A Difficult Decision Essay

I chose to write about a difficult decision I had to make years ago. I had to choose between leaving my family in hope of employment, or continue to let tax money support all of us. It was the best decision I have ever made. Starting truly from nothing, to living a normal happy life, and none of this was possible without my wife. She is the true warrior. She stuck by me through this whole thing. She always supported my decisions. It was a very confusing time in my life, but I had to do what was best for my family. In March of 2008, I was married to my wife, Lorene. I was 18 years old and ready to start a family. I was stupid. I made decent money working construction, but never expected to be laid off. My first son was born in October of 2008. So I got the family that I wanted, I just didn’t have a job now. We lived in Yucca Valley, California, where my Mother rented a home to us. She was a recovering alcoholic. She lived in Arizona with her husband at the time. Her name was Lari Lee Packer. I know, boys first name. Doctors told her that if she ever drank alcohol again, she would die. After I told her husband many times not to bring alcohol in the house, he continued. So in January of 2009, my Mother spent a few weeks drinking with her husband, and died. She was 44 years old. Immediately after her death, people were calling, and showing up at my Mother’s house in California. A lot of the people that showed up wanted me to sign papers to take over my Mother’s debt. My older brother had already advised me to refuse. The other party of people that came were there only to inform us that we had 24 hours to get out. My life was falling apart. We didn’t have any family in the area, nor any transportation. I was terrified. We ended up staying at a motel for two weeks, then moved down to the city of San Bernardino, where we lived with Lorene’s sister. Another year went by and we were still on welfare, and poorer than ever. I had nothing but my family, and a hard choice to make. I could stay and hope things would get better, or fly to my brother’s house in North Carolina and seek employment. It felt like such a long shot, but I had to do what was right. I couldn’t continue to feel useless. I made a family, just to be unable to provide for them. So I took the risk and flew to my brother’s house. I walked two miles down the railroad tracks everyday, to go apply for jobs. On the fourth day, I was hired at McDonalds and a gas station. It sounds pathetic, but I no longer had standards since I was unemployed for so long. I would work endless hours, only to come home, collapse on my brother’s couch for four hours, get up and do it again. I continued this schedule for three weeks before deciding to leave McDonalds. By the time I received my last check from McDonalds, I had saved enough money, and flew my family to North Carolina. In conclusion, it was a difficult decision to leave my family and venture into the unknown, but it was the best decision I have ever made. I think people need to remind themselves from time to time, â€Å"what is best for the family†? I now work as a hotel desk clerk, and I have a lot of free time. After discovering how much free time was available, I had to further pursue my education. So here I am, and that’s what’s best for my family. A Difficult Decision Essay In Richard Wilbur’s poem â€Å"A Barred Owl† and the poem â€Å"The History Teacher† by Billy Collins, both describe adults attempt to protect children from fears that are known and unknown to them, sugar-coating real life events that could harm the children’s innocence. An elementary school teacher in â€Å"The History Teacher† tries to shelter his students from what he thinks would affect the children’s view on the world while parents in â€Å"A Barred Owl† assure their â€Å"wakened child† that the â€Å"boom of an owl’s voice† are simple questions from a curious â€Å"forest bird†. Both writers convey that grown-ups who try to preserve the innocence of children only delay the inevitable. Richard Wilbur depicts a common situation of a frightened child in the dark of the night seeking guidance from mom and dad. The writer distinguishes the mood and setting with lines such as, â€Å"The warping night air,† or, â€Å"darkened room. † Wilbur uses these lines to help the reader understand the mood of the poem by using certain diction to portray the fear that is present within this child’s bedroom. See more: The stages of consumer buying decision process essay The meaning of each line is enhanced due to the author writing in an AABB rhyming pattern; emphasizing the significance of each rhyme such as the lines, â€Å"The warping night air having brought the boom of an owl’s voice into her darkened room† or, â€Å"Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear, can also thus domesticate a fear† and even, â€Å"Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw. By Richard Wilbur displaying a simple situation of a scared child, he displays the actions parents take in order to ease and comfort a child to not only preserve their innocence but to also take away any fear a child has while dealing with this type of situation and many others. In the poem, â€Å"A History Teacher† by Billy Collins, the writer illustrates a casual classroom full of ignorant children being educated by their teacher. Little did these children know that their history teacher is presenting altered historical events in order to protect their innocence. By using the lines, â€Å"the Ice Age was really just the Chilly Age,† or, â€Å"the Stone Age became the Gravel Age,† Collins demonstrates the teachers attempt to shield the students from the outside world. The author speaks in third person to create an image in which the audience can fully understand rather than reading from first person. By the author choosing third person rather than first person, the audience will not read from a perspective from a character within the story, therefore receiving a reliable perspective and not â€Å"one side of the story†. Writer Billy Collins helps the reader further understand how the teachers attempt to shelter his students from the cruel Darwinism of the world did nothing but harm their education. The lines, â€Å"The children †¦ torment the weak and the smart,† and, â€Å"he gathered his notes †¦ wondering if they would believe†¦Ã¢â‚¬  displays the reality of the teacher being the ignorant character other than the students by harming their education in order to protect them from the inevitable. With Richard Wilbur using the lines â€Å"And send a small child back to sleep at night† to the lines â€Å"Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw† in â€Å"A Barred Owl† the writer allows the audience to understand the child’s contentment as she goes to sleep as an innocent child. The audience also understands that with the child being sent to bed with a white lie, she remains ignorant from the Darwinism of the world. Although, in Billy Collins’ â€Å"The History Teacher† the students continue to act in Darwinism as they carry on to â€Å"torment the weak and the smart†¦ breaking their glasses,† and both the teacher and children go home from learning and feeling nothing when the child and parents in â€Å"A Barred Owl† go to sleep with peace and understanding that fear is no where to be found. The History Teacher† is told in third person point of view for the audience to conceive both sides of the result the teacher has caused by his choice of guidance. â€Å"A Barred Owl† is written in first person point of view to display the parents decision on soothing a frightened child; both poems present both sides of the outcomes the adults cause. Richard Wilbur and Billy Collins expose adults’ attempt to prevent children from losing their innocence although the writers also display an example of adults doing anything possible, striving to prohibit what is destined. Parents should ease children into the real world rather than be afraid of their children entering corruption. â€Å"A Barred Owl† and â€Å"The History Teacher† opens adults’ eyes to where adults realize when and where a child should enter the real world. Adults should guide children through troubling times and not alter their view of the world so much it can become destructive.

