Politics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 3

Politics - Essay ExampleThe fundamental ideas in liberalism were expressed by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. The ii believe that the governed are the ones who have and retain the sovereign power. Liberals in the 19th century urged the end of state in the economic life of society. Liberal theorists agree with Adam Smith that economic systems that are based on openhanded markets are more efficient, and that they generate more wealth than those that are partly state-controlled. The industrial Revolution in Europe and North the States resulted in great inequalities in wealth and other social problems. Looking for solutions to these problems, liberals advocated for limited government interposition in the market and for the creation of government funded services e.g. free public education and health insurance. Further expansion of social welfare programs occurred in America after World War II. The presence of economic stagnation in the late 1970s, made the classical liberals more vocal in their position favoring free markets. Liberals consider the government as tasked with removing obstacles that prevent individuals from living freely or from fully realizing their potential. These obstacles include poverty, disease, discrimination and ignorance. In the United States, liberalism is associated with the welfare-state policies of the New Deal class of the Democratic administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. According to McGowan, American liberalism is different from its European and English counterparts because established religion, an entrenched aristocracy, and an absolutist state never gained a unsafe foothold in the American colonies. Similarly,

Consequences of deception in romantic relationships Dissertation

Consequences of deception in romantic familys - Dissertation ExampleWhen deception is detected, negative emotional reactions result, particularly when the lies exposed are considered to be significant. In pelfs (2001) strike, 256 individuals (128 couples) were used as the research sample. They were asked to complete questionnaires pertaining to their abetter _or_ abettors and their own communication behavior. The aim was to determine the link between the extent of social communication and the practice of deception. Moreover, the study examined the roles played by causes for deception such as reciprocity, avoidance of punishment, or deceptive fulfilment of the lack of intimacy in their romantic relationship. The use of deception is more frequently found where relational characteristics are at lower levels. Thus, deception appears to be used as a method for coping with relational problems, and greater use of deception is considered to be an indicator of overall relational distress (Cole, 2001, p.125). Coles (2001) research study also obtained certain results related to the outcome of deception. Primarily, the best relational outcomes arise from couples avoiding deception while at the same time trusting each new(prenominal)s fidelity. However, when it becomes known that deception is being practised by one of the partners, there are negative outcomes for everyone involved. When there is a little suspicion, the different partner may be tempted to engage in deception too, thus sending the relationship into a downward spiral. This results in increasing deception by twain the individuals, greater suspicion between partners, and progressive deterioration of the romantic relationship. The above study could have been made more useful through a greater focus on the outcomes of deception among the couples where deception was found, thereby providing evidence based results. The research study would need to extend over a longer period of time, to determine how each couple who had experienced deception between them, fared with the passage of time. This is because some couples may reconcile, while others may break up the romantic relationship permanently. In romantic relationships, fidelity is a serious concern for both sexes. Deception by one of the partners can have devastating results on the relationship. When the infidelity comes to light, the betrayed partners feelings of being let down can give rise to unpleasant emotions including depression, anger, self-reproach and jealousy (Shackelford, Buss and Bennett, 2002, p.299). Infidelity remains as the most serious cause for the dissolution of a relationship leading to divorce, and breaking up of the relationship is resorted to as the most common solution. On the other hand, not all couples break up their relationship because of a partners infidelity. Some individuals try to find out all the details from their treasonable partner to determine the nature and

A Comparison of and Contrasting of role of two politicians in the Essay

A Comparison of and Contrasting of role of both politicians in the media eye - Essay ExampleHe further notes that the independence of media from political meddling and the essence of media as the way they play their political roles, the manner in which media is subjected to pressures from the commercial systems that fund the media entities as well as the decisiveness of the government in supplying information all have a great muddle to do with the maturity of democracy and the propagation of public opinion driven societies.The functionalities of media have made it a vulnerable tool subjected to use and albeit abuse by those in power bent on swaying public opinion and influencing popular opinion on individuals and issues among other things. In these perceptions premise, the paper presents a comparative geographic expedition of the role of two politicians in the media eye. The paper will also take a significant thrust in examining the coverage of two politicians and exploring their images as visualised in various mainstream media. The thrust of the paper will also entail the ways in which the media and or the politicians attempt to manipulate the images of them as generated by the media.For the objectives of the exercise, two political figures who are the 2008 USA Presidential election candidates Republic John McCain and Democrat Barrack Obama will be used. The 2008 US presidential campaign track is historic from various dimensions. The campaigned has pitted sitting Senators yet the most remarkable aspects of the campaign are based on the item that after the election US will have either the first Black American president or a woman as criminality president. The election campaign has raddled most media coverage surpassing previous presidential election drives.... ting Senators yet the most remarkable aspects of the campaign are based on the fact that after the election US will have either the first Black American president or a woman as vice president. The election campaign has drawn most media coverage surpassing previous presidential election drives.The paper will make an observation of extracts and nuances form mainstream and international media channels like Cable News Net Work (CNN) and the British Broadcasting Network (BBC) and various online news interfaces to examine the images of the two politicians that have been carved and explore the ways in which media and the political figures have to attempted to manipulate the images created of them. CNN is one of the leading global news channels and has had a significant rush on the image creation and dissemination of the US presidential candidates. It is worth mentioning from the onset that CNN were the 8th largest sponsors to the sitting President George W. Bush in his 2004 Campaign. Nonetheless it may be presented that mainstream media have tended to playing to a perceived public sentiment that the Bush administration has failed the electorate on various issues and hence the u npopularity of the Republican election fine regardless of who the actual individuals and their polices are. Many media channels have largely portrayed the democrat candidate Barrack Obama in manner of glossing over his possible nominating address as historic development in American politics demonstrating the American society commitment to values of racial reform and egalitarianism. CNN has always hammered the nuances of historic tag aspect that Obamas candidature is.Besides the presenting of Obamas ticket as historic development, CNN has captured various political and economic analyses from some

