Stories as Attitudes :: Sociology Essays Research Papers

Stories as Attitudes Curiosity seems to be innately part of the human experience. With this propensity towards curiosity comes our seemingly insatiable need to search for answers to the world's many unanswered (and conceivably unanswerable?) questions. Perhaps the most important of these questions regard the origin of the world, of life, and of us as human beings. The need to account for our own beginnings can be seen throughout history, as multiple explanations have been offered from diverse cultures, religions, philosophies and disciplines. For example, "the folklore of even the most primitive human tribes indicates that they had given some thought to questions about the origin and history of the world" (Mayr, 2001, p.1). This "urge to account for a beginning" has indeed led to many different answers and justifications throughout time, the most popular and noteworthy being the stories of creationism and evolution (Mayr, 2001). These two accounts at first appear to be entirely irreconcilable, thus spark ing centuries of heated controversy and debate. The purpose of this discussion is not to attempt to resolve the age-old arguments among creationists and evolutionists, but instead to investigate the psychosocial reasons behind the power of each side's assertion that they and they alone are "right". According to the definition of an "attitude" (i.e., "any cognitive representation that summarizes our evaluation of an object, which may be the self, other people, things, actions, events, or ideas"), the stories/explanations that we come up with to account for the world around us are nothing more than attitudes (Smith & Mackie, 2000, p. 247). Evaluating the inherent characteristics of attitudes will allow us to gain insight into new (and more useful?) ways of thinking about persuasion (i.e., "the process by which attitudes are developed, reinforced, or changed by communications"), thereby allowing us to further understand why conflicting stories, specifically the stories of creationism vs. evolution, can be perceived as tremendously threatening (Smith & Mackie, 2000, p. 248). People form attitudes/ create stories because they are useful in mastering the social environment and in establishing important connections with others. It is a well- known fact in psychology that once an attitude is formed, it becomes very closely linked to the representation of the object to which that attitude has been ascribed (i.e., the attitude object) (Smith & Mackie, 2000). This cognitive connection helps us to negotiate our interactions with these attitude objects in two ways: through the "object appraisal or knowledge function" and/or the "instrumental or utilitarian function".

Jazz historiography Essay -- American Culture, Music

The rapid development of jazz in both the United States and Europe generated a number of diverse musical expressions, including musics that most listeners today would not recognize as â€Å"jazz† music. In order to remedy this situation, jazz musicians and critics after 1930 began to codify what â€Å"real† jazz encompassed, and more importantly, what â€Å"real† jazz did not encompass. This construction of authenticity, often demarcated along racial lines, served to relegate several artists and styles (those outside a â€Å"mainstream† to the margins of historiography. The issue of race is central to all discourses of jazz. Alongside race goes the problem of representation, or, who gets to play what for whom and under what circumstance. Problems of representation abound from the beginning of jazz history, usually centered on white representation of black music and culture from a negative vantage point. Iconic examples of this phenomenon include the 1917 release of Livery Stable Blues by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and Paul Whiteman‘s 1924 Aeolian Hall concert. The ODJB‘s recording was the first jazz record and the first representation of jazz to the majority of Americans, both black and white. Whiteman’s concert was invested in representing jazz to white Americans, showing how it had progressed from its primitive black beginnings to a more sophisticated style rooted in the fundamentals of European practice. Indeed, ideas of creation and control in jazz have usually been drawn along racial lines: black as creator, white as curator. In this mode of racial understanding in jazz, white jazz fans and musicians supposedly lack an essential â€Å"something† that makes them unable to innovate in jazz. Conversely, black musicians, while highly c... ... of which modern jazz big band dance music (for example, the Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington and Count Basie Orchestras), bebop, and later Free Jazz- emerged. Modern jazz, and particularly bebop, because of its hybrid nature has presented cultural critics, and especially critics of music, with a set of unresolvable issues. The music itself embodies contradiction. It can accurately be called both popular and high culture; it has an oral, vernacular lineage and one related to more innovative compositional techniques; it is Afro-American and European, romantic and revolutionary; and it has both escapist (ie, Sun Ra and late-era John Coltrane) and resistant (ie. Archie Shepp, Ornette Coleman) tendencies. As a result, jazz has become one of the most highly discusses and debated modern musical forms with controversial discourse surrounding its development.

