Diversity in Work and Organisation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Assorted variety in Work and Organization - Essay Example It must change to mirror the said assorted variety and in this manner, mostly contribute towards the enhancement of multifaceted, transnational and cross-semantic standards (Hon and Brunner, 2000; Grin and Korth, 2005; Morrison, 2006). On the off chance that they are to viably perform inside the limits of multicultural social orders and ethnically different markets, associations must recruit a various pool of gifted individuals who bring aptitudes, for example, language and social skill to the condition. Changing segment realties, regardless of whether on the nearby or the worldwide level, have brought a plenty of difficulties and chances to the front. As respects openings, individuals who already have been denied the open door for full advancement of their abilities may accomplish more noteworthy chances. Be that as it may, these chances to minorities and assorted variety have been made through battle, especially restriction from the predominant larger part. To ease these issues, associations regularly talk about actualizing assorted variety programs and different activities to build comprehension of various societies and to help adapt remote people into society and, in this, lies the best test (Hon and Brunner, 2000; Grin and Korth, 2005; Morrison, 2006). The test to the positive and useful misuse of the open doors which assorted variety guarantees lies in the administration of decent variety through the reception of representative assorted variety preparing programs, at last loani ng to the advancement of an association's HR. While most of Western organizations have straightforwardly communicated their responsibility to assorted variety the executives inside a HRD setting, Morrison (2006) contends that dedication has been to a great extent restricted to talk, rather than activity and HR preparing. Assorted variety talk, rather than activity, flourishes. This doesn't infer, be that as it may, that the talk is without esteem or doesn't have the possibly to helpfully advise the plan regarding assorted variety preparing programs. As Edelman, Riggs, and Drita (2001) call attention to, the assorted variety talk which overruns the board and HR diaries emphatically coordinates associations towards the administration of decent variety, the estimation of decent variety and the continuous advantages which associations may collect from embracing adaptable administration styles which are eager to concede to the interests of people, and ready to determine new sorts of contentions that emerge from different social foundations. In addition, this new administration style should be strong of different ways of life, ready to coordinate various sorts of individuals to proper occupations, and ready to oblige various techniques for achieving work and assessing individuals (Edelman, Riggs and Drita, 2001). Decent variety talk has, now and again, converted into a formula for activity. Organizations have started giving assorted variety preparing, especially to administrators. As ahead of schedule as 1991, an investigation of 406 associations indicated that 63% gave assorted variety preparing to directors, half gave an announcement on decent variety from top administration, 39% gave assorted variety preparing to workers, and 31% had a decent variety team (Winterle, 1992). As per Gilbert and Ivancevich (2000), as associations and social orders have become

Man For All Seasons Argumentative Essay Example For Students

Man For All Seasons Argumentative Essay In this play there are individuals who are against Thomas More. The individuals againsthim are the individuals who abused him. Cromwell was one of the pioneers of thepeople who abused Thomas More. Cromwell said When the ruler wantssomething done, I do it. I think Cromwell said this since he didn't wanthis head to be cut off so everything he did was kiss up to the ruler. The creator saidMore is a man of a heavenly attendants mind. what's more, a period requireth a man of marvelousmirth and side interests; and once in a while of as miserable gravity: a man for all seasons. Itruly accept this is reality. One of the men was Rich, a befuddled youthful manwho needed to have influence. He said yet every man has his cost. .. in moneytoo, or delight, titles, ladies, blocks and-mortat, theres alwayssomething. The individuals Thomas More connected with to me were standard individuals. I think the standard individuals were Thomas More, his family, and a couple otherfriends. First they thought he was making the best choice by following his truebelieves, yet then they attempted to persuade him to stop since he had alreadymade his point about the law and his religion. Jolt described him as a manas a man who would never surrender until his promise had gotten across to the foolishpeople. This would have worked for More if the remainder of the offices even themembers of the congregation had stayed with him. In any case, just the silly deteriorate ofit, barring More. Truly what might you do? Carve an incredible street through the lawto pursue the villain? This is the thing that More said. I think this shows Moreis unique in relation to the individuals against him. In Mores final words he said toMargaret in issues of inner voice the reliable subject is bound to beloyal to his soul than to some other thing. As I would like to think More is asaint in light of the fact that he never let go of his convictions in the law and his confidence.

Literary Tourism West Virginia

Literary Tourism West Virginia Yes, when most people think about books based in West Virginia, usually Homer Hickams Rocket Boys comes to mind. Note that this was the book that inspired October Skies, the movie (with Jake Gyllenhaal, of course). Dont get me wrong, its a good book, but theres more out there. Its time to note the literary landmarks of West Virginia. The question is: If you were to take a literary road trip of West Virginia, what should you see? Point Pleasant, WV an entry point into the state at the Ohio River. For better or worse, Point Pleasant has been associated with the Mothman monster, and thus, John A. Keels book The Mothman Prophecies about the infamous monster that supposedly terrorized the population and prophecized the collapse of the Silver Bridge across the Ohio in 1967. Note, this was the book that inspired the Richard Gere movie. Of course, before John Keel came along, Gray Barker was writing about the bizarre. His book on Mothman came first, along with other books focused on UFOs. As a self proclaimed UFOlogist, Barker helped add to UFO lore, including his book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers, which would lead to the introduction of the men in black as paranormal investigators/men in suits seeking information. This, of course, inspired the movie franchise. If youre interested in Gray Barker and his role as a writer (and sometimes trickster), the Clarksburg public library has his collection of personal documents for visitors to see by request. In Talcott, West Virginia, you can check out the place where John Henry, according to legend, competed  against a machine in his effort to show the railworkers efficiency in the face of new technology. This tale  inspired Colson Whiteheads John Henry Days, focused on both the legend and the celebration of John Henry Days in Talcott. Historically speaking, you cant overlook Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, where, in 1859, the abolitionist, John Brown attempted to overthrow the town and free the slaves within. There are so many important books on this event and man, including James McBrides National Book Award winner, The Good Lord Bird. I need to mention Glenn Taylors work here (Note: I gotta admit, hes a friend, but Id recommend these books to anybody looking for an Oddysey with true conflicts of U.S. history). Taylors work, including the mining wars in The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart and the red light district of Keystone, WV of 1910 in A Hanging at Cinder Bottom displays the deeply complex culture of West Virginias history when the state felt like an Eastern version of the Wild West. You can travel over to Keystone yourself, or check out the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum in Matewan, WV. For nonfiction lovers, consider following the New River. Noah Adams tackled this journey in his book Far Appalachia: Following the New River North. And, believe it or not, if you happen to follow this river from its southern point up as Adams did, it will drop you back at Point Pleasant and the Ohio River. While you are on your trip, read Ann Pancakes work. Her short stories, her essays. All of it. Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley came out in February. This is a great window into Appalachia. And I could go on. There are books based in this state that many people forget about (Shiloh. Yes. You remember Shiloh), and a mass of culture. So much, so, in fact that Im guessing Ive overlooked a landmark  thats incredibly important here.  What other literary landmarks of West Virginia  are important for people to see?

