My Family – Dad

Im a kind of person that really cares for his family. I have a great education from my father and thats why I admire him for many reasons. Hes a generous person, a great businessman, and a really good father. My dad is always helping people around him. He really cares for his family and he works hard to provide for his extended as well as, immediate family. He supports anyone that has problems with money, police, or any other kind of problem. He is the godfather for everyone in our family. My father is always here when they need them. In the same way, he has also helped his friends. For example: when his friend lost everything, he offered unlimited support to get him back on the right track. He thinks that no one else can do it. He always works with the men word with his friend. He doesnt take a check or title from them for the safety of his money. He is a generous person. My dad had a horrible childhood. When he was three years old, his father passed away. He had to support his family, so he sacrificed himself for them. He left school at the age 12 years old and worked for $ 20 a week. He had a lot of bad memories from his childhood as a consequence; it made him stronger and gave him experiences. He succeeds with the years and he got a lot of business experience. Now, he knows how to handle any kind of business. He could start any business and be sure that he succeeds on it. For example: He bought huge land next to the best tourist area in Casablanca for lot of money. Everyone was thinking that it was a big mistake but it wasnt. After many years, the land value has tripled. I could say that he has the feeling of business in his blood. My dad is a good father for our family. He sends his children to the best school and he doesnt care about the money. He is a powerful father, because he gave the education that he didnt get when he was younger. He made himself clear when something is wrong. If I do same thing wrong, he talked to me one time. He was always there when I need him. For example, I failed my high school two times normally. If he had the Muslim mind, he would let me leave the school, but he didnt. He always gave me a new chance. He gave me the energy to believe in myself and start again. He gave me the opportunity to study in United State of America, support my tuition and my living expenses. There are a few fathers in the world that can spend so much money for their children. In my opinion, I think that my father is the best father I could have ever asked for. I will try my best to be like him by being helpful to my children and people around me. I hope to be able to send my children though college and give them the knowledge needed to successful in society.

Crim Justice

Multiple Choice: Chose the most appropriate answer to the following questions: 1. Which of the following had a profound effect on individual rights by the 1980s? a. The Civil Rights movement. b. The Vietnam War. c. Terrorism. d. The increased use of drugs. 2. Which model below best assumes that the system’s components work together harmoniously to achieve justice. a. Due Process Model b. Conflict Model c. Individual Rights Model d. Consensus Model 3. Which step in the pretrial activities does a judicial officer determine if a crime has been committed? . Indictment b. Information c. Preliminary Hearing d. Information 4. According to the author Race and Ethnicity are buzz words that people use when discussing: a. Religion b. Fourth Amendment c. Multiculturalism d. Terrorism 5. Which of the following describes the scientific study of the causes and prevention of crime and the rehabilitation and punishment of offenders? a. Incarceration b. Criminology c. Indictment d. multicultura lism 6. Which Amendment to the U. S. Constitution is concerned with the defendant’s right to a jury trial? a. Fourth b. Fifth c. Sixth d. Eighth 7.A(n)________ is defined as criminal proceedings, the examination in court of the issues of fact and relevant law in a case for the purpose of convicting or acquitting the defendant. a. Trial b. Indictment c. Arraignment d. Probable Cause 8. Which of the following refers to crime fighting strategies that have been scientifically tested and are based on social science research? a. Crime Control Model b. Evidence Based Practice c. Social Control Model d. Criminology 9. Which stage in the criminal justice process involves taking pictures and fingerprints of a suspect? a. Arraignment b.Indictment c. Preliminary Hearing d. Booking 10. The first step in the Criminal Justice process begins with the: a. Arrest b. Investigation c. Booking d. Warrant 11. The preliminary hearing is used to decide whether: a. there are reasonable grounds to bel ieve the defendant committed the crime. b. the crime that occurred is a felony. c. the defendant is fit to stand trial. d. the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. 12. An ideal that embraces all aspects of civilized life and that is linked to fundamental notions of fairness and to cultural beliefs about right and wrong is known as: . Equal rights b. Social Justice c. Multiculturalism d. Civil Justice 13. Who returns an indictment? a. the prosecutor b. the judge c. the arresting police officer d. the grand jury 14. Multiculturalism is often used in conjunction with what other term? a. traditionalist b. diversity c. homogeneous d. ethnocentric 15. A criminal justice perspective model that emphasizes the efficient arrest and conviction of criminal offenders is known as: a. Social Control Model b. Due Process Model c. Crime Control Model d. Omnibus Bill Model Chapter 1- True-FalseCircle the most appropriate answer to the following questions. 1. The Conflict Model assumes that the criminal justice system’s components function primarily to serve their own interests a. True b. False 2. The Corrections stage begins once a defendant has been convicted, but before sentencing. a. True b. False 3. Due Process is a right guaranteed only found in the Fifth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. a. True b. False 4. The Crime-controlled model is defined as a criminal justice perspective that emphasizes the efficient arrest and conviction of criminal offenders. a. True . False 5. Gideon v. Wainwright is a landmark U. S. Supreme Court case ensuring the defendant’s right to a jury trial. a. True b. False Chapter 1 – Fill in the Blank Fill in the blank with the word or phrase that best completes or answers the question. 1. Not guilty, guilty, and no contest are all acceptable pleas at the______________. 2. The _________ model of criminal justice assumes that the system’s components function primarily serve their own interests. 3. The __________ model of criminal justice assumes that each of the component parts strive towards a common goal. 4. __________ based practice is crime fighting strategies that have been scientifically tested and are based on social science research. 5. ___________ occurs when there is conduct in violation of the criminal laws of a state, the federal government, or a local jurisdiction for which there is no legally acceptable justification or excuse. Chapter 1 – Matching Match the term in the numbered column with the answer in the lettered column. 1. Preliminary Hearing| a. A formal written accusation submitted to the court by a grand jury alleging that a specified person has committed a specified offense, usually a felony. 2. Indictment| b. A formal written accusation submitted to a court by a prosecutor alleging that a specified person has committed a specified offense. | 3. Probable Cause| c. A proceeding before a judicial officer in which it must be shown that: a crime was committed, the crime occurred within the jurisdiction of the court, and there are reasonable grounds to believe that the defendant did the crime. | 4. Information| d. A set of facts and circumstances that would induce a reasonably intelligent and prudent person to believe that a specified person has committed a specified crime. Chapter 1 Essay Provide detailed and comprehensive information to support your answer. Where applicable use examples to support your answers. 1. What is meant by due process of law? 2. Define multiculturalism, and highlight the importance of multiculturalism to the criminal justice process. 3. Compare and contrast the three main components of the criminal justice system. 4. Discuss the crime fighting strategies that have been scientifically tested and are based on social science research. 5.Define and discuss the term Administration of Justice. Chapter 1 – Critical Thinking Answer each part of the following questions with succinct and comprehensive information by ci ting examples of various models, laws, and justice theories in your answer. 1. Do you see a trend in our society in favor of individual rights or public interests? Cite recent examples to support your position. 2. What does justice mean to you? Discuss the three types of justice and their effect on individual rights to support your answer.

The Natural Rate of Unemployment Research Proposal

The Natural Rate of Unemployment - Research Proposal Example According to the model, the workers and the firms undertake negotiation in order to decide on the nominal this. This negotiation is done irrespective of the expected price level of the economy. The nominal wage is determined as the product of the target real wage rate and the expected level of price in the economy. Most of the economists are of the opinion that the nominal wage in the economy is sticky in the short run. With a sticky nominal wage in the economy, the prices would increase from P to P0. This would reduce the real wage rate in the economy. Since the wages are the prices for labor the demand curve for labor would be a downward sloping curve and the supply curve would be an upward rising one. The now the labor market would comprise of the employed and the unemployed labor force. Thus the total labor in the economy would be Therefore the level of unemployed in the economy would be LN, where L is the total labor force, N is the employed and U is unemployed. Therefore the natural rate of unemployment in the economy would be U* / L. Now the wage setting relation establishes a negative relationship between the real wage that exists in the economy and the rate of unemployment existing in the economy. This relation can be represented by the downward sloping curve that is shown in the diagram below. As the rate of unemployment in the economy would increase the wages that the laborers would demand would be less (Broughton, 2009. pp. 3-5).

Managerial decisions Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Managerial decisions - Term Paper Example More revenue will be generated at a lower cost of production, which is an additional advantage to the company. Contract workers are paid less money than full time employees, and this will be a great advantage to the company as a whole. Introduction According to Kotler & Armstrong (2004), the elements of supply and demand in business are interrelated, and in some cases, they also affect the price of a certain market offering. However, in this case it is assumed that the price is constant and the aim is to establish how supply can be increased in order to meet the rising demand of certain goods without offsetting the prevailing market trends. Economically, if the demand for a certain product increases, then its supply also increases. This relationship will be illustrated using a supply curve later in the paper. Therefore, this paper seeks to explain in detail the relationship between supply and demand in detail and show how this can affect managerial decisions. In some cases, managers need to make decisions that do not affect the viability of the organization in the long run, trying to meet the rising demand for a certain product. ... products offered in the market remains the same, but this issue of the rising demand has to be addressed in order to cater for the needs of customers, who are valuable to the organization. It is also assumed that this increase in demand may not be permanent, and hence the need to put effective measures that do not impact negatively on the operations of the organization. Therefore, the main question to be answered in this case is: Should our company hire temporary or hire new workers to handle the increase in demand for our products? Essentially, there is a need to maintain production costs at a lower level while increasing the supply of the product offered by the company. This is meant to ensure that the company remains viable and that it is also able to operate profitably since the price is not going to change in this particular case. The only thing that will change is the supply of the products offered. An increase in supply entails that more sales are likely to be generated. This also means that more revenue will be realized from the operations of the organization. As such, a holistic approach has to be taken in order to make sure that the workers who are going to be hired will not greatly increase the operational costs, which may impact the viability of the organization. Factors or costs There are various costs that need to be taken into consideration when making managerial decisions that have economic implications on the operations of the organization. Hiring temporary workers impliedly means that the company will not incur a lot of labour costs because of the following reasons: The organization has the autonomy to determine the wage rate of the contract workers. The company does not have the burden of paying fixed salaries to these workers since this may increase

Homosexuality - Nature versus Nurture Research Paper

Homosexuality - Nature versus Nurture - Research Paper Example The truth is in understanding the nature concept; this is a concept that looks at how it is a specific gene combination within the body of a human being that makes him the way he is when he is born. It is these genes at the time of birth of a person that decides his sexual orientation rather than anything else. Therefore, people are born queer or gay rather than becoming gay during the course of their lifetime. In keeping with the statements and views made by the American Psychological Association, it has been noted that â€Å"Research suggests that the homosexual orientation is in place very early in the life cycle, possibly even before birth. It is found in about ten percent of the population, a figure which is surprisingly constant across cultures, irrespective of the different moral values and standards of a particular culture.† Therefore it is the belief of such associations as well as some independent scientists, that it is the gene make of different factors within the body, linked with the hormone secretions of a particular fetus that determines the final orientation of the baby at the time of its birth (or even before, when it is in the womb). On the other hand, the nurture concept talks about an entirely different aspect of being a homosexual. According to this concept, some people become gay during the course of their lifetime. They change their sexual preferences according to the kind of environment they live in, and according to the kind of surroundings and atmosphere they are subject to. For example, it is very likely for a young boy raised by only women (May it be in foster care, or lesbian parents, or simply having more women family members than male) to start behaving like women around him. By the time the boy is an adolescent or even older, all his preferences and tastes develop according to the likes of the women he has grown up with, and thus he begins to give rise to feelings of being effeminate. Therefore, this is how a person is ‘made’ gay rather than being born gay, all because of the influence of his outer surroundings and the external atmosphere.  