A Country Doctor A Story By Franz Kafka History Essay

/A state physician is a narrative by Franz Kafka implying challenges and defeats a state physician had to confront in an effort to salvage the wellness of a patient stat mis off.He starts out on a journey to procure the wellness of an indisposed patient but it was n't a smooth seafaring.He had to lift above every challenge that came his manner. The physician was ready for his journey that seemed long and boring, and in his company was a pretty miss ( his retainer miss ) with whom they had to go.The physician had to get in clip at his finish at least to salvage the state of affairs at manus but the ways and agencies of making his finish proved futile. His ain Equus caballus had died the old dark, and the servant miss had to run all round the small town availing all the resources but all was in vain. No 1 in the small town was willing to impart a Equus caballus at that clip of the twenty-four hours and for such a long and boring journey.The physician was frustrated at the bend of events, he merely stood at that place open, gazing in to the empty infinite unable to travel as snow gathered upon him doing him weak.He did n't give up yet for he knew ever there would be light at the terminal of the tunnel.The servant miss ( Rose ) was there standing at the gateway beckoning a lantern.He strode through the tribunal pace once more, but he could n't see any manner out of the tribunal ; in defeat and confusion he kicked at the elderly door of the pigpen and the door opened broad.A crisp odor of Equus caballuss me the physicians nose.A dim stable lantern swang from a rope in the room.A adult male stooping on his buttocks appeared with a curious expression on his face.He crawled out of the little room but within a split of a 2nd he was back, with two good reinforced Equus caballuss.The physician ordered the servant miss to impart a manus to the adult male and she did with harness. Everything seemed ready and everyone was ready for the long journey.The groom insisted on driving the remainder but his determination was turned down by the physician claiming the groom was a alien and they had hardly known each other, allow entirely non cognizing the terrain. A crisp statement emerged between the state physician and the groom.The groom had to retreat himself out of the journey and insisted to remain behind with physicians servant miss.What a blow to the state physician. He had to cover with this challenge and besides get down on his journey that seemed inevitable.Although the physician was frustrated but he came to believe of it.The adult male was a alien who came in to the physicians life and offered a shoulder to tilt on when everyone else had failed him. How was he to go forth behind his servant miss with the alien? The groom clapped his custodies a mark of going to the gig, and so it was, they left in a lightening velocity. The physician arrived at his patients farmyard late that dark when the Moon was high above the sky. He met a instead baffled household members whose faces glittered with hope at the sight of the state physician. The sort of response the physician received sent some message that he was late for his assignment. The whole small town had cast their hopes on the state physician to salvage their ailing boy, whose wellness seemed to acquire worse twenty-four hours by twenty-four hours, the air was stuffy although the physician went directly and examined his patient. The patient was weak and his wellness unpromising- but he wrapped his weaponries round the physician ‘s cervix, as a mark of licking by the hurting. The physician had one challenge in head, that he was to safe the wellness of the patient no affair what for the whole household had pressed trust on him. But believing of Rose and how he was to deliver her from the custodies of the alien made him ill, how could he salvage her and yet he was stat mis off? He thought he had better gone back and salvage his servant miss from the custodies of the groomed alien. The Equus caballuss looked set for the return journey but the physician had allowed the patient ‘s sister to take away his fur coat, intending he was get downing to present his services to the patient. An old adult male from he household handed over a glass of rum to the physician and patted him on the shoulder, as a mark of friendly relationship and hopes that all was traveling to be good with the patient but the physician was non amused by the act, alternatively he felt defeated and defeated. This meant the whole household expected nil less than the best from him, what a challenge it was he was the territory physician and ever delivered his services to a point he realized it was beyond the bound but still he was underpaid. Rose was still in his head non to reference of the patient who was in a serious status every bit good. His Equus caballus had died last dark but no 1 was at that place to portion his torment. He was frustrated. The size of the lesion on the right side of the physician ‘s patient and the status of the patient startled the physician, he knew the male child was non traveling to retrieve shortly or subsequently but still he had to reconstruct hopes in the faces of the male child ‘s household who stood around the patient ‘s bed this meant the physician experience that much was expected from him even though