About Lois Lowrys Controversial Book, The Giver

Imagine living in a society of sameness where you find no color, no family connections, and no memory—a society where life is governed by rigid rules that resist change and resent questioning. Welcome to the world of Lois Lowrys 1994 Newbery award-winning book The Giver, a powerful and controversial book about a utopian community and young boy’s dawning realizations about oppression, choices and human connections. The Storyline of The Giver Twelve-year-old Jonas is looking forward to the Ceremony of Twelves and getting his new assignment. He will miss his friends and their games, but at 12 he is required to set aside his child-like activities. With excitement and fear, Jonas and the rest of the new Twelves are bid a formal â€Å"thank you for your childhood† by the head elder as they move into the next phase of community work. In The Giver’s utopian community, rules govern every aspect of life from speaking in precise language to sharing dreams and feelings at daily family councils. In this perfect world, climate is controlled, births are regulated and everyone is given an assignment based on ability. Couples are matched and applications for children are reviewed and assessed. The elderly are honored and  apologize, and the acceptance of apologies, are mandatory. In addition, anyone who refuses to follow rules or who exhibits weaknesses is â€Å"released† (a gentle euphemism for killed). If twins are born, the one weighing the least is scheduled for release while the other is taken to a nurturing facility. Daily pills to suppress desires and â€Å"stirrings† are taken by citizens beginning at age twelve. There is no choice, no disruption, and no human connections. This is the world Jonas knows until he is assigned to train under the Receiver and become his successor. The Receiver holds all the memories of the community and it’s his job to pass on this heavy burden to Jonas. As the old Receiver begins to give Jonas the memories of ages past, Jonas starts to see colors and experience new feelings. He learns there are words to label the emotions that are erupting inside him: pain, joy, sorrow, and love. The passing of memories from aged man to boy deepens their relationship and Jonas experiences a powerful need to share his newfound awareness. Jonas wants others to experience the world as he sees it, but the Receiver explains that letting loose these memories all at once into the community would be unbearable and painful. Jonas is weighed down by this new knowledge and awareness and finds solace in discussing his feelings of frustration and amazement with his mentor. Behind a closed door with the speaker device turned to OFF, Jonas and the Receiver discuss the forbidden topics of choice, fairness, and individuality. Early in their relationship, Jonas begins to see the old Receiver as a Giver because of the memories and knowledge he is giving to him. Jonas quickly finds his world shifting. He sees his community with new eyes and when he understands the real meaning of â€Å"release† and learns a sad truth about the Giver, he begins to make plans for change. However, when Jonas finds out that a young child he’s grown fond of is being prepared for release, both he and the Giver quickly alter their plans and prepare for a daring escape full of risk, danger, and death for all involved. Author Lois Lowry Lois Lowry wrote her first book, A Summer to Die, in 1977 at the age of 40. Since then she’s written more than 30 books for children and teens, often tackling serious topics such as debilitating illnesses, the Holocaust, and repressive governments. The winner of two Newbery Medals and other accolades, Lowry continues to write the types of stories she feels represents her views about humanity. Lowry explains, â€Å"My books have varied in content and style. Yet it seems that all of them deal, essentially, with the same general theme: the importance of human connections. Born in Hawaii, Lowry, the second of three children, moved all over the world with her Army dentist father. Awards Over the years, Lois Lowry has accumulated multiple awards for her books, but the most prestigious are her two Newbery Medals for Number the Stars (1990) and The Giver (1994). In 2007, the American Library Association honored Lowry with the Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Contribution to Young Adult Literature. Controversy, Challenges, and Censorship Despite the many accolades The Giver has garnered, it has met with enough opposition to put it on the American Library Association’s most frequently challenged and banned books list for the years 1990-1999 and 2000-2009. Controversy over the book focuses on two topics: suicide and euthanasia. When a minor character determines she can no longer endure her life, she asks to be â€Å"released† or killed. According to an article in USA Today, opponents of the book argue that Lowry fails to â€Å"explain that suicide is not a solution to life’s problems.† In addition to the concern about suicide, opponents of the book criticize Lowry’s handling of euthanasia. Supporters of the book counter these criticisms by arguing that children are being exposed to social issues that will make them think more analytically about governments, personal choice, and relationships. When asked for her opinion on book banning Lowry responded: I think banning books is a very, very dangerous thing. It takes away an important freedom. Any time there is an attempt to ban a book, you should fight it as hard as you can. Its okay for a parent to say, I dont want my child to read this book. But it is not okay for anyone to try to make that decision for other people. The world portrayed in The Giver is a world where choice has been taken away. It is a frightening world. Lets work hard to keep it from truly happening. The Giver Quartet and the Movie While The Giver can be read as a standalone book, Lowry has written companion books to further explore the meaning of community. Gathering Blue (published in 2000) introduces readers to Kira, a crippled orphan girl with a gift for needlework. Messenger, published in 2004, is the story of Mattie who is first introduced in Gathering Blue as Kira’s friend. In fall 2012 Lowrys Son was published. Son represents the grand finale in Lois Lowrys Giver books.

Impact of Public Debt Burden on Economic Growth of...

Impact of Public Debt Burden on Economic Growth of Bangladesh: A VAR Approach Md. Hashibul Hassan Lecturer Department of Finance Jagannath University Dhaka, Bangladesh. Email: hashibulhassan@yahoo.com Tahmina Akhter Lecturer Department of Finance University of Dhaka Dhaka, Bangladesh. Email: tahmina25@gmail.com Impact of Public Debt Burden on Economic Growth of Bangladesh: A VAR Approach Abstract Bangladesh is relying heavily on public debt to meet the budget deficit since its independence. In this paper, the objective is to find out whether the government of Bangladesh is excessively borrowing from the public sources and thus negatively affecting the economy of the country. For this purpose GDP growth rate (GDP), manufacturing sector†¦show more content†¦However in Bangladesh very few studies have been done using the Vector Auto-regressive model, to identify the impact of public debt burden on the economic growth of the country. Fosu (1996) investigated the debt overhang hypothesis by studying 13 severely indebted countries- Zambia, Venezuela, Sierra Leone, Philippines, Peru, Morocco, Mexico, Kenya, Honduras, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Argentina and Algeria. The sample period was 1971 to 1991 and the author used OLS estimation method for panel data. The author found the negative and robust relationship between investment and external debt. Qureshi amp; Ali (2010) analyzed the impact of high public debt burden on the economy of Pakistan. The sample of the study was 1981 to 2008. From their study a vast negative impact of public debt on the economy of Pakistan had been found by the authors. Ahmed amp; Shakur( 2011) performed a research to highlight the problems created by the debt (external debt) to economic growth of Pakistan. They have used the unit root test and Johansen co-integration to analyze time series data from FY 1981 to FY 2008. The Granger Causality Vector Error Correction (GCVEC) method proved unidirectional relationship between external debt and growth rate of GDP per capita. Wijeweera, Dollery amp; Pathberya (2005), investigated the connections between external debt servicing and economic growth in Srilanka during 1952-2002 by using co-integration methodology for the long run errorShow MoreRelatedSummer Internship Report on Mutual Fund : Performance Evolution Marketing20554 Words   |  83 PagesIndia in a small way with the UTI Act creating what was effectively a small savings division within the RBI. Over a period of 25 years this grew fairly successfully and gave investors a good return, and therefore in 1989, as the next logical step, public sector banks and financial institutions were allowed to float mutual funds and their success emboldened the government to allow the private sector to foray into this area. The advantages of mutual fund are professional management, diversification

The Breville Juicer Free Essays

If you are looking to shop for a quality juicer and are having problem deciding between Jack Lalanne Juicers and Breville Juicers, it’s best to try a side by side comparison, which I have done for you. Breville Juice Fountain Plus with 2 speeds is the way to go. It’s better at producing juice large amounts of juice, it’s a centrifical process of extraction instead of a masticating process and cleanup is a snap. We will write a custom essay sample on The Breville Juicer or any similar topic only for you Order Now I have used a Jack Lalanne Power Juicer Pro for a year and a half. I used it for greens and fruit and it worked well but I noticed a lot of pulp which was fairly â€Å"wet†, and some of the pieces that I put in the juicer ended up whole in the pulp container. Since I juice so often I decided to try a Breville Juicer-Fountain Ellite. What a difference one product can make. Not only is the Breville juicer faster but it has two speeds-lower for softer fruits and veggies and high speed for harder. I like the speed of the juicer because I am always on the go and don’t have the patience for a masticating juicer. Masticating juicers may extract more and the juice may preserve longer-but I would be pulling my pulling my hair out if I had to wait around too long. This juicer works perfectly for me, plus I drink my juice right away. I did quite a bit of research before buying this juicer, I needed something that would be able to stand up to constant use and a machine that would get as much juice as possible from the produce. For the most part, this machine does just that. Depending on what I’m juicing I’ve found though that for the best results I have to take it apart and scrub the filter down a bit so that the juice can filter into the pitcher. I mostly do kale, celery, apples, limes, carrots, and cucumbers and all of it goes through the juicer really smoothly. The Breville Juice Fountain Plus is an excellent juicer with a powerful enough motor to negotiate a large variety of fruits and vegetables. Whether you’re juicing soft fruits, hard vegetables, or leafy greens, this juicer will perform well and produce numerous gallons of fresh, nutritious juice for your entire family. I noticed that most pulp is drier with this juicer in comparison with the Jack Lalanne juicer. I also noticed that even though both juicers assemble and come apart easily the Breville juicer parts fit together better, and clean quicker. There are only six parts that need cleaning, and if you clean them immediately after juicing, cleanup takes about three to five minutes. It’s important not to let the material dry on any component, especially the filter assembly. The pitcher that comes with the juicer is plastic but it fits around the spout nicely and so does the lid. The pulp catcher fits more securely with this unit than with the Jack Lalanne juicer. One thing I will say with this juicer that some might perceive as a negative-once you put the fruit or vegetables in the juicer you better quickly put your hand over the top of the opening or quickly put the pusher in because the blades spin so fast small parts of the fruits and vegetables might come out the opening. I really enjoy my Breville Juicer and I highly recommend it for personality types like mine-those of us who like our juice but don’t have the patience to wait for a masticating juicer. How to cite The Breville Juicer, Papers