Cultural Differences

Cultural Differences COM/360 November 12, 2012 The movie Crash (2004) is about a handful of disparate people’s lives intertwined as they deal with the tense race relations that belie life in the city of Los Angelos over a thirty-six hour period.All the players involved in the movie are: a Caucasian district attorney, his Caucasian wife who believes her stereotypical views are justified, therefore they’re not racist; two black carjackers that use their race to their advantage; two Caucasian police officers, one who is racist and abuses his authority to non-whites, and the other who hates his partner for his racist views; a black film director and his black wife, who feels her husband does not support their own culture enough especially with the wife being violated by the racist cop; the two detectives and sometimes lovers, one Hispanic female and a black male; an East Asian man who gets hit by a car, but is hiding valuable cargo in his van; a Persian store owner who feel s he is not getting enough satisfaction or respect from American society when his store is continuously robbed; and a Hispanic locksmith who is just trying to keep his family safe out of harm’s way (Imbd, 2012). Each person’s story interlocks in some way as they all crash into one another through a series of racist endeavors and stereotypical judgments. Hall argues that every human being is faced with so many perceptual stimuli—sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and bodily sensations—that it is impossible to pay attention to them all.Therefore, one of the functions of culture is to provide a screen between the person and all of those stimuli to indicate what perceptions to notice and how to interpret them (Lustig & Koester, pg. 109, 2012). Hall splits cultures into high/low context and describes how high context cultures use high-context messages where the meaning is implied by physical setting or presumed to be part of the individual’s beliefs, value s, norms, and social practices; very little is in the coded message. These cultures include; Japanese, African American, Mexican, and Latino. The low-context cultures prefer to use low-context messages, where the majority of the information is vested in the explicit code. These cultures include German, Swedish, European American, and English (Lustig & Koester, pg. 109, 2012).An example of high-context communication; is when the two black carjackers interpret the same meaning and gestures in all their actions. Their actions do not need to be discussed explicitly because they both act the same and carry the shared understanding based on their relationship. An example of the low-context communication is when the Hispanic locksmith goes into the Caucasian attorney’s house to fix the locks and deals with the wife. She harasses him on how she needs every statement to be precise and all his actions to be accounted for. She is looking for his every move to be overt and very explicit because she immediately judges his performance and morale on his race.Hofstede’s five dimensions were identified in his early research when he came to find which dominant patterns of a culture can be ordered, these are; power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, and long- term versus short-term orientation to time. His findings have provided an excellent synthesis of the relationships between cultural values and social behaviors, which are identifiable throughout this movie. Power distance is one dimension believed to be most present throughout the movie Crash. One basic concern to all cultures is the issue of human inequality and knowing that all people in a culture do not have equal levels of status or social power. A persons power and social status depends more upon their culture and things such as; wealth, age, gender, education, physical strength, etc.As Hofstede’s research expresses; â€Å"cultures al so differ in the extent to which they view such status inequalities as good or bad, right or wrong, just of unjust, and fair or unfair. That is, all cultures have particular value orientations about the appropriateness or importance of status differences and social hierarchies† (Lustig & Koester, pg. 114, 2012). Power distance is extremely visible in this movie as far as each race having their individual degree of institutional and organizational power, and how to distribute it. For example, when the two Caucasian cops pull the black film maker and his wife over after leaving a work party and are blatantly playing the authority card based on their race and job description.The one racist white cop violates the black woman right in front of her husband for no apparent reason, while the husband is made to feel that if he makes one move he will be punished for his actions. Another example is when the Persian store owner walks into the Caucasian male’s gun store and wants to buy a gun. He has his daughter with him to help translate and pick the right weapon. As they are exchanges words in their language, the white man insults him by referring to him as â€Å"Osama† and tells him to leave his store immediately. The Persian man yells that he is an American citizen and has every right to purchase a gun, the white man replies with, â€Å"not in my store you don’t, now get the fuck out. That of uncertainty avoidance is also seen within the movie from the more foreign cultures that feel they may be presented â€Å"under† the more dominant white race. For example, when the Hispanic locksmith is in the Caucasian attorney’s home changing the locks on the doors, the wife flips out on her husband about how the locksmith is going to go sell their house keys to his â€Å"amigos† and she wants them changed again. She storms off to the kitchen where she looks up to see the locksmith starring at her with a look of shame. He walks to her counter, drops the spare sets down and expects nothing from her, feels no room to express his feelings to her assumptions.Because of his race he is immediately seen by the dominant race as being untrustworthy and sneaky. â€Å"Cultural Identity refers to one’s sense of belonging to a particular culture or ethnic group. It is formed in a process that results from membership in a particular culture, and it involves learning about and accepting the traditions, heritage, language, religion, ancestry, aesthetics, thinking patterns, and social structures of a culture (Lustig & Koester, pg. 142-43, 2012). The formation of one’s cultural identity is known to form from three different stages known as; unexamined cultural identity, cultural identity search, and cultural identity achievement.The first stage is one’s cultural characteristics being taken for granted and not much interest in exploring cultural issues. The second stage is that of wanting to explore and q uestion one’s culture in order to learn of the strengths and learn acceptance of both themselves and their culture. Last stage, is known as being the clear and confident stage of acceptance to one’s culture and self-identity. In this stage, a person has learned to develop ways of dealing with stereotypes and discrimination as well as being clear about the personal meanings of their culture. Throughout this film, it is justifiable through all the characters actions and perceived self-identity that all three stages are experienced by everyone.A good example is the two black carjackers, in the beginning they questionable as to why their appearance caused them to wait over an hour to eat at a restaurant†¦they were paying customers like everyone else. The two men began to question their race and cultural backgrounds with one another, where they found it justifiable to carjack a white couples’ vehicle (being the attorney and his wife) when spotted in the streets. Towards the end, it became clear to the one black male that he can accept what cultural identity may be fixated on him, but he does not need to follow a society’s outlook, he can learn to deal with stereotypes and discrimination.At this point of his realization, he took the stolen van he had planned to sell, filled with Chinese/Japanese people, and let them go free with $40 of his own money for them to eat. Cultural similarity and fluency allows different cultures to reduce that cultural bias aspect that many of us suffer from when interacting with people of a different race or culture. It has been pointed out that culture really does exist in the minds of people, but that the consequences of culture—the sared interpretations—can be seen in people’s communication behaviors. These provide people with guidelines on how they should behave, and indicate what to expect when interacting with others (Lustig & Koester, pg. 148, 2012).This film indicates how each culture is so self- involved with their own beliefs and cultural patterns that they all seem as if they are unfamiliar with different cultures surrounding them. This is not the truth though. Each race and culture is assumed by those who are different because it’s the unknown, those who act similar to one another share interpretations that reduced uncertainty; create predictability, and also stability in their lives. Although, there are several different scenarios in the movie where interracial mixes are seen working together such as; the black and Latino police detectives, the Caucasian attorney working with the police (white and black) about their car being stolen.Although, these type of interactions are solely based on the individual’s interpretation of the unknown culture. â€Å"Interaction only within one’s culture produces a number of obvious benefits. Because the culture provides predictability, it reduces the threat of the unknown. When something or som eone that is unknown or unpredictable enters a culture, the culture’s beliefs, values, norms, and social practices tell people how to interpret and respond appropriately, thus reducing the perceived threat of the intrusion† (Lustig & Koester, pg. 148, 2012). â€Å"Your beliefs become your thoughts, thoughts become your words, words become your actions, actions become your habits, habits become your values, values become your destiny. † (Mahatma Gandhi).A good example of trusting those with similar cultural patterns is the white cop and his father; The frustrated and racist cop with a chronically ill father who believed, that only a â€Å"white† supervisor or person was competent enough to help him with his ill father’s medical needs (Wolfe, 2010). Another cultural pattern in the film is seen by the two black carjackers, â€Å"systematic and repetitive instead of random and irregular. † The two young men and their discussion of why they should be scared being the only black people in an all-white restaurant, even though they were not, instead others being scared of them because of the color of their skin.This in turn led them both to steal the car because it was expected of their race to steal. Nonverbal communication can send messages to the receiver just as loud and clear as any verbal communication message. There are many different instances of both these concepts being utilized in the film making each culture really â€Å"pop out† in their identity. Nonverbal messages can work to either complement or contradict the intended verbal message. They also help maintain the back-and-fourth sequencing of conversations, which function to regulate the interaction. Nonverbal messages can also work to substitute for the verbal channel by replacing verbal words. In intercultural communication, difficulties in achieving competence in another verbal code are compounded by variations in the nonverbal codes that accompany the spoken word† (Lustig & Koester, pg. 200, 2012). An example of nonverbal and verbal message in the film is a message of action that expresses emotion as well as specific information; How the racist white cop unprofessionally conducted himself after pulling the black Buddhist film maker and his wife over for a traffic violation. He physically man-handled and shamefully performed his search on the wife up against the vehicle. He aggressively communicated that he was in charge and he can do what he wants (Wolfe, 2010).Another example of nonverbal and verbal communication is toward the end of the movie where the young white cop picks up the young black boy hitchhiking and they begin to discuss where the black guy has been, seeing how he was covered in dirt and visible blood spots. The white off duty cop continuously looks him over for evidence, when the boy starts laughing out loud about the statue that was sitting on the cops dashboard. The cop kept asking what was wrong and as th e boy went to reach inside his pocket, the cop grew nervous, grabbed for his gun, and shot the boy. Only to realize that the boy was carrying the same statue that was sitting on the cops dashboard (Wolfe, 2010).The film Crash, is a remarkable, must see film with bravery and honesty in showing fear, prejudice and the dismembered society that people live in. It truly expresses the characters in a way that they are able to see the ugliness inside them as well as others who work to redeem themselves after realizing their cultural beliefs and ways. This movie is socially important in teaching its viewers the meaning and emotions behind the lives people realistically walk through on a daily basis. It teaches the importance of understanding cultural identity and working through cultural bias. Far too often, people are quick to make judgments simply based on someone’s physical appearance.It is imperative that people learn to accept their cultural identity but be mindful and respectfu l of those who are different around them. Initial perspectives, such as those presented by Hall, can be deadly towards others and lead to Hofstede’s dimensions that can destroy a relationship in many ways. References: Imbd. (2012). Crash. http://www. imdb. com/title/tt0375679/plotsummary Lustig, M. and Koester, J. (2010). Intercultural competence: Interpersonal communication across cultures (6th ed. ). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon Wolfe, J. (2010). Cramberry. Intercultural communication Indentifies in Movie- â€Å"Crash. † https://cramberry. net/sets/28641-intercultural-communication-indentifies-in-movie-crash-by-j-wolfe Cultural Differences Every country has contributed in shaping the profound history of the world. However, there are notable countries that greatly impacted societies today. Among many nations in the world, two countries have a rich cultural background: United States of America and Egypt. Although both countries differ in various aspects, the legacy of both nations in present society cannot be overlooked. As such, the differences and similarities of the said countries are needed to be examined in detail in order to further understand their impact in world societies.United States of America is a federal republic region situated in the North American continent, consisting of 50 states. USA is considered as the third largest and most populous country in the world with an estimated population of 303,824,650. Each of the 50 states of USA is further divided into counties. One of the key features of America’s culture is diversity. Right before the Europeans and the Africans arrived, United States is alrea dy a diverse culture, inhabited by Native American people, who are able to speak 300 different languages.The Europeans and Africans later added their own varying culture to America’s diversity (Boehm, 2008). Meanwhile, Egypt is an Arab Republic country, located in the north-eastern part of Africa and the south-western part of Asia. Unlike the USA which is made up of several states, the terrain of Egypt is made of dessert which is divided by the Nile River into two unequal parts, the valley and delta which are the main areas of habitation (Johnson, 2008). Similar to USA, Egypt is also a populous country.It is noted to be the most populous among the Arab regions (Tristam, 2008). In terms of economic perspective USA is known to have a capitalist economy which means that the economic system of the country is controlled by several small groups of people. America’s economy benefits a lot in its advanced technology (â€Å"How the US Economy Works,† 2008). Contrary to A merica’s economy, the Egyptian economy is run and owned by the state, and the country’s government plays a significant role in economic planning.However, just like the USA, Egypt’s economy is now moving toward a decentralized and market oriented economy, giving further emphasis on foreign investment (â€Å"Egypt: Economy,† 2008). This is also due in part with the country’s adoption of advanced technology. The economic prosperity of both nations is reliant on natural resources. Likewise, both countries are consistently acquiring substantial gains through labor productivity. However, it has been noted that America is currently experiencing reductions in the worldwide value and status of dollars (CIA, 2008).Conversely, Egypt’s economy is stable and growing. Yet, despite the economic improvements, the country remained in the poor index due to the economy’s inability to sustain energy, housing and food to its people (Tristam, 2008). Anothe r point of discussion is centered on the religion of each country. The prominent culture in Egypt in terms of religious perspective is Islam, while majority of the American populace adheres to Christianity which is made up various components. Islam and Christianity trace its roots to the prophet Abraham.Currently, together with Judaism, Christianity and Islam are three of the greatest monotheistic religion practiced in the world (Ahmad, 2008). The constitution of Egypt stipulates religious freedom, but in practice the liberty to choose religion is severely limited. This is because the legal system in Egypt follows the law of Islam which is known as Sharia. Hence, despite the claim for religious freedom, religious intolerance, and discrimination against other religious groups is still present in Egypt.The law recognizes an individual’s conversion to Islam, but the law does not tolerate Islam members to convert in other religions (Tristam, 2008). On the other hand, the legal sy stem and religion in America are different set of entities. USA has a tradition of religious tolerance and each individual has the total freedom to choose their religions. The freedom to exercise the choice of religion is incorporated in the US constitution’s first