the patient ‘s position was non traveling to better the male child demanded a re-assurance from the physician that he would be good and up on his pess. The whole small town had lost religion in the physician due to the long hours he had spent on their patient and nil was forthcoming they came in great figure and stripped the physician ‘s apparels for the cheapjack work the physician had done. The physician was frustrated by this undignified act the villagers ‘ and counterpart who had ab initio lost religion and assurance in him as if this was non adequate le tdown ; the physicians made him put following to his patient stripped off. This was a challenge to he sophisticate for the physician had to lift above by happening a manner out he had to lure his patient by sweet words, words of hope that all would be good with him and shortly he would be up and about, the patient succumbed to the physician ‘s sweet words and genuinely believed he would retrieve in a fortnight holding played his cards right the physician rapidly collected his properties and off he went on a return journey where he could deliver the life of his servant girl- Rose- from the custodies of a groom alien The whole narrative state physician might be considered a incubus for a figure of grounds ; before he embarks on his journey, the state physician had to cover with quite a figure of challenges that came his manner. His Equus caballus had died the old dark and the villagers were non willing to take him any of although the servant miss had gone round the small town looking for one in vain this seemed to be a nightmare owing to the fact that his journey demanded pressing handiness of resources, when the physicians looks like he is saved by the groom who willingly gives him a brace of Equus caballuss still much is expected from the physician by the groom i.e. He had to give out his servant miss to the groom for the good workss he had done, traveling his journey without his servant miss was more of a incubus to the physician.The incident at the patients farmyard remained a incubus to the physician.Subject of treachery is good brought out by Frank Kafka.The groom betrays the physician by w orsening to attach to him in his journey stat mis off and alternatively remained behind with the physicians servant girl.Although he had helped the physician out of his quandaries but treachery was n't a good thing from him.On the other manus the physician seems to be frustrated by being misused by the territory, he is ill paid but expected to put to death his services to a point where he feels its beyond bound.Franz Kafka ridicules the manner relationships are handled in the society, the groom, although he was a alien, he had a clean bosom that saw the physician embark on his journey stat mis off. He plays the nice cat and finally saves the physician.Franz Kafka compares this virtuousness to the undignified character of the villagers.They are so average and excessively demanding ; they expect a batch from the physician yet no 1 was willing to impart a Equus caballus to the physician when he needed 1. This suggests that relationship strings are loose and everyone is separated from t he other, there should be a cohesive relationship within the people that stay together. Depriving the physician off his clothe by the villagers is a symbol of discourtesy from the villagers led by the small town elders.Elders of the small town should be on the fore-front in seeking to learn good ethical motives amongst the villagers ; but alternatively they lead by bad illustration.Moral decay is apparent. Poverty has taken toll of the whole small town in that territory therefore the writer brings out the subject of poorness. Other than the Equus caballuss, no other agencies of conveyance was available for the state physician. He spends a batch of clip availing assorted resources and ends up defeated, he reached his finish safely, thanks to the groom for his kindness.The sort of life style experienced in the small town by the physician is a cogent evidence of poorness the ill room was airless and a danger to the patient.The physician had lost religion in his ain profession by stating he had delivered more than plenty of his services but he was ill paid, this means that he barely met his basic demands. Although the writer concentrated strictly on the subject of treachery but besides had some facets of the subject of rousing.The villagers looked barbarian and lack basic instruction, when the physician nods his caput as a mark of licking, no 1 amongst the villagers could read the marks or state either, if they had known the marks the better.They did n't give the physician ample clip to analyze the patient but alternatively went a caput and humiliated the physician in forepart of the whole small town ; had they known to be patient and take affairs with wisdom and non bitterness. Last the writer brings out misrepresentation as a subject that runs through the narrative. He ( the physician ) is deceived by the groom who subsequently took over his servant miss. The physician besides uses misrepresentation to salvage his ain life from the custodies of the wicked villagers. He deceives his patient and got his manner out of the small town.He besides goes a caput and deceives the whole small town that he could mend the patient although he knew it was a difficult nut to check.

