the mass of wage labor grows as the capital grows (Marx Engels, 1951b). In his words, â€Å"the number of wage workers grows; the domination of capital extends over a greater number of individuals,† (Marx Engels, 1951b, pp 87). When four million Blacks were released from slavery in 1865 (Bennet, 1984), they were forced to compete with White laborers which created a troubled situation. However, Northerners looked south for cheap labor and imported Blacks to beat down a higher standard living or to break up unions (Meltzer, 1984). It was capitalism at its finest which served to create an opportunity for ex-slaves. Although they experienced more alienation than their White counterparts because they were not allowed to unionize, being in a situation where they could a ctually work for a wage could be considered a step –up from their past condition of slavery and poverty. The industrial revolution of the late 18th and early 19th century provides additional examples of how not only the need for labor increased, but how this need created â€Å"token† labor for minorities who ordinarily would have faced discrimination and not found work. The transcontinental railroad project is considered by some to be one of the most important projects in American history because it enabled Americans to connect across the entire U.S. An enormous undertaking, the Central Pacific Railroad, was so large and dangerous that there was a greater than usual demand for labor that minorities were able to fill (Schama, 2009). This important endeavor would not have been completed had it not been for the Chinese immigrants at that time. They were not wanted by the contractors at first, and were mistakenly considered too frail and effeminate for the job due to their small body frame and minimal facial hair. However, due to the need for more workers, they temporarily overcame p rejudice and eventually comprised a significant amount of its workforce until its completion. Positing from Marx, dimensions of alienation existed due to the level of dangerous working conditions and the mind numbing and repetitive division of labor. At the completion of the project, the Chinese were not even recognized for their outstanding accomplishment. However, I argue that they experienced a decrease in the level of social alienation they would experience by having an opportunity to work alongside other Americans at a time when prejudice against them was volatile. Again, the dialectic occurs whereas Marx’s theory of alienation applies to the work situation, but the fact that a job existed at all for the Chinese in a prejudiced society demonstrated the amelioration of alienation for minorities through capitalism. However, when observed as a comparison between minority and non-minority workers I propose that the level of alienation for minorities is still high as compared to non-minorities. This may demonstrate how alienation could possibly be moderated by the race of a worker. Both examples from history provide evidence for what could be termed as relative alienation. Adam Smith assumed that saving money and having a Protestant work ethic of self denial, working hard and delaying gratification was a driving force behind capitalism (Smith, 1991). He was correct in that it supported and helped to ignite its birth in America, but by the end of World War II people needed to spend money in order for capitalism to thrive (Agger, 2002). As a result people began to spend beyond their means and credit was popularized as a new way of spending. Eventually this new dimension of consumerism led to the Great Depression of 1929. As a result, a host of programs were introduced by President Franklin Roosevelt to salvage the economy and the capitalistic way of life. Many new measures were devised by the Roosevelt administration to combat the Depression. The work week was shortened, young children were forbidden to work, a minimum wage was set, and federal relief programs including social security were implemented. A public works program built new hospitals, schools and community centers, and playgrounds which created millions of jobs (Meltzer, 1984). It was not until these frantic years of the New Deal, as it was called, that Blacks began to move into unions as well as begin to truly benefit greatly from the creation of new jobs. Although discriminated against, minorities again experienced a different level of social alienation in the workplace, as compared to their White counterparts (Meltzer, 1984). Henry Ford is noted for his revolutionary business model using the assembly line as well as for increasing the wages of his workers so that they may purchase his vehicles. The Ford Model T was the first automobile mass produced on assembly lines with completely interchangeable parts, marketed to the middle class. The needed factory worker knowledge and skills were also reduced to one of 84 areas. Although according to Marx this scenario serves as a situation for alienation to exist, for the minority worker it may be considered an elevation in social status in a foreign land in which they experience prejudice. It is noted that approximately 75% of Ford’s workforce were immigrants (Schama, 2009). Unfortunately, this was not due to Ford’s compassion for minorities in need of work, but rather for the need to meet the demands of labor. This demand continued during World War I and through World War II as men serving their country as soldiers were unavailable to meet the labor needs of capitalism. Minorities stepping in, although alienated by the exploitation of their labor, experienced an improvement in social alienation from White co-workers simply by having an opportunity to work with them. The birth of information communication technology has transformed the landscape of business and work group interaction. Its effect of removing barriers and equalizing members within interacting groups helps to ameliorate conditions of alienation of minorities with co-workers. The cyber self can be used to better connect with members from all cultural backgrounds. First, it is a self- assembled invention of the self that allows minorities get a â€Å"foot in the door† thereby enabling them to connect with co-workers