Media and Mental Illness

Question: Analysis the Relationship between the Media and Mentall Illness. Answer: Introduction Mental illness is considered as being one of the most stigmatizedsituations for humans in the society (Cockerham 2016). People who are suffering from mental illness face all the key elements of the stigma process. They face situations like being tagged or labeled, set to one side, connected to detrimental traits and largely discriminated against (Cockerham 2016). People who are victims of serious mental illness face challenges doubly. The common forms of mental disorders are mental health disorders, like depression, generalized anxiety syndrome, panic syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), schizophrenia and social anxiety syndrome. Over the last couple of decades huge amounts of research have been conducted that shows the power that media holds, in association with the regularity of its usage, making it one of the most significantly influencing factor of the society (Riff, Lacy and Fico 2014). Generally, media is understood as the different means of communication or a collective noun to refer to the press or news reporting agencies (Kaplan 2014). What is shown or said on the media influences the daily life of the people. Media has gained such a powerful position because the amount of trust people tends to put on the messages delivered by them is huge. The media in this way accept a key part in embellishing people's outlook about the world they live in, and in addition, the overall public they team up with consistently. However, it is important to consider what happens when the media sends a dependable message that makes unfriendly perspectives toward a social event of people (Adam 2013). Media and Mental Illness: Theory, Representation and Impact The World Health Organization (2014) defines mental health as a state of well-being where all individuals acquires awareness regarding his or her potential, gains the ability to deal with the everyday normal stresses of human life, has the capacity to exert productively and fruitfully and is even able to contribute significantly to the community. World Health Organization or WHO, in their definition of health, stresses on the positive dimension of mental health as being an important element of wellbeing(WHO 2014). Mental health acts as a spectrum that applies to everyone like a continuum and is a part of the human condition (Adam 2013). The WHO introduced the concept of mental wellbeing in the year 1948. Social wellbeing is largely related to the concept of mental wellbeing, existing in the context of social and earning disparity, social capital, social trust, social contact and social networks. All these aspects largely influence mental health and wellbeing separately as well as collectively. People who are blessed with mental wellbeing have the capacity to take good decision in support of others.It is therefore easy to comprehend that the promotion of mental wellbeing of everyone, especially those who are in powerful positions, is crucial to the step taken towards the prevention of social inequality and unhealthy policy (Fph.org.uk 2017). The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) states that the common mental health disorders might affect approximately 15% of the population at any one point of time.There is impressive variety in the seriousness of normal emotional wellness issue; however, all can be related with huge long-term disability (Nice.org.uk 2017).The below table shows the increase in rates of mental illness prevalence in UK from 2007 to 2014. Table: Prevalence of common mental health problems (16+ years) Source: (Stansfeld 2016) The Department of Health changed this plan of deliberate studies on the recurrence and regularity of schizophrenia and other psychotic issue in England. Incidence is the number of people who develop a sickness shockingly, consistently, in a given place; inescapability is the degree of a portrayed gathering who starting at now have or develop a malady at a particular time then again in the midst of a predefined period. Psychotic issues are a social affair of enthusiastic infections depicted by fantasies, dreams and distinctive issues of thought and feeling. Schizophrenia is a particular kind of psychotic issue, as are enthusiastic psychoses that can consolidate psychotic debilitation and bipolar issue (Kirkbrideet al. 2012).Schizophrenia is aserious issue of the mind and brain;anyway, it is furthermore exceedingly treatable. Schizophrenia is a staggering issue for a large number of individuals who are plagued, and costly for families and society. Today the principle theory of why peop le get schizophrenia is that it is an eventual outcome of a genetic slant joined with a characteristic exposure and additionally stresses in the midst of pregnancy or youth that add to, or trigger, the turmoil. Starting at now researchers have recognized a couple of the key qualities - that when hurt - seem to make a slant, or extended peril, for schizophrenia. The qualities, in blend with suspected natural segments - are acknowledged the components that result in schizophrenia. A champion among the best areas of schizophrenia research today is in the domain of recognizing confirmation of early risk components for headway of schizophrenia, and neutralizing activity of schizophrenia in those people who are slanted to the illness (Nhs.uk 2017).The Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) found out that prevalence of all the common mental health in females are more than males in UK, with special significance on GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder), phobias, panic disorders and CMD-NOS ( CommonMental Disorder- Not Otherwise Specified). Women are more prone to mental health issues and anxiety disorders. In UK, 10% of mothers face mental health issues compared to 6% of fathers. One in five women face CMD, compared to one in eight of men (Mentalhealth.org.uk 2017). Figure: Prevalence of common mental illnesses by sex Source: (Stansfeld 2016) Stigma and isolation related with mental illness has been recognized as genuine limits upsetting individuals with mental illness from perceiving their mental medicinal issues and searching for healing (Wang et al. 2016). Such stigma and isolation can be reduced by giving precise factsconcerning mental illness and its treatment, and through engaging the change and appraisal of novel approaches to manage the diminishment of stigma. The wide interchanges, counting TV and convey news, are the basic wellspring of facts about mental illness (Zhang et al. 2016). The examination of media meds of individuals with mental illness backpedals to the 1950s (Link and Phelan 2014), with highlight on the redirection media's effects on the individual. While TV has been seen as having anessential part in partner individuals and offsetting lifestyles (Cao 2014), individuals acquire prosperity information from several sources. Gardner (2015) joins redirection media, and news and story media, despite prosperity specialists and prosperity capable affiliations, and diverse individuals as either immediate or meandering effects on individuals' prosperity information and prosperity pictures. Regardless of the way that the media are anyway one wellspring of the communication, it is overall envisioned that expansive interchanges pictures of mental illness engender mental illness stigma. Attempting to grasp the effect of mass media on individuals' perspectives and practices has been an imperative convergence of mass communication research. Two mass communication hypotheses, cultivation theory and social learning theory, are predominantly valuable to perceiving how the media go about as a socializing administrator and therefore may affect the advancement and spread of mental illness stigma. Cultivation theory prescribes that significant introduction to steady and dull messages on TV would rehash, insist, and manageprinciples and outline impression of social reality to fit in with those showed on TV (Potter 2014). According to cultivation theory, Potter (2014) introduce that the people who contribute more vitality while living in the domain of TV will likely watch this current reality to the degree the photos, qualities, portrayals, and conviction frameworks that create through the point of view of TV. Applying this theory to mental illness stigma would prescribe that people who watch a lot of TV would acknowledge a TV world point of view of mental illness.On the other hand,Jamieson and Romer(2014) specifically follow the cultivation theory approach of Gerbner and Gross in predicting the result of prolonged exposure to TV violence, saying that its consequences are fear of crime, pushing people towards the mean world syndrome. They say that instead of TV violence affecting perceptions of crime rates, it directly predicts fear of crime, mediated by perceptions of crime rates. Accordingly, as demonstrated by social learning theory (Jennings and Henderson 2014), learning could be refined through straight inclusion and furthermore through observation. Individuals could take in an unprecedented game plan about the world by what they see and tune in, predominantly through media sources (Jennings and Henderson 2014). Jennings and Henderson (2014), in line with Banduras social learning theory, exhibited that as people sit before the TV they acquire data about practices and social customs, for instance, principles of lead. In addition, as demonstrated by social learning theory, those practices that are repaid will presumably be educated and invoked than those practices that are repelled or unrewarded. Toward the day's end, the nature of the representation has proposals for the lessons learned. Application of this theory to mental illness stigma will suggest that TV demonstrates to social standards of generally accepted methods to care forpeople with mental illnes s. Jointly, these two theories work by combination with each other; cultivation examination gives depictions of the tedious messages that are in actuality vicariously learned through recognition (social learning theory). Without bona fide contribution for people with mental illness, individuals might rely on upon the media for their impression of the people who have mental illnesses (Naslundet al. 2016). At that point, the media have a propensity to dependably interface delineations of people with mental illness and unpleasant direct to anamount more significant than this present reality association (Gentile 2014). This irregular representation can incite to learning through media presentation that individuals with mental illness are unsafe, are to be scared of, and must be avoided. Late research backs this thought, finding that the people who observe a significant measure of TV embrace contrary points of view of people with mental illness than do the people who watch just to some degre e (Gentile 2014). Shannon and Weavers communication model from 1949 is also considered in health care, especially mental health as a form of person-to-person communication. In mental health, the model considers the individual characteristics of each person for considering the process of communicating (KeepanasserilMcKibbon and Iorio 2013). The model stresses that in taking care of patients, especially people with mental health issues, professionals need to maintain effective communication so that no information can be misinterpreted, confused about or lead to hostile situations. Cooleys perception of the looking glass selfenunciated that thoughts regarding ourselves are significantly formed by how we trust others see usthat one's self idea is socially built. Subsequently, negative judgments