Estimation of the value of gravitational acceleration g based on Essay - 2

Estimation of the value of gravitational acceleration g based on measurements from a simple pendulum - Essay ExampleThe experiment entails releasing a mass that is attached at the end of a string with an initial incline (). The angle is so belittled such that the sin can be approximated to just making this motion to be simple harmonic. It involves swinging the ball for a given(p) number of bicycles and observing the time it takes to make those oscillations. From that information, we can obtain the time per oscillation. This time taken per oscillation is obtained for different lengths of the string. The relationship 42/ hawk is then used to estimate the value of the acceleration due to gravity, g.The main aim of the pendulum experiment is to determine the effect that the length of the string has on the result taken by the pendulum to make a complete oscillation. It also aims at determining a relationship between the length and the period and also estimating a value for g.The hy pothesis for this experiment is that the value for g obtained by any of the experiments available should be approximately equal to 9.8m/s2. The period taken by the pendulum is self-supporting of the mass of the attached object and the initial angle. The period depends on the length of the string and the acceleration of gravity (Wilson & Hernndez-Hall 2009).3. Set the pendulum swinging through a small angle. Then, measure the time for the period of oscillations (hint think of a good method here measuring the period based on a single oscillation might not be a good idea).The analysis involved plotting a graph of T2 against L. since the graph should be linear, the students used simple linear turnaround to come up with a linear graph. (Michael, Matthew, Gauld, & Stinner 2010).The results support the objective of the experiment. The students were able to determine the relationship between T2 and L by plotting the graph and obtaining the gradient. Additionally, they were able to see th e value for the acceleration due to gravity, g, with a relative error of

Spain’s Golden Age Essay Example for Free

Spains Golden days EssaySpain was at its most glorious courtly place in the seventeenth Century, at the time when Miguel de Cervantes wrote his classic fiction, Don Quixote. The country had established its colonies all over the world, controlling Mexico, Peru, Cuba, the Americas, and even going as far as Asia, in the Philippines. Silver and gold poured in to catapult Spain in economic and political splendor, making it the worlds superpower at that time.Historians call this period the golden age of Spain. However, it was also during this glorious era that Spain had ruthlessly suffered its inevitable defeat, the most popular of which is the destruction of the Spanish armada in 1588, by English forces. Because of this, the country found itself in an atypical, conflicting period, a period wherein a new age was rising to the surface, a period wherein the country was hang between grandeur and degradation.While the cause of Spains decline is debatable, one thing is historically cer tain its kings were having trouble with managing the vast territories, and numerous antagonistic events, bid the plague in Castille that claimed many Spanish lives, contri exclusivelyed to the countrys saddening fate. Catholicism, Spains dominant religion was also on the decline, spurring conflicts against another(prenominal) religions like Islam and Protestantism, stemming from the crusades in earlier history. These noteworthy historical occurrences are evident in Don Quixote, since the novel illustrates the highly diverse Spanish sociological and political experience at that time.However, it is Cervantes personal experience, sociological and political, that serves as the most potent source of the novel. It contains elements in parallel with the novelists own life for instance, the Algerian pirates appearing on the Spanish coast, the Moors being exiled, the Spanish prisoners failing to escape are similar events in Cervantes own life. Spain The 17th Century Superpower Page 04 The sociological and political grammatical construction of 17th Century Spain had a direct, powerful influence in the writing of Spains classic golden novel.The Romances Spains 17th Century Literary tradition The dominant literary tradition in this golden age was the chivalric romances. Spains Arts and Humanities were loaded with popular writings of dubs upholding chivalry. The main characters of these stories and verses were knights who unbending out protecting and saving those who are weak, who go from one place to other to do good deeds. The romances contained melodramatic tones and exaggerated heroic feats that the emotions illustrated seemed to be as well sentimental, and the events portrayed seemed to be too heroically impossible.The main character of the novel Don Quixote, was also a knight who set out to save people, but he was portrayed in a humorous light, and his adventures were played out in such a ridiculous way that it was clear the novel is a parody, a mockery of the chivalric romances so popular in Cervantes time. The novel, in this context, was a scathing commentary of the literary tradition of the romances. The upholding of chivalric ideals in the novel, however, produced another commentary on Spains 17th century literary tradition, this one being quite positive.Cervantes was careful not to assail the code of chivalry because he himself believed in it. The ideals may be communicated in a humorous manner, and through a humorous character, but the message was quite evident the belief in chivalric ideals is never wrong. Don Quixote was a novel that educated its readers at the time when they most needed such an instruction. The decline of Spain was apparent, and yet its literati favored wild-eyed literature which subscribed to impossible feats and exaggerated Spains Golden Age Page 05 characters.The wide acceptance and phenomenal success of Don Quixote only turn up that Spains literary market truly appreciated the enlightenment provided by Cer vantes. Springboard for the Novel, Don Quixote The historical context and the literary culture of Spain in the 17th century served as major prompters for the writing of Don Quixote. We can clearly see that Miguel de Cervantes was greatly influenced by the sociological, political and literary conditions in his time that he incorporated and used these real-life elements in his novel.Cervantes relied on his social and political experience to produce a literary work that reverberates with sociological and political themes, themes which are in perfect consonance with his real-life setting. Spains dual condition of grandeur and degradation in his time prompted Cervantes to explore the themes of human identity and morality, providing a commentary on the social mores. More importantly, the novel is rich with historical influences, of events that actually happened in 17th century Spain.The literary culture of 17th century Spain, on the other hand, played a key role in the writing of Don Qui xote, for very obvious reasons. The chivalric romances popular at that time made the novel an interesting, radical read because it departs from its formula. The characters, Don Quixote and his loyal squire Sancho Panza, embody the chivalric ideals upheld by the romances, but they also destroy the image of the impossibly heroic knight by being humorous caricatures of chivalry. Moreover, their ridiculous adventures make a mockery of the exaggerated heroic feats portrayed in the romances.These influences are strongly pronounced in the text of Don Quixote thereby proving that Miguel de Cervantes was a writer who used his golden age experience to write a golden novel. Spains Golden Age Page 06 References Barrio, J. F. (2007). The golden century. Si, Spain. Retrieved November 17, 2007 from SiSpain. org. /http//www. sispain. org/english/language/golden. html/ Phillips, B. and Davidson, S. (2007). SparkNote on Don Quixote. Retrieved November 17, 2007 from cgi. sparknotes. com. /http//www. s parknotes. com/lit/donquixote/.