amendment. Christianity is the widely practiced religion in the United States. However, there is other religious influence permeating in the United States.Still, it is claimed that despite the differences Americans remained religious (â€Å"Religion,† 2008). Islam is ruled by the notion of conservativeness and honor. Such notion strictly applies among all the Egyptians but especially for the women. Egyptian women are expected to behave and dress modestly. Thus, women who reveal themselves by dressing inappropriately, having a loud voice and sensual behavior within the public eye is regarded as a dishonor to their hosts and kin, and is therefore considered as an insult to their families (â€Å"Egyptian View point,† 2000).Because religion and state functions are separate in the US, American’s especially the women are enjoying their freedom in terms of personal choice of clothing, although there are also Christian groups in America that require appropriate dressing during church services. Despite of the traditional belief in the value of marriage, American society practice and fully recognizes divorce. Islam, on the other hand, although discourages such action, does permit and grant divorce upon the initiation of either the husband or wife (Ahmad, 2008).Human rights record is also a distinct characteristic between the two countries. Egypt’s human rights records are poor and showed little improvements in the past years. Egyptian prisons are known for notorious tortures and arbitrary detentions. Torture is not only inflicted among political dissents, but also among ordinary people who were detained due to petty crimes (Human Rights Watch, 2005). Likewise, women and stre et children are also violated and non-governmental and political organizations are under the unwarranted control of the government.In addition, the creation of associations is heavily guarded and engagement in political unions is subject to penalties (Human Rights Watch, 2005). United States has long recognized itself as an effective advocate of human rights worldwide and a country that puts into action what it preaches. However, such picture has never been perfect, and America’s reputation is undermined by the long standing presence of institutionalized discrimination and the reported coercive interrogation and maltreatment of the detainees in Afghanistan (Human Rights Watch, 2005).Apparently, Egypt and the United States share little resemblance and myriads of differences. Each country presented cultural backgrounds that are at some point enticing and at times were not. However, whatever similarities and differences that each country has, it is with no doubt that each has ma naged to influence different nations with their rich cultural background. References Ahmad, S. (2008). Islam in a nutshell. Tour Egypt. Retrieved November 14, 2008 from http://www. touregypt. net/featurestories/islam. htm. Boehm, R. (2008). United States Geography. Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia.Retrieved November 14, 2008 from http://encarta. msn. com/text_1741500822___0/United_States_Geography. html Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). (2008). United States. Retrieved November 14, 2008 from https://www. cia. gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us. html. Egypt: Economy. (2008). Infoplease. Retrieved November 14, 2008 from http://www. infoplease. com/ce6/world/A0857909. html Egyptian view-point. (2000, June 01). Tour Egypt. Retrieved November 14, 2008 from http://www. touregypt. net/magazine/mag06012000/mag6. htm. How the U. S. economy works. (2008). US Info.Retrieved November 14, 2008 from http://usinfo. state. gov/products/pubs/oecon/chap2. htm. Human Rights Watc h. World Report. New York: Human rights watch, 2005. Johnson, D. (2008). Egypt. Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 14, 2008 from http://encarta. msn. com/encyclopedia_761557408/Egypt. html. Religion. (2008). Just Landed. Retrieved November 14, 2008 from http://www. justlanded. com/english/USA/Tools/Articles/Culture/Religion. Tristam, P. (2008). Egypt: Country profile. About. com. Retrieved November 14, 2008 from http://middleeast. about. com/od/egypt/p/me080116. htm. Cultural Differences Cultural Differences COM/360 November 12, 2012 The movie Crash (2004) is about a handful of disparate people’s lives intertwined as they deal with the tense race relations that belie life in the city of Los Angelos over a thirty-six hour period.All the players involved in the movie are: a Caucasian district attorney, his Caucasian wife who believes her stereotypical views are justified, therefore they’re not racist; two black carjackers that use their race to their advantage; two Caucasian police officers, one who is racist and abuses his authority to non-whites, and the other who hates his partner for his racist views; a black film director and his black wife, who feels her husband does not support their own culture enough especially with the wife being violated by the racist cop; the two detectives and sometimes lovers, one Hispanic female and a black male; an East Asian man who gets hit by a car, but is hiding valuable cargo in his van; a Persian store owner who feel s he is not getting enough satisfaction or respect from American society when his store is continuously robbed; and a Hispanic locksmith who is just trying to keep his family safe out of harm’s way (Imbd, 2012). Each person’s story interlocks in some way as they all crash into one another through a series of racist endeavors and stereotypical judgments. Hall argues that every human being is faced with so many perceptual stimuli—sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and bodily sensations—that it is impossible to pay attention to them all.Therefore, one of the functions of culture is to provide a screen between the person and all of those stimuli to indicate what perceptions to notice and how to interpret them (Lustig & Koester, pg. 109, 2012). Hall splits cultures into high/low context and describes how high context cultures use high-context messages where the meaning is implied by physical setting or presumed to be part of the individual’s beliefs, value s, norms, and social practices; very little is in the coded message. These cultures include; Japanese, African American, Mexican, and Latino. The low-context cultures prefer to use low-context messages, where the majority of the information is vested in the explicit code. These cultures include German, Swedish, European American, and English (Lustig & Koester, pg. 109, 2012).An example of high-context communication; is when the two black carjackers interpret the same meaning and gestures in all their actions. Their actions do not need to be discussed explicitly because they both act the same and carry the shared understanding based on their relationship. An example of the low-context communication is when the Hispanic locksmith goes into the Caucasian attorney’s house to fix the locks and deals with the wife. She harasses him on how she needs every statement to be precise and all his actions to be accounted for. She is looking for his every move to be overt and very explicit because she immediately judges his performance and morale on his race.Hofstede’s five dimensions were identified in his early research when he came to find which dominant patterns of a culture can be ordered, these are; power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, and long- term versus short-term orientation to time. His findings have provided an excellent synthesis of the relationships between cultural values and social behaviors, which are identifiable throughout this movie. Power distance is one dimension believed to be most present throughout the movie Crash. One basic concern to all cultures is the issue of human inequality and knowing that all people in a culture do not have equal levels of status or social power. A persons power and social status depends more upon their culture and things such as; wealth, age, gender, education, physical strength, etc.As Hofstede’s research expresses; â€Å"cultures al so differ in the extent to which they view such status inequalities as good or bad, right or wrong, just of unjust, and fair or unfair. That is, all cultures have particular value orientations about the appropriateness or importance of status differences and social hierarchies† (Lustig & Koester, pg. 114, 2012). Power distance is extremely visible in this movie as far as each race having their individual degree of institutional and organizational power, and how to distribute it. For example, when the two Caucasian cops pull the black film maker and his wife over after leaving a work party and are blatantly playing the authority card based on their race and job description.The one racist white cop violates the black woman right in front of her husband for no apparent reason, while the husband is made to feel that if he makes one move he will be punished for his actions. Another example is when the Persian store owner walks into the Caucasian male’s gun store and wants to buy a gun. He has his daughter with him to help translate and pick the right weapon. As they are exchanges words in their language, the white man insults him by referring to him as â€Å"Osama† and tells him to leave his store immediately. The Persian man yells that he is an American citizen and has every right to purchase a gun, the white man replies with, â€Å"not in my store you don’t, now get the fuck out. That of uncertainty avoidance is also seen within the movie from the more foreign cultures that feel they may be presented â€Å"under† the more dominant white race. For example, when the Hispanic locksmith is in the Caucasian attorney’s home changing the locks on the doors, the wife flips out on her husband about how the locksmith is going to go sell their house keys to his â€Å"amigos† and she wants them changed again. She storms off to the kitchen where she looks up to see the locksmith starring at her with a look of shame. He walks to her counter, drops the spare sets down and expects nothing from her, feels no room to express his feelings to her assumptions.Because of his race he is immediately seen by the dominant race as being untrustworthy and sneaky. â€Å"Cultural Identity refers to one’s sense of belonging to a particular culture or ethnic group. It is formed in a process that results from membership in a particular culture, and it involves learning about and accepting the traditions, heritage, language, religion, ancestry, aesthetics, thinking patterns, and social structures of a culture (Lustig & Koester, pg. 142-43, 2012). The formation of one’s cultural identity is known to form from three different stages known as; unexamined cultural identity, cultural identity search, and cultural identity achievement.The first stage is one’s cultural characteristics being taken for granted and not much interest in exploring cultural issues. The second stage is that of wanting to explore and q uestion one’s culture in order to learn of the strengths and learn acceptance of both themselves and their culture. Last stage, is known as being the clear and confident stage of acceptance to one’s culture and self-identity. In this stage, a person has learned to develop ways of dealing with stereotypes and discrimination as well as being clear about the personal meanings of their culture. Throughout this film, it is justifiable through all the characters actions and perceived self-identity that all three stages are experienced by everyone.A good example is the two black carjackers, in the beginning they questionable as to why their appearance caused them to wait over an hour to eat at a restaurant†¦they were paying customers like everyone else. The two men began to question their race and cultural backgrounds with one another, where they found it justifiable to carjack a white couples’ vehicle (being the attorney and his wife) when spotted in the streets. Towards the end, it became clear to the one black male that he can accept what cultural identity may be fixated on him, but he does not need to follow a society’s outlook, he can learn to deal with stereotypes and discrimination.At this point of his realization, he took the stolen van he had planned to sell, filled with Chinese/Japanese people, and let them go free with $40 of his own money for them to eat. Cultural similarity and fluency allows different cultures to reduce that cultural bias aspect that many of us suffer from when interacting with people of a different race or culture. It has been pointed out that culture really does exist in the minds of people, but that the consequences of culture—the sared interpretations—can be seen in people’s communication behaviors. These provide people with guidelines on how they should behave, and indicate what to expect when interacting with others (Lustig & Koester, pg. 148, 2012).This film indicates how each culture is so self- involved with their own beliefs and cultural patterns that they all seem as if they are unfamiliar with different cultures surrounding them. This is not the truth though. Each race and culture is assumed by those who are different because it’s the unknown, those who act similar to one another share interpretations that reduced uncertainty; create predictability, and also stability in their lives. Although, there are several different scenarios in the movie where interracial mixes are seen working together such as; the black and Latino police detectives, the Caucasian attorney working with the police (white and black) about their car being stolen.Although, these type of interactions are solely based on the individual’s interpretation of the unknown culture. â€Å"Interaction only within one’s culture produces a number of obvious benefits. Because the culture provides predictability, it reduces the threat of the unknown. When something or som eone that is unknown or unpredictable enters a culture, the culture’s beliefs, values, norms, and social practices tell people how to interpret and respond appropriately, thus reducing the perceived threat of the intrusion† (Lustig & Koester, pg. 148, 2012). â€Å"Your beliefs become your thoughts, thoughts become your words, words become your actions, actions become your habits, habits become your values, values become your destiny. † (Mahatma Gandhi).A good example of trusting those with similar cultural patterns is the white cop and his father; The frustrated and racist cop with a chronically ill father who believed, that only a â€Å"white† supervisor or person was competent enough to help him with his ill father’s medical needs (Wolfe, 2010). Another cultural pattern in the film is seen by the two black carjackers, â€Å"systematic and repetitive instead of random and irregular. † The two young men and their discussion of why they should be scared being the only black people in an all-white restaurant, even though they were not, instead others being scared of them because of the color of their skin.This in turn led them both to steal the car because it was expected of their race to steal. Nonverbal communication can send messages to the receiver just as loud and clear as any verbal communication message. There are many different instances of both these concepts being utilized in the film making each culture really â€Å"pop out† in their identity. Nonverbal messages can work to either complement or contradict the intended verbal message. They also help maintain the back-and-fourth sequencing of conversations, which function to regulate the interaction. Nonverbal messages can also work to substitute for the verbal channel by replacing verbal words. In intercultural communication, difficulties in achieving competence in another verbal code are compounded by variations in the nonverbal codes that accompany the spoken word† (Lustig & Koester, pg. 200, 2012). An example of nonverbal and verbal message in the film is a message of action that expresses emotion as well as specific information; How the racist white cop unprofessionally conducted himself after pulling the black Buddhist film maker and his wife over for a traffic violation. He physically man-handled and shamefully performed his search on the wife up against the vehicle. He aggressively communicated that he was in charge and he can do what he wants (Wolfe, 2010).Another example of nonverbal and verbal communication is toward the end of the movie where the young white cop picks up the young black boy hitchhiking and they begin to discuss where the black guy has been, seeing how he was covered in dirt and visible blood spots. The white off duty cop continuously looks him over for evidence, when the boy starts laughing out loud about the statue that was sitting on the cops dashboard. The cop kept asking what was wrong and as th e boy went to reach inside his pocket, the cop grew nervous, grabbed for his gun, and shot the boy. Only to realize that the boy was carrying the same statue that was sitting on the cops dashboard (Wolfe, 2010).The film Crash, is a remarkable, must see film with bravery and honesty in showing fear, prejudice and the dismembered society that people live in. It truly expresses the characters in a way that they are able to see the ugliness inside them as well as others who work to redeem themselves after realizing their cultural beliefs and ways. This movie is socially important in teaching its viewers the meaning and emotions behind the lives people realistically walk through on a daily basis. It teaches the importance of understanding cultural identity and working through cultural bias. Far too often, people are quick to make judgments simply based on someone’s physical appearance.It is imperative that people learn to accept their cultural identity but be mindful and respectfu l of those who are different around them. Initial perspectives, such as those presented by Hall, can be deadly towards others and lead to Hofstede’s dimensions that can destroy a relationship in many ways. References: Imbd. (2012). Crash. http://www. imdb. com/title/tt0375679/plotsummary Lustig, M. and Koester, J. (2010). Intercultural competence: Interpersonal communication across cultures (6th ed. ). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon Wolfe, J. (2010). Cramberry. Intercultural communication Indentifies in Movie- â€Å"Crash. † https://cramberry. net/sets/28641-intercultural-communication-indentifies-in-movie-crash-by-j-wolfe