in manner that blinds them from bias or prejudice. Secondly, computer-mediated interaction between members equalizes participation by removing the influence from dominant personalities or members. This is akin to a decategorization process by which majority members and minority members may converse via ICT without influence from ethnic, racial, or gender group member affiliation. I propose that this will enable deep-level characteristic to emerge while surface-level difference dissolve, enhancing the interaction between members. As a result, the probability of alienation occurring between co-workers may diminish in the contemporary workplace. CONCLUSION The sonnet inscribed on the Statue of Liberty reads: Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door. These words convey an offering of liberty and prosperity by capitalism and democracy that can be perceived as sincere. The history of capital demonstrates that the mantra of Lady Liberty may have in reality been a call for cheap labor to perpetuate capital and grow the U.S. economy. In turn, the rise of industry with an influx of immigrants created more than just a melting pot, but also bred a new type of worker different from the proletariat described by Marx. By deconstructing this new proletariat, we find that over time alienation in the workplace has manifested itself in a disguised manner for all Americans, but simultaneously improved co-worker interaction for minorities as a result of contemporary business practices. Recognizing this dialectic, the construct of alienation should be examined further in order to identify its different dimensions relative to the cultural and racial identity of workers. Additionally, managers and leaders should continue to foster business diversity practices that serve to be inclusive of all so as to minimize cultural or social dissonance among co-workers. Although capitalism has been attributed a major cause of alienation, it is ironic that the contemporary ways of doing business spawned from capitalistic expansion may save capitalism from becoming a socially dominant force that transgresses the basic rights of humanity. The new ways that businesses communicate and produce services and products at may seem to only intensify workplace social alienation at first glance. Ideologies created by capitalism such as globalization, just-in-time production, and the culture industry seem to have heightened alienation among workers in our wealth building society. However, so long as other ideologies of capitalism such as managing diversity for profit and ITC also exist, social alienation can be manageable. REFERENCES Agger, Ben. 1989. Fast Capitalism: A Critical Theory of Significance. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Agger, Ben. 2002. Postponing the Postmodern: Sociological Practices, Selves and Theories. Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield. Agger, Ben. 2004. The Virtual Self: A Contemporary Sociology. United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing. Ashforth, B., Mael, F. 1989. Social identity and the organization. Academy of Management Review, 14: 20 – 39. Bennet, Jr., Lerone. 1984. Before the Mayflower. New York: Penguin Books. Cox, T. H. Blake, S. 1991. Managing Cultural Diversity: Implications for Organizational Competitiveness. Academy of Management Executive, 5: 45-56. Gaertner, S.L., Dovidio, J.F., Banker, B.S., Houlette, M., Johnson, K.M., McGlynn, E.A. 2000. Reducing intergroup conflict: From super-ordinate goals to decategorization, recategorization, and mutual differentiation. Group Dynamic: Theory, Research, and Practice, 4: 98-114. Giddens, A. and D. Held. 1982. Classes, Power, and Conflict: Classical and Contemporary Debates. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Jackson, S. E. 1991. Team composition in organizational settings: Issues in managing an increasingly diverse workforce. In S. Worchel W. Wood, and J.Simpson (Eds.). Group Process and Productivity: 138-173. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Kiesler, S., Siegel, J., and McGuire, T.W. 1984. Social psychological aspects of computer- mediated communications. American Psychologist, 39: 1123-1134. Knippenberg, D., Schie, E.C.M. 2000. Foci correlates of OID. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 73: 137- 147. Mael, F., Ashforth, B. 2001. Identification in work, sports, and religion: Contrasting the benefits and risks. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 31: 197- 222. Mael, F.A., Tetrick, L.E. 1992. Identifying OID. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 52: 813- 824. Marcuse, Herbert. 1964. One-Dimensional Man. Boston: Beacon Press. Marx, Karl. 1939. Capital: Volume 1. New York: International Publishers. Marx, K., and F. Engels. 1951. Selected Works in Two Volumes: Volume 1. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. Meltzer, Milton. 1984. The Black Americans: A History in Their Own Words. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. Schama, S.(Writer). (2009, January 20). What is an American? [Television series episode]. In The American Future: A History. KERA. Smith, Adam. 1991. Wealth of Nations. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Tajfel, H., Turner, J. C. 1979. An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 33–48). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole. Tajfel, H. 1978. Differentiation between social groups: Studies in the social psychology of intergroup relations. London: Academic Press. Tajfel, H. 1974. Social identity and intergroup behavior. Social Science Information, 15: 1010- 118. Note: Marx and Engels 1951a refers to The Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, and Marx and Engels 1951b refers to Wage Labour and Capital by Karl Marx as reprinted in Marx, K., and F. Engels. 1951. Selected Works in Two Volumes: Volume 1. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, pp. 21-97. Note: Giddens Held 1982 refers the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts reprinted in Giddens, A. and D. Held, Classes, Power, and Conflict: Classical and Contemporary Debates, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1982, pp. 12-19.