Intellectual Craftsmanship Essay Example for Free

Intellectual Craftsmanship Es enjoinTO THE INDIVIDUAL social scientist who feels himself a part of the classic tradition, social science is the practice of a craft. A man at achievework forcet on problems of substance, he is among those who be quickly made impatient and weary by elaborate passwords of method-and-theory-in-general so more than than of it interrupts his proper studies. It is much better, he believes, to drive star sum up by a pee-peeing student of how he is dismissal ab turn out his cultivate than a dozen , codifications of procedure by specialists who as often as not gain n eer d mavin much give-up the ghost of consequence. Only by conversations in which experienced thinkers exchange information about their actual flairs of working can a wasting diseaseful sense of method and theory be imparted to the des centime student. I feel it useful, on that pointfore, to report in almost detail how I go about my craft. This is necessarily a personal deb ate, but it is written with the expect that others, especi all(prenominal)y those stem independent work, ordain install it less personal by the features of their declargon experience.1.It is best to take off, I think, by re school principaling you, the beginning student, that the near admirable thinkers within the scholarly community you aim chosen to join do not split their work from their lives. They seem to transmit both too hard to allow such dissociation, and they want to use each for the enrichment of the other. Of ladder, such a split is the prevailing convention among men in general, deriving, I suppose, from the holl take iness of the work which men in general now do. But you will energise recognized that as a scholar you have the exceptional opportunity of conniving a behavior of living which will encourage the habits of good workmanship.Scholarship is a excerpt of how to live as well as a choice of c atomic number 18er whether he knows it or not, the de xterous workman forms his own self as he works toward the perfection of his craft to realize his own potentialities, and each opportunities that come his way, he builds a character which has as its core the qualities of the good workman. What this instrument is that you must(prenominal)(prenominal) learn to use your life experience in your expert work continually to examine and interpret it. In this sense craftsmanship is the center ofyourself and you are personally involved in every intellectual harvest-home upon which you may work. To say that you can have experience, means, for one thing, that your past plays into and affects your present, and that it defines your capacity for future, experience. As a social scientist, you have to control this rather elaborate interplay, to stimulate what you experience and pattern it out only in this way can you hope to use it to get out and test your polishion, and in the process shape yourself as an intellectual craftsman. But ho w can you do this?One answer is you must traffic circle up a file, which is, I suppose, a sociologists way of saying grip a journal. M each creative writers keep journals the sociologists need for systematic reflection demands it. In such a file as I am going to describe, t present is joined personal experience and passkey activities, studies under way and studies planned. In this file, you, as an intellectual craftsman, will try to get together what you are doing intellectually and what you are experiencing as a person. Here you will not be afraid to use your experience and relate it directly to various work in progress.By serving as a check on repetitious work, your file also enables you to conserve your energy. It also encourages you to capture fringe-thoughts various ideas which may be by-products of everyday life, snatches of conversation overheard on the street, or, for that matter, dreams. Once noted, these may lead to more systematic thinking, as well as lend intellectual relevance to more directed experience. You will have often noticed how carefully accomplished thinkers treat their own minds, how closely they observe their development and organize their experience.The mind they treasure their smallest experiences is that, in the course of a life sentence, modem man has so very little personal experience and besides experience is so important as a initiation of original intellectual work. To be able to trust yet to be skeptical of your own experience, I have come to believe, is one mark of the mature workman. This am bombasticuous confidence is indispensable to originality in any(prenominal) intellectual pursuit, and the file is one way by which you can develop and relieve such confidence.By keeping an adequate file and thereof developing self-reflective habits, you learn how to keep your inner world awake. Whenever you feel strongly about sluicets or ideas you must try not to let them pass from your mind, but instead to formulate them for your files and in so doing draw out their implications, show yourself either how wacky these feelings or ideas are, or how they might be articulated into productive shape. The file also helps you build up the habit of writing. You cannot keep your hand in if you do not write something at least every week.In developing the file, you can experiment as a writer and thus, as they say, develop your government agencys of expression. To advance a file is to engage in the controlled experience. One of the very worst things that happens to social scientists is that they feel the need to write of their plans on only one crossroads when they are going to ask for money for a item piece of research or a honk. It is as a request for funds that most planning is done, or at least carefully written about.However standard the practice, I think this very bad It is bound in some degree to be salesmanship, and, given prevailing expectations, very likely to result in painstaking pretensions the p roject is likely to be Presented, rounded out in some arbitrary way long before it ought to be it is often a contrived thing, aimed at getting the money for ulterior purposes, however valuable, as well as for the research presented. A practicing social scientist ought periodically to review the state of my problems and plans. A young man, just at the beginning of his independent work, ought to reflect on this, but he cannot be expected-and shouldnt expect himself-to get very far with it, and certainly he ought not to become rigidly committed to any one plan. About all he can do is line up his thesis, which unfortunately is often his branch supposedly independent piece of work of any length. It is when you are about half-way through the time you have for work, or about one-third through, that such reviewing is most likely to be fruitful -and perchance even of interest to others.Any working social scientist who is well on his way ought at all times to have so umpteen plans, which is to say ideas, that the question is always, which of them am I, ought I, to work on next? And he should keep a special little file for his master agenda, which he writes and rewrites just for himself and perhaps for discussion with friends. From time to time he ought to review