Porfessional future Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Porfessional future - Essay Example Brand management has always been important but I sincerely believe that globalisation has both expanded and intensified its importance. While my professional ambitions are centered on brand management, the truth is that wanting a particular career does not mean that one will be successful at that career. Professional success is only partially dependant upon interest and ambitions in and within a particular field and more so on understanding one's abilities, potentials, strengths, weaknesses and limitation and, importantly, selecting a career/profession which is correlated to the aforementioned. In other words, my later professional success is somewhat dependant upon my selecting a career in which my weaknesses and limitations will not function as an obstacle to success and where my strengths will be highlighted and my potential realized. Doing so is ultimately dependant on engagement in deep self-reflection, aiming towards the generation of a greater and more expanded self-awareness. This is precisely what this exercise aims to achieve by responding to a series of five questions, all of which contribute to the realization of the aforementioned. The first question I need to respond to is "where have I been" This question requires that I look back on my past to understand who I am and where I came from, thereby arriving at an understanding of the source of my current abilities, values, interests and beliefs. Starting from the beginning, I was brought up in Paraguay and Korea and, accordingly, am multilingual. While I am now studying marketing communications, I had completed two years of university in Paraguay where I studied English literature. As I reflect upon the stated, I find that they contain part of the answers to the questions earlier posed. Starting with the notion of values and beliefs, I find that while I have very strong beliefs and firm values, I always limit judgments to myself. I do not believe that I, or anyone else for that matter, has the right to judge another person or censure him/her for their beliefs or values. My reasoning is quite straightforward and simple. In brief, each person is a product of his/h er environment and the decisions he/she makes or the actions he/she takes are ultimately dependant on their environment and the circumstances which determined the decision or action in question. Therefore, from my perspective, rather than pass judgment, it is imperative that we make the effort to understand the rationale behind the decision which was made or the action that was taken. Upon critical reflection, I find that the aforementioned attitude is an outcome of my multicultural upbringing and my study of literature. Through exposure to different cultures, I learnt that values and beliefs were ultimately a product of culture and to pass judgment on them is to judge a culture, something which very few people, if any, are equipped to do. Added to that, through exposure to the thought processes and experiences of numerous characters through my reading of English literature, I learnt that the reasons why people undertook certain actions or made decisions were complicated and complex . The implication here is that rather than pass judgment, we need to understand where the other person is coming from and try to meet him/her on their terms in order to