from others are regularly joined into one's self idea, bringing about disgrace (Markowitz 2014).Later this was extended by highlighting the characteristically social part of vilification, characterizing stigma as n egative judgments we demand against each other in light of degraded gathered personalities. These ideas have been connected to the social-separating and segregation frequently confronted by individuals encountering or named with dysfunctional behaviours, attracting part on hypothesis in regards to other underestimated personalities. Depictions of mental illness occur over a couple of media stages, including film, TV and popular magazines (Allen 2013). Specifically, the media tend to show genuine, psychotic issue. Individuals with mental illnesses were depicted as being deficient, unlikable, and risky and as lacking social identity. Characters with mental illness were portrayed as unemployablethey were less disposed to be used outside the home and more slanted to be seen as frustrations when used (VH1 News 2016). A great deal more unsurprising were representations of brutality and peril related with media pictures of mental illness. Television was by a wide edge the most focused medium and radiated an impression of being the fundamental advocate of mental prosperity information. In any case, late research on pictures of mental illness in the media exhibits that while TV continues tolerating a not too bad measure of thought, research respect for other media sources, including day-by-day papers, general dispersal m agazines and film is creating (Polatis 2014). Some thought is being pulled in to new media, for instance, the Internet. Over the earlier decade, investigation on media content has exhibited creating respect for pictures of mental illness in print media, both in every day papers and in standard magazines. Past research on every day papers demonstrates an association among violence and mental illness. U.K. day-by-day papers have a normal schedule of seeing in the element that misconduct was executed by a man with mental illness (Muncie 2014). Later research on every day papers fuses slant examinations that demonstrate that references to danger are lessening in the articles that discussion about mental illness. Two or three late surveys have examined how mental illness, especially symptomatic arrangements, for instance, schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorders (OCD), is presented in properly understood magazines by considering the sort and precision of the information showed to the general populace (Kress et al. 2016). Pessimisticrepresentations of characters with mental illness in like manner materialize in children's films (Phelan et al. 2014). The media have great impact on the individuals as well as the overall population. The population is exposed to various medium such as radio, television, games, films, social media, advertising and others. The excessive influences of the media can have a detrimental effect on the psychology of the youths. Research shows that excessive television viewing in teenagers and youths can make them mentally ill, in turn turning them materialistic, resulting in affecting the relationship they have with their parents and their health(Daily Mail Online 2017). The public perception agrees with the fact that the teenagers try to imitate the television advertisements, especially the ones featuring their favourite celebrities. It is a common belief that the youths are getting increasingly addicted to alcohol and drugs, which lead to negative emotional response, aggression, anxiety, stress, depression and sometimes even suicide, self-harm and psychosis, in turndamaging their health in the long run (D rinkaware.co.uk 2017). The media also affects the individuals in UK as well as all over the world. The media affects the physical as well as mental well-being of the people (O'Shaughnessy and Stadler 2012). The youths are getting increasingly addicted to the social media websites and they are suffering from anxiety and social insecurity. The teenagers often face the pressure of being active on the social medium websites which affects their sleep patterns. A macrosocial level of examination uncovers an alternate game plan of components that incite to exploitation of people set apart as judiciously debilitated. Two such components are: (1) plans of private and authoritative associations that intentionally restrict the odds of people with broken conduct, and (2) methodologies of foundations that yield unintended results that demolish the choices of people with enthusiastic disorder (Corrigan, Druss and Perlic 2014).Then again, at the individual (micro) level, social communications are essentially shaded by the attributes of labelled people, their dysfunctional behaviour, and those with whom they interface (Rugksaet al. 2014). The media creates a misconception regarding the schizophrenic patients. The improper depiction of the schizophrenic patients often leads to conflict, confusion and false beliefs among the masses (Rosen et al. 2014). This causes a social stigma regarding the mental health patients, which in turn causes a negative effect on them. However, mental health is represented positively too by the media. Authentic portrayals of mental illness, especially schizophrenia, are rare and only in bits and pieces. Like in the movie Julien Donkey Boy, schizophreniawas provided the justice it deserves, by means of the depiction of the illness in the dysfunctional family of the protagonist. Soap operas and news reports about emotional wellness can assume a profitable part in expanding comprehension of depression, uneasiness and schizophrenia, and in urging individuals with issues to look for help, studies has recommended. Research carried out showed that individuals with a psychological health issue said they were urged to look for help in the wake of seeing or perusing a news story.Soap operas have enhanced from a period when storylines including individuals with psychological issues were as often as possible shown in light of negative generalizations. The media also affects the social care organizations and the health care professionals to a large extent. These kinds of organizations are increasingly using the social media network, microblogs, blogs, media-sharing sites, gaming environments and others (Ngai et al. 2015). The social media plays an important role in carrying out the day to day functioning of the organizations. The social care organizations are able to recruit candidates suitable for their organizational vacancies. The organizations are using the professional networking sites such as LinkedIn, focussed websites, blogs and others to search the best candidates who would match with their job roles ((Ngai et al. 2015). The social organizations would be able to facilitate the customer rating as well as feedback by greater use of the social media websites. There are situations when the organizations link their company website to the personal blog of the blogger. When the present customer or the prospective customers sees v alue in the peer reviews, then they would avail the services of the firm, which would increase their profit generation factor (Norton and Strauss 2013). The organizations are able to introduce new services and create more awareness among the masses. According to Wimmer and Dominick (2013), the impact of media lies between the universal scale of good and bad. The various psychologists views media from a theoretical perspective by incorporating social cognitive theories. They agree that it is true that media provides an informative platform for the children because of the wide variety of rich content available there. Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi(2014) oppose this by saying that television has an adverse effect on the mental health of the children or youth. The violent acts shown in the television, including nudity, have a detrimental effect on the child psychology and they are more likely to display such behaviour in their own lives. It is important to create a social awareness campaign (for schizophrenic patients) in the different social media site. This would spread positive awareness about the mental health patients and educate the public regarding the clinical risks of the mental health patients. As opined by Torous and Kesha van(2016), the social media websites can be useful in addressing the negative symptoms as well as various impairments in the social cognition, which is often common in cases of schizophrenia. As commented by Watson and Hill (2015), there are various influences on the media such as pressure groups, political influence, pressures of corporate, industrialists and others. There can be political figures who can suppress the media for deriving their own benefits. This prevents the media from publishing or featuring important information, which may otherwise affect the image of the political leaders. The big multinational companies are also constantly manipulating with the media and prevent them from featuring anything that can go against company goodwill. The consequence of this act prevents the media from covering the alternative views or any critique against the companies. The social media can be used in a proactive way for improving the communication between the company and the customers (Roberts and Candi 2014). The social medium should be used as an effective corporate communication medium so that there is transparent interaction between the employees. There are certain organizations which use the social media platform to declare board meetings or give reminders for the deadlines. It is also a powerful tool in communicating well with the customers. The organization can use the same message to deliver them on multiple platforms in order to gain a wide range of audience. It is also an effective tool for educating the customers regarding a new medication or a new medical app, which would be useful to them. The social media would also help the organizations to gain the customer perspective regarding a particular mental health service. Conclusion In this case study, mental illness has been discussed in the purview of media. Schizophrenia has been mainly focused on as an illness, in the context of UK. Media and mental illness have been broadly described and supported with theories, concepts and evidences form different authors. Along with that the media representation of mental health has been covered over the ages.This case study has effectively discussed the impact of the various media sources on the wellbeing of the individuals and the various social care organizations. The social media channel is chosen for the purpose of addressing the target audience. The case study also discussed the various influences on the medium and the use of social media for better communication. References Adam, D. 2013. Mental health: On the spectrum. [online] Available at: https://www.nature.com/news/mental-health-on-the-spectrum-1.12842 [Accessed 28 Feb. 2017]. Allen, D. 2013. Borderline Personality Disorder in the Movies. [online] Psychology Today. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/matter-personality/201307/borderline-personality-disorder-in-the-movies Cao, X., 2014. Discourses on urbanism:" Reality televisions" by Jiangsu Satellite Television since 2010. Cockerham, W.C., 2016.Sociology of mental disorder. Routledge. Corrigan, P.W., Druss, B.G. and Perlick, D.A., 2014. The impact of mental illness stigma on seeking and participating in mental health care.Psychological Science in the Public Interest,15(2), pp.37-70. Daily Mail Online. 2017. 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The Rise and Fall of Alexandria Essay Example