this very carefully and purposefully, and sometimes too, when he is relaxed. Some such procedure is one of the indispensable means by which your intellectual enterprise is kept oriented and under control.A widespread, informal interchange of such reviews of the state of my problems among working social scientists is, I suggest, the only basis for an adequate statement of the leading problems of social science. It is st sickly that in any free intellectual community there would be and certainly there ought not to be any monolithic array of problems. In such a community, were it flourishing in a vigorous way, there would be interludes of discussion among individuals about future work.Three smorgasbords of interludes-on problems, methods, theory-ought to come out of the work of social scientists, and lead into it again they should be shaped by work-in-progress and to some extent guide that work. It is for such interludes that a professional association finds its intellectual reason for being. And for them too your own file is needed. Under various topics in your file there are ideas, personal notes, excerpts from books, bibliographical items and outlines of projects.It is, I suppose, a matter of arbitrary habit, but I think you will find it well to sort all these items into a master file of projects, with numerous subdivisions. The topics, of course, change, sometimes quite frequently. For instance, as a student working toward the preliminary examination, writing a thesis, and, at the selfsame(prenominal) time, doing bound papers, your files will be ar escaped in those three areas of endeavor. But after a year or so of graduate work, you will begin to re-organize the intact file i n relation to the main project of your thesis.Then as you pursue your work you will notice that no one project ever dominates it, or sets the master categories in which it is ar presentd. In fact, the use of the file encourages expansion of the categories which you use in your thinking. And the way in which these categories change, some being dropped and others being added-is an list of your intellectual progress and breadth. Eventually, the files will come to be arranged according to several large projects, having many sub-projects that change from year to year. All this involves the taking of notes.You will have to acquire the habit of taking a large volume of notes from any worth-while book you read-although, I have to say, you may get better work out of yourself when you read really bad books. The first step in translating experience, either of other mens writing, or of your own life, into the intellectual sphere, is to give it form. Merely to abduce an item of experience ofte n invites you to explain it the mere taking of a note from a book is often a prod to reflection. At the same time, of course, the taking of a note is a great aid in comprehending what you are reading.Your notes may turn out, as mine do, to be of dickens sorts in reading certain very important books you try to grasp the structure of the writers argument, and take notes accordingly but more frequently, and after a few eld of independent work, rather than read entire books, you will very often read parts of many books from the point of view of some particular subject field of honor or topic in which you are interested and concerning which you have plans in your file. Therefore, you will take notes which do not fairly represent the books you read. You are using this particular idea, this particular fact, for the fruition of your own projects.2 But how is this file-which so far must seem to you more like a curious sort of literary journal-used in intellectual production? The mainte nance of such a file is intellectual production. It is a continually growing store of facts and ideas, from the most obtuse to the most finished. For example, the first thing I did upon deciding on a study of the elect(ip) was to make a crude outline based on a listing of the types of lot that I wished to understand. save how and why I decided to do such a study may suggest one way in which ones life experiences feed ones intellectual work.I forget just when I became technically concerned with stratification, but I think it must have been on first reading Veblen. He had always seemed to me very loose, even vague, about his business and industrial employments, which are a kind of variant of Marx for the academic American public. At any rate, I wrote a book on labor organizations and labor leaders-a politically motivated task then a book on the middle classes-a task primarily motivated by the desire to articulate my own experience in New York City since 1945.It was thereupon sugg ested by friends that I ought to round out a trilogy by writing a book on the upper classes. I think the possibility had been in my mind I had read Balzac off and on especially during the forties, and had been much taken with his self-appointed task of covering, all the major classes and types in the society of the era he wished to make his own. I had also written a paper on The Business Elite, and had collected and arranged statistics about the careers of the topmost men in American politics since the Constitution.These two tasks were primarily inspired by seminar work in American history. In doing these several articles and books and in preparing courses in stratification, there was of course a residue of ideas and facts about the upper classes. Especially in the study of social stratification is it difficult to avoid going beyond ones immediate subject, because the reality of any one stratum is in large part its relations to the rest. Accordingly, I began to think of a book on th e elite.And yet that is not really how the project arose what really happened is (1) that the idea and the plan came out of my files, for all projects with me begin and end with them, and books are simply organized releases from the continuous work that goes into them (2) that after a while, the exclusively set of problems involved came to dominate me. After making my crude outline I examined my entire file, not only those parts of it that obviously bore on my topic, but also those which seemed to have no relevance whatsoever.Imagination is often successfully invited by putting together hitherto isolated items, by purpose unsuspected connections. I made brand-new units in the file for this particular range of problems, which of course, led to new arrangements of other parts of the file. As you re-arrange a file system, you often find that you are, as it were, loosening your imagination. Apparently this occurs by means of your attempt to combine various ideas and notes on differen t topics. It is a sort of logic of combination, and chance sometimes plays a curiously large part in it.In a relaxed way, you try to engage your intellectual resources, as exemplified in the file, with the new themes. In the present case, I also began to use my observations and daily experiences. I thought first of experiences I had had which bore upon elite problems, and then I went and talked with those who, I thought, might have experienced or considered the issues. As a matter of fact, I now began to alter the character of my routine so as to