Existentialism Is a Humanism Essay Example for Free

Existentialism Is a Humanism Essay My purpose here is to defend existentialism against several reproaches that have been laid against it. Existentialism has been criticised for inviting people to remain in a quietism of despair, to fall back into a the middle-class luxury of a merely contemplative philosophy. We are reproached for underlining human nastiness, and forgetting, as the Catholic Mme. Mercier has it, the smile of the child. All and sundry reproach us for treating men as isolated beings, largely because we begin with the I think of Descartes. Christians especially reproach us for denying the reality and seriousness of human society, since, if we ignore Gods eternal values, no-one is able to condemn anyone else. Existentialism is being seen as ugliness; our appeal to nature as scandalous, our writings sickening. Yet what could be more disillusioning than repeating those mottoes like dont fight against tradition, or know your station? They say that man is base and doomed to fall, he needs fixed rules to keep him from anarchy. In the end, is not what makes our doctrine so fearful to some merely the fact that it leaves all possibility of choice with man? It has become fashionable to call this painter, or musician or columnist an existentialist a term so loosely applied that it no longer means anything at all. However, it can be defined easily. Existentialists are either Christian, such as the Catholics Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel, or atheists like Heidegger and myself. What they have in common is to believe that existence comes before essence, that we always begin from the subjective. What does this mean? If one considers a manufactured object, say a book or a paper-knife, one sees that it has been made to serve a definite purpose. It has an essence, the sum of its purpose and qualities, which precedes its existence. The concept of man in the mind of God is comparable to the concept of paper-knife in the mind of the artisan. My atheist existentialism is rather more coherent. It declares that God does not exist, yet there is still a being in whom existence precedes essence, a being which exists before being defined by any concept, and this being is man or, as Heidegger puts it, human reality. That means that man first exists, encounters himself and emerges in the world, to be defined 1 Squashed version edited by Glyn Hughes: http://www. btinternet. com/~glynhughes/squashed/sartre. htm 1 afterwards. Thus, there is no human nature, since there is no God to conceive it. It is man who conceives himself, who propels himself towards existence. Man becomes nothing other than what is actually done, not what he will want to be. And when we say that man takes responsibility for himself, we say more than that he is in his choices responsible for all men. All our acts of creating ourselves create at the same time an image of man such as we believe he must be. Thus, our personal responsibility is vast, because it engages all humanity. If I want, say, to marry and have children, such choice may depend on my situation, my passion, my desire, but by it I engage not only myself, but all humanity in the way of the monogamy. In fashioning myself, I fashion man. This helps us to understand some rather grandiloquent words like anguish, abandonment, despair. The existentialist declares that man is in anguish, meaning that he who chooses cannot escape a deep responsibility for all humanity. Admittedly, few people appear to be anxious; but we claim that they mask their anguish, that they flee it. This is what Kierkegaard called the anguish of Abraham. You know the old story: An angel commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son. But anyone in such a case would wonder straight away, is this an angel? am I the Abraham? If we hear voices from the sky, what proves that they come not from hell, or the subconscious, or some pathological state? Who proves that they are addressed to me? Each man must say to himself: am I right to set the standard for all humanity? To deny that is to mask the anguish. When, for example, a military leader sends men to their deaths, he may have his orders, but at the bottom it is he alone who chooses. And when we speak about abandonment, we want to say that God does not exist, and that it is necessary to follow this conclusion to its end. The existentialist is strongly against that sloppy morality which tries to remove God without ethical expense, like the French professors of the 1880s who saw God as a useless and expensive assumption but still wanted definitive rules like do not lie to exist a priori. The existentialist, on the contrary, finds it rather embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with him any possibility of finding values in a heaven. Dostoevsky wrote If God did not exist, everything would be permitted; that is the starting point of existentialism. We are alone, without excuses. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free. There is no power of beautiful passions which propel men to their actions, we think, rather, that man is responsible for his own passions. The existentialist cannot accept that man can be helped by any sign on earth, for he will 2 interpret the sign as he chooses. As Ponge has truly written Man is the future of man. To give you an example of this abandonment, I will quote the case of one of my pupils who came to me. He lived alone with his mother, his father having gone off as a collaborator and his brother killed in 1940. He had a choice to go and fight with the Free French to avenge his brother and protect his nation, or to stay and be his mothers only consolation. So he was confronted by two modes of action; one concrete and immediate but directed only towards one single individual; the other addressed to an infinitely greater end but very ambiguous. What would help him choose? Christian doctrine? Accepted morals? Kant? I said to him, In the end, it is your feelings which count. But how can we put a value on a feeling? At least, you may say, he sought the counsel of a professor. But, if you seek advice, from a priest for example, in choosing which priest you know already, more or less, what they would advise. When I was imprisoned, I met a rather remarkable man, a Jesuit who had joined that order in the following way: As a child, his father had died leaving him in poverty. At school he was made to feel that he was accepted only for charitys sake and denied the usual pleasures. At eighteen he came to grief in a sentimental affair and then failed his military examinations. He could regard himself as a total failure, but, cleverly, took it as a sign that the religious life was the way for him. He saw the word of God there, but who can doubt that the decision was his and his alone? He could as easily have chosen to be a carpenter or a revolutionary. As for despair, this simply means that we will restrict ourselves to relying only on our own will, or on the probabilities which make our action possible. If I am counting on the arrival of a friend, I presuppose that their train will be on time. But I am still among possibilities, outside my own field of action. No God, no intention, is going to alter the world to my will. In the end, Descartes meant the same, that we must act without hope. Marxists have answered Your action is limited by your death, but you can rely on others to later take up your deeds and carry them forward to the revolution. To this I rejoin that I cannot know where the revolution will lead. Others may come and establish Fascism. Does that mean that I must give up myself to quietism? No! Quietism is the attitude of people who say: let others do what I cannot do. The doctrine that I present is precisely the opposite: there is reality only in the action; and more, man is nothing other than his own project and exists only in as far as he carries it out. From this we see why our ideas so often cause horror. Many people have but one resource to sustain them in their misery; to think, circumstances were against me, I was worthy of better. I had no great love because I never met anyone worthy of me. I wrote no great book because I 3 had no time. I am filled with a crowd of possibilities greater than anyone could guess from my few achievements. But in reality, for the existentialist, there is no love other than that which is built, no artistic genius other than in works of art. The genius of Proust is the works of Proust. A man engages in his own life, draws his own portrait, there is nothing more. This is hard for somebody who has not made a success of life. But it is only reality that counts, not dreams, expectations or hopes. What people reproach us for here is not our pessimism, but the sternness of our optimism. If people reproach our writings, it is not because we describe humanity as frail and sometimes frankly bad, but because, unlike Zola whose characters are shown to be products of heredity or environment, you cannot say of ours That is what we are like, no one can do anything about it. The existentialist portrays a coward as one who makes himself a coward by his actions, a hero who makes himself heroic. Some still reproach us for confining man within his individual subjectivity. But there is no other starting-point than the I think, I am the absolute truth of consciousness, a simple truth within reach of everyone and the only theory which gives man the dignity of not being a mere object. All materialisms treat men as objects, no different in their being bundles of determined reactions than a table or a chair or a stone. We want to constitute a human kingdom of values distinct from the material world. Contrary to the philosophy of Descartes, contrary to the philosophy of Kant, we are discovering in the cogito not just ourselves but all others. We discover an intersubjective world where each man has to decide what he is and what others are. It is not possible to find in each man the universal essence called human nature, but there is a human universality of condition. Any purpose, even that of the Chinese, or the idiot or the child can be understood by a European, given enough information. In this sense, there is a universality of man; but it is not a given, it is something perpetually re-built. That does not entirely refute the charge of subjectivism. People tax us with anarchy; they say that you cannot judge others, because you have no reason to prefer one project to another. You give with one hand what you pretend to receive from the other. Let us say that moral choice is comparable to a work of art. Do we reproach the artist who makes a painting without starting from laid-down rules? Did we tell him what he must paint? There is no pre-defined picture, and no-none can say what the painting of tomorrow should be; one can judge only one at a time. 4 Amongst morals, the creative situation is the same, and just as the works of, say, Picasso, have consequences, so do our moral judgements. That student who came to me could not appeal to any system for guidance; he was obliged to invent the law for himself. We define man only through his engagement, so it is absurd to reproach us for the consequences of a choice. But it is not entirely true that we cannot judge others. We can judge whether choices are founded on truth or error, and we can judge a mans sincerity. The man who hides behind the excuse of his passions or of some deterministic doctrine, is a self-deceiver. And what if I wish to deceive myself? there is no reason why you should not, but I declare publicly that you are doing so. We will freedom for the sake of freedom. And through it we discover that our freedom depends entirely on the freedom of others, and that their freedom depends on ours. Those who hide their freedom behind deterministic excuses, I will call cowards. Those who pretend that their own existence was necessary, I will call scum. To the objection that You receive with one hand what you give with the other, that is, your values are not serious, since you choose them, I answer that, I am sorry, but having removed God the Father, one needs somebody to invent values. Things have to be taken as they are. One has reproached me ridiculing a type of humanism in Nausea, and now suggesting that existentialism is a form of humanism. The absurd type of humanism is to glory in Man the magnificent ascribing to all men the value of the deeds of the most distinguished men. Only a dog or a horse would be in a position to declare such a judgement. We cannot, either, fall into worshipping humanity, for that way leads to Fascism. But there is another humanism, the acceptance that there is only one universe, the universe of human subjectivity. Existentialism is not despair. It declares rather that even if God did exist, it would make no difference. 5.