Historical Problems

Woodrow Wilson has been described as â€Å"cold, aloof and often arrogant, but he was not all intellect. † By the time Wilson was elected governor of New Jersey he had never held a political office, and had never taken more than a theorist’s interest in politics. Wilson’s personal view on how the Presidential office should be run is to lead a country rather than to be lead. He believed that a president should act like a prime minister and not be isolated from Congress.Wilson himself dreamed of a utopian society and amongst his intellectual supporters believed that this â€Å"most terrible and disastrous wars† could be countenanced only by perceiving of it as the harbinger of eternal peace. The utopian spirit of the war took concrete form in Wilson’s proposal of a postwar federation of nations, in itself not a utopian scheme but one which, from the first, was freighted with utopian aspirations. Though Wilson may have been an effective war president b y delegating responsibilities to those qualified his aspirations for a perfect world and his sentiments of â€Å"peace without victory† obscured his reality.President Wilson presented his ideas for peace in his famous Fourteen Points address on January 8, 1918. Wilson’s chief goal was to have the treaty provide for the formation of a League of Nations. He hoped that the threat of economic or military punishment from League members, including Germany, would prevent future wars. Though Wilson held a prominent role in drafting the Treaty of Versailles, and would later receive the Nobel Peace Prize for, the other major Allies, however, had little interest in honoring either Wilson’s Fourteen Points or all his goals for the League of Nations.The allies had suffered far greater losses and wanted to punish Germany severely. Strong opposition to the treaty developed in the United States. Many Americans disagreed with Wilson’s generous approach to worn-torn Europe . Republicans objected to U. S. commitments to the League of Nations. The U. S. Senate refused to approve the treaty. Also blocking the passage of the League of Nations was the personal and political conflicts between Wilson and Henry Cabot Lodge. Lodge, who was then the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, insisted the specific and limiting changes be ade to protect U. S. interests. Wilson would not compromise. Unable and perhaps unwilling to reach an agreement with Wilson, Lodge used his power and position to ensure the defeat of the treaty—and prevent American participation in the League of Nations. As to whether or not the postwar would have been different if the United States had accepted and entered the League of Nations, it is unlikely. America’s refusal to join the League, fitted in with her desire to have an isolationist policy throughout the world.Therefore, the League had a final ideal – to end war for good. However, if an aggressor nat ion was determined enough to ignore the League’s verbal warnings, all the League could do was enforce economic sanctions and hope these worked as it had no chance of enforcing its decisions using military might. Postwar 1920 brought many radical changes to Americans by the advancement in technology, discoveries, and inventions. Pop culture during the 1920’s was characterized by the flapper, automobiles, nightclubs, movies, and jazz.Life moved fast as a new sense of prosperity and freedom emerged at the end of World War 1. The 1920’s gave American’s radio, films, advertisements, and new literature to ponder. 1915 gave us a movie milestone in The Birth of a Nation, produced by D. W. Griffith. American’s were also given notable authors as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Booth Tarkington, Ernest Hemingway, and Sinclair Lewis. Authors of this period struggled to understand the changes occurring in society. While some writers praised the changes others expressed di sappointment in the passing of old ways.But not before the printing press had American’s been brought together by shrinking the distances between people and homes. â€Å"Of all the new products put on the market during the decade, none met with more spectacular success than the radio. † The radio brought into American homes commercials, stories, news, music, sports, and advertisement. Improvements in radio broadcasting and radio manufacturing itself quickly became a big business. Along with the increasing availability of free-home entertainment it created a soaring demand for radios.The 1920’s were wrought with many issues of cultural conflict, prejudices, nativism, and moral policing. Widespread abuse of alcohol had been recognized as a serious social problem since the colonial days, in rural America as well as in cities, and â€Å"demon rum† had been long condemned from many Protestant pulpits during the 1920’s. Prohibition was the governmentâ₠¬â„¢s solution to protect women, children, and families from the effects of abuse of alcohol, in other words, moral policing.Another example of moral policing today can be found in the controversial topic of legalizing marijuana. â€Å"Conversely, their omission in the present debate reflects the unfortunate reality that marijuana prohibition is perpetuated not by science, but rather by emotion and rhetoric. † The topic of nativism can be shown in three primary issues: immigration restriction, the KKK, and the cases of Sacco and Vanzetti. The old culture was generally anti-immigrant and tended to blame many of the problems of urban industrial American on immigrants.During the 1920’s the old culture, which was extremely nativist in attitude, was able to pass several immigration restriction laws which both lowered the number of immigrants to the U. S. and limited the numbers immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, which the old culture was particularly against. They did this through the quota system, set up in