allow in in it (1) people who were among, those whom I wanted to study, (2) people in close contact with them, and (3) people interested in them usually in some professional way.I do not know the full social conditions of the best intellectual workmanship, but certainly surrounding oneself by a circle of people who will listen and talk-and at times they have to be imaginary characters-is one of them. At any rate I try to surround myself w ith all the relevant environment-social and intellectual-that I think might lead me into thinking well along the lines of my work. That is one meaning of my remarks above about the fusion of personal and intellectual life. Good work in social science today is not, and usually cannot be, made up of one clear-cut empirical research. It is, rather, composed of a good many studies which at key points anchor general statements about the shape and the trend of the subject. So the decision-what are these anchor points? -cannot be made until existing tangibles are re-worked and general hypothetical statements constructed. Now, among existing materials, I found in the files three types relevant to my study of the elite several theories having to do with the topic materials already worked up by others as evidence for those theories and materials already gathered and in various stages of accessible centralization, but not yet made theoretically relevant.Only after completing a first draft of a theory with the aid of such existing materials as these can I efficiently locate my own pivotal assertions and hunches and design researches to test them-and maybe I will not have to, although of course I know I will later have to shuttle back and forth between existing materials and my own research. Any final statement must not only cover the data so far as the data are available and known to me, but must also in some way, positively or negatively, take into, account the available theories.Sometimes this taking into account of an idea is easily done by a simple confrontation of the idea with overturning or supporting fact sometimes a detailed analysis or qualification is needed. Sometimes I can arrange the available theories systematically as a range of choices, and so allow their range to organize the problem itself. (1) But sometimes I allow such theories to come up only in my own arrangement, in quite various contexts. At any rate, in the book on the elite I had to take into account the work of such men as Mosca, Schumpeter, Veblen, Marx, Lasswell, Michel, Weber, and Pareto.In looking over some of the notes on these writers, I find that they offer three types of statement (a) from some, you learn directly by restating systematically what the man says on given points or as a whole (b) some you accept or refute, giving reasons and arguments (c) others you use as a source of suggestions for your own elaborations and projects. This involves grasping a point and then asking How can I put this into testable shape, and how can I test it? How can I use this as a center from which to elaborate-as a perspective from which descriptive details emerge as relevant?It is in this handling of existing ideas, of course, that you feel yourself in continuity with previous work. Here are two excerpts from preliminary notes on Mosca, which may illustrate what I have been trying to describe In humanitarian to his historical anecdotes, Mosca backs up his thesis with this asse rtion Its the power of organization that enables the minority always to rule. There are organized minorities and they run things and men. There are uncoordinated majorities and they are run. (2) But why not also consider (1) the organized minority, (2) the organized majority, (3) the unorganized minority, (4) the unorganized majority.This is worth full-scale exploration. The first thing that has to be straightened out just what is the meaning of organized? I think Mosca means capable of more or less continuous and co-ordinated policies and actions. If so, his thesis is right by definition. He would also say, I believe, that an organized majority is impossible because all it would amount to is that new leaders, new elites, would be on top of these majority organizations, and he is quite ready to pick up these leaders in his The Ruling Class. He calls them directing minorities, all of which is pretty flimsy stuff alongside his big statement.One thing that occurs to me (1 think it is the core of the problems of definition that Mosca presents to us) is this from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, we have witnessed a shift from a society organized as 1 and 4 to a society established more in terms of 3 and 2. We have moved from an elite state to an organization state, in which the elite is no longer so organized nor so unilaterally powerful, and the mass is more organized and more powerful. Some power has been made in the streets, and just about it the whole social structures and their elites have pivoted.And what section of the ruling class is more organized than the farm bloc? Thats not a rhetorical question I can answer it either way at this time its a matter of degree. All I want now is to get it out in the open. Mosca makes one point that seems to me excellent and worth elaborating farther There is often in the ruling class, according to him, a top clique and there is this reciprocal ohm and larger stratum, with which (a) the top is in continuous and immediate contact, and with which (b) it shares ideas and sentiments and hence, he believes, policies.(page 430) Cheek and see if anywhere else in the book, he makes other points of connection. Is the clique recruited largely from the south level? Is the top, in some way, responsible for, or at least sensitive to, this second stratum? Now forget Mosca in other vocabulary, we have, (a) the elite, by which we here mean that top clique, (b) those who count, and (c) all the others. Membership in the second and third, in this scheme, is defined by the first, and the second may be quite alter in its size and composition and relations with the first and the third.(What, by the way, is the range of variations of the relations of (b) to (a) and to (c)? Examine Mosca for hints and further extend this by considering it systematically. ) This scheme may enable me more neatly to take into account the different elites, which are elites according to the several dimensions of stratification. Al so, of course, to pick up in a neat and meaningful way the Paretian distinction of governing and non-governing elites in a way less formal than Pareto. Certainly many top-status people would at least be in the second.So would the big rich. The Clique or The Elite would refer to power, or to authority, as the case may be. The elite in this vocabulary would always mean the power elite. The other top people would be the upper classes or the upper circles. So in a way, maybe, we can use this in connection with two major problems the structure of the elite and the conceptual-later perhaps, the substantive-relations of stratification and elite theories. (Work this out. ) From the standpoint of power, it is easier to pick out those who count than those who rule.When we try to do the first we select the top levels as a sort of loose aggregate and we are guided by position. But when we attempt the second, we must indicate in clear detail how they preserve power and just how they are relate d to the social instrumentalities through which power is exercised. Also we deal more with persons than positions, or at least have to take persons into account. Now power in the United States involves more than one elite. How can we judge the relative positions of these several elites? Depends upon the issue and decisions being made.One elite sees another as among those who count. There is this mutual recognition among the elite, that other elites count in one way or another they are important people to one another. Project select 3 or 4 key decisions of last decade-to drop the atom, to cut or raise steel production, the C. M. strike of 45-and trace in detail the personnel involved in each of them. Might use decisions and decision-making as interview pegs when you go out for intensives. 