The Rise and Fall of Alexandria Essay How the modern world was actually established is often overlooked and attributed to the powers and domination of Athens and Rome. What authors Justin Pollard and Howard Reid urge readers to understand, however, is the significance that the city of Alexandria had on Western Civilization. Both authors have worked in British and American television, and are accomplished in the film/documentary industry.Reid has also previously written five other books. In their narrative book, The Rise and Fall of Alexandria, they seek to emphasize just how important this little city was to the foundation of the modern world through accounts of history. Alexandria was built on the foundation of knowledge and intellect, with some of the greatest minds in the fields of Philosophy and Astronomy behind the operation. Alexandria was the birthplace of some of history’s most influential people and the ideas that accompanied them.The ideas of these influential people, such as Herophilus and his discovery of the human organs, and Aristarchus with his idea of a heliocentric universe, have been carried down for centuries and will never be forgotten. Alexandria was home to the incredible library and museum where some of the world’s greatest thinkers pondered and hypothesized the abstracts and ideas that were foreign to their time. Along with all of these historical facts about Alexandria, the city also houses one of the Seven Wonders of the World—the magnificent lighthouse, the Pharos.Alexandria, one of the most influential cities in the foundation of the modern world and a city whose â€Å"unique soul† (p. 1) has been overlooked by history. But, through The Rise and Fall of Alexandria, readers are able to experience the climb to knowledge and intellect, as well as the rise and fall of this â€Å"most extraordinary city on earth† (p. 176). Alexander founded the city of Alexandria in 331 BC. Alexandria was in a prime location for a provincial capital with its â€Å"access to Egypt’s wealth and connections on to the Red Sea† (p. 7). He wanted Egypt as part of his growing empire.Not long after in 323 BC, however, Alexander died and left this newly established city to his half brother and baby son. Alexander’s childhood friend, Ptolemy, soon came to rule over the city and Alexandria began rising. Ptolemy had plans for the city and began building innovative roads and two sea harbors. With these new developments, authors note, the â€Å"fundamental plan of the greatest city in the ancient world was complete. † Houses, slaves, cattle, and taxpayers were being taken from surrounding villages and given to the capital city of Alexandria.When Ptolemy’s son and successor (Ptolemy II) began his rule on the city, he, too, threw himself into developing Alexandria and created a currency that could be used to sell and trade. Structures were built, such as temples and the lighthouse, and Alexandria was becoming known a s â€Å"the light of the world† (p. 92). Along with the furthering of physical growth to the city of Alexandria, there was also growth politically and religiously. Ptolemy wished to fuse ancient thinking with the modern thinking of the Greeks, so he devised a plan and created a cult through a fusion of two gods: the god of the dead and the living bull.And this Greco-Egyptian cult was created and called Serapis. Through this newly founded religion and the constant furthering of the city’s buildings and technology, Alexandria began to rise. One of the main and most important themes found in the history of Alexandria is how much the city and that period in time contributed to the knowledge of the world. Some of the most brilliant people influenced that particular time, including the great philosophers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, as well as others such as Euclid of Alexandria, Herophilus, Aristarchus, and Eratosthenes.Alexandria was rich in knowledge because of the gr eat minds that utilized and contributed to the city’s institutions, such as the library and the lighthouse, to hypothesize theories and concepts. For example, Eratosthenes observed ships on the horizon from atop the lighthouse in Alexandria and eventually was the first to compass the world and describe the globe. Aristotle, being the private tutor of Alexander, could be credited for laying the intellectual foundation for the city of Alexandria. He, too, contributed to the Library of the city.Behind the brilliance of Aristotle, one can find the influences of the great philosophers that preceded him: Socrates and Plato. Because of its saturation of intellects and the availability of resources (the library and museum), Alexandria was a city thriving with knowledge and new schools of thought. Alexandria was the birthplace of the modern world, â€Å"not led by legions of soldiers, but by dynasties of scholars navigating on a sea of books† (p. 1). Alexander was considered to be a living god by the Egyptians for over 3,000 years, but the Greeks, however, did not so easily accept this notion.At the death of Alexander, dispute over who should rule over the largest empire on earth was in play. Finally, Alexander’s childhood friend, Ptolemy who looked like an Egyptian and spoke like a Greek, became Pharaoh. The reign of Ptolemy, including his heirs, was one that lasted for five generations. As even the beginning of the Alexandria Empire showed a trend of a constant power struggle among kings and pharaohs, so it continued this way until its fall. With rulers coming in and out of power, Alexandria was under a constant power struggle.Since Alexander’s death, â€Å"the eastern Mediterranean had been involved in an almost continuous struggle among the descendants of his heirs for control over† Alexandria (p. 156). A power that was becoming stronger and more threatening was that of Rome. Whether it was the grain that attracted the Romans to A lexandria, or the hunger for a place in history with the greatest conqueror, Alexander, the Romans were drawn to Alexandria. While under the rule of Cleopatra, the city of Alexandria was invaded by the Romans and the city was set in flames.The great Library of Alexandria lost some 4,000 papyrus scrolls, which although was not the end of the library, was the symbol of the city falling as the heart of it had been burned. In the spring of 30 BC, Alexandria was again invaded by Octavian and his army, and on August 1, â€Å"the Ptolemaic kingdom came to an end† (p. 172). Alexandria became a city in which it was dangerous to express one’s religious beliefs or opinions. In the middle of this dangerous time, the last scientist who worked in the library was a woman named Hypatia.The fact that she was a woman and that she was friends with the Roman governor made the Archbishop of Alexandria, Cyril, hate her. Hypatia was killed, and soon after, the Library was destroyed. The hear t and mind, the central being, the core of Alexandria was destroyed with the Library, and â€Å"with the death of Hypatia, her city also began to die (p. 280). The streets were filled with religious extremism and violence and with ethnic tension; the customs were changing and even the language was transforming as influenced by the Egyptians (p. 80). Eventually the great city of Alexandria was torn down by the Muslim general and the place that had once flourished with civilization and knowledge became nothing but ruins covered in flour and grain—and so was the fall of Alexandria. Alexandria was a city that started out strong and promising, with its dedicated rulers and the plans they had to nurture and expand the empire. It was the center of knowledge and wisdom, a magnet for those with great minds and ideas about the world.The heart of the city was its beloved library. Intellects swarmed this great city to teach, to learn, to ponder, and to discover. Aristarchus â€Å"put t he earth in heavens in motion† (p. 108) when he proposed a model of the solar system; Eratosthenes found the solution to the â€Å"Delian Problem† (p. 122); Archimedes figured out how to calculate the volume of a sphere: all these discoveries out of the city in Egypt. As I read through this book, I felt as though I was in the middle of it all.It felt like I was watching the birth of a baby as the city was founded, the hard life of growing up as the city underwent so many changes, and eventually the death of a legacy as the city was torn down. The city of Alexandria served its purpose of facilitating the minds of philosophical geniuses and an important chunk of history in our world. Through this book, Justin Pollard and Howard Reid were able to bring to life a long-lost empire that rose and fell, but will never be forgotten. Pollard, Justin and Howard Reid. The Rise and Fall of Alexandria: Birthplace of the Modern World. New York: Penguin Books, 2006.