Family Values and The Status of The Traditional American Family Essay

When one thinks of the term family values, many different ideas can come to mind. Morals, religion, beliefs, tradition, expectation, controversy, and misuse are some things that may come to mind when the term â€Å"family values† is mentioned. The true definition and meaning of family values can most likely never be directly pinpointed, but it is always going to be a known fact that family values are always going to have different meanings to different people. It is the common misunderstanding that family values are just simply the things that shape a growing persons values and morals. From a the beginning of a child’s life, they are instilled with values to go by in the life that lies ahead of them by either their own family or the people that are going to be in charge of raising them. A child is corrected on the mistakes that they make, and taught what is right and wrong. Following this tough process of teaching a child what is right and wrong, moreover how to tell the difference on there own. Family values are not necessarily always taught within the limits of the family. For those families that hold strong religious beliefs, values can also be taught in church through lectures, Sunday school, and other religious gatherings. In this situation, it is usually told to the child that the values learned in church are directly related to the values taught and practiced within the family and that the two should both be taken with the same token and used the same in real-world situations. It is always a true test of the strength of an individual’s values when situations are presented to them that go against their values but also seem like a good idea at the time. It is then that a person has to make a decision to either d... ...mily. For example, families could drop their young off at Sunday school every week expecting them to absorb proper values from people that may not even be that familiar. Media such as movies and television can also be overly relied on to teach good values and morals to young. Parents will sometimes stick their children in front of what they consider an â€Å"educational† program and expect that they will be instilled with positive traits which they themselves may not even possess. Family values are definitely things commonly misunderstood by American culture today. The true definition of family values are the morals passed through generations of a particular family that are considered to be correct. The true meaning of the term may differ from family to family but the root idea is always going to be the same: family values are the things that make us who we are.

Beowulf and Gilgamesh are Epic Heroes But the Seafarer isn’t and Here’s Why

In the stories â€Å"Beowulf† and â€Å"The Head of Humbaba,† the main characters reflect the descriptions of an â€Å"epic hero†. However in the story, â€Å"The Seafarer,† the main character does not reflect any descriptions of an â€Å"epic hero. † Beowulf and Gilgamesh fit the description because they both go on a quest and have the similar motivations of an epic hero. The Seafarer, in contrast, had a different motivation and an entirely different quest. Beowulf and Gilgamesh have journeys that fit the traditional epic hero. In Beowulf’s story, his journey consisted of killing monsters. He killed Grendel who terrorized Herot. â€Å"Beowulf, a prince of the Geats, had killed Grendel†¦from the rafters where Beowulf had hung it, was the monster’s arm, claw and shoulder and all. † (â€Å"Beowulf† Lines 510-517). Gilgamesh’s story also included murdering monstrous fiends. He killed Humbaba, the guardian of the forest. †Ã¢â‚¬ ¦he raised his ax up higher and swung it in a perfect arc into Humbaba’s neck. (â€Å"The Head of Humbaba† Lines 46-48) Gilgamesh and Beowulf also had similar motivations that fit an â€Å"epic hero. † Beowulf killed Grendel to pay off the debt to Herot because of his father. Gilgamesh provoked and killed Humbaba so he’d also be will known. Both reasons fit the descriptions for an epic hero. In contrast, the Seafarer doesn’t fit an â€Å"epic hero† because his journey and motivation doesn’t corr espond. The Seafarer’s journey was to simply travel the sea. His motivation was to make peace with God. Neither of those actions makes the Seafarer and â€Å"epic hero. † Beowulf and Gilgamesh are epic heroes because their journey and motivations fit what an epic hero stands for. They both fought monsters and both their motivation fit an epic hero. The seafarer isn’t an epic hero because his journey and motivation doesn’t correspond to one. He didn’t accomplish much and his motivation didn’t fit an epic hero.