3 There comes a time in the course of your work when you are through with other books.Whatever you want from them is down in your notes and abstracts and on the margins of these notes, as well as in a separate file, are ideas for empirical studies. Now I do not like to do empirical work if I can peradventure avoid it. If one has no staff it is a great deal of trouble if one does employ a staff, then the staff is often even more trouble. In the intellectual condition of the social sciences today, there is so much to do by way of initial structuring (let the word stand for the kind of work I am describing) that much empirical research is bound to be thin and uninteresting.Much of it, in fact, is a formal exercise for beginning students, and sometimes a useful pursuit for those who are not able to handle the more difficult substantive problems of social science. There is no more virtue in empirical inquiry as such than in reading as such. The purpose of empirical inquiry is to settle disagreements and doubts about facts, and thus to make arguments more fruitful by basing all sides more substantively. Facts discipline reason but reason is the advance guard in any field of learnin g.Although you will never be able to get the money with which to do many of the empirical studies you design, it is necessary that you continue designing them. For once you lay out an empirical study, even if you do not follow it through, it leads you to a new search for data, which often turn out to have unsuspected relevance to your problems. Just as it is foolish to design a field study if the answer can be found in a library, it is foolish to think you have exhausted the books before you have translated them into appropriate empirical studies, which merely means into questions of fact.Empirical projects necessary to my kind of work must promise, first, to have relevance for the first draft, of which I wrote above they have to confirm it in its original form or they have to cause its modification. Or to put it more pretentiously, they must have implications for theoretical constructions. Second, the projects must be efficient and neat and, if possible, ingenious. By this I mean t hat they must promise to yield a great deal of material in proportion to the time and effort they involve. But how is this to be done?The most economical way to state a problem is in such a way as to solve as much of it as possible by reasoning alone. By reasoning we try (a) to isolate each question of fact that remains (b) to ask these questions of fact in such ways that the answers promise to help us solve further problems by further reasoning. (3) To take hold of problems in this way, you have to pay attention to four stages but it is usually best to go through all four many times rather than to get stuck in any one of them too long.The steps are (1) the elements and definitions that, from your general awareness of the topic, issue, or area of concern, you think you are going to have to take into account (2) the logical relations between these definitions and elements building these little preliminary models, by the way, affords the best chance for the play of the sociological im agination (3) the elimination of false views due to omissions of needed elements, improper or unclear definitions of terms, or undue emphasis on some part of the range and its logical extensions (4) statement and re-statement of the questions of fact that remain.The third step, by the way, is a very necessary but often neglected part of any adequate statement of a problem. The popular awareness of the problem-the problem as an issue and as a trouble-must be carefully taken into account that is part of the problem. Scholarly statements, of course, must be carefully examined and either used up in the re-statement being made, or thrown out. Before deciding upon the empirical studies necessary for the job at hand, I began to sketch a larger design within which various small-scale studies began to arise.Again, I excerpt from the files I am not yet in a position to study the upper circles as a whole in a systematic and empirical way. So what I do is set forth some definitions and procedur es that form a sort of ideal design for such a study. I can then attempt, first, to gather existing materials that judge this design second, to think of convenient ways of gathering materials, given the existing indices, that satisfy it at crucial points and third, as I proceed, to make more particularised the full-scale, empirical researches that would in the end be necessary.The upper circles must, of course, be defined systematically in terms of specific variables. Formally-and this is more or less Paretos way they are the people who have the most of whatever is available of any given value or set of values. So I have to make two decisions What variables shall I take as the criteria, and what do I mean by the most? After Ive decided on my variables, I must construct the best indices I can, if possible quantifiable indices, in order to distribute the population in terms of them only then can I begin to decide what I mean by the most.For this should, in part, be left for determin ation by empirical inspection of the various distributions, and their overlaps. My key variables should, at first, be general enough to give me some latitude in the choice of indices, yet specific enough to invite the search for empirical indices. As I go along, Ill have to shuttle between conceptions and indices, guided by the desire not to lose intended meanings and yet to be quite specific about them. Here are the four Weberian variables with which I will begin I.Class refers to sources and amounts of income. So Ill need property distributions and income distributions. The ideal material here (which is very scarce, and unfortunately dated) is a cross-tabulation of source and amount of annual income. Thus, we know that X per cent of the population received during 1936 Y millions or over, and that Z per cent of all this money was from property, W per cent from entrepreneurial withdrawal, Q per cent from wages and salaries.Along this class dimension, I can define the upper circles-t hose who have the most-either as those who receive given amounts