American History Essay Example for Free

American History Essay â€Å"The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil† was a wise phase once uttered by Hannah Arendt. I love this quote because is perfectly describes the two boys from â€Å"American History X,† Danny and Derek. These two boys have seen and done it all when it comes to hate groups, as both were members of a neo-nazi hate group. Neo- Nazi hate groups use authoritarian, scapegoat, normative, and exploitation theories to justify their hate, discrimination, and torture of anyone who isnt a part of the â€Å"supreme race,† or white. Boy Danny and Derek end up in this life from an early age. Parents are one of the biggest, if not the biggest influence on a childs life. When Danny and Derek were both relatively young they looked up to their father, thought of him as the â€Å"ideal† man. However their father was a racist, influencing almost every thought the boys had. At family dinner when talking about about a black school teacher their father said, â€Å"Its nigger bullshit,† and warned Derek not to buy into the equality teachings. Because Danny and Derek both looked up to their dad so much, this would be and example of the exploitation theory. Exploitation theory is when one societal group, in this case whites, use hostility to keep their position and power intact. This really come into play after Danny and Dereks father was murdered and Derek believes it was a race related killing. Right after their father died, Derek joined a neo-nazi hate group known as the DOC(Disciples of Christ). Being extreme believers in the white supremacy movement, the DOC acted out with violence and extreme hatred toward any other race, especially blacks. Derek, being a high ranking member, murdered 2 black men for the cause. He served three years for the murders, which impacted his whole family tremendously. At the beginning of Dereks sentence he did not want any visitors, claiming it would be to hard to see his family. He made friends with other neo-nazi members in prison, but soon started realizing that they were not serious about the cause like he was. He also started becoming friends with his black work partner who said, â€Å"I aint the nigger in here, you are† Derek started realizing that white supremacy what basically just a scapegoat. Meaning that the followers of the movement were just trying to find someone to blame for their problems, which in this case happened to be  the blacks. After befriending his black work mate he realized that blacks are human too. Once he could recognize blacks as human he finally felt guilt for killing to people, not niggers, people. Derek was determined to help his brother and family by getting them out of the gangs and hate. One of the biggest influences on Derek while in jail was his principal from high school. He was a black man with experience in dealing with â€Å"troubled youth.† He gave Derek the push he needed by saying, â€Å"Has anything youve done made your life better?†. Later Derek told Danny, â€Å"Its just because I was pissed off†. I think this was Dereks way of responding to his principal, he really didnt believe in the cause it was more of just an outlet for his anger that his father would have approved of. While Derek is locked up.

Behavioral economics and economic man

Behavioral economics and economic man How Behavioral Economics Rescue Economic Man From The Selfishness Behavioral economics is one single most influential and dynamic area in the current economics. Applying some insights from psychological science(s) to the economic models so as to understand better the economics decision making, the behavioral look has provided new and important ways for the economists to understand why different people make different choices that they make. The purpose of this article therefore is to explain how behavioral economics rescue the economic man from the selfishness in which he finds himself. Economic man is an imaginary perfect rational person who maximizes his/her economic welfare or being and achieves the consumer equilibrium by thinking marginally all the time. The importance of this concept is hinged in the theory of consumer behavior in which real people function such as this fictional entity (Wansink, 2006). On the other hand, economics is a group of ideas and conventions put together by different economists which they accept and use to reason along with. It is mainly a culture of doing things mainly by the economists. Behavioral economics therefore represents the transformation of such culture and it is a field of economics that study how decision-making process influences reached decisions in any organization as well as in any individual (Ainslie, 1992). Neoclassical economics postulates an economic man in any system is the main course of being economic as well as the course of being rational. This economic man is assumed to have good knowledge is different aspects of his surrounding which is not clearly complete (Wansink, 2006). This man is assumed to posses a well organized and a stable system of personal preferences and better kills of calculation on the best action to take so as to make him attain the highest benefits as compared to other people. The axioms of the consumer choices that underlie the economic man ensure that he, the economic man, is minimally rational and consistent in the choices that he makes because he always prefers more of a thing to less and he is able to efficiently allocate his low income among numerous things that he desires so as to enable him achieve a global utility maximum. In a standard welfare model, habits and culture are assumed to take a fixed position or at least change slowly during a given time period so that the cultural context of the Homo economicus/ economic man does not enter the analysis stage. The way tastes and preferences are formed is assumed to be outside the purview of economics because they are not matters of dispute (Stigler and Becker, 1977). According to Veblens (1898), an Economic man is a homogeneous (Uniform) globule of desire full of self interest. Self-interest is defined by different economists as all things that are intangible and tangible to human beings (Solow, 1993) but in practice the real meaning of utility is radically narrowed down to mean the consumption of goods in the market. Any increase in the welfare is equated to the increase in the economic output. The Economists are aware of public goods, intransitivity, Veblen effects and interdependent utilities but all these real-world phenomena are very difficult to include in the general equilibrium framework that currently dominate the