The Lady Of Shalott: An analysis

The Lady Of Shalott: An analysis Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote The Lady of Shalott in 1832. Tennyson was known for his visual aspect and was able to create images that correspond to mood, situation and emotion. The Lady is in love with Sir Lancelot but she is doomed to life in the tower due to the curse. The Lady of Shalott takes place in a tower on the island of Shalott, in a river near Camelot. The Lady is a beautiful woman who is under a curse and must constantly weave a magic web without looking directly out at the world. The Lady can only look into a mirror which reflects the busy road and the people of Camelot who pass by her. When she sees Sir Lancelot passing by the tower, the Lady breaks free from the curse to pursue him and profess her undying love. Unfortunately, she dies before she is able to meet her dear love. Lancelot remarks upon discovery of the Ladys body that she had a lovely face, she has a lovely face, God in his mercy lend her grace, the Lady of Shalott (Tennyson 169-171). How can one comprehend t his? The Lady can be seen as an artist that avoids all contact with the world and does not want to face reality. For an artist like Tennyson, it is his duty to construct beauty, not to become entwined with reality. Both the Lady and Tennyson appear to share a commonality that they are both constructing something beautiful. On the other hand, a reverse contemplation occurs to me, does disregarding reality lead to death? Can the lady create her own ending or is it fate that is cruel to her? With that being said, in this essay I will purpose that Tennyson is going against dispelling myths because he is a believer of them. First, I will prove how it is a myth. Second, I will explain how and why it is bad luck for a mirror to shatter. And thirdly, I will explain why it has to be a myth, because no natural cause killed the Lady, only the mirror breaking alone had killed her. Tennyson is against dispelling myths because he is a firm believer in them. The Lady only sees reflection and shadows of the world around her because she looks at the real world through a mere mirror. In the poem, an example of Tennyson believing in myths is when he writes in part two, A curse is on her if she stay (Tennyson, 40). He is interpreting that the curse will come to her if she stops weaving her magical web. In the poem during part one, it states Four gray walls and four gray towers (Tennyson 15). I believe he is saying that in order for one to live their life, being isolated does not help. It shows that the tower is extremely dangerous, which happens to be a spell known as a curse. In part three, the Lady à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦left the web, she left the loom, out flew the web and floated wide, the mirror crackd from side to sideà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ (Tennyson 109-115). This shows that the myth is in fact true and a journey of a disaster begins for the Lady. The journey of disaster began with the magic mirror shattered. It is well known that a mirror that is shattered is bad luck. The mirror is not an entrance into the heavenly world but rather it resembles more of a demon with a mind of its own. Breaking a mirror would give a free rein to restless and evil spirits formerly trapped in the mirror. In some cultures, a broken mirror signifies a death in the family within the year. This alliance of mirrors in the company of death is common in myths, a certainty that the soul could be spellbound in the mirror, and cause death to the one looking in it. A broken mirror will have a drastic and negative effect on the future of the person who is involved. The Lady was in this position as stated in the poem in part three, The mirror crakd from side to side; The curse is come upon me (Tennyson, 115-116). This approved right of entry of spirits from the other side into her world and the curse is in action. The mirror can give horrific news, whereas i n the Ladys case she was able to escape this curse by her imminent death. That itself was the horrific news brought on by the mirror. The cracked mirror symbolized that her soul would be trapped inside the world far from the one in which she once gazed at freely. To all intents and purposes, the broken mirror produced a broken soul for the Lady, which resulted in her broken health leading to her death. I always assumed that when you believe something is bound to happen, then you bring curses and a hex upon yourself. This gives proof that the Lady knew she was going to die right when the mirror cracked, so it happened as she left the tower and ran towards the boat; she instantly died. If good things happen after an action, the action is perceived to be lucky and vice versa. In this case, the lady was to stay in the tower and weave due to her curse; instead she disobeyed and followed her heart. She was deep in love with Lancelot and as a result, ended up facing the drastic consequence s of her actions. No natural causes killed her as is evident in the poem. The only way she could have died is through the mirror breaking. The mirror breaking alone appeared to have murdered her. It is clear that the Lady was not shot, nor did she fall and break part of her body; or committed suicide. It is a common myth among people even to this day, that breaking a mirror brings bad luck. Such is the case for the Lady in The Lady of Shalott. Everything that the Lady uttered, believed, thought, and dreamt of, was a myth. Due to the fact the Lady was summoned to spend her life in the tower, she desperately wanted to make sense of her life and her own existence. In Part four of the poem, it states, In the stormy east-wind straining, the pale yellow woods were waning (Tennyson 118-119). This indicates her emotions were reflected by the color yellow, which signifies sickness and waning signifies that the woods were dying. This in turn signifies that the Lady was near her death. Her death came slowly like the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦the pale yellow woodsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. The nature is a direct effect of the fact that the Lady is on the verge of leaving Earth. As she dies, everything is getting dimmer and her death is occurring slowly, ..till her blood was frozen slowly (Tennyson 147). However, it is evident in Tennysons world and ours today that even as great tragedies occur around us, people still continue with life. This poem had many meanings, which I have attempted to bring out in this essay. The Lady is under a curse, but not in a regular sense. However, the Lady is not content with a life in the tower and with the grim prospect of Lancelot never seeing her again. Therefore, death was her only escape from her confinement. Due to the curse being bestowed on her, she makes a decision that it is healthier to die than to carry on a life where she cannot participate in the real world. Myths are not about other people, but are stories on the subject of ourselves. Myths have a tendency to include intense characters with dark and gloomy pasts but the Lady is none of that. Instead she is a wondrously beautiful woman. The web she weaves is a symbol of her pain as she is confined to the tower while the world continues on below. The Lady must continue to weave the web without involving herself in the world due to her curse. I can see her pain and grief as she lives out her curse because shes powerless. I t is mentioned in part two, she is half-sick of shadows (Tennyson 71) meaning the Lady is tired of her existence in this world of contempt. This poem clearly proves that Tennyson follows myths religiously and believes in them. Tennysons poem represents his beliefs in myths and his desire to keep them in our realm. On a general not, myths teach us about the way diverse individuals see the world. However, we have to become conscious and respect the fact that myths are only myths if you do not believe in them. This legend was told in cultures of ancient times to help gratify their inquisitiveness on how the world functioned. Mirrors give the impression to posses a power beyond the natural, a reflection of the truth, and so it had been assigned as mystical and supernatural ideas.