Guidlines for communication in simulated business of a food truck Research Paper

Guidlines for communication in simulated business of a food truck - Research Paper Example In order to achieve success with an average pace of sales, it is significant that tricky or overly set-out statements are not used while communicating (Ober, 2007). Secondly, there needs to be a clear adjuration between the verbal and non-verbal communication. For instance, if the jargon is being used in a simple manner then the non-verbal elements such as logo and symbol must also be created with a simplistic approach (Ober, 2007). Since food truck business is one of the widely used model for food business, it is estimated that majority of them are remembered by the white noise. In simpler words, it can be well stated that the customers of the food trucks remember specific brands by their slogans and themes. Therefore, it is imperative to create a slogan or a tune that allows the customers to get attracted. Business theorists consider it as a way to allow customers to memorize your brand

Workplace Training Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Workplace Training - Essay Example The ever-changing and dynamic business environment demands that there be effective work place training. Training is a critical prerequisite for occupational competence and excellence at the business environment. Conduct of the training requires input from relevant professionals and or senior members of the business who may work as trainers. It involves providing technical and practical inputs necessary for staffs and other stakeholders to a business. Planned and executed by and for different actors, business or workplace training takes different dimensions and perspectives. However, whatever dimension adapted to deliver the required inputs, training has a sole objective must be ultimately achieved. In an attempt to implement the training process, businesses face multi-dimensional constraints or threats, opportunities, weaknesses and strength associated with the intervention. In essence, workplace training in a business environment is vulnerable to both negative and positive constrain ts with different dimensions. In the contemporary business sphere, training is a necessary input that any business must adhere to maintain business and marketing competence. Rationale for Training Work place training has varied significance to any business. Training enables business stakeholders to acquire relevant skills and competence necessary for engaging in business in a dynamic environment. The global business sphere continues to exhibit complexities and uncertainties thanks to stiff competition made worse by frequent recessions.

Understanding the Leadership Basics Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 20

Understanding the Leadership Basics - Case Study Example This is a case study which focuses on integrity as one of the basic ingredients that should be understood as far as becoming a leader and practising responsible leadership is concerned. One of the essential characteristics that define a leader with integrity is the clear self-knowledge. A leader of integrity usually has a clear and definite self-knowledge in terms of strengths, weaknesses, abilities, self-insight, and even capabilities. A good leader who demonstrates integrity should be able to balance these traits of self-knowledge. Warren mentions leaders know their assets and faults and they deal with these in a direct manner since none of them lies to themselves and in particular about themselves (34). This implies that leaders who properly know who they are and what they are consisted of have no problems reinventing themselves. Some world’s most prolific and famous leaders have shown that they possess this characteristic, an example being the current United States President Barak Obama who has become a people’s hero through self-knowledge and self-reinvention. Another characteristic that essentially defines a leader of integrity is maturity. Integrity in leadership is not complete without the element of maturity since leading is not necessarily ordered issuance or showing the way. Maturity in leadership comes through experience and it is through it that a leader shows the ability to be dedicated and being observant while working and learning from others. According to Warren, leaders who are capable of locating the element of maturity and its qualities in themselves possess the gear necessary in self-encouragement (35). President Obama is a mature, ambitious and powerful political leader who through the slogan â€Å"Yes we can† demonstrates that great that great things are achieved through focusing on possibilities and not dwelling on limitations.   Therefore, any leader is considered to be full of integrity if maturity can be located in their modes of operation, criteria of decision making and means of conflict resolution.  

Theories of causation of crime Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Theories of causation of crime - Term Paper Example According to this theory, people engage to crime to avoid or end harassment from their friends. In other instances, they may steal so that they can end or reduce financial problems that make them feel embarrassed. In another dimension, such people may commit crime as a way of revenging against those who have done them wrong. Engagement in illegal drug use is also a way of making them feel better especially when they engage in criminal activities. According to Vito & Maahs (2012), different challenges have been found to cause individuals from committing crime. Poor families have different challenges that make them feel disadvantaged in life. Due to lack of finances, poor families end up having different health problems since they cannot afford medication. In some of the developing countries, poor families suffer from malnutrition and other dietary related diseases. Such diseases are preventable especially when people have good meals, but this is different when it comes to people from poor background. They find it difficult to have three meals in a day. In this regard, people from such families try to find ways of placing meals on their tables. Since very little means are available to do so, they end up engaging in criminal activities such as stealing. They may feel that their supremacy is on the ability to steal from rich people. They mostly blame the forces of nature for their misfortunes and believe that since life is all about survival for the fittest, their ability to steal is their strength and they count is as their own adventure or as a means of earning a living. However, Kelso (1994) noted that such people develop a culture of stealing and find it difficult to engage in positive work to make money. They do not engage in any positive development activity as long as they believe they can survive by stealing. Studies have documented that people from poor backgrounds have little

Knowledge is generated through the interaction of critical and Coursework

Knowledge is generated through the interaction of critical and creative thinking. Evaluate this statement in two areas of knowledge - Coursework Example It is this process of creating and examining ideas that validates knowledge. It is, therefore, essential to discuss the works of certain philosophers in order to prop the main argument. Thereafter, daily life instances can be evaluated to bring to light the link between creative thinking and knowledge. The two fields of knowledge that would come into consideration are mathematics and ethics. To begin with, Rene Descartes epistemological theory comes into practice. In his discourse theory, Descartes strives to arrive at true knowledge. True knowledge, in this instance, suggests knowledge that cannot be subjected to any skepticism. To begin with his discourse, he subjects all previous knowledge to doubt (Timmons and Shoemaker 284). Thereafter, he strives to affirm whether such knowledge is credible. Skepticism forms an indispensable core of critical thinking. Rene Descartes finds that almost all of preexisting knowledge, with exception of mathematical principles, is liable to doubt (Timmons and Shoemaker 284). He arrives at one single idea that the only thing he cannot question its existence is his very existence. The argument he relays for the proof of his existence is the idea that he thinks. This is because doubt is a form of thought and, therefore, the doubting being is him. The only knowledge that is free from doubt is that he thinks. According to him, thinking becom es the item of which he is immediately aware. Apart from this argument, Rene Descartes proved the shortcoming of senses in finding and examining knowledge. In proof of his claim, he uses the example of wax to illustrate the unreliability of senses as a guide to knowledge. He considers characteristics like color, texture and smell to be deceiving. When he watches wax from various directions, he records different data about it. He dismisses senses as to rely on sensations to achieve their effect. Sensations are pre-established notions about the appearance of objects. He, then, asserts

Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Assignment Example By having monopolies on these sectors, economies of scale can be achieved; which means the cost of per unit production of a product or service decline as the output volume increases. By having more than one supplier would often be wasteful for consumers and economies; besides, this would increase the cost aggregately ( linfo, web). In the United States of America, United States Postal Service is government-owned entity that has monopoly over postal services with above given reason. The regulated monopoly of American Telephone & Telegraph Company, commonly known as AT&T, and its Bell System efficiently worked in its initial period of history. The AT&T came into existence in 1875, with founder Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone (Corp.att.web). It enjoyed the monopoly in the telecommunication industry due to its technological advancements at that time and there was no other firm that could become able to secure that kind of technology. As a result, telephones and telecommunication fast spread across America. Monopolies facilitate investment in research and development. Microsoft experienced monopoly by introducing the latest technology in the shape of MS-DOS and windows operating systems in its early era of 1990s and 2000s.

Media Relations Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Media Relations - Assignment Example the rules of the press releases using succinct statements, subject line, vis-Ã  -vis the 6Ws: who, what, when, where, why, who cares (Howard & Mathews, 2006). The first paragraph informs the people of the salient points and the rest follows it with clear history of the issue, giving links to the parties involved and to the organization concerned. The least successful release is the one promoting new store opening. The main reason being that it is neither important for people in general nor does it have potential of a news worthy story. It is a local event that is best served by advertisement and not by a press release that would require further investigation or reporting. The release also has no headline/ subject line and is also not backed by hard figures of company’s sales and performance record. Cutler (2012) strongly believes that these are essential elements of public relation strategy that must be reflected in the press release. Moreover, it is full of generalities and advertising junk which fail to make it a news item worth

The Concept of Sex Appeal and Its Influence on the Consumer Essay Example for Free