Film Art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Film Art - Essay Example While Zombieland may exist in the kitsch horror genre, the film can be analyzed with the same critical tools as more artistic films. This essay examines a portion of Zombieland to consider the way elements of mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, and sound combine to help the viewer understand the complete film. A film’s mise-en-scene is perhaps its most comprehensive element. Mise-en-scene is a French term referring to everything that appears on the screen.1 There are a number of prominent mise-en-scene elements in the clip from Zombieland. From an overarching perspective one considers that the entire film world has been altered as a means of establishing the post-apocalyptic environment. In this way there is minimal order. There are overturned cars in many scenes. Businesses are depicted as ransacked. In addition to these atmospheric elements, these scenes establish many of the narrative concerns that will be featured throughout the film. For instance, in one scene the mise-en-scene contains a football field, a man running, and a zombie running after the man. These elements are used to establish the importance of escaping zombies. In another scene the film displays an individual sitting on a bathroom stall. In this scene, mise-en—scene elements are combined with sound noises to create suspense and horror. A medium-range shot establishes the individual sitting in the bathroom stall. Loud zombie noises are then heard, before the individual is finally attacked by a zombie. Another major film element is cinematography. Cinematography is the movement of the camera capturing the film.2 This specific scene makes great use of cinematography. The opening shots feature an upside-down car. The camera is then turned upside-down as a zombie enters the screen. The next major scene is a long-shot the world. This long-shot of the world demonstrates to the viewer how large-scale the zombie problem has become, as it is clear that the

Ratio analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Ratio analysis - Essay Example The former is used to compare the performance of the firm within itself in terms of aspects such as improvement in management skills and finance handling. The latter is used to compare the performance of the firm within its industry of operation. Such comparisons will consider fundamental aspects of operations like profitability. In profitability, an increase or decrease is established and the causes of each including what can be done to stabilize profitability and grow it further. The liquidity of the firm is also quite fundamental as this would enable management know how to plan operations and sources of financing. Therefore, ratio analysis is used in the determination of trends as it strives to expose the strengths and weaknesses of the company. Ratios can be either favorable or unfavorable depending on whether the increase or decrease is in the desired direction (Dess 2012). For our analysis of Apple Incorporation’s financial statement of the year 2012 compared to that of the year 2011, we will categorize ratios into the following - Profitability Ratios; Liquidity ratios; Efficiency Ratios and Capital structure ratios. Profitability Ratios They measure the ability of the company to generate profits from their asset investments. Such ratios include- Gross Profit margin, which is the profit before expenses generated by sales as a percentage. There is the Net Profit margin which are the earnings before depreciation and tax generated by sales; Then there is the Return on Equity(ROE)/Net Worth/ Shareholders funds/ Investments(ROI), this is the ratio of the earnings after tax plus preference dividends contributed by share capital and reserves. The fourth ration in this category is the Return on total assets (ROTA) which indicates how much the Fixed and Current Assets of a company contributes to the Earnings before Interest and Tax (EBIT). Return on Capital Employed is the next, it indicates how equity and Fixed interest capital contributes to the EBIT, and finally we have the Operating Expenses Ratio indicating the percentage of sales consumed by the operating expenses. An increase in these ratios from the previous period is considered favorable while a decrease in the last ratio is considered favorable. The ratios as shown by the financial data by Apple incorporation between the years 2011 and 2012 financial statements are as shown in the table below. RATIO FORMULA YEAR 2012($ in Millions) YEAR 2011($ in Millions) 1. Gross Profit Margin = (Gross Profit/Sales)*100 (66,662/156,508)*100 = 43.87% (43,818/108,249)*100 = 40.48% 2. Net Profit Margin =(EBIT/Sales)*100 (55,241/156,508)*100 = 35.30% (34,790/108,249)*100 = 32.14% 3. ROE/ROI =(EAT+ Pref. dividends/Owner’s Equity)*100 (41,733/118,210)*100 = 35.30% (25,922/76,615)*100 = 33.83% 4. ROTA =(EBIT/Total Assets)*100 (55,241/176,064)*100 = 31.38% (34,790/116,371)*100 = 29.90% 5. ROCE =(EBIT/Total Capital Employed)*100 (55,241/118,210)*100 = 46.73% (34,790/76,615)*100 = 45.41% 6. O perating Expenses Ratio =(Operating Expenses/Sales)*100 (13,421/156,508)*100 = 80.58% (10,028/108,249)*100 = 9.26% As indicated by the profitability ratios, there was a general increase in profitability of Apple Inc between the year 2011 and 2012. The gross profit margin shows a rise from 40.48% in 2011 to 43.87% in 2012. Such an increase was because of the increase in; sales from 108,249 in 2011 to 156,508 in 2012. An increase of the net profit margin from 32.14% to 35.3% is because of the i

Discussion question Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 11

Discussion question - Coursework Example Thus, it can be affirmed that this test is appropriate to use while measuring the efficiency of distinct variables that remain present within a study. Similarly, an example of non-parametric test is reckoned to be ‘Kruskal-Wallis Test’, which is applied to evaluate three or beyond samples. These tests can be used in the presence of a single nominal and measurement variable and are executed upon ranked data (Hecke, 2010). Investigators ought to make certain basic assumptions to conduct ANOVA. In this regard, the values of errors must be considered as zero with assuming the errors as independent. In this similar context, certain assumptions must also be adhered by the investigators while running ‘Kruskal-Wallis Test’. An ordinal scale must be used to assess the two variables. The independent variables must inculcate in excess of two independent groups (Hecke, 2010). The data analysis plan involves a number of steps. These include identifying the research problems, specifying assumptions and drawing references. Specially mentioning, to address the study hypothesis, one can make greater use of ‘multiple t-tests’. By considering the fact that the study hypothesis is based on nursing criteria, one of the measures relating to central tendency i.e. ‘mode’ will be reported for demographic variables. This will aid in measuring all the frequencies of the collected values, making the study hypothesis quite reliable and justified (METU,

1980s Latin America Debt Crisis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

1980s Latin America Debt Crisis - Essay Example Latin American countries followed a heavy reliance on debt finance. First, increases in foreign debt in these countries were higher than the revenues they had derived from their annual exports. In 1976, Mexico exported oil which paved the way for excess imports since cheap loans can be readily tapped. Brazil implemented a program of industrial expansion. Argentina and Chile established an overvalued exchange rate policy as an integral part of anti-inflationary strategy. Diverse government policies led these Latin American countries to defective exchange rate policies and excessive dependence on external capital flows.Another factor for the persistent debt problem was the fact that state enterprises became the conduit for absorbing external resources. The government guarantee provided for foreign denominated loans was attractive to external lenders who had no information on the real risk profile of the debtors. Public enterprises implemented programs of investment which guaranteed dir ect control over the foreign exchange proceeds to the national government. (Wesson, 9)In the years after 1983, these countries suffered from capital outflows and from the persistent slide in primary commodity prices. From 1983 up to 1986, Latin American terms of trade declined by 15 percent. Increased exports were negatively affected by falling prices. Countries. Argentina and Peru were especially hard hit. Mexico went into crisis due to falling oil prices in 1986.The lingering imbalance in the U.S. balance of payments contributed to the disadvantage of Latin America. The United States buys manufactured imports from Asian Countries (NICs) while shutting off capital flows from Latin American countries. Japanese and European surpluses were sent to the United States to get higher rates of investment. Economic growth in Latin America was supported by an import-substitution industrialization which protected the domestic industrial economy by means of high tariffs, import duties, and government subsidies. The initial arrangement benefited the economy but by the late 1960s, it was beginning to negatively affect agriculture which provides the needed foreign exchange. The industry had expensive domestic inputs that resulted in making major Mexican agricultural exports uncompetitive. Government policies which controlled domestic food prices also discouraged the increase of food production. As the population increased, consumption rose, reducing the amount of food available for export. It became necessary either to generate more resources to satisfy the demands of the population, or to control or decrease such demands without undermining the peace of the ruling party. By 1970, Lus Echeverra Alvarez, was elected president. He implemented the policy of stabilizing development. Stabilizing development is the economic strategy which emphasized growth over equity. The assumption had been that these resources would trickle down to the poor. The Echeverra administration opted for a strategy of shared development. This policy would emphasize equity and growth by policies that channel a greater share of economic gains to Mexico's lower classes. Echeverra encouraged more aggressive trade unions and he rued that foreign investors and domestic businessmen for exploiting the country. As conflict increased and confidence in the administration's policies declined, capital flight began. The government was forced to devalue the Mexican peso twice. Echeverra's anger and dismay led him to expropriate vast tracts of private agricultural land to give them to landless peasants. The president's attempt to spend his way into growth and equity had clearly failed by 1976, when Jos Lpez Portillo succeeded him. Portillo assumed a conciliatory approach in the face of problems. He then decided to secure foreign funding using the vast petroleum reserves of Mexico. Finally, commercial bankers were lining up to lend Mexico money in an attempt to reinvest billions of petrodollars that Arab governments had placed on

College Scholarship Essay Example for Free

College Scholarship Essay Hi, my name is Stacey Burrell and I currently attending Boston Arts Academy as a Junior theatre major. I believe its never too early to start looking at colleges and scholarships. My schools of interest include Juilliard, Colombia, and Dartmouth. I am not the first in my family to go to college but I am apart of the first generation. My parents are from Jamaica and never fully completed their education. Ive always had to make the most of financial aid and luck. My parents are definitely not rich but weve always found ways to pay for what we need. My sister just enrolled at Cornell University almost entirely through financial aid and merit based scholarships. I feel as though I deserve this scholarship because my grades definitely reflect how important education is to me. I plan to major in Theatre Arts and minor in Education. See more: how to write a winning scholarship essay Theatre has always been a huge part of my life. My goal for the future is to teach youth how.important theatre is. It can tell stories that help people connect to one another. I also deserve this scholarship to prove to myself that I can actually achieve my dreams. I always set the bar high for myself as you can see in my choice of colleges; its always hard having an older sibling.and being compared to them all the time. This scholarship will just be one step closer to my dream of going to college and following in my sisters footsteps. This essay might not stand out to you because I know there are people out there with sickness and disease. Im in good health and I have a supportive family. All I have to prove that I deserve this scholarship are my grades and my determination to go to college.