A basic Introduction of Culture and its meaning

A basic Introduction of Culture and its meaning The word culture is generated from Latin word of cultura which means care, or cultus that means civilization. (Harper 2010) It can be defined as complicated system of behaviors that share and practice by a given group of people or society. This includes beliefs, values, knowledge, laws, habits and material objects. (Andersen and Taylor 2007) Cultural and society are intertwined and they cannot be separated from each other. Society refers to groups of people who stays in the same region and follows the same laws executed by their countries. (Kendall 2010) Hence, people in the same region will normally perform the same culture. (Brinkerhoff et al 2008) Some socialists view culture as a way of life (Mohanthy 2005) regards to people ways of thinking and behaving. (Macionis 2005) Culture also refers to activities or symbols that created and adopted by people to deal with certain issues in order to survive in their environments and accepted by their society. (Brym and Lie 2007) Further, it can also be a tool to unite the society so that everyone can rally together by having the same culture, same direction. (Andersen and Taylor 2007) For example, Malaysia is famous as rich cultural heritage because of having different races with diverse cultures that bring people together (Boey 2007) especially through the latest One Malaysia concept. (Bernama 2009) Culture is shared and transmitted from generation to generation for future guidance. (Kendall 2010) Different cultures will be shared when there are various races and ethics groups. (Andersen and Taylor 2007) This can be explained further by the culture of distributing red packets during Chinese New Year by Chinese. This culture of giving red packets does not only share by Chinese in fact it has been adopted by Malays in distributing green packets during Hari Raya celebration. (Faroukaperu 2010) Thus, culture is learned and not born instinctively. (Andersen and Taylor 2007) Next, culture is changing all the times and different across to places. People nowadays tend to change their cultures based on their preferences. For example, people nowadays will wear black apparels during Chinese New Year even it is prohibited by their traditional cultures. People in US will kiss and hug as their way of greetings which is totally different from Malaysia where there will be no intimate actions in greetings. This shows that even the same actions can bring different meanings when it applied in different countries because of their distinguish cultures. (ibid) Contents of Culture Part Two There are two different types of culture, which are material and non-material cultures. Material culture refers to crudely (Ferrante 2008) or human made items that can be seen, wield, and share by society. (Kendall 2010) They are important as evidences to prove the existing of previous, current and oncoming society. (Epitacio and Palispis 1996) Contrarily, non-material culture can be defined as intangible concepts that will affect on how people behave. (Kendall 2010) This consists of symbols, language, values, beliefs and norms that created and followed by particular group of people in society which I will discuss below. (Epitacio and Palispis 1996) Symbols The presence of culture is because of human capability to invent and access symbols. (Popenoe 1989) Symbols are type of tangible objects or ideas that people appoint them with denominations or purports. (Ferrante 2008) Symbols permit people to categorize their experience and extrapolate from it. This can be shown by the symbols of daddy and mummy that cannot be simply address to anyone. As the baby often heard the words, thus he knows who he should address these phrases to. (Brym and Lie 2007) Symbols can also create patriotism, likeable or hatred because they are represented by certain tangible items. For example, national songs can stand for nationalism, roses represent likable and weapons represent hatred. Next, white colour of gown and garments are usually worn by bride and bridegroom because white stands for pureness. People might also use symbols to show their status in the society, for example the car BMW is a symbol of affluent and wealthy. Hence, whenever we see someone driving BMW, we will automatically categorize that people as rich. (Kendall 2010) In addition, symbols of gestures that seem sinless can sometimes offend people with different cultures. The thumbs up gesture that usually express excellent can be troublesome in Australia as it means up yours. They have to remember that there are different symbolic meanings in different society and new symbols can be created anytime. (Macionis 2005) Language Language is a type of symbols that permit people to share their concepts, allow them to consider wisely before interact with people. (Anderson and Taylor 2007) There are verbal and nonverbal languages. (Kendall 2010) Language is considered to be the most important symbol in expressing our past, sentiment and lore because it is straight forward and easy to understand. (Popenoe 1989) Some socialists alleged that language can be used to differentiate human from animals. (Epitacio and Palispis 2007) Scientist Steven Pinker has claimed that language is what naturally born by human beings. (Brym and Lie 2007) Although animals do not communicate with each other by language, they do have the ability to learn but with limitations. For instance, parrot that will follow on what the trainers train it to be. But yet, their memories are definite and they do not have the capability to understand the meaning of its. Therefore, animals cannot pass the messages to their progeny unlike human. (Kendall 2010) Language and culture are inseparable. As children learn their language, they will understand more about their culture and participate fully into it. The sense of belongings to their own culture can be created and through language they can share the bygone and world after tomorrow. (Ferrante 2008) Through language people can realize others experiences and mistakes to ensure no repetition on the same failure. (Epitacio and Palispis 2007) Each language has their own vocabulary, pronunciation and ways of constructing sentences. (Anderson and Taylor 2007) For example, English language people will construct a sentence in the subject-verb-objects (The girls are playing Barbie dolls) which is different compare to Korean subject-object-verb (The girls Barbie dolls are playing). Korean and Chinese will first address their family surname but western people will only address their family name after mentioned their own name. (Ferrante 2008) Sometimes the same words can also pronounce differently by using American or British slang. Further, vocabulary for tomatoes is known as pomodoro in Luigi and agvabiya in Shoshanna. These clearly show the using of languages can categorize the society people are in (Brym and Lie 2007) and to shape unity within the groups. (Brinkerhoff et al 2008) Nevertheless, Sapir-Whorf Thesis was proposed in 1930s by linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf regard to the relationships between experiences, concepts and language. (Brym and Lie 2007) This hypothesis claimed that the language people use will shape their perspective of actuality about how they look the world (Anderson and Taylor 2007) and no languages will have the same thoughts of actuality. (Popenoe 1989) However, many scientists found this thesis exaggerated the relationship between language and people concept, ways of behaving. They do agree that the language could affect their behavior and perception but will not ascertain it. (Kendall 2010) Language also being used to differentiate gender and this can be shown by example of word masculine used to describe he as strong while feminine is used to represent she as coward. (Brym and Lie 2007) However, as time passes, many vocabularies that previously only refer to men has changed as many women nowadays are highly educated. For example, the word chairman in the past has amended to either chair or chairperson in organizations. (Kendall 2010) Values and Beliefs Values represent the perfect manners to decide the desirability regard to justice, correct versus wrong and good verse bad. (Anderson and Taylor 2007) Values are intangible notions that could form the perfectionism of society. (Popenoe 1989) Meanwhile, values also shape a persons behavior (Anderson and Taylor 2007) and people will use their values as models to evaluate the attitude of someone. (Kendall 2010) As claimed by Talcott Parsons (1951), values are imbibed by people since they are small through their parents or environmental factors. (Popenoe 1989) Thus by evaluating the attitudes of someone, people can determine the fundamental values on what they learnt in the former. (Epitacio and Palispis 1996) Values are reciprocal with culture. (Macionis 2005) Some cultures will value more on individualism whereas some will value more on group. Seen in this light, we can realize people in US value more on individualism as they more focus on their personal achievement rather than sharing it with others. This is totally different with Korean that is ready to share their joyful with others and they tend to be more unity. (Ferrante 2008) Furthermore, values have mutual relationships with