of income during a given time-or, as those who make up the upper two per cent of the income pyramid. Look into treasury records and lists of big taxpayers. See if TNEC tables on source and amount of income can be brought up to date. II. Status refers to the amounts of deference received. For this, there are no simple or quantifiable indices. Existing indices desire personal interviews for their application, are limited so far to local community studies, and are mostly no good anyway.There is the further problem that, unlike class, status involves social relations at least one to receive and one to bestow the deference. It is easy to confuse publicity with deference-or rather, we do not yet know whether or not volume of publicity should be used as an index to status position, although it is the most easily available (For example On one or two successive days in mid-March 1952, the following categories of people were me ntioned by name in the New York Times-or on selected pages-work this out) III.Power refers to the realization of ones will even if others resist. Like status, this has not been well indexed. I dont think I can keep it a single dimension, but will have to talk (a) of formal authority defined by rights and powers of positions in various institutions, especially military, political, and economic. And (b) powers known informally to be exercised but not formally instituted-pressure gathering leaders, propagandists with extensive media at their disposal, and so on. IV. Occupation refers to activities that are paid for.Here, again, I must choose just which feature of occupation I should seize upon. (a) If I use the average incomes of various occupations, to rank them, I am of course using occupation as an index, and as the basis of, class. In like manner (b) if I use the status or the power typically attached to different occupations, then I am using occupations as indices, and bases, of power and skill or talent. But this is by no means an easy way to classify people. learning-no more than status-is not a homogeneous something of which there is more or less.Attempts to treat it as such have usually been put in terms of the length of time required to acquire various skills, and maybe that will have to do, although I hope I can think of something better. Those are the types of problems I will have to solve in order to define analytically and empirically the upper circles, in terms of these four key variables. For purposes of design, assume I have solved them to my satisfaction, and that I have distributed the population in terms of each of them. I would then have four sets of people those at the top in class, status, power, and skill.Suppose further, that I had singled out the top two per cent of each distribution, as an upper circle. I then confront this empirically answerable question How much, if any, overlap is there among each of these four distributions? One range of possibilities can be located within this simple chart (+ = top two per cent = lower 98 per cent). CLASS ___________________________________________ + __ STATUS STATUS ____________________________________________________________ _____________ + __ + __ + Skill + 1 2 3 4 Power __ 5 6 8 8 Skill + 9 10 11 12 __ 13 14 15 16 __________________ _______________________________________________________ This diagram, if I had the materials to fill it, would contain major data and many important problems for a study of the upper circles. It would provide keys to many definitional and substantive questions. I dont have the data, and I shant be able to get it-which makes it all the more important that I speculate about it, for in the course of such reflection, if it is guided by the desire to approximate the empirical requirements.

Gullivers Travels Essay Example for Free

Gullivers Travels EssayTen days after returning from his previous voyage, Gulliver is confronted by Captain William Robinson to work as his journey to the West Indies. The doubled salary is cause enough for Gulliver to accept the invitation and sets sail two month after the invitation. Upon arriving in Tonquin, Gulliver is appointed Captain of a sloop (a small sailboat with one mast and two sails) and ordered to transport goods he is shortly raptusd by pirates. He earns his crews freedom exactly his attitude lands him on a small boat with limited food. He soon finds a few isles and decides to stay in the cave of a manifestly barren islandexcept for a few shrub patches. After some keen observation, Gulliver notices something strange obstructing the sunlight and deduces it must be a floating island. He tries to be noticed but the inhabitants seem to give little regard for his shouting. Eventually, the floating mass draws near and from it, descends a seat that Gulliver is instruc ted to mount. He is then bony up into the Island. Gulliver is welcome by many the great unwashed, whom he noticed to be very strange.Their eyes look in different directions and their heads do not twit level upon their heads. In addition, he takes note of their attires, which are covered with celestial bodies and musical instruments. People also have a servant who follows them and carries a flapper. This is essentially a mace, but with a soft sac on the end. The servants use it to slap their masters mouth or ear with the inclination of alerting them that it is their turn to speak or listen while in conversation. After meeting with the King, Gulliver is appointed a language tutor.Shortly after his prototypic lesson, Gulliver notices the island to move over villages, during which, subjects collect monies from the people below. In addition, he learns that the people value mathematics and music above all. (Because of this, their language is primarily based on the sciences stated previously. ) Their skill sets are limited to these two disciplines, as well as astrology. T here are also in constant fear of an apocalyptical demise, resulting from an ever incumbent meteor. After a months stay, Gulliver is learned enough to speak to the King.Gulliver is now informed by the Prince, (one of the few free thinking individuals) of the dimensions and working of the Island. He is most intrigued by the motion of the Island and how it manages to stay afloat. It is explained to him that the most experienced astronomers figured that by mounting and manipulating a great magnet in the center of their island, they are able to float and move in any direction at will. However, the island is only able to move over a specific area on earth because of the specific magnetic forces required to maintain their desired altitude.Gulliver also learns how the Island is able to rule over the inhabitants of the land below. This is done mainly through vary degrees of punishments. Essentiall y, Laputa uses its size and position to, block out the sun, bombard the villagers, or, simply crush the village by means of dropping the island. Gulliver then learns of a rebellious village, with capabilities to capture the island and kill the King. In order to maintain peace and save himself, the King has granted freedom to these people. From that instance, the King and his family are restricted from leaving the Isle.Gullivers tediousness leads