economic policy recommendations (Hirsch, 1976). Different subjects explain the economic man in different terms pointing to the same meaning. For instance, biology explains the economic man as a selfish gene while regarding it as a concept that is used to explain the overall selfishness of any living thing especially man and for the direction of evolution. Richard Dawkins with his evolution theory coined this term in his book titled The Selfish Gene (Ainslie, 1992) as a notion of competition, struggle for survival/existence, natural selection and survival of the fittest in his idea of genes as self replicators. In a teleological account, evolution of the biological life is explained as being driven by these replicators, genes. The conclusion drawn here is that the successful replicators are very selfish that otherwise they would not replicate successfully. In order to protect and preserve their replication process, these genes create avenues of self-preservation in form of living things, their bodies and minds. From this type of re asoning, Dawkins (1976, p. 2) concludes that human nature cannot be anything but selfish as its very essence is composed of very selfish units in the name of genes. Later, Dawkins expanded his biological research by considering these genes as self-contained wholes things. But, as Maynard Smith states in Barlow (1991, p. 195), this Selfish Gene does not contain any new facts but rather offers a new world view. The basic to this view is the notion that competition and the virtuousness of the selfish behavior of biological units are rife in ever being. It is from this view that the biologist Ghiselin (1974, p. 247) writes concerning the species and nature that natural economy is competitive from start to the end .This can be seen in the impulses which lead an animal to sacrifice herself for another turn out to have their rationale in gaining more advantage over a third animal especially where it is in her own interest. Therefore, every organism can reasonably be expected to aid her fellow organisms yet if given full chance to act in her own interest, nothing but speed will restrain her from brutalizing, from murdering, from maiming her mate or child (Andrei, 1999). This perspective of the biological world replicates the economic perspective of human nature as being openly self-centered, rational in being consistent in choices they make and characterized by selfishness which is constrained by expediency (Frank, 1988). Strong intellectual thoughts in both economics and biology see the market economy as being full of utility-maximizing individuals without room for cooperation other than for a single individual to gain the immediate advantage over other individuals (Johnson, 2003). With the above explanation, there are three areas that tend to look at the economic man in a bid to get him out of his selfishness. These areas include the neoclassical economics, the human behavior and the behavioral economics. The criticism of these three areas against each other really explains the demerits of the economic man and the associated selfishness to each other. In the neoclassical economics, economics is the study of the way resources are allocated to their uses. In this school of thinking, economics is said to be the study which considers human behavior as a relation between alternative ends and scarce means. Virtually every neoclassical economist is a positive economist though there are a number of positive economists that are not neoclassical in nature (Harbaugh et al, 2002). Therefore, neoclassical economists consider the study of resource allocation as scientific and not a normative study. In addition, a neoclassical economist believes that free markets always bring about efficient resource allocation (Kagel Roth, 1997). With this understanding, neoclassical economists have made a number of assumptions. Depending on the definition that one can prefer, it can be said that economists are more interested in the resource allocation in nature and causes wealth of nations or perhaps something different. Irrespective of all these, all such things depend on the actions and decisions of people (Luce, 2000). Therefore, so as to get started, economists made or make some assumptions about people and about how individuals act and how they decide how to act. However, the economists have not as a rule based these assumptions on the psychological views of human minds. Rather, most of them have started from an assumption that few modern psychologists might support (Dahlquist Kirkpatrick, 2007). This assumption is that human beings/ individuals are highly rational and self-interested/ selfish. Many neoclassical economists assume that human beings make their choices in a way that gives them the best possible advantage (s) especially given the circumstances that they face. Such circumstances includes such things as the prices of the resources, goods and services available, scarce income, limited and localized technology for transforming such resources into finished goods and services, taxes imposed on them by their organizations, regulations by their governments and other objective limitations on the choices that they make. In Strict terms, neoclassical economics does not just assume that real and concrete people are rational and self-interested as it may seem. Rather, many economists assume that the economic systems work as if they consist of the rational and self-interested persons. People exists in all sorts ranging from sneaky and altruistic to smart and dumb but if the average is an individual that is rational and self-interested, then the system most definitely will act as if human beings in general were self-interested and rational (Hersh, 2002). The basis of neoclassical economics assumes that deviations from the rational self-interests are random and therefore will cancel out making the system to act as if every person is rational and self-interested. As a consequence, neoclassical economics studies the economic system that consists of rational, self-interested persons (Luce, 2000). However, it is known that there are some examples of non-self-interested behavior of human beings who for instance give to the church and who sacrifice themselves in other ways and common sense suggests that human beings are often irrational chumps. There are two very issues here to closely scrutinize. The first one is that human beings are at times altruistic. One can not avoid concluding that people sometimes act on ethical values making it hard to see how the selfishness of this majority can cancel out this self-sacrifice of many others (Kagel Roth, 1997). Therefore, people