beliefs. Beliefs are notions and concepts that bind people together and what they perceive it should be. Some socialists claimed that beliefs are the fundamental for values and guiding people to pass through their lives even though sometimes it might be wrong or sinful. (Anderson and Taylor 2007) Cultural beliefs and values do not only influence people viewpoints but could shape their ways of behaving. (Macionis 2005) Another example to prove that beliefs and values affect the attitude of people can be seen from Kwakiutl group who have the habit of distributing their wealthy to their people or even to their competitors. (Anderson and Taylor 2007) They believe by doing such a way their people will stay loyalty and offer them helps whenever they are in troubles. (Brinkerhoff et al 2008) However, values contradictions always occur due to the conflicts of ideal and real culture. Ideal culture refers to the culture that someone should practice in society while real culture is what eventually adopted by people. (Kendall 2010) This can be seen by the example of China tainted milk powder by Sanlu Group that happened previously. Their only concern in making profits and ignored customers safety has shown the contrast of ideal and real cultures adopted by business. (BBC News 2008) (Refer to Attachment 1 page 15 to 16) Norms Norms refer to cultural expectations regard on what actions to be carried out when facing issues. (Anderson and Taylor 2007) Norms also act as standards to provide guideline about what are right and wrong, what should be done or forbidden by society. Even though it almost the same as values, but norms clarify how people should behave while values only provide ideas and concepts regard to behaviors. (Kendall 2010) Thus, norms can also form people attitude and decide the stability of society. (Anderson and Taylor 2007) There are formal and informal norms. (Ferrante 2008) Formal norms are rules that have recorded and must be obeyed while informal norms refer to situations that will happen everyday. (Anderson and Taylor 2007) For instance, the compendium given to high school student is a type of formal norms and student ought to follow the rules stated. Informal norms can be seen by normal routines such as brush your teeth early in the morning and before you sleep without the necessity to remind. (Ferrante 2008) Norms also consist of prescriptive and proscriptive norms in which the former declare what actions are correct and the latter record conducts of wrongdoings. (Kendall 2010) US sociologist William Graham Sumner (1906) has introduced norms of folkways and mores. According to him, it is informal norm that will give us discipline (Ferrante 2008) and will not have any serious circumstances even if someone breaks it. (Popenoe 1989) For example, someone is violating the folkways when he dyes his hair into green. Even though other people might view him as insane or mad, but his act never intrude anyones life and will not affect the society. (Brinkerhoff et al 2008) Next, mores are important to govern the ethically of behaviors (Brym and Lie 2007) that could influence the stability of society if someone breach it. (Kendall 2010) Unlike folkways, people who commit mores will be punished more seriously, such as imprisonment or even sentence to death. This normally applies to criminal cases such as murder that against by laws. (Ferrante 2008) Incent taboo is an example of crucial mores that prohibit from having any sexual desire and intimate relationships with person that have the same kinship. (Kendall 2010) The violation of this taboo can bring unexpected shameful and punishments such as imprisonment, whipping or both can be executed at the same time. (Anderson and Taylor 2007) To sum up, folkways will determine either polite or impolite while mores will differentiate correct or evildoings. (Macionis 2005) Laws have implemented for modulating and governing people attitudes and actions. (Epitacio and Palispis 1996) Laws are part of formal norms that compile and sanction by state government. (Brinkerhoff et al 2008) Most of the mores are laid under criminal laws with more serious penalties (Epitacio and Palispis 1996) while civil laws are basically for handling cases about arguments. (Kendall 2010) However, laws are sometimes flexible and pamper to certain acts which might seen as illegal. This can be shown by the example where most Chinese will have the habit of gambling during Chinese New Year. Even though gambling is an illegal behavior but many polices will just close one eye because they refer this as a way on how Chinese society share their joyful during their festival. (The Star 2006) (Refer to Attachment 2 page 17 to 18) Lastly, sanction can also be applied for the intention to compel norms and it can either be positive or negative. (Popenoe 1989) Positive sanction refer as recompenses that someone will receive by doing adequate conducts whereas negative sanctions will be administered when someone did something guilty. (Kendall 2010) The degree of sanctions will rely on how strong the norm is being concerned. (Anderson and Taylor 2007) However, there are formal and informal sanctions. (Popenoe 1989) Formal sanction only occur when someone in the high status with power involve in decision making process. An example of formal sanction can be viewed by the Muslim Malay model that has to receive sanction of canning because of her violation in drinking alcoholics drinks. (Mail Online 2009) (Refer to Attachment 3 page 19 to 20) Nonetheless, informal sanction is a control to assure the compliance of people or society to certain norms. For example, society in Aguaruna adopts custom of reciprocity. If someone does not interact with others, the individual will be isolated and no one will assist them whenever they need helps. (Gutierrez 2002) Material Culture Besides only referring to physical and tangible items, material culture also covers the process of utilizing skills for producing items (Brym and Lie 2007) using ingredients such as raw materials, or even invent through existing objects. (Kendall 2010) This clearly shows that material culture cannot not be isolated from technology that refer to the literacy and wisdom to invent, introduce, alter and convert something to maximize its usage. (Macionis 2005) Sociologists also called material culture as artifacts due to its breeding and usage by human. (Popenoe 1989) Material culture plays a significance role because it shows the advancement of technology in enriching people life. In fact, material cultures are interdependence with non-material cultures because archaeologists can only analyze and identify the non-material cultures through the dig up artifacts left by former society. (ibid) However, sociologist William F. Ogbum claimed sometimes cultural lag can occur due to the inability of non-material cultures to pursue with the progress of material culture. (Kendall 2010) Example of cultural lag can be shown through the technology of cloning (material culture) that is possible to clone human with the same genes, characteristics, shared values and norms. However, many people banned this technology because it is differs from their religion beliefs (non-material culture) that everyone has to pass through the process of death. (BBC News 2006) (Refer Attachment 4 page 21 to 22) Material culture can be concluded as instruments to form human beings and vice versa. (Popenoe 1989) For example, iPhone has grabbed abundance attentions when it was first presented in the market and many people has buying it. Functions of this high end technology gadget (material culture) will be fully utilized and discovered by their buyers. Thus, material culture will form how human beings reacted meanwhile the desire of human beings to use high technology gadget nowadays have made many companies join in the fray to devise this kinds of material cultures. (Catanzariti 2009) Countless material cultures have also introduced through the advancements of technologies in the fields of Internet, telecommunication and transportation such as aeroplanes, computers. (Kendall 2010) Part Three Social Conflict perspective claimed culture as social item (Brinkerhoff et al 2008) because the inequality of privileged groups or society to govern social life and exploit others. (Kendall 2010) It is so called as conflict because it only benefits and focus on powerful groups. (Popenoe 1989) According to Karl Marx, ideas play an important role in society and thus the concept of ideology which is the shared culture beliefs emerged in order to remain their status and authority. (Kendall 2010) This can be supported by the example of ideology in ruling class where bourgeoisies, the upper class of Marxian culture have authority to exploit the lower class, proletarians either politically or economically. (Popenoe 1989) Therefore, conflict theory asserted that culture is a type of authority in society because it is overrule by strong and wealthy groups of people or institutions. (Anderson and Taylor 2007) These groups of people could use non-material culture such as idea to influence and change people behaviors. (Kendall 2010) For example, the contents of the newspaper would filter before publish to society if it is financially supported by private organizations. They could also convert critical bad news into minor case so