Vietnam Essay

Vietnam Essay Free Online Research Papers From the beginning of John Kennedys Administration into this fifth year of Lyndon Johnsons presidency, substantially the same small groups of men have presided over the destiny of the United States. In that time they have carried the country from a limited involvement in Vietnam into a war that is brutal, probably unsinkable, and, to an increasing body of opinion, calamitous and immoral. How could it happen? Many in government or close to it will read the following article with the shock of recognition. Those less familiar with the processes of power can read it with the assurance that the author had a firsthand opportunity to watch the slide down the slippery slope during five years (1961-1966) of service in the White House and Department of State. Mr. Thomson is an East Asia specialist and an assistant professor of history at Harvard. As a case study in the making of foreign policy, the Vietnam War will fascinate historians and social scientists for many decades to come. One question that will certainly be asked: How did men of superior ability, sound training, and high ideals American policy-makers of the 1960s create such costly and divisive policy? As one who watched the decision-making process in Washington from 1961 to 1966 under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, I can suggest a preliminary answer. I can do so by briefly listing some of the factors that seemed to me to shape our Vietnam policy during my years as an East Asia specialist at the State Department and the White House. I shall deal largely with Washington as I saw or sensed it, and not with Saigon, where I have spent but a scant three days, in the entourage of the Vice President, or with other decision centers, the capitals of interested parties. Nor will I deal with other important parts of the record: Vietnams history prior to 1961, for instance, or the overall course of Americas relations with Vietnam. Yet a first and central ingredient in these years of Vietnam decisions does involve history. The ingredient was the legacy of the 1950s by which I mean the so-called loss of China, the Korean War, and the Far East policy of Secretary of State Dulles. This legacy had an institutional by-product for the Kennedy Administration: in 1961 the U.S. governments East Asian establishment was undoubtedly the most rigid and doctrinaire of Washingtons regional divisions in foreign affairs. This was especially true at the Department of State, where the incoming Administration found the Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs the hardest nut to crack. It was a bureau that had been purged of its best China expertise, and of farsighted, dispassionate men, as a result of McCarthyism. Its members were generally committed to one policy line: the close containment and isolation of mainland China, the harassment of neutralist nations which sought to avoid alignment with either Washington or Peking and the maintenance of a network of alliances with anti-Communist client states on Chinas periphery. Another aspect of the legacy was the special vulnerability and sensitivity of the new Democratic Administration on Far East policy issues. The memory of the McCarthy era was still very sharp, and Kennedys margin of victory was too thin. The 1960 Offshore Islands TV debate between Kennedy and Nixon had shown the President-elect the perils of fresh thinking. The Administration was inherently leery of moving too fast on Asia. As a result, the Far East Bureau (now the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs) was the last one to be overhauled. Not until Averell Harriman was brought in as Assistant Secretary in December 1961, were significant personnel changes attempted, and it took Harriman several months to make a deep imprint on the bureau because of his necessary preoccupation with the Laos settlement. Once he did so, there was virtually no effort to bring back the purged or exiled East Asia experts. There were other important by-products of this legacy of the fifties: The new Administration inherited and somewhat shared a general perception of China-on-the-march a sense of Chinas vastness, its numbers, its belligerence ; a revived sense, perhaps, of the Golden Horde. This was a perception fed by Chinese intervention in the Korean War (an intervention actually based on appallingly bad communications and mutual miscalculation on the part of Washington and Peking; but the careful unraveling of that tragedy, which scholars have accomplished, had not yet become part of the conventional wisdom). The new Administration inherited and briefly accepted a monolithic conception of the Communist bloc. Despite much earlier predictions and reports by outside analysts, policy-makers did not begin to accept the reality and possible finality of the Sino-Soviet split until the first weeks of 1962. The inevitably corrosive impact of competing nationalisms on Communism was largely ignored. The new Administration inherited and to some extent shared the domino theory about Asia. This theory resulted from profound ignorance of Asian history and hence ignorance of the radical differences among Asian nations and societies. It resulted from a blindness to the power and resilience of Asian nationalisms. (It may also have resulted from a subconscious sense that, since all Asians look alike, all Asian nations will act alike.) As a theory, the domino fallacy was not merely inaccurate but also insulting to Asian nations; yet it has continued to this day to beguile men who should know better. Finally, the legacy of the fifties was apparently compounded by an uneasy sense of a worldwide Communist challenge to the new Administration after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. A first manifestation was the Presidents traumatic Vienna meeting with Khrushchev in June 1961; then came the Berlin crisis of the summer. All this created an atmosphere in which President Kennedy undoubtedly felt under special pressure to show his nations mettle in Vietnam if the Vietnamese, unlike the people of Laos, were willing to fight. In general, the legacy of the fifties shaped such early moves of the new Administration as the decisions to maintain a high-visibility SEATO (by sending the Secretary of State himself instead of some underlying to its first meeting in 1961), to back away from diplomatic recognition of Mongolia in the summer of 1961, and most important, to expand U.S. military assistance to South Vietnam that winter on the basis of the much more tentative Eisenhower commitment. It should be added that the increased commitment to Vietnam was also fueled by a new breed of military strategists and academic social scientists (some of whom had entered the new Administration) who had developed theories of counter-guerrilla warfare and were eager to see them put to the test. To some, counterinsurgency seemed a new panacea for coping with the worlds instability. SO MUCH for the legacy and the history. Any new Administration inherits both complicated problems and simplistic views of the world. But surely among the policy-makers of the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, there were men who would warn of the dangers of an open-ended commitment to the Vietnam quagmire? This raises a central question, at the heart of the policy process: Where were the experts, the doubters, and the dissenters? Were they there at all, and if so, what happened to them? The answer is complex but instructive. In the first place, the American government was sorely lacking in real Vietnam or Indochina expertise. Originally treated as an adjunct of Embassy Paris, our Saigon embassy and the Vietnam Desk at State were largely staffed from 1954 onward by French-speaking Foreign Service personnel of narrowly European experience. Such diplomats were even more closely restricted than the normal embassy officer by the cast of mind as well as the language to contacts with Vietnams French-speaking urban elites. For instance, Foreign Service linguists in Portugal are able to speak with the peasantry if they get out of Lisbon and choose to do so; not so the French speakers of Embassy Saigon. In addition, the shadow of the loss of China distorted Vietnam reporting. Career officers in the Department, and especially those in the field, had not forgotten the fate of their World War II colleagues who wrote in frankness from China and were later pilloried by Senate co mmittees for critical comments on the Chinese Nationalists. Candid reporting on the strengths of the Viet Cong and the weaknesses of the Diem government was inhibited by the memory. It was also inhibited by some higher officials, notably Ambassador Nolting in Saigon, who refused to sign off on such cables. In due course, to be sure, some Vietnam talent was discovered or developed. But a recurrent and increasingly important factor in the decision-making process was the banishment of real expertise. Here the underlying cause was the closed politics of policy-making as issues become hot: the more sensitive the issue, and the higher it rises in the bureaucracy, the more completely the experts are excluded while the harassed senior generalists take over (that is, the Secretaries, Undersecretaries, and Presidential Assistants). The frantic skimming of briefing papers in the back seats of limousines is no substitute for the presence of specialists; furthermore, in times of crisis, such papers are deemed too sensitive even for review by the specialists. Another underlying cause of this banishment, as Vietnam became more critical, was the replacement of the experts, who were generally and increasingly pessimistic, by men described as can-do guys, loyal and energetic fixers unsoured by expertise. In early 1965, when I confided my growing policy doubts to an older colleague on the NSC staff, he assured me that the smartest thing both of us could do was to steer clear of the whole Vietnam mess; the gentleman in question had the misfortune to be a can-do guy, however, and is now highly placed in Vietnam, under orders to solve the mess. Despite the banishment of the experts, internal doubters and dissenters did indeed appear and persist. Yet as I watched the process, such men were effectively neutralized by a subtle dynamic: the domestication of dissenters. Such domestication arose out of a two-fold cubbish need: on the one hand, the dissenters desire to stay aboard; and on the other hand, the no dissenter’s conscience. Simply stated, dissent, when recognized, was made to feel at home. On the lowest possible scale of importance, I must confess my own considerable sense of dignity and acceptance (both vital) when my senior White House employer would refer to me as his favorite dove. Far more significant was the case of the former Undersecretary of State, George Ball. Once Mr. Ball began to express doubts, he was warmly institutionalized: he was encouraged to become the in-house devils advocate on Vietnam. The upshot was inevitable: the process of escalation allowed for periodic requests to Mr. Ball to speak his piece; Ball felt good, I assume (he had fought for righteousness); the others felt good (they had given a full hearing to the dovish option), and there was minimal unpleasantness. The club remained intact, and it is, of course, possible that matters would have gotten worse faster if Mr. Ball had kept silent, or left before his final departure in the fall of 1966. There was also, of course, the case of the last institutionalized doubter, Bill Moyers. The President is said to have greeted his arrival at meetings with an affectionate, Well, here comes Mr. Stop-the-Bombing. Here again, the dynamics of domesticated dissent sustained the relationship for a while. A related point and crucial, I suppose, to the government at all times was the effectiveness trap, the trap that keeps men from speaking out, as clearly or often as they might, within the government. And it is the trap that keeps men from resigning in protest and airing their dissent outside the government. The most important asset that a man brings to bureaucratic life is his effectiveness, a mysterious combination of training, style, and connections. The most ominous complaint that can be whispered of a bureaucrat is: Im afraid Charlies beginning to lose his effectiveness. To preserve your effectiveness, you must decide where and when to fight the mainstream of policy; the opportunities range from pillow talk with your wife to private drinks with your friends to meetings with the Secretary of State or the President. The inclination to remain silent or to acquiesce in the presence of the great men to live to fight another day, to give on this issue so that you can be effective on later issues is overwhelming. Nor is it the tendency of youth alone; some of our most senior officials, men of wealth and fame, whose place in history is secure, have remained silent lest their connection with power is terminated. As for the disinclination to resign in protest: while not necessarily a Washington or even American specialty, it seems truer of a government in which ministers have no parliamentary backbench to which to retreat. In the absence of such a refuge, it is easy to rationalize the decision to stay aboard. By doing so, one may be able to prevent a few bad things from happening and perhaps even make a few good things happen. To exit is to lose even those marginal chances for effectiveness. Another factor must be noted: as the Vietnam controversy escalated at home, there developed a preoccupation with Vietnam public relations as opposed to Vietnam policy-making. And here, ironically, internal doubters and dissenters were heavily employed. For such men, by virtue of their own doubts, were often deemed best able to massage the doubting intelligentsia. My senior East Asia colleague at the White House, a brilliant and humane doubter who had dealt with Indochina since 1954, spent three quarters o f his working days on Vietnam public relations: drafting presidential responses to letters from important critics, writing conciliatory language for presidential speeches, and meeting quite interminably with delegations of outraged Quakers, clergymen, academics, and housewives. His regular callers were the late A. J. Muste and Norman Thomas; mine were members of the Womens Strike for Peace. Our orders from above: keep them off the backs of busy policy-makers (who usually happened to be no doubters). Incidentally, my most discouraging assignment in the realm of public relations was the preparation of a White House pamphlet entitled Why Vietnam, in September 1965; in a gesture toward my conscience, I fought and lost a battle to have the title followed by a question mark. THROUGH a variety of procedures, both institutional and personal, doubt, dissent, and expertise were effectively neutralized in the making of policy. But what can be said of the men in charge? It is patently absurd to suggest that they produced such tragedy by intention and calculation. But it is neither absurd nor difficult to discern certain forces at work that caused decent and honorable men to do great harm. Here I would stress the paramount role of executive fatigue. No factor seems to be more crucial and underrated in the making of foreign policy. The physical and emotional toll of executive responsibility in State, the Pentagon, the White House, and other executive agencies is enormous; that toll is of course compounded by extended service. Many of todays Vietnam policy-makers have been on the job for from four to seven years. Complaints may be few, and physical health may remain unimpaired, though emotional health is far harder to gauge. But what is most seriously eroded in the deadening process of fatigue is the freshness of thought, imagination, a sense of possibility, a sense of priorities and perspective those rare assets of a new Administration in its first year or two of office. The tired policy-maker becomes a prisoner of his own narrowed view of the world and his own clichà ©d rhetoric. He becomes irritable and defensive short on sleep, short on family ties, short on patience. Such men make bad policy and then compound it. They have neither the time nor the temperament for new ideas or preventive diplomacy. Below the level of the fatigued executives in the making of Vietnam policy was a widespread phenomenon: the curator mentality in the Department of State. By this, I mean the collective inertia produced by the bureaucrats view of his job. At State, the average desk officer inherits from his predecessor our policy toward Country X; he regards it as his function to keep that policy intact under glass, untampered with, and dusted so that he may pass it on in two to four years to his successor. And such curatorial service generally merits promotion within the system. (Maintain the status quo, and you will stay out of trouble.) In