often act on non self interested values but whenever they do so they act on their own values and not of the government or some philosopher(s) or the economist that is observing (Dahlquist Kirkpatrick, 2007). This might be called a rational individualism rather than a rational self interest. What is left then is the rationality if human beings are not always self-interested. A broader neoclassical economics presumes that human beings choose things in a way that best advances their own values, altruistic or self-interested. The critics of the neoclassical economics sometimes argue that economics is an apology for self-interest. We can therefore note the behavioral approachs criticism to the neoclassical economics that man is always selfish and self centered. The behavioral approach indicates that not all people are self centered since many individuals act on behalf of other people (Harrison, 2005). This indicated that it is not true that all people are selfish. Rather, some are and it should not be generalized that all human beings are selfish to conform to the economic man. However, human behavior is not always selfish and behavioral economics rescues economic man from the selfish gene. In other words, the behavioral economics criticizes the neoclassical economics whether people are always rational or not (Luce, 2000). The neoclassical economics is at times criticized for its normative bias against human beings especially on their assumption. In this perspective, it does not lay more focus on explaining the actual economies instead of describing a utopia in which Pareto optimality applies. The assumption that human beings act rationally can be seen as ignoring very important aspects of the human behavior. Many people see the economic man to be very different from real people. Majority of the economists, even contemporary economists, have criticized the model of economic man. Neoclassical economics assumes people to be the lightning calculators of pleasures and pains, who oscillate like the homogeneous globule of desires of happiness under impulses of stimuli which shifts about an area but leaves then intact. Large organizations might come closer to the neoclassical ideal of maximizing profits but this is not necessarily seen as desirable whenever it arises at the expense of negligence of the wider social issues (Fehr Gachter, 2000). The response to this argument is that neoclassical economics is more of a descriptive statement rather than a normative one. It therefore addresses such problems with the concepts of private against those of social utility. Many critics of behavioral economics typically insist on the rationality of the economic agents. They contend that the experimentally observed behavior is not applicable to the market situations as the learning opportunities and competition ensures at a close approximation of the rational behavior. Equally, many others note that the cognitive theories like the prospect theory are models of decision making and not generalized economic behavior hence are only applicable to the sort of once-off decision problems that are presented to experiment the survey respondents. Traditional economists are very skeptical of the survey based techniques which are put to use extensively in the behavioral economics. Economists typically emphasize on the revealed preferences over the stated preferences from the survey in determining the economic value (Fehr Gachter, 2000). Experiments and surveys should be designed very carefully so as to avoid systemic biases and lack of incentive compatibility. Some economists on the other hand dismiss these criticisms claiming that the results are reproduced in various situations and nations which can lead to good theoretical insight. Behavioral economists on the other hand have incorporated these criticisms by focusing more on the field studies as compared to the than lab experiments. Some economists therefore look at this split as the fundamental schism between the experimental economics and the behavioral economics. However, prominent experimental and behavioral economists overlap some techniques and approaches in giving answers to common questions. In addition, many other proponents of the behavioral economics have taken note that neoclassical models many times fail to predict the outcomes in the real world context (Luce, 2000). Behavioral insights can therefore be used to update the neoclassical equations and the economists have noted that these revised models do not only reach similar correct predictions as the traditional models but predicts correctly some outcomes where the traditional models fail. As an economic student, I object to the fact that man is always selfish. This drives to the numerous criticisms of the economic man. Criticisms of this notion that human beings are purely selfish go back to the start of the modern utility theory. Edgeworth (1881), for instance, in his theory of exchange included the term accounting for pure altruism. He stated that people might suppose that an object X with own utility is P tends, in a reflective and calm moment, to maximize his/her benefits from P to P+, where the + is a coefficient of effective sympathy. Equally, Mr. Veblen (1898) criticized the neoclassical concept of human beings as coldly calculating and coolly rational and this is still one most insightful literature among the criticisms of neoclassical theories (Ainslie, 1992). The other early, though neglected, criticism is that of Mr. Georgescu (1954) who stated that the individual utility not only depends on the individual well-being but also the communitys well-being to wh ich the individuals belong. This truly indicates that human beings are not egocentric and self centered but also works for the benefit of the society in which such a person comes from. Many other economists as well as just writers investigating the behavior of the human beings have come up with more criticisms while explaining the behavior of human beings. For instance, Frank (1988) and Hirsch (1976) all emphasized on the social nature of human beings and their decision-making process which is always associated with their behavior. It is true that that a big number of economic models have been developed to give explanation about altruism, charity, bequests and benevolence among human beings and how they exercise them. In doing all these, many economists together with many other social scientists have been quite ingenious in finding the explanations for the intentions for such behavior in self-interest among human beings. The possible selfish motivations or intentions that apparently lead to altruistic