the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921 (and the revised with the 1924 National Origins Act) which established a certain number of immigrants from each country to be allowed into the U.S. per year. Each country’s quota was based on a percentage (3%) of people of that nation in the U. S. in the base year of (1910). The â€Å"rebirth† of the KKK was another sign of the nativism of the 1920’s as this â€Å"new† KKK was not only black, but also anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant. So have American’s learned their lesson from the 1920’s and have they changed their attitudes concerning nativism, moral policing, and are we still considered a prejudice country?In the year 2011, do American’s still consider them as being progressive and that they refuse to repeat history? Nativisim and prejudices can still be felt and seen throughout the United States. Our country is still debating nativism in the current situation with illegal immigrants. Newspapers, television shows, the radio, and internet are covered in stories of immigration policies. Our country is still swarmed with prejudices between races, religions, and lifestyles. It is our history to repeat and forget our past mistakes.As stated before, the 1920’s brought many radical changes to America with the advancement in technology, discoveries, and inventions. Pop culture in the 1920’s was characterized by the flapper, automobiles, nightclubs, movies, and music. Life moved fast as a new sense of prosperity and freedom emerged at the end of World War I. In many ways our current era is like that of the 1920’s. Our society is now connected to each other via the internet, and Facebook. On the spot news is even better now with television and radio and better yet the cell phone.Society is overrun with the most current, up-to-date news, even if no one cares what reading or hearing about. We are still a drug crazed and alcohol abusing society with fast cars, outrageous clothes and hairstyles. It just may be that we are going at a faster pace than those in the 1920’s. What can be seen differently is that maybe our morals have diminished in some aspects of society. Not that all society can be defined as a whole, as there are still those in our current society and those of the 1920’s that still and did value self respect, morals, God, and country.Works Cited 1920-1930. 1920’s Literature. 2005. http://www.1920-1930.com/literature. (accessed March 6, 2011. Content, new. Woodrow Wilson. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wilson/peopleevents/p_lodge.html. (accessed March 6, 2011). Durant, John; Durant Alice. Pictorial History of American Presidents: An informal record of the President’s and their times from George Washington to Lyndon B. Johnson. New York: A.S. Barnes and Company Inc. 1965: 77-78 Learning History. League of Nations. 2011. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/leagueofnations.htm (accessed March 6, 2011). Leuchgenburg, William E. The Perils of Prosperity 1914-1932. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 1993: 349 NORML. Government & Private Commissions Supporting Marijuana Law Reform. 2010. http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=3382 (accessed March 6, 2011). Raford. Nativism (as part of the 1920’s culture conflict. 1997. http://www.radford.edu/-shepburn/nativism.htm (accessed March 6, 2011). Time Life Edito rs. The Jazz Era, Prohibition.Alexandria. Time Life Inc., 1998: Time Life Editors. Events That Shaped Our Century, Our American Century. Alexandria, 1998:

An Examination On How Enlightenment Values And Science Have Impacted The 20th Century Society

An Examination On How Enlightenment Values And Science Have Impacted The 20th Century Society Explain how science and enlightenment values (E values) produce various kinds of social engineering in the 20th century that are designed to produce a better world. The Enlightenment values espoused by the philosophers of the 18th century were a significant shift for Western culture, and guided individuals and governments to carry out both good and bad decisions. The core Enlightenment values were based in freeing humans from the old order, or Acien Regime, using reason and power of human intellect. Kant’s essay â€Å"Was ist Aufklarung?† describes the fundamental principle that â€Å"Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his†¦inability to use [his] understanding without another’s guidance†¦Have the courage to use your own understanding is therefore the motto of the Enlightenment.† The notion that the standard of living and human happiness could improve through greater knowledge and progress fueled Rousseau’s argument for a society based on reason, and a new civil order based on natural law and science. During this period, politics began to focus more on the citizenry and the protection of indi vidual rights through a fair rule of law by democratic process, shown in documents such as the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Declaration of Independence. Such political freedom was hard to come by in the feudalistic system. One proponent of such ideas was John Locke, who argued for democracy, individual liberties, and the eradication of religious authority all opposing the old order of Feudalism and religious rule. Locke also proposed an idea that all Enlightenment thinkers could agree on: liberty is impossible without a guarantee of property, which the state must protect. Locke said that â€Å"the State†¦is a society of men established for the sole purpose of the establishment, preservation, and promotion of their civil interests†¦life, freedom, the possession of external goods, such as are money, land, houses, furniture, and things of that nature.