some circumstances, the inertia bred by such an outlook can act as a brake against rash innovation. But on many issues, this inertia sustains the momentum of bad policy and unwise commitments momentum that might otherwise have been resisted within the ranks. Clearly, Vietnam is such an issue. To fatigue and inertia must be added the factor of internal confusio n. Even among the architects of our Vietnam commitment, there has been persistent confusion as to what type of war we were fighting and, as a direct consequence, confusion as to how to end that war. (The credibility gap is, in part, a reflection of such internal confusion.) Was it, for instance, a civil war, in which case counterinsurgency might suffice? Or was it a war of international aggression? (This might invoke SEATO or UN commitment. ) Who were the aggressor and the real enemy? The Viet Cong? Hanoi? Peking? Moscow? International Communism? Or maybe Asian Communism? Differing enemies dictated differing strategies and tactics. And confused throughout, in like fashion, was the question of American objectives; your objectives depended on whom you were fighting and why. I shall not forget my assignment from an Assistant Secretary of State in March 1964: to draft a speech for Secretary McNamara which would, inter alia, once and for all dispose of the canard that the Vietnam conflict was a civil war. But in some ways, of course, I mused, it is a civil war. Dont play word games with me! snapped the Assistant Secretary. Similar confusion beset the concept of negotiations anathema to much of official Washington from 1961 to 1965. Not until April 1965, did unconditional discussions become respectable, via a presidential speech; even then the Secretary of State stressed privately to newsmen that nothing had changed, since discussions were by no means the same as negotiations. Months later that issue was resolved. But it took even longer to obtain a fragile internal agreement that negotiations might include the Viet Cong as something other than an appendage to Hanois delegation. Given such confusion as to the who’s and whys of our Vietnam commitment , it is not surprising, as Theodore Draper has written, that policy-makers find it so difficult to agree on how to end the war. Of course, one force a constant in the vortex of commitment was that of wishful thinking. I partook of it myself at many times. I did so especially during Washingtons struggle with Diem in the autumn of 1963 when some of us at State believed that for once, in dealing with a difficult client state, the U.S. government could use the leverage of our economic and military assistance to make good things happen, instead of being led around by the nose by men like Chiang Kai-shek and Syngman Rhee (and, in that particular instance, by Diem). If we could prove that point, I thought, and move into a new day, with or without Diem, and then Vietnam was well worth the effort. Later came the wishful thinking of the air- strike planners in the late autumn of 1964; there were those who actually thought that after six weeks of air strikes, the North Vietnamese would come crawling to us to ask for peace talks. And what, someone asked in one of the meetings of the time, if they dont? The answer was that we would bomb for another four weeks, and that would do the trick. And a few weeks later came one instance of wishful thinking that was symptomatic of good men misled: in January 1965, I encountered one of the very highest figures in the Administration at a dinner, drew him aside, and told him of my worries about the air-strike option. He told me that I really shouldnt worry; it was his conviction that before any such plans could be put into effect, a neutralist government would come to power in Saigon that would politely invite us out. And finally, there was the recurrent wishful thinking that sustained many of us through the trying months of 1965-1966 after the air strikes had begun: that surely, somehow, one way or another, we would be in a conference in six months, and the escalatory spiral would be suspended. The basis of our hope: It simply cant go on. AS A further influence on policy-makers I would cite the factor of bureaucratic detachment. By this I mean what at best might be termed the professional callousness of the surgeon (and indeed, medical lingo the surgical strike for instance seemed to crop up in the euphemisms of the times). In Washington, the semantics of the military muted the reality of war for the civilian policy-makers. In quiet, air-conditioned, thick-carpeted rooms, such terms as systema tic pressure, armed reconnaissance, targets of opportunity, and even body count seemed to breed a sort of games-theory detachment. Most memorable to me was a moment in the late 1964 target planning when the question under discussion was how heavy our bombing should be, and how extensive our strafing, at some midpoint in the projected pattern of systematic pressure. An Assistant Secretary of State resolved the point in the following words: It seems to me that our orchestration should be mainly violins, but with periodic touches of brass. Perhaps the biggest shock of my return to Cambridge, Massachusetts, was the realization that the young men, the flesh and blood I taught and saw on these university streets, were potentially some of the numbers on the charts of those faraway planners. In a curious sense, Cambridge is closer to this war than Washington. There is an unprovable factor that relates to bureaucratic detachment: the ingredient of crypto-racism. I do not mean to imply any conscious contempt for Asian loss of life on the part of Washington officials. But I do mean to imply that bureaucratic detachment may well be compounded by a traditional Western sense that there are so many Asians, after all; that Asians have a fatalism about life and a disregard for its loss; that they are cruel and barbaric to their own people; and that they are very different from us (and all look alike?). And I do mean to imply that the upshot of such subliminal views is a subliminal question whether Asians, and particularly Asian peasants, and most particularly Asian Communists, are real people like you and me. To put the matter another way: would we have pursued quite such policies and quite such military tactics if the Vietnamese were white? It is impossible to write of Vietnam decision-making without writing about language. Throughout the conflict, words have been of paramount importance. I refer here to the impact of rhetorical escalation and to the problem of overselling. In an important sense, Vietnam has become of crucial significance to us because we have said that it is of crucial significance. (The issue obviously relates to the public relations preoccupation described earlier.) The key here is domestic politics: the need to sell the American people, press, and Congress on support for an unpopular and costly war in which the objectives themselves have been in flux. To se ll means to persuade, and to persuade means rhetoric. As the difficulties and costs have mounted, so has the definition of the stakes. This is not to say that rhetorical escalation is an orderly process; executive prose is the product of many writers, and some concepts North Vietnamese infiltration, Americas national honor, Red China as the chief enemy have entered the rhetoric only gradually and even sporadically. But there is an upward spiral nonetheless. And once you have said that the American Experiment itself stands or falls on the Vietnam outcome, you have thereby created a national stake far beyond any earlier stakes. Crucial throughout the process of Vietnam decision-making was a conviction among many policy-makers: that Vietnam posed a fundamental test of Americas national will. Time and again I was told by men reared in the tradition of Henry L. Stimson that all we needed was the will, and we would then prevail. Implicit in such a view, it seemed to me, was a curious assumption that Asians lacked will, or at least that in a contest between Asian and Anglo-Saxon wills, the non-Asians must prevail. A corollary to the persistent belief in a will was a fascination with power and awe in the face of the power America possessed as no nation or civilization ever before. Those who doubted our role in Vietnam were said to shrink from the burdens of power, the obligations of power, the uses of power, the responsibility of power. By implication, such men were soft-headed and effete. Finally, no discussion of the factors and forces at work on Vietnam policymakers can ignore the central fact of human ego investment. Men who have participated in a decision to develop a stake in that decision. As they participate in further, related decisions, their stake increases. It might have been possible to dissuade a man of strong self-confidence at an early stage of the ladder of a decision, but it is infinitely harder at later stages since a change of mind there usually involves an implicit or explicit repudiation of a chain of previous decisions. To put it bluntly: at the heart of the Vietnam calamity is a group of able, dedicated men who have been regularly and repeatedly wrong and whose standing with their contemporaries, and more important, with history, depends, as they see it, on being proven right. These are not men who can be asked to extricate themselves from error. THE various ingredients I have cited in the making of Vietnam policy have created a variety of results, most of them fairly obvious. Here are some that seem to me most central: Throughout the conflict, there has been persistent and repeated miscalculation by virtually all the actors, in high echelons and low, whether dove, hawk, or something else. To cite one simple example among many: in late 1964 and early 1965, some peace-seeking planners at State who strongly opposed the projected bombing of the North urged that, instead, American ground forces be sent to South Vietnam; this would, they said, increase our bargaining leverage against the North our chips and would give us something to negotiate about (the withdrawal of our forces) at an early peace conference. Simultaneously, the air-strike option was urged by many in the military who were dead set against American participation in another land war in Asia; they were joined by other civilian peace-seekers who wanted to bomb Hanoi into early negotiations. By late 1965, we had ended up with the worst of all worlds: ineffective and costly air strikes against the North, spiraling ground forces in the South, and no negotiations in sight. Throughout the conflict as well, there has been a steady give-in to pressures for a military solution and only minimal and sporadic efforts at a diplomatic and political solution. In part, this resulted from the confusion (earlier cited) among the civilians confusion regarding objectives and strategy. And in part, this resulted from the self-enlarging nature of the military investment. Once air strikes and particularly ground forces were introduced, our investment itself had transformed the original stakes. More air power was needed to protect the ground forces, and then more ground forces to protect the ground forces. And needless to say, the military mind develops its own momentum in the absence of clear guidelines from the civilians. Once asked to save South Vietnam, rather than to advise it, the American military could not but press for escalation. In addition, sad to report, assorted military constituencies, once involved in Vietnam, have had a series of cases to prove: for instance, the utility not only of air power (the Air Force) but of supercarrier-based air power (the Navy). Also, Vietnam policy has suffered from one ironic byproduct of Secretary Mc Namaras establishment of civilian control at the Pentagon: in the face of such control, an interservice rivalry has given way to a united front among the military reflected in the new but recurrent phenomenon of JCS unanimity. In conjunction with traditional congressional allies (mostly Southern senators and representatives) such a united front would pose a formidable problem for any President. Throughout the conflict, there have been missed opportunities, large and small, to disengage ourselves from Vietnam on increasingly unpleasant but still acceptable terms. Of the many moments from 1961 onward, I shall cite only one, the last and most important opportunity that was lost: in the summer of 1964 the President instructed his chief advisers to prepare for him as wide a range of Vietnam options as possible for postelection consideration and decision. He explicitly asked that all options be laid out. What happened next was, in effect, Lyndon Johnsons slow-motion Bay of Pigs. For the advisers so effectively converged on one single option juxtaposed against two other, phony options (in effect, blowing up the world, or scuttle-and-run) that the President was confronted with unanimity for bombing the North from all his trusted counselors. Had he been more confident in foreign affairs, had he been deeply informed on Vietnam and Southeast Asia, and had he raised some hard questions that unanimity had submerged, this President could have used the largest electoral mandate in history to de-escalate in Vietnam, in the clear expectation that at the worst a neutralist government would come to power in Saigon and politely invite us out. Today, many lives and dollars later, such an alternative has become an elusive and infinitely more expensive possibility. In the course of these years, another result of Vietnam decision-making has been the abuse and distortion of history. Vietnamese, Southeast Asian, and Far Eastern history has been rewritten by our policy-makers, and their spokesmen, to conform to the alleged necessity of our presence in Vietnam. Highly dubious analogies from our experience elsewhere the Munich sellout and containment from Europe, the Malayan insurgency and the Korean War from Asia have been imported in order to justify our actions. And more recent events have been fitted to the Procrustean bed of Vietnam. Most notably, the change of power in Indonesia in 1965-1966 has been ascribed to our Vietnam presence; and virtually all progress in the Pacific region the rise of regionalism, new forms of cooperation, and mounting growth rates has been similarly explained. The Indonesian allegation is undoubtedly false (I tried to prove it, during six months of careful investigation at the White House, and had to confess failu re); the regional allegation is patently unprovable in either direction (except, of course, for the clear fact that the economies of both Japan and Korea have profited enormously from our Vietnam-related procurement in these countries; but that is a costly and highly dubious form of foreign aid). There is a final result of Vietnam policy I would cite that holds potential danger for the future of American foreign policy: the rise of a new breed of American ideologues who see Vietnam as the ultimate test of their doctrine. I have in mind those men in Washington who have given a new life to the missionary impulse in American foreign relations: who believe that this nation, in this era, has received a threefold endowment that can transform the world. As they see it, that endowment is composed of, first, our unsurpassed military might; second, our clear technological supremacy; and third, our allegedly invincible benevolence (our altruism, our affluence, our lack of territorial aspirations). Together, it is argued, this threefold endowment provides us with the opportunity and the obligation to ease the nations of the earth toward modernization and stability: toward a full-fledged Pax Americana Technocratic. In reaching toward this goal, Vietnam is viewed as the last and crucial test. Once we have succeeded there, the road ahead is clear. In a sense, these men are our counterpart to the visionaries of Communisms radical left: they are technocracys own Maoists. They do not govern Washington today. But their doctrine rides high. Long before I went into government, I was told a story about Henry L. Stimson that seemed to me pertinent during the years that I watched the Vietnam tragedy unfold and participated in that tragedy. It seems to me more pertinent than ever as we move toward the election of 1968. In his waning years Stimson was asked by an anxious questioner, Mr. Secretary, how on earth can we ever bring peace to the world? Stimson is said to have answered: You begin by bringing to Washington a small handful of able men who believe that the achievement of peace is possible. Research Papers on Vietnam EssayMr. Obama and IranInflation TargetingGlobal Distributive Justice is UtopianCombating Human TraffickingBooker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-BarnettAmerican Central Banking and OilHas the British Welfare System beenDefinition of Export QuotasInternational PaperThe Equal Rights Amendment