Famous Elizabethans and Their Era Essay

The first about who we will talk is Edmund Spenser (1522-1599), who was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor Dynasty and Elizabeth I. he is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English language. The first verses ever published by Spenser were six sonnets translated from Petrarch. Then followed The Shepherds Calendar, whose subject was suggested to him by Sydney. In writing it, Spenser used foreign models derived from Greek poetry, Latin, French, and Italian literature. The verses are still very conventional and show obvious signs of immaturity, the content is mythological-scholarly, though there are many beautiful descriptions of English rural scenery. The melody is often interrupted; however, it inaugurates a new era in English poetry. This new era is superbly by The Faerie Queene. The models which Spenser used when he embarked upon the difficult task of composing this poem, the most important and popular of all that he ever wrote, were Ariosto’s Orlando furioso and Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberato. Conceived in the midst of the uncanny beauties of the Irish landscape, The Faerie Queene is far from indifferent to them, finding in them an important source of inspiration for his natural background; as important as medieval English and Celtic poetry were for the narrative. The chief task Spenser set himself was to amalgamate all these poetical elements and, by deepening the moral content of court poetry and by fertilizing it with the new humanistic ideas, to write an impressive national epic. Few poems more clearly illustrate the variety of influences from which most great literary works result. In many respects the most direct source was the body of Italian romances of chivalry, especially the ‘Orlando Furioso’ of Ariosto, which was written in the early part of the sixteenth century. These romances, in turn, combine the personages of the medieval French epics of Charlemagne with something of the spirit of Arthurian romance and with a Renaissance atmosphere of magic and of rich fantastic beauty. Spenser borrows and absorbs all these things and moreover he imitates Ariosto closely, often merely translating whole passages from his work. But this use of the Italian romances, further, carries with it a large employment of characters, incidents, and imagery from classical mythology and literature, among other things the elaborated similes of the classical epics. Spenser himself is directly influenced, also, by the medieval romances. Most important of all, all these elements are shaped to the purpose of the poem by Spenser’s high moral aim, which in turn springs largely from his Platonic idealism. To the beauty of Spenser’s imagination, ideal and sensuous, corresponds his magnificent command of rhythm and of sound. As a verbal melodist, especially a melodist of sweetness and of stately grace, and as a harmonist of prolonged and complex cadences, he is unsurpassable. But he has full command of his rhythm according to the subject, and can range from the most delicate suggestion of airy beauty to the roar of the tempest or the strident energy of battle. In vocabulary and phraseology his fluency appears inexhaustible. Here, as in ‘The Shepherd’s Calendar,’ he deliberately introduces, especially from Chaucer, obsolete words and forms, such as the inflectional ending in -en which distinctly contribute to his romantic effect. His constant use of alliteration is very skilful; the frequency of the alliteration on w is conspicuous but apparently accidental. For the external medium of all this beauty Spenser, modifying the ottava rima of Ariosto (a stanza which rimes abababcc), invented the stanza which bears his own name and which is the only artificial stanza of English origin that has ever passed into currency. The rime-scheme is ababbcbcc and in the last line the iambic pentameter gives place to an Alexandrine (an iambic hexameter). Whether or not any stanza form is as well adapted as blank verse or the rimed couplet for prolonged narrative is an interesting question, but there can be no doubt that Spenser’s stanza, firmly unified, in spite of its length, by its central couplet and by the finality of the last line, is a discovery of genius, and that the Alexandrine, ‘forever feeling for the next stanza,’ does much to bind the stanzas together. It has been adopted in no small number of the greatest subsequent English poems, including such various ones as Burns’ ‘Cotter’s Saturday Night,’ Byron’s ‘Childe Harold,’ Keats’ ‘Eve of St. Agnes,’ and Shelley’s ‘Adonais. ‘ In general style and spirit, it should be added, Spenser has been one of the most powerful influences on all succeeding English romantic poetry. Two further sentences of Lowell well summarize his whole general achievement: ‘His great merit is in the ideal treatment with which he glorified common things and gilded them with a ray of enthusiasm. He is a standing protest against the tyranny of the Commonplace, and sows the seeds of a noble discontent with prosaic views of life and the dull uses to which it may be put. The next famous Elizabethan that should be mentioned and about whom we will make a few references concerning his life, his work and his innovations in literature is Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), who