The Concept of Sex Appeal and Its Influence on the Consumer Essay More complex variables such as confidence and the personal interpretation of the individual’s beauty/attractiveness may give us more insight into the underlying psychological and sociological purchasing patterns of today’s consumer. The first hand research for this topic will be carried out with a questionnaire designed and created by the members of the group and thereafter each part will be worked on and analyzed mutually. Many question why sex appeal is used so frequently in advertising, never becoming an outdated phenomenon of the past like so many other techniques. The study of consumer behaviour is very much connected with the area of psychology. Few people know that when being subjected to advertising they may be influenced on a far greater scale then they could ever imagine. The first aspect which must be taken into consideration is sex. In our current modernized lives where survival is a word used less frequently, many forget about the urges humans have inherited over thousands of years. Abraham Maslow’s diagram of the hierarchy of needs displays the ranking of necessities for human survival, â€Å"The basis of Maslows theory is that human beings are motivated by unsatisfied needs†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Anon, 2007) It is observed that once a human fulfills a need, he then progresses to the next level to ultimately strive to reach the last level which is self actualization. The first level deals with physiological needs which encompasses breathing, food, water, sleep, homeostasis, excretions and last but not least, sex. This drive that humans have, which plays a fundamental role in survival, can help justify why marketing experts use sex appeal as a vital part in advertising their products. With this valuable knowledge, advertising professionals are able to reach their target customers on a subconscious level. The use of sex can be compared to shock advertisements such as those in anti-smoking or obesity campaigns. In terms of marketing, all publicity can be beneficial to the company so the main objective is to shock. Kandarp Baxi, the accounts director for Chase advertising states the following about the use of sex appeal; â€Å"There is little that the product is offering that is different from others. When technological differentiation is neither noticeable nor long-lived, you need to improve the intangible experience. Put simply, the attempt is to position them to shock† (Seth, 2005). Studies have shown that sex in advertising can generate feelings of happiness, risk-taking and pleasure all desirable traits for the distributor of the product. During a study at Stanford University, a group of male students were asked to look at revealing sexual images of women and were then given money to gamble with on a random chance game. Either a dollar or a dime could be won, though the chance of winning was always the same. The men who had looked at provocative images were more likely to make greater financial risks then those who were shown neutral images (office supplies) or scary images (snakes and spiders) which generally risked less. Brian Knutson, a psychologist at Stanford expresses â€Å"its all about the power of emotion and arousal and our financial decisions†¦ What really matters is that the sexy woman is having an emotional impact. That bleeds over into your financial decisions. (Borenstein, 2008) I’m sure many have experienced the need to buy when they are unhappy. This materialism is more prominent in consumers with lower self esteem. People that do not feel positively about themselves are generally more insecure and therefore try to fill this emptiness in their lives with products. Sex appeal in advertising can negatively impact the consumer which lacks self confidence as the overly styled images of beautiful and sensual faces act as bait. The more unhappy one is, the more one will depend on products and buyable commodities to ease this self doubt. A study conducted by researchers from the university of Illinois and Minnesota stated that â€Å"By the time children reach early adolescence, and experience a decline in self-esteem, the stage is set for the use of material possessions as a coping strategy for feelings of low self-worth. (Sato, 2007). The article also explains that a lot in terms of societal happiness has changed over the past 50 years, â€Å"Yet as societies become richer, they do not become happier. In fact, the First World has more depression, more alcoholism and more crime than fifty years ago. † Along with the need to earn more to be able to consume more comes a range of problems which use the consumer as their prime target. Compulsive shopping is a disorder continuously affecting insecure consumers. This sickness was discovered by German psychiatrist, Emil Krapelin and is â€Å"characterised by an irresistible urge to buy items that are either unneeded or unwanted†¦most compulsive buyers are young women who spend excessive amounts on clothing, shoes and makeup. † (Andreasen Et. Al, 2006) Here one can identify that these affected have self low esteem as they are purchasing mass amounts of products that have been designed and created to increase the physical appearance of the consumer. It is assumed that between 1. and 2% of our population are affected by this disorder (Day, 1997) University of London psychologist Kevin Gourney found that â€Å"63 per cent of people with a shopping problem went on a spree when they felt depressed† (Day, 1997) When describing why most of compulsive shopping sufferers are women he blamed marketing strategies â€Å"They are also deluged with advertising for clothes, cosmetics and perfumes†. Andreasen. N, Black. D (2006) Intr oductory Textbook of Psychiatry, American Psychiatric Pub. Inc, pp. 360

American education Essay Example for Free

American education Essay Education in China is growing. Over the past years Chinas education system has been attempting, and been successful in improving the education in China. China for many years did not put much emphasis on education. China was more traditional, meaning they were more interested in farming and working. Prior the 1840 education in China was only for the elite, the high class. The main purpose of education was to train what China called gentlemen or high officials. This is the time of Confucius, a Chinese philosopher who introduced China to the Royal Examination System, which is used to select imperial officers. Chinas education was very rigid and it focused highly on technology thus China has a high rate of illiteracy. Early Chinese students were not very well rounded; they were limited in what they could study. For example a student of science would not know much about Humanities, and vice versa, a student of Humanities would not know much about science. This approach of learning narrowed the range of knowledge that a Chinese student might have. This would limit the students thinking and restrict their future development. When a student is limited in what he of she can do then that will dramatically decrease the number of jobs that they have to chose from. American education is a lot different than the early Chinese education. In America, school is for developing critical thinking skills. American education teaches students to apply what they learn in the class to the outside world. They teach students to think outside of the box and how to think deep and to apply critical thinking skills. Critical thinking is expected in America, as for China they are more knowledge focused. The Chinese function more on memorization of knowledge and facts, again this limits them in their thinking. Chinas education is based on training for entrance exams for college; this time of exams is known as black July. They memorize a lot of facts and then repeat them on a test. In America they teach how to apply what we learn to many different problems, to see if the students can figure them out. Chinas system is very competitive. The students compete with each other because there is limited space in college and there are limited jobs, in their marrow fields. This increases the pressure on the students, students at times commit suicide or run away from home and often suffer form depression because the pressure is so great on them, form their family and also themselves. Unlike most American students Chinese students are eager to learn and work really hard, they want to be the best that they can be for themselves and also for their family. China is making a lot of reforms on their education approach today. They are slowly adopting some of the western worlds principles. They are beginning to encourage students to study in more than one field, such as if a students is studying mathematics they also can, and often do study another subject such as science. This is broadening the students horizons and allowing them to be more rounded in their capabilities. This also increases the job types that they might be able to do. The Chinese are beginning to put more of an emphasis on critical thinking than they have in the years past. This takes some of the pressure off of the students and evens it out a little more, because if the cant find a job and all they have is one skill then they will suffer and be left out working maybe a low rate job. If a student has more flexibility in what he or she can do then there will be more options for them in the job field. The education systems of China and America are more and more beginning to resemble one another. A few differences that still exist today are that the American schools are more centered on the students and interaction learning while the China schools are more teacher- focused and lecture oriented. American schools also encourage the students to debate with the teacher and ask questions during class. China has a phrase called saving face; this means that the students would rather not know the answer than to ask a dumb question. Teachers dont encourage questions during class and dont allow much debate. There are both strengths and weaknesses to both Chinese and American education methods. Chinese students study hard and often. They are viewing school as a privilege and a competition while most Americans view school as boring and tiresome. While Americans struggle with memorization and discipline, they are strong in critical thinking. American students are more rounded and able to apply what they have learned too many different things, whereas the Chinese are somewhat limited. I would have to say that all in all both systems have their positives and their negatives but as the years progress, improvement in each country will also.

What Might We Mean By Firm Performance

What Might We Mean By Firm Performance The firm performance is a complex term which may include different shadows of meaning as long as it relates to organizational performance, functioning of the firm and outcomes of its operations. Normally, the firm performance implies the organizational performance, including manufacturing of products and services, functioning of different units of the firm, performance of its employees and outcomes of their work in total. At the same time, the firm performance can be viewed in a broader context as a part of the business development of the firm. What is meant here is the fact that the business development mirrors the firms performance and allows to assess the extent to which the organizational performance is effective. At this point, it is important to place emphasis on the fact that the firms performance is basically measured in terms of efficiency of the firms operations. In fact, the more effective the firms operations are completed the more positive the organizational performance is and, on the contrary, the low efficiency of firms operations and employees performance means the poor firms performance. In this respect, employees performance comprises an integral part of the firms performance because, in the contemporary business environment human resources, comprise an important marketing asset of any organization. Therefore, the efficiency of employees performance affects consistently the firms performance. Furthermore, it is important to take into consideration that the firms performance is an important indicator for investors and stakeholders. What is meant here is the fact that the firms performance indicates whether the company is worth investing or not. For instance, investors are ready to invest money in firms with the positive marketing performance, whereas poor marketing performance indicates at problems firms have in their business development. As a result, investors avoid investing money in companies with poor performance because they are uncertain in the return on investments and because of high risks accompanying such investments. What is competitive advantage, in OPERATIONAL and CONCRETE terms? The competitive advantage of a company is one of the most important factors that define the competitive position of the company in the market. In fact, the competitive position of a company means the marketing position and performance of the company compared to its major rivals. In this regard, it is necessary to pay a particular attention to the return on investments rate of the company because the higher is the return on investments and lower risks associated with investments and business development of the company, the better is the marketing position of the company. In fact, the company with the high return on investment can count for the steady improvement of its marketing and competitive position because it can take advantage of its business development and growth which occur due to the high return on investments. In addition, the competitive advantage should be unique, relevant and sustainable. At the same time, it is important to distinguish competitive position in operational and concrete terms. In this regard, the competitive advantage in operational terms implies the advantage of the company in terms of its business development, introduction of innovations, use of management strategies, organization of production process and other operations conducted by the company. The competitive advantage of the company in operational terms is defined by its ability to take a better position compared to its rival due to a better organization of the production process and other operations conducted by the company compared to its rivals. As for the competitive advantage in concrete terms, it is important to place emphasis on the fact that the competitive advantage in concrete terms implies the advantage of the company in terms of the assets value of the company, costs of its facilities, fixed costs, and other fixed values of the company, along with the products and services provided by the company to its customers. In other words, the competitive advantage in concrete terms implies the advantage the company gains in quantity of products, revenues and other items which can be measured and assessed accurately. Finally, on analyzing the competitive advantage concept, it is worth mentioning the fact that companies have to maintain their competitive advantage. In other words competitive advantage should be sustainable to insure that the company keeps progressing. Otherwise, if the company fails to maintain its competitive advantage, it is doomed to failure because it cannot afford the competition for rivals will keep progressing and outpace the company that has stopped in its development. Question 3: Assess the merits of the VRIO framework when determining a firms competitive advantage? The VRIO framework allows to obtain the basic information on the competitive advantage of a firm. To put it more precisely, the VRIO framework focuses on four key items defining the competitive position of a firm, including value, rarity, imitability, and organization. The value of the company is very important for determining its competitive position. In terms of the VRIO framework, the value implies the ability of a firm to neutralize external threats and hold a better marketing and competitive position compared to its rivals. In such a way, increasing the value, a firm can improve its competitive position and take the lead in the industry. The rarity implies the control over resource in hands a few and the firm should attempt to limit the access of the rivals to the resources. Alternatively, the company may attempt to establish control over resources and, thus, get a consistent competitive advantage over its rivals, especially if they cannot get access to resources. Furthermore, imitability involves the protection of the uniqueness of products and services provided by the company to its customers and the ability of the company to protect its products and services from imitations from the part of its rivals. In this regard, the protection of intellectual property rights, the development of new, original and unique products is crucial because it provides the company with an excellent opportunity to take advantage and hold the dominant competitive position in the market. The uniqueness of products or services is crucial for the competitive position of the company. Finally, the organization is another important factor that determines the competitive position of the company and its competitive advantage. In this respect, it is worth mentioning the fact that the effective organization allows the company to optimize the production process and company-customer relationships. As a result, companies with a better organization has a competitive advantage of its rivals because its performance is better compared to its rivals due to the better organization of work and more efficient work of employees within the company.