National Security Affairs of Iraq Research Paper

National Security Affairs of Iraq - Research Paper Example This conflict has greatly divided the national purpose of Iraq. The Iraq’s National Security Affairs can be termed as having a complex framework characterized by burdensome issues associated with untangling and security issues connected to terrorist groups. The country has also been linked to most of the criminal events in the Middle East. Despite the above situation, the Iraq’s political scene is trying its level best to keep afloat through associating with other nations such as the United States. Its internal security is under complete control by its army following the withdrawal of American troops. The government has however admitted that it has along way to go in terms of attaining a stable national security especially in relation to technical issues in its intelligence apparatus. The Iraq’s army is not yet qualified to maintain peace and order in the country as it is still unsuited for such duties. In relation to the international community especially other Arab Spring countries, its foreign policy has not yet been fully established and this has led to fluid situations in such Arab countries preventing Iraq from attaining a stable approach with regards to its foreign policy. Cases like those witnessed in Syria have resulted to a sectarian dimension that has resulted to an acute effect on Iraq following its diverse sectarian composition. Despite the American withdrawal from Iraq, the two countries have maintained a close tie especially when it comes to Iraq’s National Security with America in full support of her security affairs. IDEOLOGY The Ideology of Iraq stems from the radical Islamists who are pursuing a vision that they believed to be universalists with regards to Sharia Law. They came out strongly seeking the interpretation of this law with regards to the war. According to the Sharia Law, the people’s voice had no position in any political system that obey the rules made by God (Ali 2009). This conflicting position left the mood of the public to be variable yet the law was external. The war against liberalism believed to be waged by the al-Qaeda as well as its affiliates represents a political manifestation of the mindset that resisted Westernization and globalization. The al-Qaeda had a number of complains with regards to American culture and the impact it had on the Iraq people. The American culture was looked at as to be resulting in immorality, hypocrisy and polytheism among the Iraq people Iraq had been closely associated with the Activities of Osama Bin Laden and that led to most of the international countries to declare war on Iraq with the USA being on the fore front. The United States under President Bush was against the democracy principles employed in the country at that time as well as all the leaders who were out to enact it. The International community was agitating for democratic elections to be held which would ensure that the existing government as well as the popular soverei gnty was eliminated now that the two had led to deviation and infidelity to the true desirable path (Ali 2009). Consequently the international community was ready to fight any person or force that was after malicious ideology and referred to such forces as infidels.

Theory of Knowledge Essay (Psychology) Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Theory of Knowledge (Psychology) - Essay Example Some studies have been carried out to establish how knowledge is gained, how it can be used, when can knowledge be said to be knowledge indeed, should truth be factored in knowledge etc. These factors considered in the study of knowledge consists a branch of philosophy called Theory of Knowledge (ToK). ToK as Bertrand Russell (1926) puts it is a product of doubt. He further asserts that only when you subject facts, concepts etc into sufficient doubt then you can know whether the facts, concepts etc can be said to be true and thus become knowledge. In other words knowledge is not knowledge if it isn’t true and facts, concepts, principles etc graduate to knowledge once they reach the threshold of truth. Therefore ToK ventures into four ways of knowing i.e. through emotion, language, perception (use of senses) and through reason. It also features the areas of knowledge such as Science, Arts, Mathematics, history etc while investigating how students, the actors of knowledge, gain knowledge. This paper seeks to discuss the fact that an area of knowledge is not necessarily a collection of facts. An area of knowledge, be it science or mathematics, is not a mere collection of facts even though collection of facts constitute an area of knowledge (Lehrer, 2000). Science is dependent on facts that can be ascertained to be true. A number of facts describe science. The philosophy of science entails two parts. The first part is about the process of acquiring scientific knowledge (Scientific in the sense that it can be tested and ascertained scientifically) and the second part is about the purpose, implications and uses of the scientific knowledge acquired. One most important thing to note is the fact that the facts that make up science should have a way to be tested. Therefore, an accumulation of facts alone do not make science but if the facts can be tested scientifically and ascertained, then they qualify to constitute