† This is based on the idea that only those owning property can defend and take care of the state. Enlighte nment thinkers hoped that all could own property, an impossible concept in previous centuries where property ownership was limited to certain echelons. The progress of man could come through better policies and a better use of reason through not only political thinking but also science. The â€Å"enlightened† saw science’s potential to improve the standard of living through harnessing nature via industrialization and the liberation of man. Andrew Ure theorized that steam-engines not only employ many workers, but also leave â€Å"thousands of fine arable fields free for the production of food to man, which must have been otherwise allotted to the food of horses.† Through industrialization, man could have a better life and consume more. The rise of science and technology through an increasingly literate population contributed to the downfall of religious authority as they delivered tangible benefits in a manner controllable by humans, unlike religion. Additionally, the availability of technology allowed some to gain more wealth from their property. Science and technology resulted in the success of many industries in countries that adopted Enlightenment values. They were embraced by many â€Å"enlightened† politicians and leaders, as it gained them support from the improved lives. For some, science was a means to better technology and a better standard of living, and for others science was practiced to discover more and advance reason. Charles Darwin fell into this second general category, and while his work became the basis for evolutionary studies it was also perverted by those who turned Darwin’s natural evolutionary theory into â€Å"Social Darwinism.† Simply put, Darwin proposed that members of a species that were more suitable for an environment and responsive to change would more likely succeed and reproduce. Species could evolve through changes in populations, not through individuals, and nature is unable to determine who is fit and who is not. His ideas contradicted the Lamarckian Theory of Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics, which state an individual’s changes due to its environment could be passed on to its offspring. Interestingly, both theories of evolution would be used to justify social engineering in the 20th century. Through the Enlightenment and its accompanying values, Europeans produced new standards for humanity through quantifying the presence of democracy, social mobility, and individualism for all. One problem with the Enlightenment and factors for the future manipulation of its ideas was their Eurocentric nature. People, namely Europeans, could use reason and could therefore use it to reform less perfect societies into utopias. Those embracing Enlightenment values considered themselves superior to the â€Å"uncivilized,† and believed that the triumph of Europeans was due to a natural superiority in their political and financial skills, which was thought to be grounded in science. Some elites adopted Lamarck’s theory of evolution to justify their position, since they believed their acquired cultural skills could be passed on to offspring, marking the beginning of population genetics. Enlightenment values implied that humans could control their destiny, and had a right to eart h and its resources. While nature could not determine who was fit, the appropriate combination of reason and science could identify the fit (Europeans) for their protection to produce a superior human being. It was through this thought that the success of science and technology began to be used to legitimize social systems/policies and ideologies. The European superiority in science and technology jumpstarted the carving of empires in Africa and Asia through the mission to â€Å"civilize.† Then Prime Minister of France, Julien Ferry, championed colonial expansion using social Darwinist and Lamarckian ideas when he declared la mission civilisatrice: â€Å"indeed the higher races have a right over the lower races†¦because they have a duty†¦to civilize the inferior races†¦I maintain that European nations acquit themselves with generosity, with grandeur, and with sincerity of this superior civilizing duty.† At the same time, however, it was intended to spread French civilization, and therefore a better life, freedom, and ownership of property. This was the beginning of the twisted application of Enlightenment ideas to legitimize superiority abroad and domestically. The beginning of Enlightenment-fueled superiority complexes came through a mixture of the idea that man could progress through advancements of science and reason, and the idea that only finite resources and property exist. As a population depletes resources and takes property, competition will ensue and only the best adapted will survive and possess the right to the available property. Through an interpretation of Darwinist evolution, it was proposed that all populations have a distribution of characteristics, and some members have exclusive advantages making them an elite, favored group that is adaptable to change. Once a favored group became so distinct, it could no longer breed with the original, now deemed lesser group, and the new group became a higher species. It was through prejudices and the previously mentioned quantifiable Enlightenment traits (i.e. democracy, reason) that Europeans could identify the superior group and use social policies to advance it. One glaring issue w ith Enlightenment values was that the emphasis on celebrating reason led some to classify non-homogenous belief systems (i.e. indigenous beliefs) as irrational, therefore making them illegitimate. A divide materialized as some Europeans thought those who were inferior to them could be civilized through education or colonialism, whereas others saw a lack of successful characteristics as a lack of a qualification to breed. Herbert Spencer, who coined the term â€Å"survival of the fittest,† and strongly supported Social Darwinism said that