Free Pride and Prejudice Essays: Narrative Techniques :: Pride Prejudice Essays

Narrative Techniques of Pride and Prejudice This essay will focus on Chapter 53 or Vol III, Chapter 11, depending upon the edition of the novel. This passage is taken from Bingley and Darcy's first visit to Longbourn after their return to Meryton. The passage focuses on Mrs Bennet's foolishness and Elizabeth's feelings about the proceedings. Mrs Bennet's speeches in the passage point to her ignorance, which is part of Austen's narrative technique of letting characters reveal themselves through their speech. The effect is particularly comic due to Mrs. Bennet's utter ignorance, which manifests itself in moral insensitivity, as seen in her belief that Lydia is "well married" in her disgraceful union with Wickham, and in lack of simple knowledge, as seen in her commenting that Newcastle is "a place quite northward, it seems." Because of this, she manages to be obsequiously polite yet quite rude, as we can see from the contrast between her invitation for Bingley to shoot birds on Mr Bennet's manor "When you have killed all your own birds" and her insult to Darcy that Wickham has "not so many [friends] as he deserves." Austen uses a similar treatment for Mr Collins, whose sycophantic language is even used when he is criticising Elizabeth's class [?] in his proposal to her, and whose excessive praise makes him utterly ridiculo us. The length of Mrs Bennet's speeches betray[s] the fact that although she says much, she thinks and means very little, [very good.] a technique which is repeated in Mr Collins's speeches and letters and on Lady Catherine's argument against Elizabeth marrying Darcy on her visit to Longbourn. This is emphasised here by the fact that she is the only one quoted in direct speech as speaking aloud in the whole passage. Despite Elizabeth's sense, her own feelings are kept to herself while her mother chatters away indiscreetly on anything that enters her mind. Elizabeth's poor reasoning as she listens to her mother disgrace herself shows the extent of her shame and misery. Although this scene is largely seen from the viewpoint of Elizabeth, Austen sometimes speaks as the omniscient narrator to reveal little ironies about Elizabeth herself. For example, after Elizabeth feels that "The first wish of my heart... is never more to be in company with either of them", which the reader should know to be silly, especially with regard to

The Elusive Term :: Essays Papers

The Elusive Term The word "ring-giver" is slippery because it does not stick to its logical meaning. Once researched and defined, it is known that a ring-giver is a king or overlord. Not just a king can be called a ring-giver. A person in an administrative position can be referred to as a ring-giver. The thanes who received this award of arm-ring or neck-ring proved their battle-worthiness and were held in high respect by their kinsmen. Therefore the warriors kept close watch of their rewards. After research, one also finds the term "ring-giver" is a kenning; or Anglo - Saxon metaphor. Ring-giver is an elusive word. Separately, "ring" is defined as an ornamental circular band worn on a finger, and "giver" is defined as to hand over something. Putting those two definitions together, ring-giver implies the act of giving rings. However, this is not at all the case. A ring-giver is a king or overlord. Someone in power is also referred to as being the ring-giver. In the Norton Anthology we read "in heroic poetry at least, a principal form of currency was the gold arm ring; which had the advantage of being valuable, portable and showy; hence the king always being referred to as 'ring-giver.' " (28). Although it was usually the king who was given the name "ring-giver," anyone in power, could be given the title. In the "Grendel, Beowulf's most famous enemy" site, we see another occurrence of a ring-giver being born: "When the retainers [soldiers] returned from battle, they were expected to turn over their bounty to their chief, who would then redistribute it according to the performance of each retainer during battle. Thus, we often find the dryhten [overlord] being referred to as the 'gold-giver' or 'ring-giver.' Usually the king had the power to distribute bounty or rewards, but here we see that anyone in the leadership position might have been given the illustrious title of "ring-giver." The king or overlord gave out arm-rings or neck-rings to promote valor and fighting for land and king. The individual who received the ring was honored by his fellow soldiers. These rings worn on either arm or neck, gave the wearer recognition and instant envy in others. They were symbols of strength and courage; there must have been many attempts to steal such objects of monetary and social value. However, it is doubtful that the brave men who received such awards ever gave the opportunity to lose their trophies.

The Psychodynamic Model of Abnormality Essay -- Papers Psychology

The Psychodynamic Model of Abnormality The psychodynamic model of abnormality is useful to an extent. However it has many weaknesses. The psychodynamic model of abnormality was initiated by Sigmund Freud. Sigmund Freud was very interested in hysteria. This is the manifestation of physical causes. He became convinced that unconscious mental causes were responsible not just abnormality but also normality. Freud developed Psychoanalysis. This is a set of techniques for treating the unconscious causes of mental disorders and built up a psychoanalytic theory of how human personality and abnormality develop from childhood. His psychoanalytic approach had a great impact on psychology and psychiatry and was developed by other psychodynamic theorists. Psychoanalysis had a very fixed set of assumptions. One of these is the unconscious processes where many important influences on behaviour come from a part of the mind we have no awareness of called the unconscious. Another assumption is psychodynamic conflict. Different parts of the mind are in constant struggle with each other and the consequences of this are important in understanding behaviour. Freud also believed that behaviour is motivated by sexual and aggressive drives. The drives create psychic energy that builds up and create tension and anxiety if it cannot be released. Another assumption is development where personality is shaped by relationships, experiences and conflict, particularly during childhood. Freud’s psychoanalysis is probably the most important psychodynamic theory. His ideas developed a... ...century. It has had a significant effect on a wide range of disciplines such as anthropology, women’s studies and theology. Also, the sharp distinction between abnormality and normality of the biological model is ignored. Doing this, it has created more sympathy for people with psychological disorders. Psychoanalysis is more humane with its focus on talking as opposed to drugs, shock therapy or brain surgery. It also has the power to enhance our understanding of ourselves and from the number of people who testify how it has helped them in their own lives. In conclusion, the psychodynamic model is useful as it is still being used today by professional psychiatrists and works with many people. However, there are a lot of weaknesses to outweigh the positives, which means that the model can be seriously questioned.