The Origins and History of Punk Fashion

The Origins and History of Punk Fashion The time and birthplace of Punk movement is debatable. Either the New York scene of the late sixties or the British Punks of 1975-76 can be given the honour. Conventionally, it is thought the New Yorkers invented the musical style while the Londoners popularized the attitude and the appearance. For our purpose, we will just watch over the British punk because it was just in the late seventies that the movement gained some importance and formalization. Punk in Britain was a movement essentially made of deprived working-class white youths. There is a strong connection between the punk phenomenon and the economic and social inequalities in Great Britain. The aim of this work is to show where the punk came from and how the movement developed its own style, quite different from any other else, up to making it a proper fashion recognized worldwide. In the fist chapter, it will be introduced the concept of subculture. The punk was in fact one of the many white youth subculture sparkled after the Second World War. It will be explained why youth subcultures emerged and they will be delineated the main features of some of them. A deep analysis of Punk movement origins will be carried out in the second chapter. Here it will be possible to understand the social reasons which led to the creation of punk and the many different sources of style which contributed to the formation of a punk aesthetic. The main feature of the punk aesthetic, then, will be exposed and commented in the third chapter. This chapter focus on the use of shocking and glowering clothes and accessories as a way of rebellion against the mainstream and the society. In the fourth chapter, it will be discussed the role of media in the spread and acceptance of the punk subculture. As we will see in this chapter, little by little media changed attitude toward punk. There was a shift from fear to integration of punks which can be explained through the analysis of two forms of incorporation, the commodity form and the ideological form. Yet in this chapter, it will be presented on of the main pillar of the punk ideology, the Do It Yourself (DIY) philosophy, which influenced everything in the punk subculture from the music to the fashion. In the fifth chapter, then, it will be drawn the story of what can be considered the real birthplace of the punk fashion, the 430 Kings Road, where Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren started their careers. It will be delineated the evolution of the different shops that followed each other at this address and, what is more important, the evolution of the styles proposed by these shops which became the point of reference for the most important punk fashion addicted. In the sixth and last chapter, finally, it will be pointed out how the commodity form of incorporation struck the punk made it fashion available and accepted by the vast public. The 1977 couture collection of Zandra inspired to punks may be identified as the final blow for a pure punk style and the beginning of its exploitation as a fashion trend. From that time on many fashion designers inspired to a punk aesthetic for their collections. Recently the whole fashion system seems to have rediscovered the punk: From Jean-Paul Gaultier to Moschino up to low-cost retailers as Zara or HM. Chapter 1 Youth subcultures:  The source of style The term subculture came up for the first time around the second half of the 1940s in anthropological and sociological writing. As early as 1950, David Riesman distinguished between a majority, which passively accepted commercially provided styles and meanings, and a subculture which actively sought a minority style (hot jazz at the time) and interpreted it in accordance with subversive values. Thus the audience [] manipulates the product (and hence the producer), no less than the other way round (Riesman, 1950). From that time on, many different studies were carried out and various interpretations on the meaning and the function of the subcultures were given by estimated personalities as John Clarke, Phil Cohen, Walter Miller, Matza and Sykes, Peter Willmott and Stuart Hall.   In particular, Dick Hebdige gave one of the biggest contributions to the study of subcultures in his 1979 book Subculture the Meaning of style which encompasses all theories from the above mentionated authors and uses them to analyze the youth subcultures. From hipsters to teddy boys, from skinheads to mods, from glitter rockers to punks, the youth cultural styles consecution is here reinterpreted, reposing on Gramscis notion of hegemony, as symbolic forms of resistance; as spectacular symptoms of a wider more generally submerged dissent which characterized the whole post-war period (Hebdige, 1979) The origins of youth subcultures are, thus, to be found after the Second World War when the traditional patterns of everyday life were completely upturned. The emergence of the mass media, modifications in the structure of the family and in the organization of school and work, shifts in the relative burdens of work and leisure, all contributed in fragmenting and polarizing the working-class community. In this contest, also the role and the relative importance of the working-class youth experienced a deep change: their purchasing power enormously increased (during the period 1945-50 it was estimated that the average real wage of teenagers increased at twice the adults rate) and, consequently, it was created a new youth market in order to take up the resulting surplus. From then on, the youth started to express and impose its own identity against the parental one. According to Cohen youth subcultures can be defined as a compromise solution between two contradictionary needs: The need to create and express autonomy and difference from parents [] and the need to maintain the parental identifications (Cohen, 1972). That is to say, the latent function of subculture was to express and resolve, albeit magically, the contradictions which remain hidden or unresolved in the parent culture (Cohen, 1972) As Hebdige pointed out, skinheads, for instance, undoubtedly reasserted those values associated with the traditional working-class community, but they did so in the face of the widespread renunciation of those values in the parent culture at a time when such an affirmation of the classic concerns of working- class life was considered inappropriate(Hebdige, 1979). But it is also the case of mods: in fact they were negotiating changes and contradictions which were simultaneously affecting the parent culture but they were doing so in terms of their own relatively autonomous problematic by inventing an elsewhere (the week-end, the West End) which was defined against the familiar locales of the home, the pub, the working-mans club, the neighbourhood (Hebdige, 1979). Nevertheless, we must be careful in stressing the importance of integration and coherence between youth and parent culture because one of the most relevant feature in the definition of a subculture is its dissonance and discontinuity with the most largely accepted culture. This is particularly evident if we take in consideration the punk subculture. As Hebdige writes in fact we should be hard pressed to find in the punk subculture, for instance, any symbolic attempts to retrieve some of the socially cohesive elements destroyed in the parent culture (Cohen, 1972) beyond the simple fact of cohesion itself: the expression of a highly structured, visible, tightly bounded group identity. Rather, the punks seemed to be parodying the alienation and emptiness which have caused sociologists so much concern, realizing in a deliberate and wilful fashion the direst predictions of the most scathing social critics, and celebrating in a mock-heroic terms the death of the community and collapse of traditional forms of meaning. Even if each subculture strives to be different and unique among other ones, they all share a common feature: they are all cultures of conspicuous consumption. This term indicates the practice of abnormally spending on goods and services with the main objective of flaunting the belonging to a social status, a particular group or, as in this case, to a specific subculture. It is through the distinctive rituals of consumption, through style, that the subculture at once reveals its secret identity and communicates its forbidden meanings. It is basically the way in which commodities are used in subculture which marks the subculture off from the more orthodox cultural formations. (Hebdige, 1979). The style can be defined as the self-image that a person creates representing his or her personality. Style, however, is not built at an individual level but it is strongly dictated by the subculture rules. Everyone identifying in a specific subculture is unconsciously constrained in the adoption, use, dissemination, and the rejection of a certain style of clothing or even acting. That because of the so-called social pressure: the behaviour of a single person is so much linked to the influence exerted by the social groups that the individual identity muddles up with the collective identity. Accordingly, the identity of the individual is recognized just as his or her membership to the reference group is recognized and accepted by all other members. In this contest, the apparel assumes a key role becoming the most evident sign of affiliation and, thus, one of the principal mean of social avowal. Considering the clothing in the sense of a common communication code, it becomes important to identify the symbolic value of different clothes. Actually, they always carry a message about the style of a group, and to a more precise analysis, they can tell us everything we need to know about norms and values of a specific group and even about its formation processes. Thus, the apparel adopted by a subculture should not be seen as a transient fashion but as a visual image of what are the values and norms characterizing that specific subculture and distinguishing it from parent culture and from the other youth subculture too, and inasmuch symbolic representation, it needs to be carefully analyzed to be properly interpreted. Chapter 2 The Punk: a Mix of heterogeneous youth styles I can play punk rock, and I love playing punk rock, but I was into every other style of music before I played punk rock.  (Travis Baker) This quotation from one of the most famed punk-rock drummer of the recent years well summarizes what was the punk movements background. Punks origins are blended and even conflicting, coming from a wide range of different musical and fashion styles. Influenced by David Bowie and glitter rock, combined with the main features of Southend rb rhythms, inspired by American proto-punk, twisted with northern soul and with reggae, the punk can be described as a patchwork made of distorted reflections coming from almost every previous post-war youth culture stuck together with safety pins. (Jon Savage, 2007) It is like punk unearthing and renewing entire wardrobes belonging to different ages with the aim of proposing them in revitalized cut-up form. Glam rock contributed narcissism, nihilism and gender confusion. American punk offered a minimalist aesthetic (e.g. the Ramones Pinhead or Crimes I stupid), the cult of the street and a penchant for self-laceration. Northern Soul (a genuinely secret subculture of working-class youngsters dedicated to acrobatic dancing and fast American soul of the 60s, which centres on clubs like Wigan Casino) brought its subterranean tradition of fast, jerky rhythms, solo dance styles and amphetamines; reggae its exotic and dangerous aura or forbidden identity, its conscience, its dread and its cool. Native rhythm n blues reinforced the brashness and the speed of Northern Soul, took back to the basics and contributed a highly developed iconoclasm, a thoroughly British person and an extremely selective appropriation of the rock n roll heritage. (Hebdige, 1979) However, the link between these so heterogeneous styles is to be found in the social contest in which the punk movement emerged. We are dealing with the late 1970s in Britain, with its massive unemployment, with its continuous warlike violence episodes (as ,for instance, the tragic one happened during the 76 Notting Hill Carnival to which the punk group The Clash dedicated the song White riot), with its changing moral standards and its rediscovery of poverty. It was exactly in this period that the race relations became fundamental. On the one hand, there was the urban black youths, living and working in Britain but dreaming and finding an imaginary refuge in an elsewhere (Africa, the West Indies, etc.) through the reggae and the Rastafarianism. On the other hand, there was the white working-class youth, placed at the same social level as the black ones but stuck in their present time, having no foreseeable future and no places or means to escape the reality. In fact, the model proposed by the glam rock made of literary influences (from Rimbaud, Burroughs, Lautrà ©amont and Huysmans) and underground cinema, focused on the concepts of polymorphism, perverse sexuality and obsessive individualism resulted too remote from the majority of working-class youth. They were imprisoned in a vicious circle. They felt as aliens, rejected not only by the rest of the world but also by the any existent music genre. They had no reference models, no hopes for the future and neither perspectives of improvement. Therefore, they started to act out alienation, to mime its imagined condition, to manufacture a whole series of subjective correlatives for the official archetypes of the crisis of modern life: the unemployment figures, the Depression, the Westway, Television, etc. (Hebdige, 1979) The awareness of this crisis led to the conversion of what was an inner malaise into tangible icons (the safety pins, the ripped clothes, the spikes, the hungry look, the combat boots, etc.) reflecting in an enhanced way the perceived condition of exile and alienation, which is, nevertheless, voluntarily assumed. Punks, thus, moved back to earlier, more vigorous forms of rock (i.e. the 50s and the mid-60s when the black influences had been strongest) and forward to contemporary reggae(dub, Bob Marley) in order to find a music which reflected more adequately their sense of frustration and oppression. (Hebdige, 1979). They saw in Rastafarian history of exile a point of contact and it was exactly for this reason it was the only accepted subculture alternative to punk. Richard Hell, a punk musician, interviewed in the popular music magazine New Musical Express declared, punks are niggers (NME, 29 October 1977). An inevitably feisty claim but it is indicative of what was the real situation at that time. As Hebdige writes, the punk can be seen in part as white translation of black ethnicity. (Hebdige, 1979) In addition, this unstudied identification with black British and the West Indian tradition was a way to oppose actively to teddy boys, their hated rivals. In fact, punks used to modify and wear elements from the teddy boys style and it was perceived as an outrage by the teddy boy revivalists because they felt as punks stealing and fooling their way of clothing and, in a sense, their ideals. Punk style was perhaps interpreted by the teddy boys as an affront to the traditional working-class values of forthrightness, plain speech and sexual Puritanism which they had endorsed and revived (Hebdige, 1979). Concrete evidences of this tension between the two subcultures could be found every Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1977 along Kings Road where punctually a throng of punks and teds met to fight. Therefore, Reggae, notwithstanding its apparent distance