behavior include the enlightened self-interest, the pursuit of reputation among people, anticipation of reciprocity from other people and fear inherent in human being s that they will lose whatever little they have and as a consequence they will be faced with shame (Henrich, Henrich, 2008). Further, different explanations indicate that personal utility can be derived from one persons satisfaction or his contribution to it together with the benefits that adherence to the social contract may provide. The motives of altruistic behavior among human being however can be studied in different categories. For instance, from a psychological point of view, two egoistic motives for altruistic behavior can be identified. The first category is based on the social learning and enforcement amongst people while the second category is based on arousal reduction (Fehr Gachter, 2000). However, the theoretical and empirical investigation to the existence of altruism, different economists argue that altruism can also arise from peoples empathic emotions towards others. In some occasions an individual takes the perspective and position of another person that he/she perceives to be in need without feeling distress and helps to reduce his/her need. Given this explanation, one can conclude from numerous similar examples of altruistic behavior on which human behavior is based that moral commitments and economic factors shape each other and evolve and change within a given social environment and structu res (Arnsperger Varoufakis, 2005). Having explained this, one can forget that neoclassical theories insist on the fact that human beings have the selfish gene dominant in its system. This is the one hat is responsible for the selfishness in the economic man. However, there are a number of criticisms of this argument mainly based on the behavioral economics exercise. The selfish gene, just like the economic man, has also come under attack from numerous directions in general. The selfish gene together with its extension known as the extended phenotype has for a long time been criticized based on the fact that phenotype-distinction is not as clear as its proposers supposes. According to the explanations by the extended phenotype ideas, changes in the genes are reflected in the phenotypes and phenotypical effects determines the selection of genetic replicators (Henrich, Henrich, 2008). Therefore, the phenotypical effects preserve or replicate themselves by means of their extended phenotypes. These phenotypical effects may be morphological or behavioral. For example, a phenotypic expression of the beaver genes is the dam it builds. However, the phenotypical transformations are not exclusively triggered or induced by the changes of the genetic replicators but can as well result from the changes in the elements of the environment (Rabin, Loewenstein, Camerer 2003). On a very close examination and scrutiny, the proponents of the selfish gene idea are not dogmatic enough as popularly believed by many people especially the economists. Some people argue that higher properties of life are emergent in virtually all situations. In addition, it is argued that the accepted explanations of causality from genes to culture just the same as from genes to any other products of life, are not heredity alone. Equally, they are not environmental alone. It is mainly the interaction between the two. Therefore, all possible expressions of phenotype are always encoded in genes though particular attributes which express themselves depends on the triggers from the surrounding environment (Dasgupta, 2002). These phenotypic expressions may as well depend on how an individual integrates within a group. The controversy over the selfish gene is very important to the economists and economics in general because of its implication that competition is of much more complicated sort as compared to that which is assumed by the economic man (Fehr Gachter, 2000). This competition is much more complicated as compared to the isolated people competing for the immediate gain. Likewise, cooperation is complicated as compared to a simple tit-for-tat strategy. Not only does the economic mans model fail the test of realism but also fails to offer accurate predictions about the human behavior. Such failures are evident in the recent empirical findings by numerous economists. In the standard theory, the economic man as described by neoclassical economics lead to micro-foundations approach to the economic policy. Macro economies are assumed to operate by the similar rules of constrained optimization which are used to describe individual organizations as well as households together with their people (Varoufakis Hargreaves-Heap, 2004). Normally, a representative human being whose behavior is indicated and outlined by a well-behaved utility function and a representative organization outlined by a well-behaved production function are made use of to model some real-world phenomenon such as the global climate change or foreign trade. Without the assumptions of economic man and perfect competition such optimization models cannot reach a unique and stable equilibrium. Neoclassical models assume a strictly rational behavior in human consumption with constant returns in production and rely on the prices to dynamically adjust demand and supply. In relation to behavioral economics, the existence of pure altruism and other forms of pro-social behaviors has much more implications to the economic policy. The first policy implication is that the impersonal markets are not and not anticipated to be the best vehicles for the expression of human preferences (Fehr Gachter, 2000). Whenever economic decisions do not conform or tally with the axioms of consumer choices, market outcomes are not rational and therefore, there is no any reason to believe that a competitive equilibrium can represent social optimum. In as much as the market restricts choices to individuals then such choices exclude the richness of human behavior (Thaler, 1991). Equally, depending on who among peoples ancestors is considered human, people have been making decisions for many years based on personal interactions, direct negotiations and imposition of rewards and punishments so as to facilitate cooperation. It is however true that people have difficulties in ma king social decisions especially in impersonal markets (Frank, 1988). Even then, the prevailing trend is toward pushing more critical decisions into the market framework. In conclusion, behavioral economics rescues the economic man from the notion that he is selfish. It is true that human being s are always pursuing their self