the reputation of the organizations will not be affected. Thus, the cultural items that produced are not necessary correct and mostly only meet the demands of this privileged group that willing to pay. (Anderson and Taylor 2007) Conflict theory also construes culture as it will be slowly dominated by affluent big players in capitalist economic industry. These big players will gradually control and diversify their business for example by buying over other company to remain their biggest potion in the market and slowly insert their influences to society. It has been claimed that the more successful the business is, the more market the business is holding and the easier the business in affecting culture of others. Sociologist refers this as cultural hegemony, which is the only and biggest power in play. This cultural hegemony has the authority to rule everything because most culture beliefs made by these powerful people are known to be correct and perfect. (ibid) Moreover, this theory analyze concept of cultural capital that define by French Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1984) as the lore and wisdom that own by upper class, such as the activities of playing golf and sailing that distinguish the standards of social class. (Brinkerhoff et al 2008) The reason is simple, upper class people will use their knowledge (cultural capital) to invest their money and gradually enhance their social and economic position. Therefore, the rich will becomes richer and the poor will becomes poorer. When they have more money, they will be more respected and people will start listening to them. (Anderson and Taylor 2007) Some conflict theorists even conclude that former popular culture that originated from the public are slowly unadopted by people due to the creation of new popular culture. This can be shown by games of whirligigs and kites that were previously played by children have no longer been seen in todays century. We will be noticed that city children nowadays only play games entertainments like PS2, Internet and mobile phones. This clearly showed that the advanced games (new popular culture) have superseded the former popular games and culture. (Kendall 2010) Besides that, it also evokes the inequality in the term of gender and certain human rights. (ibid) For example, women will be described as weakness and timid whereas men will be defined as reverence. Gay and lesbian also addressed as deviance and absurd. All these inequalities have caused pressure that lead to right revolutions, a process of achieving victory in executing even rights under the legislation. Hence, women, gay, lesbian and many other rights have created in order to protect these vulnerable groups and maintain the stability of society. Examples of increasing women participation in workforce especially in Singapore have proven that women are changing and they can decide their own future. (Chang 2009) (Refer Attachment 5 page 23 to 24) Iowa is also the first state to legalize gays and lesbian marriage in order to enhance their pride in status. (The Associated Press 2009) (Refer Attachment 6 page 25 to 27) Nevertheless, many Muslim nations still unable to accept homosexuali ty and they are still being discriminated by people. (Brym and Lie 2007) In a nutshell, this social conflict theory do not illustrate the equally distribution of human necessary but more emphasize on the relationship between culture and its disparity. (Macionis 2005) Conclusion Culture can be concluded as the characteristics of society. As the world becomes borderless, cultures easily transmit and share by people from different society. Every material and non-material culture also plays their roles in maintaining harmonization between one another and unites people together. (Kendall 2010) Thus, it is important to know and understand our own cultures (Newman 2008) and pass them to our next generations to ensure its long-lasting. (Brym and Lie 2007) Word Count: 3283 words Attachments Attachment 1: China Sanlu Group tainted milk powder Chinese baby milk scare severe Published: 2008/09/13 11:36:43 GMT  © BBC MMX The number of Chinese babies known to have fallen ill with kidney stones as a result of contaminated milk powder has risen to 432, officials have announced. This is a severe food safety accident, health ministry official Gao Qiang, said. Those responsible would be severely punished, he added. Later, it was announced that 19 people had been arrested. Tests showed the milk powder contained the industrial chemical melamine. One infant has died. The new scare revived memories of a fake baby milk formula scandal four years ago in which at least 13 babies died. Vow to punish As of 12 September, there are 432 cases of kidney stones in the urinary systems of infants according to reports from health departments nationwide, Gao Qiang said. None of the milk powder was exported to other countries or regions, Mr Gao said. Only a fraction of the milk powder was sold to Taiwan for food processing, he added. Gao Qiang said the Sanlu Group had been ordered to halt production after its products were found to be responsible. We will severely punish and discipline those people and workers who have acted illegally, Mr Gao said. Melamine is a toxic chemical used in plastics, fertilisers and cleaning products. New Zealand-based dairy product company Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd, a part-owner of Sanlu, ordered a recall of about 700 tonnes of powder contaminated with melamine believed to be in circulation. Melamine has been used by Chinese suppliers of animal feed components to make them appear to have more protein. It was linked to the formation of kidney stones and kidney failure in pets in the United States last year, leading to thousands of deaths and illnesses. A fake milk powder scandal in 2004 killed at least 13 babies in the eastern province of Anhui. Investigators found that the milk given to these babies had no nutritional value, and the resulting scandal triggered widespread investigations into food safety. Story from BBC NEWS: Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7614083.stm The above news is used to show the differences between ideal culture and real culture in real business situation. Attachment 2: Gambling Saturday March 11, 2006 The adverse effects of gambling Tel: (03)2260 1954/ 2134 or email Information in this article is courtesy of the  Malaysia Crime Prevention Foundation(MCPF) Gambling is illegal in Malaysia unless it is being operated under a government licence or permit. Among the gambling activities that are considered illegal include: Gambling in the house Gambling in public places Illegal lottery Illegal bookmaking Slot machines/ jackpot/ turfking/ fruit machine Hawking lottery results Gambling can easily develop into a compulsion for some of us. When this happens, it becomes a serious problem not only to the individual but also to society at large. The harm caused by those who are hooked on gambling usually spreads to the family and community. Many problem gamblers often experience stress-related physical and psychological ill health. Problem gambling is like a disease to society and may bring these consequences to the individual who indulges in it: Wastes time, which otherwise could be used for something more constructive. Lose huge amounts of money, which leads to stress and disharmony in the family. One could become a dishonest person who has to constantly worry about debts. Gambling may be a cause of bribery. Work becomes secondary or in some cases, totally neglected. Health is also neglected by forgoing food and drink. As a last resort, some may turn to criminal activities or illegal moneylenders to cover losses and continue gambling. When a person becomes obsessed with gambling, s/he will do anything just as long as s/he can gamble. Theres always the risk of getting caught and being charged in court. Those who gamble will risk losing everything. The consequences of problem gambling can be avoided by getting involved in other more beneficial activities. Among the suggestions to prevent one from gambling is to focus on spiritual development, take up sports or a hobby, or do some charity work. Some of us resort to illegal moneylenders when we are strapped for cash, which is dangerous and unadvisable. Here are some suggested steps to take to avoid being victims of these loan sharks: Do not be lured by promises of quick money Do not be easily fooled into signing a form or contract by a salesperson Victims should be bold enough to make a police report, revealing all information they have on schemes like these, to aid the authorities in catching the perpetrators. Story from The Star Online. Source: http://thestar.com.my/fightcrime/resources/story.asp?file=/2006/3/11/resources/20060316165242HYPERLINK http://thestar.com.my/fightcrime/resources/story.asp?file=/2006/3/11/resources/20060316165242sec=resourcesHYPERLINK http://thestar.com.my/fightcrime/resources/story.asp?file=/2006/3/11/resources/20060316165242sec=resourcessec=resources The above news is being used to show that gambling is illegal in Malaysia even though it has became a norm or habit to Chinese society since ages ago. Attachment 3: Punishment of Canning for breaking Sharia Law Malaysia delays caning of Muslim model for drinking beer until after Ramadan By  Mail Foreign Service Last updated at 9:25 PM on 24th August 2009 A Muslim model who is to be caned by Malaysian authorities after being caught drinking beer will have her punishment postponed until after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno originally had been scheduled to enter a womens prison today before being lashed six times with a rattan cane some time this week. However, Mohamad Sahfri Abdul Aziz, a legislator in charge of religious affairs, says the caning will be carried out after the current Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.   