from punk music, started to be present in a number of repertoires of punk bands as The Clash, The Slits, The Jam, and many others. In the majority of punk clubs, they used to play regularly heavy reggae music between live acts and, moreover, the song Punky Reggae Party by Bob Marley The Wailers, is the evident and overwhelming proof of this contamination. Chapter 3 Punks rebellion through style Rebellion is the heart of the punk subculture. Rebellion against society, rebellion against social inequalities, rebellion, in last instance, against conformism. Everything the punks did, everything they wore, dance to, fight for, everything can be consider as punk has the only aim of convey a message of nonconformity. Conformity can be defined as a change in a persons behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or a group of people. (Aronson, 1972) Therefore, punks rebellion was essentially against the prevailing modes of thought; what common people took for granted that is to say the necessity to have a good and certain job, the blame on homosexuality, the mistrust in other race, it was simply not accepted as the only and the best code of conduct. However, punks were young, poor, and completely helpless in effectively struggling for changing the reality. Therefore, the only weapon they found to react was to transform themselves in directly offensive and threatening beings. Punks, like previous post-war youth subculture such as teddy boys, the mods, the rockers, the skinheads, the beats, the zoot suiters, and the hippies created, a coherent and elaborate system of body adornment that expressed their estrangement from mainstream society and that horrified the general public. Having little access to dominant means of discourse, punks displayed their disaffiliation and their subcultural identity through such adornment, which was for them an accessible and direct channel of communication. By manipulating the standard codes of adornment in socially objectionable ways punks challenged the accepted categories of everyday dress and disrupted the codes and conventions of daily life (Wojick,1995) Early punks, probably unconsciously, used most of the rebellion techniques typical of the early avant-gardists: unusual fashions, the blurring of boundaries between art and every day life, juxtapositions of seemingly disparate objects and behaviours, intentional provocation of the audience, use of unstrained performers and drastic reorganization (or disorganization) of accepted performance styles and procedure (OHara,1999) In this contest, it is not surprisingly that the main features of punk fashion were so extremely impressive and shocking. Objects borrowed form the most sordid of contexts found a place in the punks ensembles: lavatory chains were draped in graceful arcs across chests encased in plastic bin-liners. Safety-pins were taken put of their domestic utility context and worn as gruesome ornaments through the cheek, ear or lip. Cheap trashy fabrics (PVC, plastic lurex, etc.) in vulgar designs (e.g. mock leopard skin) and nasty colours, long discarded by the quality end of the fashion industry as obsolete kitsch, were salvaged by the punks and turned into garments (fly boy drainpipes, common miniskirts) which offered self-conscious commentaries on the notions of modernity and taste.(Hebdige, 1979) Even the conventional ideas of beauty and attractiveness were refused. Hair was dyed with bright colours and straightened up in spikes and Mohawk. Body piercing degenerated in self-mutilation: studs and pins prinked eyebrows, cheeks, nose and lips. Make-up was used by both boys and girls in a massive and impressive way: cosmetics became as paint to be used in creating alien masks to hide behind. As Hebdige argued, beneath the clownish make-up there lurked the unaccepted and disfigured face of capitalism. Claiming to be anarchists and nihilists, punks felt free to offend as many people as they could. They wore terrorist/guerrilla outfits, directly offensive T-shirt covered in swear words or fake blood, along with desecrated religious object and sexually deviant accessories. The perverse and the abnormal were valued intrinsically. In particular, the illicit iconography of sexual fetishism was used to predictable effect. Rapist masks and rubber wear, leather bodices and fishnet stocking, implausibly pointed stiletto heeled shoes, the whole paraphernalia of bondage the belts, straps and chains were exhumed from the boudoir, closet and pornographic film and placed on the street were they retained their forbidden connotations. Some young punks even donned the dirty raincoat the most prosaic symbol of sexual kinkiness- and hence expressed their deviance in suitably proletarian terms. (Hebdige, 1979) For the first wave punks, each adornment used had a precise meaning: The safety pins and bin liners, for instance, symbolized a material and spiritual poverty in an exaggerated form, which could be really experienced or just acted out. In other words, the safety pins, etc. enacted that transition from real to symbolic scarcity which Paul Piccone (1969) has described as the movement from empty stomachs to empty spirits and therefore an empty life notwithstanding [the] chrome and the plastic [â‚ ¬Ã‚ ¦] of the lifestyle of bourgeois society. (Hebdige, 1979) One of the most controversial symbol used by punks were surely the swastika. This symbol was made available to the punks through Bowie and Lou Reeds Berlin phase. It evoked a decadent and evil Germany, an idea of no future strictly linked to the punks mood. Therefore, it had nothing to do with the Nazisms ideology in the punks vision. Quite the opposite, punks firmly supported the anti-fascism and anti-racism movement. In the punk wear, the swastika lost its classic meaning and it was worn just because it was guaranteed to shock. Conventionally, the swastika has always signified enemy and hate, and to be hated is exactly what punks wanted. Chapter 4 Role of media and DIY As it was showed previously, punk was surely a spectacular subculture and it would have been very difficult for media not to pay attention to it. Although many others groups had paved the way for punk through 1975, it was not until the advent of the Sex Pistols that punk began to take shape as a noticeable style for the vast public. The  New Musical Express  gave the  Sex Pistols  their first music press coverage in the 21 February 1976 for their performance at the Marquee. From then on punk rock began to attract critical attention of the specialized press, and criticism from all the rest of the world. Moral panic began emerging clamant after the accident happened at the punk festival at 100 Club in Soho in the September of the same year, when a girl was partially blinded by flying beer glass. Punks were angry, wore absurd and offensive clothes and openly claimed they wanted to fight the society and to be heated. It is not surprising that in few months all the British press was focused on this new subculture frightening the middle class. Punk was described as a big social problem and the deviant and anti-social act (as vandalism, swearing, fighting etc.) did nothing but worsen the situation. Their style was used as counter-evidence of the danger they represented: They infringed the sartorial codes in the same way they disrupted the civil and social codes; they dress in an inhuman way because they are beasts acting as animals without moral. Therefore, punks were demonized in the press and depicted as folk devils. They were a threat to adjure before it led to a degeneracy of all British youth: concerts were cancelled, the Sex Pistols song God save the Queen was banned by British radios, and moral barricades were raised by editors, politicians and other right-thinking people. However, nothing of the above could stop the punk movements diffusion. For the first time in the history, there was an attempt by a working-class youth subculture to provide an alternative critical space within the subculture itself to counteract the hostile ore at least ideologically inflected coverage which punk was receiving in the media. (Hebdige, 1979) An alternative punk press was created: the fanzines. Punk fanzines were non-professional and nonofficial journals edited by an individual or a small group consisting of reviews, editorials and interviews with the most important exponents of the punk scene. These publications were produced on a small scale as cheaply as possible and distributed through a small number of sympathetic retail outlets. The language in which the various manifestos were framed was determinedly working class (i.e. it was liberally peppered with swear words) and typing errors and grammatical mistakes, misspellings and jumbled pagination were left uncorrected in the final proof. Those corrections and crossings out that were made before publication were left to be deciphered by the reader. The overwhelming impression was one of urgency and immediacy, of a paper produced in indecent haste, of memos from the front line. (Hebdige, 1979) The fanzines are one of the most notable expressions of the punks Do It Yourself (DIY) concept. The  DIY ethic, in general terms,  refers to the ethic of being self-reliant by completing tasks oneself as opposed to having others who are more experienced or able complete them for you. The DIY ethic is tied to  punk ideology  and  anti consumerism, as a rejection of the need to purchase items or use existing systems or processes. Sniffin Glue, the first fanzine and the one which achieved the highest circulation, contained perhaps the single most inspired item of propaganda produced by the subculture the definitive statement of punks do- it -your self philosophy- a diagram showing three finger positions on the neck of a guitar over the caption: Heres one chord, heres two more, now form your band. (Hebdige, 1979) Nevertheless, the Do it yourself philosophy was not confined just in the press world. Emerging punk bands began to record their music, produce albums and merchandise, distribute their works and often performed  basement shows  in  residential  homes rather than at traditional  venue, in this way they could to avoid  corporate sponsorship and to secure freedom in performance. To be honest, these emergent bands had no many other choices because most of venues tended to evade more  experimental music, and so houses were often the only places at which they were allowed to play. Obviously, also punk fashion followed the DIY ideology: The clothes suited the lifestyle of those with limited cash due to unemployment and the general low-income school leavers. Punks cut up old clothes from charity and thrift shops, destroyed the fabric and refashioned outfits creating a very innovative way of clothing never existed before. This stylistic innovation attracted the medias attention provoking two different responses: In the fashion pages, the newness and the creativity of the punk fashion began to be not only accepted but also celebrated, while there was a big part of the British press still stigmatizing the punk as ridiculous and offensive. Starting from an initial acceptance by the fashion magazines, little by little all media began a sort of process of recuperation and incorporation of the punk: obviously, young punks still represented a deviant way of living but the medias attitude, and so of the whole society as well, slowly shifted from a demonizing approach to an exorcising approach. This was made, as Hebdige explains, throughout two different forms: The ideological form and the commodity form A Ideological form Through this form, media tried to neutralize the differences between punks and common people. Young punks family assumed a new role. The punks tended to be resituated by the press in the family, perhaps because members of the subculture deliberately obscured their origins, refused the family and willingly played the part of folk devil, presenting themselves as pure objects, as villainous clowns. [â‚ ¬Ã‚ ¦]. For whatever reason, the inevitable glut of articles gleefully denouncing the latest punk outrage was counter-balanced by an equal number of items devoted to the small detail of punk family life. (Hebdige, 1979) During the summer of 1977, several articles were published on punk babies, punk-ted weddings and on a lot of other common daily situations involving punks and with titles like Punks have mothers too: They tell us a few home truths (Woman, 15 April 1978) or Punks and Mothers (Woman s Own, 15 October 1977) All these articles served to minimize the Otherness so stridently proclaimed in punk style, and defined the subculture in precisely those terms which it sought most vehemently to resist and deny (Hebdige, 1979) B Commodity form This second form of incorporation is the most interesting for the purposes of this research. It is trough this form that subcultural signs (clothes, music etc.) are driven to the conversion into mass-produced objects. Therefore, it is here the key to understand how the punk way of clothing, born from the rebellion against the whole society and characterised from the beginning by an anti-fashion attitude, could be transformed and largely exploited as a proper fashion trend. But first to get to this, it will be necessary to draw the story of what could be consider the cradle of punk fashion The 430, Kings Road. Chapter 5 430, Kings Road Everything started in the October 1971 when Malcolm McLaren and his art-school friend Patrick Casey opened, here in the heart of the Chelsea district, a small stand in the back room of a shop called Paradise Garage. They sold at time original rock n roll vinyl records, specialized music magazines, vintage items from the 1950s and some garment. The young McLaren was convinced that music and fashion were two inseparable things and so, when in 1971 he obtained the proprietary rights on the store, he renamed it Let It Rock and transformed it in a clothing store stocked up with second-hand and new teddy boy clothes designed by his girlfriend Vivienne Westwood. The shop wavy iron facade was painted black with the stores name written in pink letters, while the interior followed the typical stylish period details, such as the so-called Odeon wallpapers. Westwoods designs sold in the shop were outrageous and outlandish, inspired by bikers, fetishists and prostitutes. Brothel creeper shoes, drape coats, and skin-tight trousers were designed by Vivienne Westwood (but also by McLaren itself) and then made up by an East End tailor and by a local seamstress.   One of the most representative example of the kind of garments sold in this first-phase Let It Rock is the Bones T-shirt: Using chicken bones acquired from a local takeaway, Westwood boiled and drilled the bones and attached them with chains and studs to spell keywords such as Rock and Perv. The idea originated in the skull and crossbones of the bikers, but it gave the garment a primitive, talismanic power. [1] Nothing similar ever appeared in the entire fashion world scene: the store with its creation attract the attention of the international press, from the Rolling Stone to certain Japanese magazines. It was a real success but McLaren was not completely satisfied with the style of the shop: their main customers were teddy boys and he had huge problems with them. For these reason the next year, he travelled to New York for a boutique fair where he met the emergent American rock band the New York Dolls. It was here he started to take his first steps in the rock music system. In fact he took over their management, he dressed them in red leather clothes supplied by his London store and promoted them using Soviet iconography. The Dolls broke up soon after, but served their purpose as a dry run for the management style he would soon deploy to spectacula