interests and goals given their human nature, but it not true that they are totally engulfed in their selfishness (Wansink, 2006). The neoclassical economics theories explain well about the economic man and his interests but it should not be generalized that human beings are selfish beings ever in the world (Fehr, E. Gachter, 2000). Human behaviors rescue man from the aforesaid selfishness because thee are many other human beings that sacrifice themselves to support other people in their society. This takes them out of the selfness that the neoclassical economics advocate. Human behavior is therefore not always selfish as is can be portrayed by the neoclassical economics (Harbaugh et al, 2002). Many people have been influenced by religion and molded in a way that they value human life and fellow human beings to an extent that even if they are seeking self interests, they go out of their way to help others achieve they needs. For instance, doctors world over might have their intrinsic desire to posses a lot of money but they always help their patients to gain their health so as to continue working for their good. Equally, different countries can only prosper if every person or at least majority of the citizens works for the good of their nation rather than working for their own gain. Should such happen, that nation is doomed to be poor. Therefore, human behavior explained in behavioral economics plays a great role in rescuing the economic man from the selfish gene. References Ainslie, G. (1992). Picoeconomics, London: Cambridge University Press Arnsperger, C., Varoufakis Y. (2005). Most Peculiar Failure: How neoclassical economics turn theoretical failure into academic and political power. Erkenntnis, 59, 157-188. Rabin, M., Loewenstein, G., Camerer, C. (2003). Advances in the Behavioral Economics, New Jersey: Princeton University Press Dasgupta, P. (2002). Modern Economics and its Critics: Models, Realism and Social Construction, London: Cambridge University Press Faruk, G. (2008). The Behavioral economics and the game theory. The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition Fehr, E. Gachter, S. (2000). Fairness and Retaliation: Economics of reciprocity. The Journal of the Economic Perspectives, 14, 159 p. 81. Harbaugh, W., Krause, K. Liday, G. (2002). Bargaining by children. Unpublished manuscript: University of Oregon Varoufakis, Y. Hargreaves-Heap, S. (2004). Game Theory: A critical text, London and New York: Routledge Harrison, W. (2005). Advances in Behavioral Economics. Journal of Economic Psychology, 25, 793-795. Henrich, S., Henrich, J. (2008). The Culture and Evolutionary Origin of Cooperation: Kinship, Reciprocity and Ethnicity. London: Oxford University Press Johnson, A. (2003). The Families of a forest: Matsigenka Indians of the Peruvian Amazon. California: University of California. Kagel, H., Roth, E., eds. (1997). The handbook of the experimental economics. New Jersey: Princeton U. P Dahlquist, J., Kirkpatrick, C. (2007). A Complete Resource for the Market Technicians. pp.49 Luce, R. (2000). The Utility of Losses and Gains: Measurement-theoretical and Experimental Approaches. New Jersey: Lawrence Publishers. Hersh, S. (2002). Beyond Fear and Greed: Understanding the behavioral finance and the psychology of investing. London: Oxford University Press Andrei, S. (1999). Inefficient Markets: Introduction to Behavioral Finance. London: Oxford University Press. Smith, V. (2002). The Method in Experiment: A Rhetoric and Reality. Experimental Economics, 5, 91-110. Varoufakis, Y. (1998). Foundations of Economics: A beginners companion, London and New York: Routledge publishers Edgeworth, Y. (1881). Mathematical Psychics. London: L.S.E. Reprint 1934 publishers. Frank, R. (1988). The Passions within Reasons: The Strategic Role of Emotions. New York: Norton Publishers Hirsch, F. (1976). Social Limit to Growth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press Thaler, H. (1991). Quasi Rational Economics. New York: Russell Sage Publishers Foundation. Wansink, B. (2006). A process of Mindless Eating: Why people eat more than they think. New York: Bantam Books publishers

Dialogue - Losing Humanity :: Dialogue Conversation Essays

Dialogue - Losing Humanity "We've lost, haven't we?" her dark eyes turned to him, not pleading, not appealing, but merely stating the undeniable truth. David's heart wrenched at the loss of innocence, and ultimately, the loss of hope, he saw in that gaze. Sera had been his source of inspiration so many times in the past that David was half-afraid that he'd used up so much of her spark himself that he'd left none for her. To see her so bitter, so hopeless like this, cut him deep. "Humanity, I mean. Mankind, people - whatever. We've failed. We're not going to make it," her eyes drifted meaningfully down to the crowd of racist protesters on the street below them. Their cries had reached a crescendo now and they were battering human dummies with their placards. Sera knew what would happen next. In a few minutes, the dummies would be alight and the protesters would be cheering, and eventually, when their excitement had died down a little, they'd go to a pub and get boisterously drunk, without a thought to the destruction they had caused. She'd seen the same scene so many times before. So had the history of mankind. "Who knows, kid?" David shrugged, his own eyes distant. "The part of us that does these things is the same part that makes us human, the part that got us down from the trees in the first place." Sera snorted bitterly. "There's irony for you," her gaze drifted once more - but to the sky this time rather than the protesters "We're no better, y' know. We've been looking down on these people the same way that they've been looking down on us. We don't burn dummies in the streets, but it's still the same." Her dark eyes shifted once again, this time searching for something in David's gaze. Understanding perhaps. "'Them and us', David. That's what this is all about. It should be just 'us', but it's not. That's where humanity falls down." Her eyes drifted back to the horizon and David reached out and gently took her small hand in his big one. He cleared his throat awkwardly, capturing her gaze, and though his words were casually said, his eyes were intense. "Darlin', I know I'm not exactly educated, but I've been around awhile. And if there's one thing I've learnt it's that as long as there is one person left in the fight, there's a chance the fight can be won," he said, his gaze flicking to the particular section of the horizon she'd been looking at a little while before - the part where the sea met the sky.