It began Saturday and will end in mid-September. He says the decision was made at the last minute for compassionate reasons on the advice of the Attorney Generals office but insisted that the punishment had not been cancelled. Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, a 32-year-old mother of two, insisted she is ready to be lashed six times with a rattan cane next week for breaching the countrys Shariah law, which forbids Muslims to consume alcohol. I want to respect the law, Kartika said.   Who am I to question the Islamic authorities laws? That is beyond me. I never cried when I was sentenced by the judge. I told myself, all right then, lets get on with it. But if youre going to cane me, then do it in public. Miss Shukarno, 32, was sentenced to six lashes by an Islamic court after she was caught with alcohol in a raid on a hotel nightclub in eastern Pahang state last year.   Amnesty International had urged authorities to immediately revoke the sentence to cane her and abolish the practice of caning altogether. Caning is a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and is prohibited under international human rights law, it said in a statement. But Miss Shukarno has even asked for the caning to be carried out in public to send a clear message to Muslims that they should shun alcohol. Prosecutor Saiful Idham Sahimi said: It is a good punishment because under Islamic law a person who drinks commits a serious offence.   He added that a rattan cane lighter than the one for men would be used, and that its purpose was to educate rather than punish.   Muslims, who make up two-thirds of Malaysias 28million population, are governed by sharia law. Although most alcohol offenders are fined, they can also be caned.   Womens rights groups attacked the penalty as being too harsh.   Yesterday the court set a one-week period starting next Monday for the sentence to be carried out in a womans prison, Saiful said. Prison authorities will decide when to cane her during that period. He said Kartika will remain in prison during that time and will be released as soon as possible after the caning is carried out. Caning, administered on the buttocks, breaks the skin and leaves permanent scars. Kartika said earlier that she wanted authorities to cane her as soon as possible so she can resume her life with her husband and children.   Most alcohol offenders are fined, but the crime also carries a three-year prison term and caning. Non-Muslims are governed by civil courts, which also impose caning for offens

Blogging: Its for everyone Essay -- essays research papers fc

Recently, Merriam-Webster announced that, based on â€Å"online lookups,† the number one word of the year was â€Å"blogs† (Morse, Page 1). Their definition of a blog is â€Å"a web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer† (Morse, Page1). This definition is inaccurate based on my research, as blogs are not always â€Å"personal† and can include more than one author. Throughout my research, many bloggers in the blogoshere have referred to websites as blogs that discuss business only, business and personal details, and more than mere â€Å"reflections† of a personal nature. As blogs become more popular and affect different forms of communication with a higher degree of magnitude, I am confident that the definition of blogs will morph closer to my definition of blogs (short for weblog, a web site that contains an online journal including, but not limited to, reflections, com ments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer(s)) than the Merriam-Webster definition. This paper will discuss blogs (what they are), bloggers (who they are), blogging (should you do it and is it profitable), and the impact of blogs on media. I will start by talking about how blogs started, and who some bloggers are. Next, I will discuss the amount of revenue that can be made, and how that revenue is made, from starting a blog. Finally, I will show the impact blogs have had on the mainstream media, specifically, the most recent Presidential Election. The culture of the internet has created a subculture of bloggers that, as evidenced by the number of persons looking to find a definition of the word (however inaccurate the definition may be), is growing in popularity and is therefore a prescient topic for persons to be informed about. Blogging started, albeit without a proper name and with an even more vague definition, as soon as the internet was invented. Just as writing a journal started with the first writers thousands of years ago, blogs arose at the same time as the medium of the internet was born. This created some new challenges to the conventional writer. According to The Handbook of Digital Publishing, the greatest strength of publishing online material is â€Å"displaying the interrelated nature of information connected with hyperlinks† (Kleper, Page 197). The use of hyperlinks is extensive in blogs... ... power of a blog, everyone now can own their own version of Leibling’s press, and the power of that concept is freedom at its highest form. Bibliography Ante, Spencer. â€Å"Blogging for Dollars.† www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_30/b3843096_mz016.htm 2004. Page 1. Brewer, Jay. â€Å"Shaving Blog.† www.shavingstuff.com 2004. Page 1. Bushell, Sue. â€Å"Blogging for Profit.† www.cio.com 2004. Page 1. Case, Karl and Fair, Ray. â€Å"Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly.† Principles of Microeconomics. Prentice Hall. 2004. Page 281. Gard, Lauren. â€Å"Blogging by the Numbers.†www.businessweek.com. 2004. Page 1. Kleper, Michael. â€Å"What Makes Web Site Visitors Come Back?† The Handbook of Digital Publishing. Prentice Hall. 2001. Pages 194, 196. McGann, Rob. â€Å"Blogging Tips† www.smallbusiness.blogspot.com 2004. Page 1. Meeker, Mary. â€Å"Annual Report 2004" www.smallbusiness.blogspot.com 2004. Page 1. Morse, Allan. â€Å"Home Page.† www.merriam-webster.com 2004. Page 1. Rowse, Darren. â€Å"To Blog or Not to Blog?† www.livingroom.org 2004. Page 1. Simpson, James. â€Å"L† Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations. Prentice Hall. 1988. Page 82.

death penalty :: essays research papers

Death Penalty: Revised During this class period today, seven adult men will be falsely accused of committing a serious crime, carrying a penalty of capital punishment. This means approximately 51,000 adult men are falsely accused of committing serious crimes each year. This figure is roughly the number of people who attended Super Bowl-Thirty-Three. Currently, there are 3,500 people on death row in thirty-eight states that support and carry out the death penalty while only twelve states have outlawed it. At the same time, more than half the countries in the world have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Capital punishment is very relevant to each member of society. It is not just a male only issue. Every single one of us in this room has a father, brother, or significant others who could be affected. Capital punishment in America is morally unjust and should be eliminated because it is cruel and unusual; it kills innocent people; and it is used in a discriminatory manner. Sometimes criminals suffer more during their executions than is anticipated or planned. People sentenced to death are certain to face one of the following methods of execution still practiced today: firing squad, electric chair, lethal injection, gas chamber or hanging. But, injecting with poisonous chemicals, smothering with toxic gases, and electrocuting with high voltage are the preferred methods because bloody human tissues are not strewn about, as with other methods, therefore those people assigned to scour the execution site are less likely to experience psychological trauma. Although tidy, these styles of killing rarely succeed on the first attempt; instead, prisoners regularly suffer intense pain for long periods of time before expiring. According to Seideman, the case of Scotty Sutton is one example of many bungled executions that take place every month. While administering a lethal injection, all the executioner’s attempts to find a vein have failed. Scotty started moaning and heaving in agony signaling a partial dose found his blood stream. Realizing the dose was not enough to end his life the executioner tried several failed attempts in the neck area hoping to find a main artery. Meanwhile, 300 pound, Scotty is still breathing after five minutes into this botched execution. The chemicals that were prepared and on hand have been seriously depleted. In a last ditch effort, the executioner signaled for help and directed a prison staff member to cut away a portion of the thick canvas jacket to expose an area of his chest to deliver a lethal dose directly into his heart; moments later Scotty expired (3).