The Door :: essays research papers

Everything (he kept saying) is something it isn't. And everybody is always somewhere else. Maybe it was the city, being in the city, that made him feel how queer everything was and that it was something else. Maybe (he kept thinking) it was the names of the things. The names were tex and frequently koid. Or they were flex and oid or they were duroid (sand) or flexsan (duro), but everything was glass (but not quite glass) and the thing that you touched (the surface, washable, crease-resistant) was rubber, only it wasn't quite rubber and you didn't quite touch it but almost. The wall, which was glass but turned out on being approached not to be a wall, it was something else, it was an opening or doorway--and the doorway (through which he saw himself approaching) turned out to be something else, it was a wall. And what he had eaten not having agreed with him. He was in a washable house, but he wasn't sure. Now about those rats, he kept saying to himself. He meant the rats that the Professor had driven crazy by forcing them to deal with problems which were beyond the scope of rats, the insoluble problems. He meant the rats that had been trained to jump at the square card with the circle in the middle, and the card (because it was something it wasn't) would give way and let the rat into a place where the food was, but then one day it would be a trick played on the rat, and the card would be changed, and the rat would jump but the card wouldn't give way, and it was an impossible situation (for a rat) and the rat would go insane and into its eyes would come the unspeakably bright imploring look of the frustrated, and after the convulsions were over and the frantic racing around, then the passive stage would set in and the willingness to let anything be done to it, even if it was something else. He didn't know which door (or wall) or opening in the house to jump at, to get through, because one was an opening that wasn't a door (it was a void, or kid) and the other was a wall that wasn't an opening, it was a sanitary cupboard of the same color. He caught a glimpse of his eyes staring into his eyes, in the and in them was the expression he had seen in the picture of the rats--weary after convulsions and the frantic racing around, when they were willing and did not mind having

Personal Narrative: My First Day at School Essay -- essays research p

My first day at school My first day at school was a new adventure for me. I had to wear a school uniform: a blue dress and handmade leather sandals. Having run around all but naked for the first eight years of my life, it was very exciting. At school we learnt about Australian culture and its social classes as well as social classes worldwide. Throughout my studies I learnt that Australia wasn't a classless society. The class to which a person belonged determined how they were treated and we learnt through two particular films:' Educating Rita' (Willy Russell, 1983) and 'My Fair Lady' (Bernard Shaw, 1964) that it is indeed possible to break the mould and change where you end up in life. Rita is a twenty-six year old hairdresser from Liverpool who wants an education. Not the sort of education that would get her a better job or higher wages, but an education that would give her more choices and freedom. Rita wants to be a different person and lead a different sort of lifestyle she has led previously. ?Educating Rita? describes the tests and alterations that the young hairdresser has to go through to develop from a person with very little education to someone who passes her exams with distinctions. Frank Bryant teaches comparative literature and it is his job to teach Rita. Frank has lost all enthusiasm for his job. He loathes most of his students, and the main purpose of the rows of classical literature in the bookshelves in his office is to hide the whiskey bottles. Rita is seen as a lower class citizen. She has very little education and describes a religious painting as ?pornography of its days?, she drops the end consonants of her words and swears often. As she?s walking down towards her house it?s raining and looks ve... ...hange in confidence. Just like Rita, she has developed a sense of worth and no longer endures all of the insults like she use to and this is easily seen when she exclaims , ?I won?t be passed over?I want a little kindness?.am not the dirt under you feet?I stand alone without you? In both of the films we are swayed to side with Rita and Eliza because they are battling against impossible odds by trying to attain education. We are led to disprove of Frank?s and Henry?s attitudes towards their students and social class because they have everything that most people dream of, yet they don?t seem as thankful. Both of these films are displaying a uniform message to its audience. Education, in another word, is emancipation. It is the liberation of a person from a member of a stereotypical society to an active agent who can choose and change where he or she ends up in life.