literature :: essays research papers

In Alice Walker’s story â€Å"Everyday Use,† symbolism, allegory, and myth stand out when thinking about the characters, setting, and conflict in the story. The conflict is between the mother and her two daughters (Maggie and Dee). There is also the conflict between the family’s heritage (symbolized by the quilt, bench, and butter chum) and their different ways of life. Dee chose a new African name, moved to the city, and adopted a new way of life while Maggie and her mother have stay behind. The quilt (the most important symbol) represents the family’s heritage in that it is made of scraps of clothing worn by generations of family members. The quilt has been sewn by family hands and used on family beds. It has seen history and is history. Maggie and her mother see that that history is alive but Dee thinks it is as dead as her name. Dee does not see that name as part of her heritage. By analyzing these symbols, a number of possibilities for a theme can be seen. Walker could be suggesting that to understand the African-American heritage, readers have to include the present as well as the past. However, the theme could be that poverty and a lack of sophistication and education cannot be equated with ignorance. Lastly, she could be telling her readers that dignity or self-respect rise from and are virtually connected to one’s entire heritage- not just a selected part of it. Dylan Thomas wrote the poem â€Å"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.† It is about a son’s plea to his father who is approaching death. Two lines are repeated in the poem and addressed directly to the father. These lines structure the first stanza and collaborate as a couplet in the last. They are repeated a lot but each time, they have different meanings: statements, pleas, commands, or petitions. Repetition and rhyme scheme are parts of prosody in poetry. The rhyme scheme is built on two rhymes and forms of a pattern. The two rhymes are night and day and the pattern is aba, and in the last stanza, abaa. Even though the poem seems to have too much repetition, the fascinating imagery is more important and readers pay more attention to that instead.

Compare and contrast the poems Mrs Faust and Eurydice :: English Literature

Compare and contrast the poems Mrs Faust and Eurydice The poems Mrs Faust and Eurydice are taken form the collection of poems called ‘The Worlds Wife’. The collection is written by Carol Ann Duffy, it is a compilation of poems that explores feminist principles, the state of feminism today and other such similar topics. The poem Mrs Faust however is not particularly a feminist poem; instead it looks into the shallow materialistic values of our society. Eurydice has feminist connotations, again though is not particularly a strongly feminist poem. Mrs Faust is written in a style that attracts the reader’s attention, the opening passage has conversational undercurrents, which has the effect of involving the reader, and in effect urging the reader to read on. â€Å"First things first-† the first line of the poem is an excellent example of the conversational tone that Carol Ann Duffy has adopted. This style of writing is also in effect in the poem Eurydice, again the opening statement is a good example of this. â€Å"Girls, I was dead and down in the underworld,† in this she has taken the conversational tone to the next level. This statement is now aimed at a specific group of people; women. By doing this, women, perhaps the main target demographic can relate to the poem more easily, and as such it will have a larger effect on them. The language and structure of Mrs Faust is very important to the meaning and effect of the poem. â€Å"We met as students, shacked up, split up, made up, hitched up†¦.† The fast pace use of short sentences and the language here reflects the fast pace of the lives Mrs Faust and her husband shared. The attention to the materialistic gains in the poem also reflects both upon the shallow love that Faust shares with his wife, and also perhaps the superficiality of our modern society. â€Å"Fast cars. A boat with sails. A second home in Wales.† This passage is quite possibly an accurate representation of the materialistic wealth that people have. She also implies that because of this the love that they share is very shallow, and perhaps does not even exist. The use of language in Eurydice is also very important in creating the tone of the poem. The opening stanza of the poem uses an extended metaphor; it uses literacy and words as a metaphor to describe the desolate underworld. â€Å"It was a place where language stopped, a black full stop, a black hole where words had come to an end.† Because of the importance of language for Orpheus and Eurydice, by describing the underworld as a lack of language and words, it shows the bleakness of

Were the 1920’s the “Golden Twenties” as Often Portrayed?

From the point of view of farmers, minorities and labor, were the 1920’s the â€Å"Golden Twenties† as often portrayed? BY: ROBERT TANNER U. S. History 101. 5 Jim Blackwood 11/25/2009 Bibliography Allen, Frederick L. Only Yesterday: An informal history of the 1920s. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1931. Drowne, Kathleen, and Huber, Patrick. The 1920’s. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2004. Irving L. Bernstein. The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker 1920-1933. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960. Sage, Henry J. The Roaring Twenties. October 11, 2006): Internet. http://www. sagehistory. net/twenties/Twenties. htm. November 25, 2009. Williams, Betty. The 1920’s. London: Batsford, 1989 The 1920’s or the â€Å"Roaring Twenties† were a time in U. S. History of great change. This period could be described as the â€Å"Golden Twenties†, where many discoveries and inventions of great importance were made, prosperous industrial growth, increas e in the standard of living, rise of consumerism, and significant changes in people’s lifestyles. But were the 1920’s â€Å"Golden† for everyone? In my essay I will first take a look at the â€Å"Golden† aspects of the twenties, highlighted by some of the inventions and discoveries that took place during the era, which helped define and shape the twenties, and follow that up with the farmers’ point of view on the twenties. First off, let’s take a look at some of the stuff that defined the 1920’s. The 1920s, or the â€Å"Roaring Twenties† were a decade in which nothing big happened, no major catastrophes of large events, at least until the stock market crash of 1929, yet it is one of the