Cognitive Psychology False Memory Essay

Theoretical and Applied/Practical Perspective of False Memory The human memory is subject to a multitude of errors, including source misattributions, distortion and creation of false memories. In order to do justice to this paper one must first determine what is â€Å"False memory†? False memory is memory for an event that did not occur or distorted memory of actual events (Gleaves, Smith, Butler, & Spiegel, 2004). This type of memory has been an area of intense research interest for both theoretical and practical reasons and psychologists have long been interested in memory illusions and distortions, as such errors can inform theories of how the memory works (Hunt & Ellis, 2004). From a theoretical perspective, false memories have been the subject of intense debates about the nature of human memory and a focal point for old and new memory theories. Memories are not simply stored and retrieved, information is encoded and memories are reconstructed using previous knowledge to p iece together the situation as one thinks it occurred (Loftus & Ketchan, 1994). Therefore perception and comprehension of ongoing events always brings related information to mind. For example, an individual mentions that he/she had a great trip to the beach over the weekend. In comprehending what the individual is saying; one may imagine their last visit to Miami Beach. Later one remembers that the said individual mentioned his/her visit to Miami Beach when, in fact, the individual said nothing about which beach he/she visited. This example illustrates how frequently one might remember information related to ones ongoing perception and comprehension, even though the events represented by that information never occurred (Hunt & Ellis, 2004). One of the most common ways that false memories have been studied is through the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) effect. This list learning paradigm provided a traceable means by which false memories can be created and studied in the laboratory. Gallo, McDermott, Percer & Roediger III (2001) explained that the DRM paradigm was a method of using converging semantic associates to induce false memories. It basically referred to the high confidence false recall or recognition of the critical lure. Within the study subjects were given a list of words for immediate free recall. These words were all associated semantically with a critical lure which itself was not presented. For example, if the critical lure was sleep the list would have consisted of fifteen words most highly associated with sleep such as bed to the least highly associated which would be drowsy on free association norms. Even though the critical lure was not on the list, subjects often falsely reported it and on recognition tests, these individuals often â€Å"remember† these words with a high degree of confidence (Surgrue & Hayne, 2006). False memories arising from phonologically associated lists may indeed be enhanced by phonological encoding in comparison with semantic encoding. False memories therefore can be elicited by presenting lists of phonologically related words in both recognition and recall tasks (Chan, McDermott, Watson & Gallo, 2005). According to the fuzzy traced theory (as cited in Howe, 2008), subjects encode both verbatim information about the experience to gist information about the experience. Applied to the DRM paradigm gist information represents the semantic commonalities among lure’s studied associates, which lead the fuzzy trace theory to propose that lure errors are familiarity based (Arndt, 2010). Memory errors to unstudied items arise from how well they match gist traces and that memory errors are limited by the extent to which unstudied items produce retrieval of verbatim traces. Therefore lure errors increase when they match the gists representation of their studied associates but decrease when retrieval is inspired of the verbatim traces of their studied associates (Howe, 2008). Once the gist representation is reasonably strong it can produce an illusory subjective experience of its actual presentation, this is known as phantom recollection (Gallo, McDermott, Percer & Roediger III, 2001). When this phenomenon occurs an individual may confuse the gist trace strength with the psychological experience of recollecting, which is normally mediated by retrieving verbatim traces of studied items. As lure items tend to match very strong gist traces in memory individuals believe they can recollect DRM lures. According to Arndt, (2010), â€Å"this theory proposes that although these errors are often phenomenologically similar to items that were episodically experienced, lures’ recollection phenomenology is representationally distinct from that of study items† (p.67). There is evidence however that false memory can be based largely on automatic processing and is amenable to only limited conscious control. For example, Dodd and MacLeod (2004), showed that mere exposure to DRM lists was sufficient to create a false memory: They presented DRM lists as coloured words in a Stroop test. Naming colours reduced accurate memory for list words as compared to reading coloured words, but false memory remained high for critical words. Furthermore, the elimination of false memory is difficult in that certain â€Å"encoding manipulations may lead to reductions in false memories through metamemorial processes occurring at retrieval† (Gallo, McDermott, Percer & Roediger III, 2001, p.339). For example slowing presentation rate decreases the probability of false remembering, but may not eliminate it (Gallo, McDermott, Percer & Roediger III, 2001). False memories are remarkably persistent. For example, Toglia, Neuschatz and Goodwin (1999) found that false recall rates remained high over a three-week period, whereas recall of studied words revealed the typical decrement. In short, the DRM paradigm allows for the easy and reliable elicitation of false memories in the laboratory. From a practical perspective, false memories are a threat to the validity of eyewitness testimony, a misleading source of autobiographical information in psychotherapy, and a biased representation of lessons taught in educational settings. For this assignment the validity of eyewitness testimony only, will be discussed (Hunt & Ellis, 2004). According to Greene (as cited in Loftus, 1995, p.720), â€Å"memories do not exist in a vacuum. Rather, they continually disrupt each other through a mechanism that we call â€Å"interference†. For instance, memories can be disrupted by things that an individual experienced earlier, this is known as proactive interference or situations that one may experience later, which is known as retroactive interference. Based on the interference theory from a retroactive interference perspective, when new information is received that is mislea ding in some ways individuals make errors when they report what they saw. The reason for this is that new information often becomes incorporated into the recollection, supplementing or altering it in a significant way (Porter, Bellhouse, McDougall, Brinke & Wilson, 2010). Elizabeth Loftus (as cited in Hunt & Ellis, 2004), pioneered laboratory research modeled on eyewitness situation demonstrating the intervening events that occur between witnessing an event and subsequent testimony in court. The paradigm for this research was simple, participants witnesses a simulated violent crime of an automobile accident half of the participants received new misleading information about the event and the other half did not received any misinformation. The participants in this experiment were influenced by presuppositions invoked by the verbs smashed and hit based on the question asked, which was â€Å"About how fast the car was going when they hit, smashed each other †. Smashed presupposes a more violent collision a fact that influences both estimates of speed an d amount of damage. Therefore individuals who stated that there was broken glass saw the word â€Å"smashed†, but no broken glass was actually depicted in the film. The presupposition dramatically, but subtly influenced memory for the actual event (Loftus, 1995). What was being remembered was the integrated memory of the two events, memory for the original film, plus memory for the additional information that was inherent in the question asked later. As the two memories blended over time the end result would be a single blended memory that is a distortion of the original event (Hunt & Ellis, 2004). Higham (1998), showed that the latency between exposure to misinformation and time recall also influenced the misinformation effect, such that recent exposure to recent information was associated with greater recall of false details. Therefore both the response bias and memory change accounts have important implications for how one might regard the reliability of eyewitness testimony. According to Loftus & Pickrell (1995), false memories can be implanted as was demonstrated in the â€Å"Lost-in-a-shopping-mall† study. It suggested that memory of an entire mildly traumatic event can be created and that further questions may be asked, such as, is it possible to implant a memory of abuse. For example one of the most dramatic cases of false memory of abuse ever to be documented was the case of Paul Ingram from Olympia, Washington (Ofshe, 1992; Watters, 1991). This individual was arrested for child abuse in 1988 at the time he was chair