him to want to leave the Island. He approaches a lord who seems to be genuinely intelligent and curious. (An oddity on Laputa) The lord lacks musical talent and is therefore regarded as unintelligent by the inhabitants. With the help of this lord, Gulliver proceeds in petitioning the King to leave Laputa. The King accepts and proceeds in leaving Gulliver with a friend of Laputa in a place called Balnibarbi. The man whom he is left with goes by the Lord Munodi. He is of high rank and possesses great wealth. The Lord proceeds to take Gulliver around the urban center of Lagado.It is of great surprise to Gulliver that the city is in shambles, the people are poorly dressed, and the ground is barren. They then proceed to the lords landed estate and it is evident of the stern contrast between the city and the estate. It is well built, well managed, and has fertile vineyards, as well as cornfields, fountains and meadows. The villagers do not have high esteem for this estate and do not strive to exemplify itrather the opposite. Gulliver is then informed that, after a visit to Laputa by some if the citys inhabitants, they opinionated to construct the Academy of Laguda.The sole purpose of this Academy is to develop new agricultural and architectural techniques. The new techniques are very flawed and extremely freaky and have left the city in its current in its current state. The techniques are supported by so many mindless individual that they allowed for the ravaging of the mill. Gulliver is very curious to the details of the projects that the Academy is working, so much so, that he decides to visit. Gulliver is allowed to visit the Academy. He takes careful note of the ongoing projects.First he sees a man attempting to use cucumbers as sun storage devices. He then witnesses a scientist attempting to turn feces into food. Another researcher attempts to turn ice in gunpowder and is fully invested into the idea of the malleability of fire. Gulliver travels throughout the Academy and witnesses many more experiments. There are blind paint mixers who are under the mold that they can smell color. There is even a scientist who is under the impression that his random word generator is capable of writing books on any topic.A linguist is under the impression that speaking is a waste of life and every breath used to speak brings people closer to death. He proposed everyone be mute and simply act out the message they wish to convey. Lastly, Gulliver witnesses a professor attempt to teach mathematics by writin g equations onto wafers and feeding them to his students. parcel deuce-ace Chapter 6 Gulliver is still at the academy and proceeds to visit professors who are dealing with politics and government. They propose that taxation of women be based upon their bodily attributes and relative beauty.Other claims that to uncover conspiracies, they should search through the feces of the citizens. They even propose kicking and pinching the politicians to make them less forgetful. After witnessing the propositions and experiments of many, Gulliver concludes that there is nothing here that he could benefit from and wishes to leave. Gulliver wishes to travel to Luggnagg but cannot find a vassal to take him. Not wanting to stay in Lagado any abundanter, he distinguishable to travel to Glubbdubdrib. He is able to deduce that the Isle is inhabited by people capable of doing magic.Upon his arrival, Gulliver implores an audience with the Kinghe is granted his wish. Gulliver then witnesses people simply disappearing and reappearing and ghosts serving food. He is initially surprised and startled by these events but becomes accustomed to them. He even goes so far to request the King to appease his personal requests. The King willfully satisfies Gullivers requests to speak the numb(p). He speaks to many prominent historical figures such as Hannibal, Caesar, Pompey, Brutus, Junius, Socrates, Epaminondas, Cato, and Sir Thomas More.He converses with them and learns that history is not as it seems and that often, it is glorified in order to cover up the embarrassing truth. Still in the alliance of the King, Gulliver continues to talk to the reincarnations of prominent historical figures. He observes how Homer and Aristotle carry themselves and even goes as far to point out their mistakes mistakes that they accept without any aggression toward Gulliver for doing so. He then proceeds to question the more modern rulers and is disappointed to learn that they have not been honest wit h their subjects as they should have.He also calls upon simple less developed English ancestors, whom he finds remarkable large and of good stature. He concludes that the Nobles have diminished the physical strength that the English were once blessed with. Part III Chapter 9 Gulliver returns to Luggnagg in disguise. He only wished to return to his beloved mother countrythe Kingdom of England. His shipmates confess to the officials that a stranger is aboard, resulting in his capture, interrogation and confinement. The King has heard of Gullivers adventures and wishes to speak to him.Gulliver is then informed that, all of the Kings visitors are required to lick the floor as they enter the Kings room. Because Gulliver was a guest, the floor was cleaned very well, but on occasion, it is sprinkled with poison to kill the Kings enemies. Because of his vast knowledge of foreign places, the King grows to favor Gulliver and treats him very well. Gulliver is invited to stay for an additional three monthshe is obedient. While in the company of the Luggnaggs, Gulliver is told of an immortal people.These people are marked by a spot on their forehead and are called the Struldbrugs. Gulliver fantasizes how he would live his life if he were immortal. He concludes that he would study all arts and sciences and learn to acquire riches. Gulliver ponders the topic even further and postulates that he would reasonably expect to be the wealthiest man in the kingdom. After being exposed to these individuals, he learns that they live forever, but are not young forever. This is a tragic flaw and the government actually considers them dead after the age of eighty.He also learns that they grow to be saddened and to live a life with neither joy, nor love. All of their marriages eventually become dissolved and they hate all mortals, most likely out of envy. As he learned of these people and about their true state, Gulliver regretted wishing that he could be immortal. Part III Chapter 11 A fter spending ample time in Luggnagg, Gulliver is eventually allowed to leave. He is finally able to find a vassal to take him to Japan, with hopes of continuing on to England.Upon arrival, Gulliver had again found himself in an uncomfortable situation. He eventually finds a Dutch ship travelling to England. The captain agrees to take him, as long as Gulliver provides works as a surgeon for half the usual rate. By blending in as a Dutchman, Gulliver is able to satisfy the Emperors requirements. He is then excused from the ritual stomping of the cross. They are now free and continue to Amsterdam, from where Gulliver is able to find passage to England. Upon arrival he goes immediately home to his well-preserved family.