History of philosophy Essay

Philosophers Aestheticians Epistemologists Ethicists Logicians Metaphysicians Social and political philosophers Traditions Analytic Continental Eastern Islamic Platonic Scholastic Periods Ancient Medieval Modern Contemporary Literature Aesthetics Epistemology Ethics Logic Metaphysics Political philosophy Branches Aesthetics Epistemology Ethics Logic Metaphysics Political philosophy Social philosophy Lists Index Outline Years Problems Publications Theories Glossary Philosophers Philosophy portal v t e The history of philosophy is the study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time. Issues specifically related to history of philosophy might include (but are not limited to): How can changes in philosophy be accounted for historically? What drives the development of thought in its historical context? To what degree can philosophical texts from prior historical eras be understood even today? All cultures — be they prehistoric, medieval, or modern; Eastern, Western, religious or secular — have had their own unique schools of philosophy, arrived at through both inheritance and through independent discovery. Such theories have grown from different premises and approaches, examples of which include (but are not limited to) rationalism (theories arrived at through logic),empiricism (theories arrived at through observation), and even through leaps of faith, hope and inheritance (such as the supernaturalist philosophies and religions). History of philosophy seeks to catalogue and classify such development. The goal is to understand the development of philosophical ideas through time. Contents [hide] 1 Western philosophy 1. 1 Ancient philosophy 1. 2 Medieval philosophy. 1. 3 Renaissance philosophy 1. 4 Modern philosophy 1. 5 Contemporary philosophy 2 Eastern philosophy 2. 1 Babylonian philosophy 2. 2 Indian philosophy 2. 3 Persian philosophy 2. 4 Chinese philosophy 3 Abrahamic philosophy 3. 1 Jewish philosophy 3. 2 Christian philosophy 3. 3 Islamic philosophy 3. 3. 1 Religious roots 3. 3. 2 Transferring of Greek philosophy 3. 3. 3 Periods 3. 3. 3. 1 Early Islamic philosophy 3. 3. 3. 2 Mystical philosophy 3. 3. 3. 3 Transcendent Theosophy 3. 3. 3. 4 Modern era 3. 4 Judeo-Islamic philosophy 4 African philosophy. 5 Further reading 6 See also 7 Footnotes 8 References 9 External links Western philosophy[edit] Western philosophy has a long history, conventionally divided into four large eras – the Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and Contemporary. The Ancient era runs through the fall of Rome and includes the Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. The Medieval period runs until roughly the late 15th century and the Renaissance. The â€Å"Modern† is a word with more varied use, which includes everything from Post-Medieval through the specific period up to the 20th century. Contemporary philosophy encompasses the philosophical developments of the 20th century up to the present day. Ancient philosophy[edit] Further information: Ancient philosophy Ionia, source of early Greek philosophy, in western Asia Minor Western Philosophy is generally said to begin in the Greek cities of western Asia Minor (Ionia) with Thales of Miletus, who was active around 585 B. C. and left us the opaque dictum, â€Å"all is water. † His most noted students were Anaximenes of Miletus (â€Å"all is air†) and Anaximander (all is apeiron). Other thinkers and schools appeared throughout Greece over the next few centuries. Among the most important were Heraclitus (â€Å"all is fire†, all is chaotic and transitory), Anaxagoras (reality is so ordered that it must be in all respects governed by mind), the Pluralists and Atomists (the world is composite of innumerable interacting parts), the Eleatics Parmenides and Zeno (all is One and change is impossible, as illustrated by his famous paradoxes of motion), the Sophists(became known, perhaps unjustly, for claiming that truth was no more than opinion and for teaching people to argue fallaciously to prove whatever conclusions they wished). This whole movement gradually became more concentrated in Athens, which had become the dominant city-state in Greece. There is considerable discussion about why Athenian culture encouraged philosophy, but a popular theory[which? ] says that it occurred because Athens had a direct democracy. It is known from Plato’s writings that many sophists maintained schools of debate, were respected members of society, and were well paid by their students. Orators influenced Athenian history, possibly even causing its failure (See Battle of Lade). Another theory explains the birth of philosophical debate in Athens with the presence of a slave labor workforce which performed the necessary functions that would otherwise have consumed the time of the free male citizenry. Freed from working in the fields or other manual economic activities, they were able to participate in the assemblies of Athens and spend long periods in discussions on popular philosophical questions. Students of Sophists needed to acquire the skills of oration in order to influence the Athenian Assembly and thereby increase respect and wealth. In response, the subjects and methods of debate became highly developed by the Sophists. The key figure in transforming Greek philosophy into a unified and continuous project – one still being pursued today – is Socrates, who studied under several Sophists. It is said that following a visit to the Oracle of Delphi he spent much of his life questioning anyone in Athens who would engage him, in order to disprove the oracular prophecy that there would be no man wiser than Socrates. Through these live dialogues, he examined common but critical concepts that lacked clear or concrete definitions, such as beauty and truth, and the virtues of piety, wisdom, temperance, courage, and justice. Socrates’ awareness of his own ignorance allowed him to discover his errors as well as the errors of those who claimed knowledge based upon falsifiable or unclear precepts and beliefs. He wrote nothing, but inspired many disciples, including many sons of prominent Athenian citizens (including Plato), which led to his trial and executionin 399 B. C. on the charge that his philosophy and sophistry were undermining the youth, piety, and moral fiber of the city. He was offered a chance to flee from his fate but chose to remain in Athens, abide by his principles, and drink the poison hemlock. Socrates’ most important student was Plato, who founded the Academy of Athens and wrote a number of dialogues, which applied theSocratic method of inquiry to examine philosophical problems. Some central ideas of Plato’s dialogues are the Theory of Forms, i. e., that the mind is imbued with an innate capacity to understand and contemplate concepts from a higher order preeminent world, concepts more real, permanent, and universal than or representative of the things of this world, which are only changing and temporal; the idea of the immortal soul being superior to the body; the idea of evil as simple ignorance of truth; That true knowledge leads to true virtue; that art is subordinate to moral purpose; and that the society of the city-state should be governed by a merit class of propertyless philosopher kings, with no permanent wives or paternity rights over their children, and be protected by  an athletically gifted, honorable, duty bound military class. In the later dialogues Socrates figures less prominently, but Plato had previously woven his own thoughts into some of Socrates’ words. Interestingly, in his most famous work, The Republic, Plato critiques democracy, condemns tyranny, and proposes a three tiered merit based structure of society, with workers, guardians and philosophers, in an equal relationship, where no innocents would ever be put to death again, citing the philosophers’ relentless love of truth and knowledge of the forms or ideals, concern for general welfare and lack of propertied interest as causes for their being suited to govern. Plato’s most outstanding student was Aristotle, perhaps the first truly systematic philosopher. Aristotelian logic was the first type oflogic to attempt to categorize every valid syllogism. A syllogism is a form of argument that is guaranteed to be accepted, because it is known (by all educated persons) to be valid. A crucial assumption in Aristotelian logic is that it has to be about real objects. Two of Aristotle’s syllogisms are invalid to modern eyes. For example, â€Å"All A are B. All A are C. Therefore, some B are C. † This syllogism fails if set A is empty, but there are real members of set B. In Aristotle’s syllogistic logic you could say this, because his logic should only be used for things that really exist (â€Å"no empty classes†) The application of Aristotelian logic is preceded by having the student memorize a rather large set of syllogisms. The memorization proceeded from diagrams, or learning a key sentence, with the first letter of each word reminding the student of the names of the syllogisms. Each syllogism had a name, for example: â€Å"Modus Ponens† had the form of â€Å"If A is true, then B is true. A is true, therefore B is true. † Most university students of logic memorized Aristotle’s 19 syllogisms of two subjects, permitting them to validly connect a subject and object. A few logicians developed systems with three subjects, or described a way of elaborating the rules of three subjects. Medieval philosophy[edit] Further information: Medieval philosophy The history of western medieval philosophy is generally divided into two periods, early medieval philosophy, which started with St. Augustine in the mid 4th century and lasted until the recovery in the 13th century West of a great bulk of Aristotle’s works and their subsequent translation into Latin from the Arabic and Greek, and high medieval philosophy, which came about as a result of the recovery of Aristotle. This period, which lasted a mere century and a half compared to the nine centuries of the early period, came to a close around the time of William of Ockham in the middle of the 14th century. Western medieval philosophy was primarily concerned with implementing the Christian faith with philosophical reason, that is, â€Å"baptizing† reason. Early medieval philosophy was influenced by the likes of Stoicism, neo-Platonism, but, above all, the philosophy of Plato himself. The prominent figure of this period was St. Augustine who adopted Plato’s thought and Christianized it in the 4th century and whose influence dominated medieval philosophy perhaps up to end of the era but was checked with the arrival of Aristotle’s texts. Augustinianism was the preferred starting point for most philosophers (including the great St. Anselm of Canterbury) up until the 13th century. During the later years of the early medieval period and throughout the years of the high medieval period, there was a great emphasis on the nature of God and the application of Aristotle’s logic and thought to every area of life. Attempts were made to reconcile these three things by means of scholasticism. One continuing interest in this time was to prove the existence of God, through logic alone, if possible. The point of this exercise was not so much to justify belief in God, since in the view of medieval Christianity this was self-evident, but to make classical philosophy, with its extra-biblical pagan origins, respectable in a Christian context. One monumental effort to overcome mere logical argument at the beginning of the high medieval period was to follow Aristotelian demonstration by starting from effects and reasoning up to their causes. This took the form of the cosmological argument, conventionally attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas. The argument roughly is that everything that exists has a cause. But since there could not be an infinite chain of causes back into the past, there must have been an uncaused â€Å"first cause. † This is God. Aquinas also adapted this argument to prove the goodness of God. Everything has some goodness, and the cause of each thing is better than the thing caused. Therefore, the first cause is the best possible thing. Similar arguments were used to prove God’s power and uniqueness. Another important argument for proof of the existence of God was the ontological argument, advanced by St. Anselm. Basically, it says that God is that than which nothing greater can be thought. There is nothing that simply exists in the mind that can be said to be greater than something that enjoys existence in reality. Hence the greatest thing that the mind can conceive of must exist in reality. Therefore, God exists. This argument has been used in different forms by philosophers from Descartes forward. In addition to St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine and St. Anselm, other important names from the medieval period include Blessed John Duns Scotus, St. Bonaventure, Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, and Pierre Abelard. The definition of the word â€Å"philosophy† in English has changed over the centuries. In medieval times, any research outside the fields oftheology or medicine was called â€Å"philosophy†, hence the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society is a scientific journal dating from 1665, the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D. ) degree covers a wide range of subjects, and the Cambridge Philosophical Society is actually concerned with what we would now call science and not modern philosophy. Renaissance philosophy[edit] This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2013) The neutrality of this section is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (May 2013) Main article: Renaissance philosophy Contemporary philosophical historiography emphasizes a great â€Å"gap† between Middle Ages and Modern thought. And often this â€Å"gap† is used as a mean to characterize the meaning of the word â€Å"modern† used in â€Å"modern philosophy†. However, a historical perspective (and philosophical ones less interested into a single solid â€Å"gap†) emphasizes the existence of a long period of transition between the teleologically driven centuries (running up the 13th or 14th centuries) and the rationalists-empiricists debates. As well as for the figurative arts, music, vernacular languages and literatures, and the Christian religion, philosophy was greatly renewed in The Renaissance. The Renaissance, spread into Europe from Italy and in particular from Northern Italy and Tuscany, also by the means of architecture, arts and literature, inaugurated new philosophical problems, and permitted a new era of thought, independent from the Roman Church. If most medieval philosophers were priests and monks, early and late Renaissance philosophers were a more heterogeneous population, including rhetors, magicians and astrologues, early empirical scientist, poets, philologists. The new era put together all these souls in the search for the human specificity. The study of humanae litterae overcame that of divinae litterae, and opened the way for modern skepticism and science. Many philosophers from the Renaissance are today read and remembered, even if often not categorized into a single category, but spread into modern philosophy (if they fit, especially if oriented towards empiricism and rationalism, like Galileo Galilei or Machiavelli) or instead put back into the Middle Ages, especially if heavily influenced by esoteric traditions (like Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino and even Nicholas of Cusa and Giordano Bruno). Only a few, relatively â€Å"innocuous† philosophers are often fully recognized as Renaissance philosophers: Montaigne, Tommaso Campanella, Telesius among them. Modern philosophy[edit] Main article: Modern philosophy Further information: 17th-century philosophy, 18th-century philosophy, and 19th-century philosophy As with many periodizations, there are multiple current usages for the term â€Å"Modern Philosophy† that exist in practice. One usage is to date modern philosophy from the â€Å"Age of Reason†, where systematic philosophy became common, excluding Erasmus and Machiavellias â€Å"modern philosophers†. Another is to date it, the way the entire larger modern period is dated, from the Renaissance. In some usages, â€Å"Modern Philosophy† ended in 1800, with the rise of Hegelianism and Idealism. There is also the lumpers/splitters problem, namely that some works split philosophy into more periods than others: one author might feel a strong need to differentiate between â€Å"The Age of Reason† or â€Å"Early Modern Philosophers† and â€Å"The Enlightenment†; another author might write from the perspective that 1600-1800 is essentially one continuous evolution, and therefore a single period. Wikipedia’s philosophy section therefore hews more closely to centuries as a means of avoiding long discussions over periods, but it is important to note the variety of practice that occurs. David Hume A broad overview would then have Erasmus, Francis Bacon, Niccolo Machiavelli, and Galileo Galileirepresent the rise of empiricism and humanism in place of scholastic tradition. 