was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonist, and h is mysterious death. Marlowe’s reputation as a dramatist rests on five plays – Tamburlaine, Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward II, and Dido, Queen of Cartage. To these five masterpieces might be added The Massacre of Paris, a bloody-thirsty melodrama now, it seems, little read. In this handful of plays appears the first true voice of the Renaissance, of the period of a new learning, new freedom, new enterprise, of the period of worship of Man rather than God. Marlowe sums up the new age. The old restrictions of the Church and the limitation on knowledge have been destroyed; the world is opening up and the ships are sailing to new lands; wealth is being amassed; the great national aggressors are rising. But, above all, it is the spirit of human freedom, of limitless human power and enterprise that Marlowe’s plays convey. Tamburlaine is the great conqueror, the embodiment of tyrannical power; Barabas, the Jew of Malta, stands for monetary power; Faustus represents the most deadly hunger of all, for the power which supreme knowledge can give. Each one of Christopher Marlowe’s plays is, in a sense, a tour de force, a special creation. The Jew of Malta, Dido, and The Massacre of Paris, though abounding in passages of strength yet do not fulfill the requirements the author himself had set up. The Jew, however, was very popular, being performed thirty-six times in four years, which in those days was an unusual record. Marlowe’s first and most important service to drama was the improvement of blank verse. Greene had condemned its use as being unscholarly; Sackville and Norton had used it, but were not able to lift it above commonplace. In their work, it usually consisted of isolated lines, one following another, with no grouping according to thought. All the verses were made after one rhythmical pattern, with the same number of feet and the caesura always in place. Marlowe invented numberless variations while still keeping the satisfying rhythm within a recurring pattern. Sometimes he left a redundant syllable, or left the line one syllable short, or moved the position of the caesura. He grouped his lines according to the thought and adapted his various rhythms to the ideas. Thus blank verse became a living organism, plastic, brilliant, and finished. Marlowe’s second best gift to drama was his conception of the heroic tragedy built on a grand scale, with the three-fold unity of character, impression, and interest, instead of the artificial unities of time and place. Before his time tragedies were built either according to the loose style of the chronicle, or within the mechanical framework of the Seneca model; but in either case the dramatic unity attained by the Greeks was lacking. Marlowe and Shakespeare, with their disregard of the so-called classic rules, were in fact much nearer the spirit of Aeschylus and Sophocles than the slavish followers of the pseudo-classic schools. Marlowe painted gigantic ambitions, desires for impossible things, longings for a beauty beyond earthly conception, and sovereigns destroyed by the very powers which had raised them to their thrones. Tamburlaine, Faust, Barabbas are the personifications of arrogance, ambition and greed. There is sometimes a touch of the extravagant or bombastic, or even of the puerile in his plays, for he had no sense of humor; nor had he the ability to portray a woman. He wrote no drama on the subject of love. Furthermore, his world is not altogether our world, but a remote field of the imagination. It has been remarked that â€Å"in Marlowe’s superb verse there is very little to indicate that the writer had ever encountered any human beings. [1]In spite of this, he was great, both as a dramatist and poet. His short life, the haste of his work, the irregularities of his habits, these things combined to keep him from perfecting the creations of his imagination. Taken together, his plays imposed a standard upon all succeeding theatrical compositions. Before him, in England, there was no play of great importance; but after him, and based upon his work as a model, rose the greatest drama of English history. A friendlier critic, Mr. A. C. Swinburne, observes of this poet that â€Å"the father of English tragedy and the creator of English blank verse was therefore also the teacher and the guide of Shakespeare. † In this sentence there are two misleading assumptions and two misleading conclusions. Kyd has as good a title to the first honour as Marlowe; Surrey has a better title to the second; and Shakespeare was not taught or guided by one of his predecessors or contemporaries alone. The less questionable judgment is, that Marlowe exercised a strong influence over later drama, though not himself as great a dramatist as Kyd; that he introduced several new tones into blank verse, and commenced the dissociative process which drew it farther and farther away from the rhythms of rhymed verse; and that when Shakespeare borrowed from him, which was pretty often at the beginning, Shakespeare either made something inferior or something different. To sum up we can say that Marlowe’s major contribution to the Elizabethan drama is due to his vigorous and masterly use of blank verse (his ‘’mighty line’’) – a poetic form consisting