of the county Republican committee. From the outset he denied everything, but after five months of interrogation, suggestions from a psychologist and continuing pressure from detectives and advisors, Ingram began to confess to rapes, assaults, child sexual abuse, and participation in a Satan-worshiping cult alleged to have murdered 25 babies (Loftus, 1993). Ofshe (1989) noted that this was not the first time that a vulnerable individual had been made to believe that he had committed a crime for which he originally had no memory and which evidence proved he could not have committed. What is crucial about the Ingram case is that some of the same methods that are used in repressed memory cases were used with Ingram. This case also provides further insights into the malleable nature of memory. They suggest that memories for personally traumatic events can be altered by new experiences. Moreover, they reveal that entire events that never happened can be injected into memory. Therefore false memories range from the relatively trivial (e.g., remembering voting) to the bizarre (e.g., remembering forcing one’s daughter and son to have sex) (Loftus, 1993). These false memories, with more or less detail, of course, do not prove that repressed memories of abuse that return are false. They do demonstrate a mechanism by which false memories can be created, by a small suggestion from a trusted family member, by hearing someone lie, by suggestion from a psychologist, or by incorporation of the experiences of others into one’s own autobiography planted (Loftus, 1993). Although false memories of ones childhood can be implanted, it does not imply that all memories that arise after suggestion are necessarily false, although the experimental work on false memory creation raises doubt about the validity of long buried memories such as repeated trauma, but it in no way disproves them. Even with the most experienced evaluator, it is difficult to differentiate true memories from ones that are suggestively planted (Loftus, 1997). True memories represent events as they really occurred, whereas false memories shade, distort or entirely misrepresent events as they really happened. Research on memory distortion indicates that memory is not at all like a mechanical recording device. The original experience is not stored as some veridical trace of what was out there but, rather, is the result of interpretive processes of perception and comprehension. The intriguing picture of memory that emerges is one of a powerful, adaptively important and usually reliable psychological process that sometimes is completely wrong (Hunt & Ellis, 2004). References Arndt, J. (2010). The role of memory activation in creating false memories of encoding context. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 36(1), 66-79. Chan, C. K. J., McDermott, B. K., Watson, M. J., & Gallo, A. D. ( 2005). The importance of material-processing interactions in inducing false memories. Journal of Memory & Cognition, 33 (3) 389-395. Dodd, M. D., & MacLeod, C. M. (2004). False recognition without intentional learning. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 11, 137-142. Gallo, A. D., McDermott, B. K., Percer, M. J., & Roediger, L. H. III. (2001). Modality Effects in False Recall and False Recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 27 (2) 339-353 Gleaves, D. H., Smith, S. M., Butler, L. D., & Spiegel, D. (2004). False and recovered memories in the laboratory and clinic: A review of experimental and clinic evidence. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 11 3-28. Higham, P. A. (1998). Believing details known to have been suggested. British Journal of Psychology, 89, 920-930. Howe, L. M. (2008). What is false memory development and the development of comment on Brainerd, Reyna and Ceci (2008), Psychological Bullentin, 134 (5), 768-772. Hunt, R. R., & Ellis, C. H. (2004). Fundamentals of Cognitive Psychology (7th Ed). McGraw Hill. Loftus, E., & Ketcham, K. (1994). False memories and allegations of sexual abuse: The myth of repressed memory. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Loftus, E.F. (1997). Creating false memories. Scientific American, 277, 70-75. Loftus, E.F. (1993). The reality of repressed memories. American Psychologist, 48, 518-537. Loftus, E.F., & Pickrell, E. J. (1995). The formation of false memories. Psychiatric Annals , 25, 720-725. Ofshe, R. J. (1992). Inadvertent hypnosis during interrogation: False confession due to dissociative state, misidentified multiple personality and the satanic cult hypothesis. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 40, 125-156. Ofshe, R. J. (1989). Coerced confessions: The logic of seemingly irrational action. Cultic Studies Journal, 6, 1-15 Porter, S., Bellhouse, S., McDougall, A., Brinke, T. L., & Wilson, K. (2010). A prospective investigation of the vulnerability of memory for positive and negative emotional scenes to the misinformation effect. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 42 (1) 55-61. Surgrue, K., & Hayne, H. (2006). False Memories produced by children and Adults in the DRM Paradigm. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20, 625-631. Toglia, M. P., Neuschatz, J. S., & Goodwin, K. (1999). Recall accuracy and illusory memories: When more is less. Memory, 7, 233-256. Watters, E. (1991). The devil in Mr. Ingram. Mother Jones, 65-68.

Why Was Hitler Appointed Chancellor in January 1933

Why was Hitler appointed Chancellor in January 1933 On the 30th January 1933, one of the most important events of the twentieth century occurred, Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, became Chancellor of Germany. From its foundations as a small, anti-communist party in the aftermath of World War I it was now the leading political party in Germany. Hitler would eventually become Fuhrer and provoke a second world war.Hitler’s rise to power was based upon long term factors and can not be attributed to one event but a mixture of factors including events occurring outside Germany, the strengths of the Nazi party, the weakness of the other parties within Germany, resentment in the German people, the weakness of the Weimar system which he took advantage of through propaganda, the terror of his storm troopers and the fineness of his speeches. Hitler used these factors to his benefit and in 1933 he legitimately gained power to become chancellor.November 1923 was when Hitler first tr ied to seize power in the Munich Putsch he marched to Berlin with his followers to take over control but they never actually left Munich. During this time 16 Nazi’s were killed and 3 policemen. Although Hitler went to prison for this, he used this time to dictate his book ‘Mein Kampf’, he had show trials which boosted propaganda and became an almost celebrity. Hitler was meant to be in jail for 5 years, but was let out after 9 months. By now he was already starting to catch the attention of the public – a strong nationalist leader appealed to them.In 1929 the American Stock Exchange collapsed and caused an economic depression this was called the Wall Street Crash and led to America calling in all of its foreign loans, which in turn destroyed Weimar Germany. Unemployment then rose to 6 million in Germany. The government cut expenditures, wages and unemployment pay and they started to print more money, by now Germany was in a really bad state and no one knew how they would get themselves out of this rut. Many workers turned to communism which inevitably frightened wealthy businessmen who ‘fueled the fire’ by giving Hitler the money to run his propaganda election campaigns.Deep anger about the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles created an underlying bitterness to which Hitler’s viciousness and expansionism appealed. Nazi propaganda persuaded the German masses to believe that the Jews were to blame and that Hitler was their last hope. In fact, there were many people in Germany who wanted a return to dictatorship. Hitler was a brilliant speaker; he was a good organiser and politician. He was a driven, unstable man, who believed that he had been called by God to become dictator of Germany and rule the world. This kept him going when other people might have given up.His self-belief persuaded people to believe in him. Propaganda alone was a really important factor in Hitler’s rise to power, it ‘brai nwashed’ the German people into electing them through techniques of persuasion and reinforced existing attitudes and beliefs. Parades, symbols, uniforms, banners, bands and the marching columns of the SA attracted attention and interest. Germans turned to Nazism because they were desperate, the number of Nazi seats in the Reichstag rose from 12 in 1928 to 230 in July 1932. In November 1932 elections the Nazis again failed to get a majority of seats in the Reichstag.Their share of the vote fell – from 230 seats to only 196. Franz von Papen who was the current Chancellor could not get enough support in the Reichstag, therefore Hindenburg and von Papen were having to govern by emergency decree under Article 48 of the Constitution and offered Hitler the post of vice-Chancellor if he promised to support them. Hitler refused – he demanded to be made Chancellor, so Von Papen and Hindenburg took a risk believing that by having only 2 other Nazis they would be able to ke ep control. Many people believe that Hitler took control by force but, in actual fact, he was given it.