17th-century philosophy is dominated by the need to organize philosophy on rational, skeptical, logical and axiomatic grounds, such as the work of Rene Descartes, Blaise Pascal, and Thomas Hobbes. This type of philosophy attempts to integrate religious belief into philosophical frameworks, and, often to combat atheism or other skeptical beliefs, by adopting the idea of material reality, and the dualismbetween spirit and material. The extension, and reaction, against this would be the monism ofGeorge Berkeley (idealism) and Benedict de Spinoza (dual aspect theory). It was during this time period that the empiricism was developed as an alternative to skepticism by John Locke, George Berkeley and others. It should be mentioned that John Locke and Thomas Hobbes developed their well known political philosophies during this time, as well. The 18th-century philosophy article deals with the period often called the early part of â€Å"The Enlightenment† in the shorter form of the word, and centers on the rise of systematic empiricism, following after Sir Isaac Newton’s natural philosophy. Thus Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu,Kant and the political philosophies embodied by and influencing the American Revolution and American Enlightenment are part of The Enlightenment. Other prominent philosophers of this time period were David Hume and Adam Smith, who, along with Francis Hutcheson, were also the primary philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment and Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson who were philosophers of the American Enlightenment. Edmund Burke was influenced by the Scottish Enlightenment, namely Hume’s skeptism and reliance on tradition and the passions, and while supporting the American Revolution based on the established rights of Englishmen, rejected the â€Å"natural rights† claims of the Enlightenment and vehemently rejected the Rationalism of the French Revolution (see Reflections on the Revolution in France). The 19th century took the radical notions of self-organization and intrinsic order from Goethe and Kantian metaphysics, and proceeded to produce a long elaboration on the tension between systematization and organic development. Foremost was the work of Hegel, whose Logic and Phenomenology of Spirit produced a â€Å"dialectical† framework for ordering of knowledge. The 19th century would also include Schopenhauer’s negation of the will. As with the 18th century, it would be developments in science that would arise from, and then challenge, philosophy: most importantly the work of Charles Darwin, which was based on the idea of organic self-regulation found in philosophers such as Adam Smith, but fundamentally challenged established conceptions. Also in the 19th century, the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard took philosophy in a new direction by focusing less on abstract concepts and more on what it means to be an existing individual. His work provided impetus for many 20th century philosophical movements, including existentialism. Contemporary philosophy[edit] Further information: Contemporary philosophy The 20th century deals with the upheavals produced by a series of conflicts within philosophical discourse over the basis of knowledge, with classical certainties overthrown, and new social, economic, scientific and logical problems. 20th century philosophy was set for a series of attempts to reform and preserve, and to alter or abolish, older knowledge systems. Seminal figures include Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Edmund Husserl. Epistemology, the theory of knowledge, and its basis was a central concern, as seen from the work of Heidegger, Russell, Karl Popper, and Claude Levi-Strauss. Phenomenologically oriented metaphysics undergirded existentialism (Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Albert Camus) and finallypoststructuralism (Gilles Deleuze, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida). Pragmatist Richard Rorty has argued that these and other schools of 20th century philosophy, including his own, share an opposition to classical dualism that is both anti-essentialist and antimetaphysical. [1] The psychoanalytic work of Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, and others has also been influential in contemporary continental philosophy. Conversely, some philosophers have attempted to define and rehabilitate older traditions of philosophy. Most notably, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Alasdair MacIntyre have both, albeit in different ways, revived the tradition of Aristotelianism. The philosophy of the present century is difficult to clarify due to its immaturity. A number of surviving 20th century philosophers have established themselves as early voices of influence in the 21st. These include Noam Chomsky, Saul Kripke, and Jurgen Habermas. The perceived conflict between continental and analytic schools of philosophy remains prominent, despite increasing skepticism regarding the distinction’s usefulness. A variety of new topics have risen to the stage in analytic philosophy, orienting much of contemporary discourse in the field of ethics. New inquiries consider, for example, the ethical implications of new media and information exchange. Such developments have rekindled interest in the philosophy of technology and science. There has been increased enthusiasm for highly specialized areas in philosophy of science, such as in the Bayesian school of epistemology. In contemporary continental thought, a number of developments are taking place. The field of postcolonial theory, championed in the late 20th century by theorists such as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Homi K. Bhabha has established itself as a major academic presence. The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek remains tremendously popular in both academic and popular demographics, synthesizing Lacanian, Hegelian, and Althusserian Marxist thought in discussions of popular culture and politics. Zizek is also involved with the contemporary thrust to step beyond postmodernism and the linguistic turn of the 20th century. Key contributors to this movement are the French polymath Alain Badiou, and those classified under the blanket designation of speculative realism, includingQuentin Meillassoux and Ray Brassier. On the other hand, the American philosopher Judith Butler has strong support among many demographics in her close readings of language, gender, subjectivity, corporeality, kinship, war and non-violent ethics. As a result she has received strong criticism from Zizek to Martha Nussbaum and radical Zionists. Eastern philosophy[edit] Main article: Eastern philosophy In the West, the term Eastern philosophy refers very broadly to the various philosophies of â€Å"the East†, namely Asia, including China,India, Japan, Persia and the general area. One must take into account that this term ignores that these countries do not belong to a single culture. Ancient eastern philosophy developed mainly in India and China. Babylonian philosophy[edit] See article Babylonian literature: Philosophy Indian philosophy[edit] See article Indian philosophy and Timeline of Eastern philosophers#Indian philosophers See also Hindu philosophy, Buddhist philosophy and Jain Philosophy Indian philosophy primarily begins with the later part of Rig Veda, which was compiled before 1100 BCE. [2] Most of philosophy of the Rig Veda is contained in the sections Purusha sukta and Nasadiya Sukta. Vedas are followed by Upanishads; the oldest, such as theBrhadaranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads, have been dated to around the 8th century BCE. The philosophical edifice of Indian religions viz. , Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism is built on the foundation laid by the Upanishads. Upanishadic thoughts were followed by the Buddhist and Jain philosophies. Persian philosophy[edit] See article Iranian philosophy See also Zoroastrianism Chinese philosophy[edit] See article Chinese philosophy and Buddhist philosophy#Chinese Buddhism Confucianism can be considered as the oldest school of philosophy in China. [citation needed] Confucianism developed in China around the same time as Buddhism and Jainism developed in India. Another school of philosophy, Taoism, developed in China around 200 BC. [citation needed] Abrahamic philosophy[edit] See also: Abrahamic religions Abrahamic philosophy, in its loosest sense, comprises the series of philosophical schools that emerged from the study and commentary of the common ancient Semitic tradition which can be traced by their adherents to Abraham (â€Å"Father/Leader of many† Hebrew (â€Å"Avraham†) Arabic (â€Å"Ibrahim†), a patriarch whose life is narrated in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, and as a prophet in the Qur’an and also called a prophet in Genesis 20:7). The standard text common to all of these subsequent traditions are what is known as the Hebrew Bible, roughly the first five books of the Old Testament, starting with the book of Genesis through to Deuteronomy. However, each of them added substantially different texts to their emerging canons, and hence their respective philosophical developments varied widely. Jewish philosophy[edit] Jewish philosophy Christian philosophy[edit] See article Christian philosophy Islamic philosophy[edit] See articles Islamic philosophy, Early Islamic philosophy, and Modern Islamic philosophy Islamic philosophy as Henry Corbin describes is a philosophy whose development, and whose modalities, are essentially linked to the religious and spiritual fact of Islam. [3] In the other word, it represents the style of philosophy produced within the framework of Islamic culture. This description does not suggest that it is necessarily concerned with religious issues, nor even that it is exclusively produced by Muslims. [4] Religious roots[edit]. Theoretical questions were raised right from the beginning of Islam, questions which could to a certain extent be answered by reference to Islamic texts such as the Quran, the practices of the community and the traditional sayings of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, and his Companions. [4] In fact, rational argumentation about Islamic doctrines starts with Quran itself, and has been followed up in the utterances of the Muhammad and especially in the sermons of Ali. This despite the fact that their style and approach are different from those of the Muslim theologians. [5] Though nothing definite can be said about the beginnings of theology among Muslims, what is certain is that discussion of some of the problems, such as the issue of predestination, free will and Divine Justice, became current among Muslims during the first half of the 2nd century of Islam coincides with 8th century. Perhaps the first formal centre of such discussions was the circle of Hasan al-Basri(d. 728-29). [5] Later several theological schools have emerged from 8th to 10th century. Mu’tazili theology originated in the 8th century in Basra (Iraq) by Wasil ibn Ata (d. 748 A. D. ). [6] Transferring of Greek philosophy[edit] The early conquests of the Muslims brought them into close contact with centers of civilization heavily influenced by Christianity and also by Greek culture. Many rulers wished to understand and use the Greek forms of knowledge, some practical and some theoretical, and a large translation project started which saw official support for the assimilation of Greek culture. This had a powerful impact upon all areas of Islamic philosophy. Neoplatonism definitely became the prevalent school of thought, following closely the curriculum of Greek philosophy which was initially transmitted to the Islamic world. [4] Periods[edit] Henry Corbin has divided the history of Islamic philosophy into three periods. [7] Early Islamic philosophy[edit] The first period of Islamic philosophy coincides with Islamic golden age. During this time pure philosophical thought is usually usedAristotelianism and Neoplatonism thought as its sources. But it also influenced by Islamic thought and culture. Falaturi has shown in his research that how Hellenistic philosophy diverged in the context of Islamic culture. On the other hand Corbin has shown how mystic aspect of Islam, especially Shia affected philosophy. This period begins with al-Kindi and ends with Averroes(d. 1198). [7] On the other hand there were crucial theological debates between Muslim theologians. These discussion also helped to rise of rational debates about religion, especially Islam. Avicenna is one the most prominent figures of this period. He is a thinker who attempted to redefine the course of Islamic philosophyand channel it into new directions. Avicenna’s metaphysical system is built on the ingredients and conceptual building blocks which are largely Aristotelian and Neoplatonic, but the final structure is more than the sum of its parts. [8] In the Islamic Golden Age, due toAvicenna’s successful reconciliation between Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism along with Islamic theology, Avicennism eventually became the leading school of early Islamic philosophy by the 12th century. Avicenna had become a central authority on philosophy by then. [9] Although this school was highly criticized by Muslim theologians, such as al-Ghazali, philosophers, like Averroes, and Sufis, Avicenna’s writings spread like fire and continued until today to form the basis of philosophic education in the Islamic world. For to the extent that the post-Averroistic tradition remained philosophic, especially in the eastern Islamic lands, it moved in the directions charted for it by Avicenna in the investigation of both theoretical and practical sciences. [8] Mystical philosophy[edit] After the death of Averroes, Islamic philosophy in the Peripatetic style went out of fashion in the Arab part of Muslim world, until the 19th century. Mystical philosophy, by contrast, continued to flourish, although no thinkers matched the creativity of Ibn Arabi or Ibn Sab‘in. In the Persian-speaking part, Islamic philosophy has continued to follow a largely Illuminationist curriculum, which is introduced by Suhrawardi. [4][7] Transcendent Theosophy[edit] The third period, according to Corbin, begins in the 16th century after emergence of Safavid dynasty in Persia. [7] The most prominent figure of this period is Mulla Sadra who introduced Transcendent Theosophy as a critical philosophy which brought together Peripatetic,Illuminationist and gnostic philosophy along with Ash’ari and Twelvers theology, the source of which lay in the Islamic revelation and the mystical experience of reality as existence. [10][11] This philosophy becomes dominant form of philosophy in Iran since 19th century. Shah Wali Allah extended Suhrawardi school of thought to the Indian subcontinent. [4] Modern era[edit] New trends have emerged during 19th and 20th centuries due to challenge of western philosophy and Modernity to traditional Islamic philosophy. On one hand some of the scholars such as Jamal-ad-Din Asadabadi and Muhammad Abduh sought to find rational principles which would establish a form of thought which is both distinctively Islamic and also appropriate for life in modern scientific societies, a debate which is continuing within Islamic philosophy today. Muhammad Iqbal is one of the prominent figure of this group who provided a rather eclectic mixture of Islamic and European philosophy. On the other hand some thinkers reacted to the phenomenon of modernity by developing Islamic fundamentalism.