of unrhymed iambic pentameters which is much nearer to conversational, natural English than any other metrical form. It is vigorous, flexible, and it can suit itself to the necessities of declamation, oratory, exposition, speechmaking, etc. , being used by Shakespeare himself to extraordinary effect. The last but not the least famous Elizabethan we have to speak is Ben Johnson (1572-1637), who was an English renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best and his lyrical poems. A man of vast reading and unparalleled breadth of influence on Jacobean and Caroline playwrights and poets. The second place among the Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists is universally assigned, on the whole justly, to Ben Jonson, who both in temperament and in artistic theories and practice presents a complete contrast to Shakespeare. Most conspicuous in his dramas is his realism, often, as we have said, extremely coarse, and a direct reflection of his intellect, which was as strongly masculine as his body and altogether lacking, where the regular drama was concerned, in fineness of sentiment or poetic feeling. He early assumed an attitude of pronounced opposition to the Elizabethan romantic plays, which seemed to him not only lawless in artistic structure but unreal and trifling in atmosphere and substance. That he was not, however, as has sometimes been said, personally hostile to Shakespeare is clear, among other things, from his poetic tributes in the folio edition of Shakespeare and from his direct statement elsewhere that he loved Shakespeare almost to idolatry. ) Jonson’s purpose was to present life as he believed it to be; he was thoroughly acquainted with its worser side; and he refused to conceal anything that appeared to him significant. His plays, therefore, have very much that is flatly offensive to the taste which seeks in literature, prevailingly, for idealism and beauty; but they are, nevertheless, generally speaking, powerful portrayals of actual life. Jonson’s purpose, however, was never unworthy; rather, it was distinctly to uphold morality. His frankest plays, as we have indicated, are attacks on vice and folly, and sometimes, it is said, had important reformatory influence on contemporary manners. He held, indeed, that in the drama, even in comedy, the function of teaching was as important as that of giving pleasure. His attitude toward his audiences was that of a learned schoolmaster, whose ideas they should accept with deferential respect; and when they did not approve his plays he was outspoken in indignant contempt. Jonson’s self-satisfaction and his critical sense of intellectual superiority to the generality of mankind produce also a marked and disagreeable lack of sympathy in his portrayal of both life and character. The world of his dramas is mostly made up of knaves, scoundrels, hypocrites, fools, and dupes; and it includes among its really important characters very few excellent men and not a single really good woman. Jonson viewed his fellow-men, in the mass, with complete scorn, which it was one of his moral and artistic principles not to disguise. His characteristic comedies all belong, further, to the particular type which he himself originated, namely, the ‘Comedy of Humors. ‘ In opposition to the free Elizabethan romantic structure, Jonson stood for and deliberately intended to revive the classical style; though with characteristic good sense he declared that not all the classical practices were applicable to English plays. He generally bserved unity not only of action but also of time (a single day) and place, sometimes with serious resultant loss of probability. In his tragedies, ‘Sejanus’ and ‘’Catiline,’’ he excluded comic material; for the most part he kept scenes of death and violence off the stage; and he very carefully and slowly constructed plays which have nothing, indeed, of the poetic greatness of Sophocles or Euripides ( rather a Jonson’s broad solidity) but which move steadily to their climaxes and then on to the catastrophes in the compact classical manner. He carried his scholarship, however, to the point of pedantry, not only in the illustrative extracts from Latin authors with which in the printed edition he filled the lower half of his pages, but in the plays themselves in the scrupulous exactitude of his rendering of the details of Roman life. The plays reconstruct the ancient world with much more minute accuracy than do Shakespeare’s; the student should consider for himself whether they succeed better in reproducing its human reality, making it a living part of the reader’s mental and spiritual possessions. Jonson’s style in his plays, especially the blank verse of his tragedies, exhibits the same general characteristics. It is strong, compact, and sometimes powerful, but it entirely lacks imaginative poetic beauty, it is really only rhythmical prose, though sometimes suffused with passion. Last, and not least: Jonson’s revolt from romanticism to classicism initiated, chiefly in non-dramatic verse, the movement for restraint and regularity, which, making slow headway during the next half century, was to issue in the triumphant pseudo-classicism of the generations of Dryden and Pope. Thus, notable in himself, he was significant also as one of the moving forces of a great literary revolution.