â€Å"the forces which are working out the great scheme of perfect happiness, taking no account of incident suffering, exterminate such sections of mankind as stand in their way, with the same sternness that they exterminate beasts of prey and herds of useless ruminants,† with a comparison of the inferior to beasts of prey and herds of useless ruminants. From here, the tenets of Nazi and Soviet social engineering emerged. While the Nazi and Soviet political elite had differing views on the definition of a perfect society and what the standard of humanity should be, both used Social Darwinism and Enlightenment values to justify social planning and their respective ideology. The NSADP saw value in Social Darwinism, and the perversion of the Enlightenment values manifested themselves in Nazi ideology as they believed they were applying scientific facts to produce the ÃÅ"bermensch. While the application of the ÃÅ"bermensch in Nazi Germany was racial, the concept of the ÃÅ"bermensch from Nietzsche derived from the Enlightenment struggle to free the population from the old religious order. Nietzsche himself declared â€Å"God is dead. God remains dead,† and the â€Å"ÃÅ"bermensch shall be the meaning of the earth!† Humans now created new values, as the value system given by the religious order was dead. To the Nazis, politics was simply applying science to further the struggle for Lebensra um by removing â€Å"lesser† peoples and repopulating the land with the Aryan ÃÅ"bermensch. Hitler stated that â€Å"this earth is a trophy cup for the industrious man. And this rightly so in the service of natural selection. He who does not possess the force to secure his Lebensraum†¦must step aside and allow stronger peoples to pass him by.† The Nazis manipulated science, in this case, natural selection to justify their ideology and programs of racial superiority. From here, the Nazi eugenics program was born to select favorable characteristics for the ideal Aryan and proliferate those, while deselecting unfavorable ones through the extermination of weaker peoples. Another domestic program following this science was the Lebensborn program, which had â€Å"pure-blooded† Aryan women mate with SS officers to birth Aryan children along with kidnapping Aryan-looking children from occupied countries. The Nazis had a vision of the ÃÅ"bermensch and specifically had an image of what the master race would look like, and sought to create that. On the other end of the political spectrum, the idea of the Soviet man came from the Communist Manifesto, which defined liberation through a proletarian revolution, resulting in the rational allocation of property by the state. Soviet planning revolved around the idea that enlightened people could accelerate transformation of the unenlightened to an enlightened, elite, cooperative race through re-programming as according to Kant â€Å"reason†¦requires trial, practice, and instruction†¦to progress gradually from one stage of insight to the next.† Ideally, communism strives for the equality espoused by Enlightenment thinkers, but Soviet materialism sought to create a definite social group. To achieve these goals, the Soviets used Lamarckian theory (genetics was looked down upon), determining party officials could reprogram a society that could pass down cooperative traits. Lamarckian the ory and evolution was the science used by Stalin to legitimize his policies when he declared the â€Å"Party†¦undergoes a process of metabolism: the old and obsolete passes away, the new and growing lives and develops†¦and leads the cause forward†¦it will merely rid the Party of people who are getting in its way and hindering its progress.† This was attempted through the creation of gulags and the disappearances of noncompliant individuals by the NKVD. This thought that the government could control man to control his destiny is reminiscent of Enlightenment ideals of man’s ability to use reason to reform a more perfect society. Based on A, consider whether or not the 19th and 20th Century actions and policies of little e has actually resulted in the achievement of big E goals in the real world. Is the current world Enlightened in the manner that E principles would have anticipated. If so, how. If not, why not? The current world is both in some ways Enlightened and not as anticipated by Enlightenment values. Indeed, many first-world citizens enjoy liberty to an extent, can own property, have their individual rights protected by law, and are not under religious law. These were impossible under the Ancien Regime. Yes, social security, welfare, and insurance are present now in many societies. Science and technology mostly make life better for individuals in the world through technological and medical advances, and the standard of living has greatly increased since the 18th century. However, it is important to note the significance of â€Å"many first-world citizens† and the word â€Å"mostly.† Enlightenment values envisioned equality for all, and that is very much not the case. The equality gap is massive in the current world, and is growing larger through the very means that guarantee Enlightenment-envisioned rights for some. Citizens here in the U.S. can struggle to own propert y and receive care that improves their standards of living and guarantees their rights. Citizens abroad may not be liberated at all and subject to oppression by the government or an entity that considers itself superior. Similarly, science continues to be abused just as it was in previous centuries to either harm individuals (i.e. weaponization of diseases) or to raise individuals above others. While many live under a society that grants them Enlightenment values, even more live under conditions opposing Enlightenment values. Ultimately Enlightenment values are about the relationship between humans, and as a whole we have not, and may not, fully realize these ideals yet.