most significant decades in U. S. history because of the great changes that came about in American society. The Twenties were known by various images and names: the Jazz Age, the age of the Lost Generation, flaming youth, flappers, radio and movies, bathtub gin, the speakeasy, organized crime, confession magazines, Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, Bobby Jones, the Great Crash, Sacco and Vanzetti, AL Smith, cosmetics, Freud, the â€Å"New† woman, the Harlem Renaissance, consumerism, all these images and more are part of the â€Å"Golden† Twenties. In fact, the 1920s may have been the decade of the greatest social change in American history. Reacting perhaps to both the disillusionment from the First World War and against the strictures of Victorian culture, Americans abandoned old ideas with a vengeance and adopted new concepts wholesale. It was also a time of deep divisions: wets (for repeal of prohibition) against dries, town against country, natives versus foreigners, Catholics against Protestants; the decade also saw a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and an American sense of alienation from the rest of the world. The decade began amidst the ashes of the Great War, blossomed into a riotous age of spending and profit making, cheap automobiles and new consumer products. Everybody seemed to be on a roll. Then in 1929 the Crash hit the stock market, and for many complicated reasons the Great Depression followed. It was a decade of huge figures, heroes of the kind we don’t see any more, or not often: Charles Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, Bobby Jones and others. Americans started going to the movies and listening to the radio in enormous numbers, and they found themselves becoming more affluent as the markets rose, seemingly without end. It was a time of new awakening for African-Americans, many of whom had fought in France, and the Harlem Renaissance opened Americans to Black literature, poetry, music and other arts of a quality never seen before. Literary figures like Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe brought white American literature to a new plane as well. The Progressive movement was not dead in the twenties, a Progressive Presidential candidate got almost 5 million votes in 1924, but it was not an activist decade. Everybody knew what Harding meant when he called for a return to â€Å"normalcy,† even hough there was no such word in the dictionary. The Twenties began on a somber note, rose to great heights of excitement. Then on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, it all came crashing down, and things were never the same again, but then again, they never are. â€Å"1† A â€Å"Golden Age†, Americans in the 1920s had discovered many things. They had more leisure time, and they discovered radi o and movies. The first â€Å"talkie,† â€Å"The Jazz Singer† was produced in 1927; color pictures followed a few years later. Americans of that era loved film stars like Charlie Chaplin, and they honored heroes like Charles Lindbergh. They had more time to participate in and watch sporting events, and Babe Ruth became the first athlete to earn a salary of $100,000 for a season. When reminded that that was more than President Hoover made, the Babe replied, â€Å"I had a better year. † It was also a golden age of literature as well. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, Marjorie Rawlings, the Black writers mentioned above and many others brought American literature to new heights. â€Å"2† As for Business in the 1920s: It was the Age of the Consumer. During the 1920s everybody seemed to be buying everything. Cars, radios, appliances, ready-made clothes, gadgets and other consumer products found their ways into more and more American homes and garages. Americans also started buying stocks in greater numbers, providing capital to already booming businesses. All the signs pointed upwards, and starry-eyed men and women began to believe that it was going to be a one-way trip, possibly forever. Henry Ford’s assembly line not only revolutionized production, it democratized the ownership of the automobile. Ford showed that handsome profits could be made on small margin and high volumes. By 1925 his famous Model-T sold for under $300, a modest price by the standards of the 1920s. Americans had never had it so good. Thanks to pioneers like Charles Lindbergh, the airplane began to come of age in the 1920s. Although used for various purposes in the World War, airplanes were still exotic gadgets until after Lindbergh’s flight, when planes began to carry mail as well as passengers for travel rather than just for thrills. Regularly scheduled flights began, and airports were constructed to handle passengers and small amounts of cargo. The end was in sight for railroad domination of the transportation industry. â€Å"2† Not everyone prospered in the 1920s. Farmers, becoming increasingly more skillful and efficient in producing food, found that laws of supply and demand still plague them. The more they produced, the lower prices tended to fall. In the early 1920s bread was at its lowest price in 500 years relatively to other necessities. It was still tough to make a living down on the farm. The 1920s afforded unprecedented economic opportunities for many Americans, but not for the nation's farmers. They had enjoyed unusual prosperity during World War I, owing to the increased demand for American agricultural products in war-torn Europe, but in the 1920s they were plagued by low prices for agricultural products, high costs for producing these goods, and heavy debt. Increases in the American farmers' productivity created surpluses that drove commodity prices down and lowered their income. While prices for agricultural products remained low, costs for land, machinery, equipment, labor, transportation, and taxes were rising, creating greater disparity between a farmer's costs and income. The pervasive â€Å"farm problem† of the 1920s was complex. The market compensated a farmer's increased productivity and efficiency with a lower standard of living. Collectively, Americans devoted too many resources: land, labor, and capital, to agriculture. Consequently, the supply of agricultural products far outstripped the demand for them. The problem, however, is much easier to diagnose in retrospect than it was during the 1920s. Arguing that the problem with American agriculture was overproduction seemed paradoxical to contemporaries who closely associated the independent farmer with the essence of American virtue and character, someone to be emulated, not discouraged, from