Older vs. Elder

Older vs. Elder Older vs. Elder Older vs. Elder By Mark Nichol Which comparative adjectival term meaning â€Å"more advanced in age† is more correct in usage? Many people still prefer to use elder and its superlative eldest, but they tend to be, well, older; the choice of that last word is becoming the alternative of choice. One reason is that there is no word eld to serve as the basis of elder and eldest; it seems more sensible to many to progress from old to older to oldest. (There, are, however, other comparative/superlative pairs with no related basis: better and best progress from good, and worse and worst regress from bad.) More significantly, though, is the grammatical limitation of elder: One can write, â€Å"He has an elder brother† and â€Å"He is the elder of the two† but not â€Å"He is elder than John.† (The prohibition isn’t logical, but it’s there.) In addition to â€Å"He has an older brother† and â€Å"He is the older of the two,† conversely, â€Å"He is older than John† is considered proper. Another limitation is that elder and eldest apply only to people, but older and oldest may refer to people and inanimate objects alike. Also, although elder and eldest may refer to relative age within a family, the terms are not applied in other social contexts (besides isolated applications such as â€Å"elder statesman,† which refers to a wise and experienced but not necessarily older politician or other authoritative figure): One writes, â€Å"He is the eldest brother† but â€Å"He is the oldest child in the school.† (Keep in mind, too, that though elder and elderly imply advanced age, one does not need to be long in the tooth to be the elder of two siblings or the eldest of three or more.) Elder is descended from the Old English word eldra, which refers to a parent or other older person. (The etymology of the name of the elder tree is unrelated.) The usage in â€Å"Respect your elders† shows its age, but the term is still employed in a religious context to refer to church leaders; an older term for church elders, presbyter, is from the Greek word presbyteros which means â€Å"elder† by way of Latin. (Presbyter was ultimately altered to priest.) Elder is sometimes seen in genre fiction such as fantasy novels to impart a romantic cachet to a bygone era: â€Å"Long ago, in the Elder Days . . . .† Elderly persists as both an adjective and a noun (â€Å"the elderly†), though some consider it demeaning and prefer older as a simpler modifier and â€Å"senior citizens† or just seniors to refer to the demographic. Interestingly, the Old English predecessor of the adjective, ealdorlic, had several superlative senses: â€Å"authentic, chief, excellent, princely.† Older and elder, as you may have guessed when you were younger, share an origin: They both stem from a Germanic root that produce the variants ald and eald. (Adult and adolescent are related words.) The former term survives in alderman (once also ealdorman), a quaint alternative to â€Å"council member† that persists mostly in the Northeast United States and originally meant â€Å"chief, ruler,† and in the Scottish auld as in â€Å"auld lang syne† another variation. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:5 Uses of InfinitivesHang, Hung, Hanged10 Writing Exercises to Tighten Your Writing

Word Choice Past vs. Passed

Word Choice Past vs. Passed Word Choice: Past vs. Passed The words â€Å"past† and â€Å"passed† are surprisingly tricky. As well as sounding similar and starting with the same letters, for example, they can sometimes be used in similar situations. If you want to avoid errors in your written work, though, you may want to check out our guide to how they are used. Past (Noun and Adjective) When used as a noun, â€Å"past† refers to a time before the current moment: History is the formal study of the past. It also refers to a previous point in time when used as an adjective: My past choices were sometimes flawed. Here, â€Å"past† modifies the noun â€Å"choices† to show when they occurred. Past (Adverb and Preposition) Another use of â€Å"past† is as an adverb or preposition, where it means â€Å"beyond a point in time or space.† For instance, we could use it as an adverb like this: They walked past the bridge on the way home. Here, we use the adverb â€Å"past† to modify the verb â€Å"walked.† Passed (Verb) â€Å"Passed† is the simple past tense and past participle form of the verb â€Å"pass.† It is therefore used in a number of situations, which include having: Moved beyond a particular point in time or space Succeeded in a test Handed something to someone Died or departed Changed from one state to another Declined to accept a chance or offer For example, we could use â€Å"passed† in any of the following sentences: They passed the bridge on the way home. She passed her exams with flying colors. He passed me the envelope with a nervous look. She passed away peacefully in her sleep. It passed from a solid to a liquid state. I regret having passed on buying shares in Facebook. This isn’t even a complete list of how â€Å"passed† can be used! The important thing, however, is that â€Å"passed† is always the past tense form of â€Å"pass,† including in the example sentences above. Past or Passed? These terms are most often confused when discussing movement. We can see how similar they are in this case if we repeat two examples from above: They walked past the bridge on the way home. They passed the bridge on the way home. The key here is that â€Å"passed† is a verb, while â€Å"past† in this case is an adverb. To make sure you get this right in your writing, remember that: As a noun and an adjective, â€Å"past† refers to a previous point in time. As an adverb, â€Å"past† should always modify another verb in a sentence. â€Å"Passed† and â€Å"pass† are both verbs spelled with a double â€Å"s.