Primitive modern Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Primitive modern - Essay Example Among modernists there were artists who supported materialization, and there were ones trying to rebirth spiritual life. Paul Gauguin was one of those seeking for something spiritual in a new highly commercial world. Desire to find himself, and specifically, to reveal a human savage nature made him interested in those less civilized (from Western point of view) native inhabitants of Brittany first, and later Tahiti painting them in a specific manner that was later called â€Å"primitivism†. Some critics think that this way Gaugen was going back to own savage origin (â€Å"a savage who must return to the savage†) but Solomon-Godeau sees a more social explanation on Gauguin’s desire: it was a reaction of a civilized colonist, a man from patriarchal society willing to express a power upon colonial, predominantly female savage culture (Solomon-Godeau 120). Meanwhile, in Germany there was a discussion among intellectuals on the way Germany should choose for a spiritual culture rebirth. Despite dissidence, German artists agreed that modern art should â€Å"serve for† German state. Some of artists stood for a turning back to own origins thinking on more conservative themes and forms, and some insisted Germans to look for inspiration from folk culture of non-European colonies to put in expressional forms. According to Lloyd, Emil Nolde was artist fitting both trends, and at the same time none of them because in his art Nolde was inspired by primitive forms and themes considering them eternal, but also trying to engage them with modern concerns (Lloyd 93). For Nolde that primitive inspiration, a true spiritual origin could be only found in spiritual artifacts hand-made by â€Å"primitives† â€Å"with actual material in their hands, between their fingers†, with â€Å"pleasure and love of creating† (Lloyd 100). And primitives themselves for Nolde were native inhabitants of colonies, yet not those generations of living

Should our ethical commitment be determined by the state boundaries Assignment

Should our ethical commitment be determined by the state boundaries - Assignment Example However, there are certain general aspects of ethics which are accepted everywhere in the world. This paper briefly analyses the question; â€Å"Should our ethical commitment be determined by the state boundaries?†. Should our ethical commitment be determined by the state boundaries? â€Å"Values are the rules by which we make decisions about right and wrong, should and shouldn't, good and bad. They also tell us which are more or less important, which is useful when we have to trade off meeting one value over another† (Values, morals and ethics, 2002). Values are different in different societies. For example, Muslims are allowed to keep more than one wife at a time whereas most of the other religions consider such things as sin or unethical behaviour. In other words, values related to sexual activities or marriage is defined differently by different religions. Under such circumstances, the question; whether a Muslim person living in a Christian country should be allowed to keep more than one wife at a time, is relevant. It should be noted that plenty of Muslims are staying in America and Britain like Christian countries. If such Muslims try to follow their customs and traits related to sexual activities while living in overseas countries, the chances of social problems are immense. Same way, same sex marriage is allowed in Canada. â€Å"All same-sex marriages declared legal and valid by Canadian justice minister Rob  Nicholson†(Post media news, 2012). If Canadians try to follow same sex marriage customs while living in another country, social problems may definitely arise. Imagine a situation in which a Canadian male living in Saudi Arabia tries to marry another male while living in Saudi Arabia. â€Å"As per utilitarianism, utility is measured in terms of pleasure and pain† (Crane &Matten, 2007, p.95).. Another argument is that â€Å"Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness† (Mill, 2004, p.6). It is a fact that same sex marriage provides pleasure to the Canadian, but it provides pain to the society in which these things are unacceptable. In short, it is better to keep ethics and morals within the state boundaries. At the same time, in certain cases, ethics and morals should be allowed to travel beyond the boundaries of states. According to Maccarelli, (2006) â€Å"what a person should do and what a person wants to do are often not compatible† (Maccarelli, 2006). For example, Middle East is a place in which people from all parts of the world are working together. These diverse people have their own beliefs in morals and ethics. Christian workers consider Sundays as sacred days and they always like to have weekly off on that day. On the other hand, Muslims like to have weekly off on Fridays. If a Christian employee asks weekly offs on Sundays, his authorities should consider that demand favorably if possible. Social contract theory says that â€Å"Majority of the humans are self-interested and they will work for preserving their interest. But the law of nature ask commands that each man be willing to pursue peace when others are willing to do the same† (Social Contract Theory, 2004). In other words, the ultimate aim or objective of ethics and morality is to promote peace and harmony across the world. In that sense, it is better to keep unacceptable ethical behaviours within the boundaries of