increasing his crop yields. Instead of realizing the link between low prices and overproduction, farmers blamed their adversity on insufficient credit, high interest rates, inadequate tariffs, and declining world trade. Overwhelmed by the seriousness of their problems, farmers looked to the federal government for assistance. Farmers' demands for federal help ran against the popular political mood of the 1920s, which demanded a reduction in government involvement in business. Moreover, the growing urban character of the nation weakened farmers' political influence. Yet agriculture had powerful allies in Congress. In 1921 two Republican legislators from Iowa, Sen. William Kenyon and Congressman L. J. Dickinson, organized the â€Å"farm bloc,† a bipartisan group of congressmen that exerted political pressure for legislation to alleviate the farmers' economic misery. During President Harding's administration this legislative caucus advocated generous credit, higher tariffs, and cooperative marketing, all proposals that treated symptoms rather than the core problems, production surpluses and price disparities. From 1920 to 1921, farm prices fell at a catastrophic rate. The price of wheat, the staple crop of the Great Plains, fell by almost half; the price of cotton, still the lifeblood of the South, fell by three-quarters. Farmers, many of whom had taken out loans to increase acreage and buy efficient new agricultural machines like tractors, suddenly could not make their payments; throughout the decade, farm foreclosures and rural bank failures increased at an alarming rate. Agricultural incomes remained flat, with rural Americans' wealth falling far behind their urban counterparts. Rural electrification increased at a snail's pace, with more than 90 percent of American farms still lacking power into the 1930s. The proportion of farms with access to a telephone actually fell during the Roaring Twenties. So, it’s no great exaggeration to say that for rural America, the Great Depression began not in 1929 but in 1920, and it continued for an entire generation. The roaring prosperity of America's cities during the 1920s made the privation of rural life all the more painful, by contrast. The divide between Haves and Have Nots in the 1920s was the divide between city and country. â€Å"3† In Conclusion, the 1920s, â€Å"Roaring† Twenties, or â€Å"Golden† Twenties, can be viewed as two distinct points of views. That of the urban society, which experienced an increase in the standard of living, rises of consumerism, and significant changes in their lifestyles. Times were good, and era of the 20s could truly be viewed and defined as the â€Å"Golden† Twenties. On the other hand, there was the farmers’ point of view, which could be described as the exact opposite. By becoming increasingly more skillful and efficient in producing food, the farmers had found that the laws of supply and demand were not working in their favor. The more they produced, the lower prices tended to fall. Hence, times were tough, and it was hard for them to make ends meet. Overall, one would almost have to reword the 20s, maybe by calling them the â€Å"Golden† twenties for some but not all. Endnotes ( Henry J. Sage, The Roaring Twenties. (October 11, 2006): Internet. http://www. sagehistory. net/twenties/Twenties. htm. 1 2 Kathleen Drowne, and Patrick Huber. The 1920’s. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2004. 3-29 3 Irving L. Bernstein. The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker 1920-1933. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960. 216-350

Matrix Movie Review

Brad Davies Sociology 11:00-12:15 a. m. MW 2/20/2010 Swanson Movie Paper 1) In the movie The Matrix, Keanu reeve stars as a character whose world is based on a futuristic reality. This fact plays the role to why this movie demonstrates social imagination. The basis is that the individuals in the movie have to be aware of their enemies, the machines and artificial intelligence. Social imagination is also expressed through the virtual reality the humans go into where they have certain advantages that they wouldn’t have in the real world.The environment determines the reality of the characters in many ways. In The Matrix, that was created by computers to limit and reduce the human population, reeves character forms a rebellion against the machines with others who escaped the cyber world. When he enters the matrix, he continues his constant struggle with Agent Smith, a virtual character created by the machines to destroy Reeves. These, I believe, are good examples of the social im agination. ) The deception of this movie is that the future, many movie producers believe, we humans will be at some sort of worldwide war with artificial intelligence.Along with the characters in the movie, the writers, producers, and directors are the ones who created this deception. The Matrix, which is the â€Å"fake reality†, is created through the minds of the characters by the means of technology. The advancement in technology that the movie portrays is the basis behind the â€Å"artificial reality. I believe, after viewing the movie, the main characters figure out the difference between fact and fiction by simply going through the metamorphous of the real world and the matrix. I feel that the reality of this movie is the possibility that the future of the humans may indeed involve a conflict with machines, artificial intelligence, and/or the entire cyber world. 3) Yes, I do believe that it is possible to create a separate reality in our minds. People do this every da y through hypnosis.When people go â€Å"under† and it is said that their conscious minds are released. This is done so that we can escape our very stressful, worrisome, everyday lives. Our minds are endless and we go through hypnosis, we can explore the unexplored of our inner-conscious. When it comes to create a â€Å"fake reality† like the matrix in our minds and live in it, I don’t think it’s possible, without the help of some sort of machine or computer basis. I’m sure some people try to do this, but nothing can compare to the reality portrayed in the movie. )I did like The Matrix, along with the rest of the trilogy, because of the Sci-fi, fictional baseline. It is pretty cool to think about what it would be like if we could actually hook up to a computer and travel into a different world. This assignment was pretty tricky and I really hope that I nailed all the key points and that my examples make sense and go along with the questions. I think the class is going fairly well so far. Can’t go wrong with learning new things every day!