† Furthermore, while â€Å"passed† is the past tense of â€Å"pass,† the word â€Å"past† is never a verb. Consequently, if you need an action word, â€Å"passed† will always be correct. If you need a noun, adverb, adjective, or preposition, on the other hand, the term you need will always be â€Å"past.† Past (noun) = A time before the current moment Past (adjective) = From an earlier time Past (adverb/preposition) = Beyond a point in time or space Passed (verb) = Past tense of â€Å"pass†

Andrews Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Andrews - Research Paper Example It measures a firm's efficiency at generating profits from every dollar of net assets. The RoE of the company is 0.8 and 0.6 for 2006 and 2005 respectively. The numbers shows that the company is not so much good in generation revenues and is not increasing the share holders wealth. High ROE yields no immediate benefit. Since stock prices are most strongly determined by earnings per share (EPS). The benefit comes from the earnings reinvested in the company at a high ROE rate, which in turn gives the company a high growth rate. Inventory turnover ratio shows that how the company is managing its stock the numbers for the company is 31 nad 19 for 2006 and 2005 respectively. By analyzing the company's inv. Turnover ratio we have analyzed that the company is not managing its inventory in 2006 that of 2005.The asset turn over ratio gives an idea about how well the company is using its assets in generating revenues.

Alternative Energy Sources Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Alternative Energy Sources - Essay Example Additionally, consumption of oil as a source of energy is non-renewable, and results in environmental pollution. As such, leading economies in the world have been seeking to adopt alternative sources of energy and measures to conserve energy, though with minimal success (World Bank, 2010:190). This paper discusses three key barriers that impede the adoption of alternative energy sources and energy conservation. Three key barriers deter the adoption of alternative or renewable sources of energy: cost and pricing, market performance, and legal and regulatory (Martinot and Beck, 2004:13). Majority of these barriers are a form of market distortion that work to discriminate against alternative energy sources, while others result to high costs of developing and adopting alternative sources of energy. These barriers are situation-specific in any country or region. The first and most significant barrier category is pricing and cost. Alternative and renewable sources of energy cost more than the traditional oil, leading to policies and decisions that avoid alternative energy sources based on cost. The price comparison depends on an array of factors. For instance, there may be public subsidies that lower the costs of competing sources of energy. ... Therefore, the difference in subsidy provision may result to competitive disadvantage of an alternative energy source. Despite the fact that renewable energy sources may have significant cost-competitive advantages on the life-cycle basis, the high initial costs often mean that they provide lower installed capacity per initial dollar investment than conventional sources of energy. Thus, capital markets may require lending rates premium in order to provide finances for these alternative energy sources. Moreover, the alternative energy source faces high import duties and taxes. Consequently, this may result to high first-costs compared to other sources (Dell and Rand, 2004:240). Another significant factor is transaction costs. Alternative energy source projects are relatively smaller than those of conventional sources are, primarily because of their unfamiliarity or uncertainty in performance. Consequently, transaction costs for alternative energy sources, including assessment, permitt ing, power-purchase contract negotiations, and financing packages assembly, result to enormous per-kilowatt capacity basis than conventional energy sources. Higher transactional costs are not an economic distortion barrier, but rather another way of making alternative energy sources extremely expensive. The last notable sub-category is environmental externalities. The conventional energy sources have real costs on the society, including infrastructure decay, human health and, probably, climate change costs (Edenhofer, Madruga, ans Sokona, 2011:884). However, environmental externalities dollar costs are hard to evaluate, thus, subject to discretion and interpretation. Though economic comparisons