The Big Sleep: Analytically Breakdown

The Big Sleep: Analytical breakdown The big sleep represents our class’s first exploration into what is known as â€Å"Hardboiled† fiction. The advent of Hardboiled literature means an escape from classic detective novels where all we find are ingenious investigators and mind numbing puzzles designed to impress and surprise us. In such novels, the protagonist is often observed from a third person point of view; where insight into the (genius) mind of the protagonist isn’t revealed till the end of the novel.Instead, hardboiled literature takes us on a more realistic route; solving crimes in first person with brute force investigators, rather than â€Å"Sherlock Holmes† like characters. Detective Philip Marlowe of The Big Sleep is an example of such a character. Clever, but no Sherlock Holmes; Marlowe takes on cases with good old fashion leg work and tenacity. Such is the way things are done in the real world, where all Hardboiled novels take place. The Big Sleep is no exception. A common theme often portrayed in Hardboiled novels is that of corruption.This corruption is often seen through the eyes of the protagonist, who is usually cynical and jaded because of which. The real world in The Big Sleep is a post WW1 Los Angeles, right around the time of the great depression. The effects of this time in history are clearly illustrated in many of characters represented in The Big Sleep. Here we have a world of money hungry people, who will do anything to escape such realities. This is how corruption starts. Everyone is dirty; politicians’ takes bribes, police can be bought and newspapers lie.People no longer have faith in promising futures, so they do what they have do to survive. In this sort of world, characters like Philip Marlowe are rare. At 25$ a day, Marlowe works for cheap, proving that he is above the common desire of wealth. Marlowe is depicted as man full of integrity and honor, and works simply because he feels it’ s the right thing to do. However, such a job requires him to delve into the all too real word, and so corruption is no stranger to him. Because of this, Marlowe is often jaded towards those he meets, and tends to expect the worst of people.However, this doesn’t stop him from doing what he feels is right, even if he feels that those he helps don’t deserve it. The plot of The Big Sleep revolves around a family that has become rich due an advantageous connection with oil. Marlowe is hired by General Sternwood, a bed ridden oil baron, who although is not free from corruption, has some honest qualities. The general tasks Marlowe with the task of discovering the whereabouts of Terrance Reagan, husband of the Generals daughter, Vivian Reagan. Here is where we find another common theme in Hardboiled novels, that is, the depiction of the rich.While most of America at the time is suffering due to the depression, some, such as the Sternwoods, are doing very well. However, we come to find that they too are suffering. Not physically, of course, but psychologically. It is not uncommon for Hardboiled novels to depict the rich as spoiled and often morally absent. Carmen Sternwood, for example, has grown up having everything she could possibly want, yet this leads her to becoming prone to drinking, drugs, and sexual behavior. Since their money was not earned, the Generals Daughters do not have the same respect for money as their father who earned does.Hence, they are prone to wasting their money on trivial pursuits and negative outlets. Instant gratification is their main concern. The juxtaposition of the rich is best displayed with the imagery of the old and dirty abandoned oil pumps that made the General rich in the first place. Although the exterior display of the rich is that of cleanliness (clean house, cars, clothes, etc†¦), their truer and deeper nature is closer to that of the oil fields, dirty and desolate. It is ironic that the General, owner of th e money and the closest in the family to any form of morality, is bed ridden an unable to utilize his fortune.Again, emphasizing the unworthiness of the rich. Despite the unworthiness of the rich, Detective Marlowe still agrees to help them. Although they may be unworthy of recusing, Marlowe still feels the need to rescue them, and in that way Marlowe is somewhat of a â€Å"Shinning Knight† archetype. This is hinted towards the beginning of the novel when Marlowe stares in the stain glass window which shows a knight rescuing a lady. In a way, Marlowe is tasked with saving them from the external corruption (The blackmail of Eddie Mars) of the world and the internal corruption the daughters grew up with.Marlowe maintains his knight hood by always taking the high road, and refusing to give into the seductive and nymphomanic behavior of Carman, who is constantly throwing herself at him. Detective Marlowe is very successful because of his â€Å"Knights Code†, and will even continue towards the truth even when he is not being paid. Marlowe’s tenacity for the truth takes him deeper and deeper into the dirty underworld of Los Angeles where he finds all different sorts of scum. Here we find two types of Criminal, the petty and the big time. The petty criminal is Joe Brody. Joe represents a causality of society.He isn’t one to go around killing people, in fact if things were better in the world he might have made an honest man of himself. Brody is no crime lord; he can barely feed himself; as he puts it â€Å"I’ve been shaking  two nickels  together for a month, trying to get  them  to  mate. † Eddie Mars, however, is a different man entirely. Eddie is at the top, the summation of corruption, and the direct opposite of everything that Marlow represents. As Marlowe puts it, â€Å"You think he's just a gambler. I think he's a pornographer, a blackmailer, a hot car broker, a killer by remote control, and a suborner of cr ooked cops.He's whatever looks good to him†¦he never killed anybody, he just hires it done. † A character like Joe Brody represents what happens to good people under bad influences, whereas Eddie represents the bad influence itself. One way Hardboiled novels communicate to the reader is through use of the weather and setting. In movies, it is often the music that adds dramatic flair, but in books, authors must rely on visual imagery. In The Big Sleep, for example, thunder and rain is mentioned before many of the major plot happenings.The darkness of rainclouds and cold of rain is symbolic of what Marlowe is going though as he treads through the underworld of LA, search for the truth. If you really pay attention, you might notice that pleasant weather is also used for the plot, a symbol that worst of things are over or at least getting better. Although the Major themes of this book are that of corruption and cynicism, there are also good vs. evil themes. A way of saying th at no matter how bad things are there is always hope in the form of characters like Philip Marlowe.There are people out there are willing to do what is right despite the consequences these action might inflict upon themselves. We call these types of people heroes, and I believe it is important for people like Raymond Chandler to write about characters like Detective Marlowe, especially considering the era that he wrote it in. When the world around you is dark, depressive, and inhospitable, it is important to have something or someone to idolize. Characters like Philip Marlowe help support the idea that you can still succeed with an honest heart.