Moses Mendelsohn and the Religious Enlightenment

â€Å"His life our standard, his teaching our light† Isaac Euchel wrote about Moses Mendelssohn. Moses was a model for Jews in Germany during the late 1770’s, and a dominant figure in the emergence of the Haskalah. The Haskalah borrowed many forms and categories from the already existing European Enlightenment, but its contents were largely derived from medieval Jewish philosophy and biblical exegesis. Within the novel, Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment, David Sorkin conveys how Moses made the German Enlightenment compatible with Judaism, and shows Moses to be a more consistent thinker than previously believed; his views on Judaism, natural laws, and natural rights developed early and remained consistent throughout his lifetime. Sorkin accounts Moses’ contributions to Jewish thought in three successive phases: philosophical, exegetical, and political. First, in the philosophical phase, Sorkin reveals the foundations of Moses’ thought. At an early age, Moses read the bible, memorized passages, studied Hebrew grammar, and wrote biblical poetry. All of these activates later were key in the Haskalah. In 1743, at fourteen, Moses moved to Berlin, which was at the center of the German Enlightenment, and theorist Christian Wolff was a dominating influence. Wolff’s focus was to natural theology, where he accounted that God's existence and attributes were the basis for theology and ethics. Influenced by Wolff, Moses sought to apply these Wolffian concepts to Judaism. Moses used his own version of Wolffian philosophy as a means to articulate his full belief in revealed religion. For example, he alluded that God was the source of all perfection and thus the source of metaphysics and natural theology. He thought that Enlightenment philosophy and Judaism complemented each other, and that philosophy served Judaism as an instrument of self-articulation. As a result, he began to write philosophical works in German, and Jewish works in Hebrew. Most important during the start of his career, he introduced a distinction between practical and theoretical in philosophy, which was also influenced by Wolff. Moses stressed a Jew’s primary obligation is â€Å"torah and good deeds†, not philosophical contemplation. To Moses, revelation set distinct limitation on theoretical knowledge, so he concentrated no practical knowledge, which was usually later seen in the form of commentary, since commentary was seen as the legitimate form through which truth is approached. Moses’ early Hebrew works were commentaries in which he attempted to renew the tradition of philosophy in Hebrew, again using ideas from Wolffian philosophy. His first work, The Kohelet Musar, was the first modern journal in Hebrew. Another subject he addresses is the concept of an ideal personality, which was in terms of ones individuals’ relationship to God and his fellowman. To Moses, the ideal is the â€Å"man of faith† who combines religious study, honest occupation, family, and trust in god. Also, in Moses’ early works, he argued the importance of the study of the Hebrew language and the bible. In a commentary on Maimonides’ Logical Terms, he insisted without Torah and tradition, we are â€Å"like a blind man in the dark†, and the true path to knowledge is the combination of torah and logic. Continuing the Wolffian beliefs, Moses asserted that although things might look accidental to man, to God they are all necessary. His early works such as The Kohelet Musar and Logical Terms were both commentaries that embodied Wolfian principles. However, The Book of the Soul, was different in the regard that it was a freestanding philosophical work that Moses withheld from publication. In Moses’ early works, Sorkin notes that the lack of any original content is significant. According to Sorkin, the conclusion of Moses’ philosophical career was with the Lavater affair in 1769-1770. By the end of the 1760’s, Moses’ philosophical position was established and would remain until the end of his life. He created a public dualism by publishing philosophical works in only German, and commentaries on Jewish subject in Hebrew. The Lavater affair contested Moses to support all of his fundamental ideas. Johann Caspar Lavater, a Swiss Protestant pastor infamously challenged Moses to refute the arguments of the theologian, Charles Bonnet, or convert to Christianity, which Lavater referred as a â€Å"Golden Bridge† to Christianity. However, this posed a public challenge to Moses as a philosopher and as a Jew. In response, Moses publically defended toleration on religious and philosophical grounds, but in private, he wrote counterattacks and criticized Christianity. This task was not simple, and he again used Wolffian principles help justify that Judaism was in perfect harmony with natural religion and reason. Sorkin interprets that Moses drove Lavater to end the affair, and made him isolate from the public, and Sorkin named this â€Å"the triumph of toleration†. Although Moses overcame Lavater, the affair also had grave consequences on Moses personally; the affair aggravated his physical and psychological condition. He was a hunchback, and developed a nervous debility, which was linked to his deformity, prevented abstract thinking and grew much worse during this Lavater affair. The next period of Moses’ career, Sorkin names Exegesis, where he focused on making the bible vital to the Haskalah. First, Moses created a commentary on Ecclesiastes that is part of â€Å"wisdom literature,† and thus was able to reiterate his preference of practical knowledge. He constructed a defense of Jewish exegesis on the basis of language, and strived to show how there are multiple meanings, which are reasonable. He said, â€Å"there are four methods of interpreting our holy torah-the literal, homiletical, allegorical, and esteric†, proving that words can bear multiple intentions. Also, in his commentary, Moses introduced divisions that did not follow the traditional chapters and verses in the bible, because he argued that traditional divisions were intended for the â€Å"convenience of the reader†. Another interesting aspect Moses brought up in Ecclesiastes, was that the idea that truth was universal and neutral, whatever its origins, meaning he deemed it permissible to use non-Jewish exegesis. Lastly, in this commentary, language was of importance because Moses used German translations in Hebrew characters, giving equivalents with entire sentence. Sorkin believes he did this to him, Hebrew was the ideal medium for the spread of the practical knowledge, in which laid the essence of Judaism. This Ecclesiastes commentary placed him at the head of the Haskalah’s efforts to revive biblical exegesis. Next, Moses worked for thirteen years on his translation on the Psalms, with the goal of producing an exegesis document of natural religion, translated in German, and would be source of practical knowledge for Jews and Christians. Sorkin brings attention to how Moses uses the term â€Å"edification† in reference to the Psalms, which emphasizes his desire for an exegesis that would encourage universal religiosity. In the Psalms, Moses asserts that the sublime is a form of art, and the highest form of beauty. Moses thus disagrees with the idea that God is â€Å"the most sublime being† because he believed that the sublime was not natural, but artistic, existing as a human creation. Furthermore, he affirms that the sublime’s aesthetic impact is admiration, and its spiritual impact is edification. Unfortunately, the translation of the Psalms was only a success among the Jews, and others stated that, â€Å"nothing could be further from the truth. † Sorkin viewed this as a confirmation that Moses’ best medium is commentary, not translation. During the same thirteen years that Moses translated the Psalms, he also translated, commented, and wrote an extensive introduction to the Pentateuch, titled Book of the Paths to Peace. This translation aimed to convey a literal meaning of the text through a fluent German translation. While Moses remained the key contributor, he had four Maskilim participate, and this made a shift in the Haskalah. This book is divided into three themes: practical knowledge, literal meaning, and the use of history. In the first part of the Book of Paths to Peace, Moses viewed the Pentateuch as the primary source of practical knowledge for the Jews. Sorkin noticed he repeatedly argues â€Å"virtue must be made into a â€Å"second nature† by the continual exercise of moral judgment. Moses asserted that compared to the rest of humanity Israel had a special role, because those who reside in there all â€Å"believe† and the bible is a handbook of practical knowledge. Also, in the Pentateuch, Moses wrote â€Å"man is by nature and social and will not achieve success without help from others of his kind†. Interesting, Moses stressed that God created everything, and he that he is beyond nature, and thus â€Å"science† had no place in a commentary on Creation, which further showed his resistance to theoretical knowledge. Sorkin again demonstrated how Moses kept consistent in his views, since practical knowledge already played in other works. The next portion emphasized the literal meaning as the focus of exegesis. Due to the bible being the primary source of practical knowledge, the need to make its literal meaning known was vital for Moses. His basic premise was that the Bible had a unique oral quality that made it the most effective means of transmitting practical knowledge. He stressed the importance of grammar, and believed only with knowledge of grammar, does Gods’ word both literal and homiletical make sense, because grammar is essential to the tradition of Jewish scriptural transmission. It is this tradition that prevents the Jews from being â€Å"like a blind man in the dark,† and Sorkin points out that Moses used the same metaphor here as he did with Logical Terms. Moses believed that due to the structure of biblical poetry, that it was the most successful method for teaching practical knowledge. The last portion of the Book of the Paths to Peace, Moses established and defended his belief in Judaism through history. History helped establish Moses’ faith. Sorkin alluded that Moses was historical without being historicist, because he recognized history in the Pentateuch rather than the Pentateuch as a product of history. Sorkin notes that viewing history in this fashion was integral to the Haskalah and typical of the religious enlightenment. The Book of the Paths to Peace eventually had wide acceptance, even though some attacked the book. The book was meant to instruct Jewish youth, but since Moses used complex German, it forced students to concentrate on that language instead of the contents. Lastly, The final phase Sorkin accounts for in Moses’ life is his political activism. Moses was politically involved almost his entire career as a thinker and writer. Now, he focused on the state and individual rights from the viewpoint of a Jew living in hardships. Continuing the Wolffian philosophy, he emphasized a politics based on ideas of natural rights to promote legal equality. Initially, Moses arrived in the political arena by being an intercessor. Sorkin found this unsurprising since Moses was a philosopher and writer. Communities sought Moses in times of conflict, and usually Moses’ intercession was successful. For example, the Duke in the community of Mecklenburg prohibited the Jewish practice of early burial. Moses was asked to help, so he served as an intercessor, and the duke granted the Jews the privilege of religious liberty. However, Moses took this matter further, by trying to renew the ritual practice, just as he tried to renew the traditions of philosophy and exegesis. In 1777, Moses transitioned from the politics of intercession to the politics of emancipation, when he responded to the community of Dresden’s problem of Jew’s facing high taxation or expulsion. Moses’ letter asserted that Jews were being excluded from society because of their religion. His work, The Ritual Laws of the Jews was seen as an integral part of his Jewish thought, and referred to as a handbook on practical knowledge. Later, Moses took on dealing with Jewish rights. Sorkin implies that Moses’ advocacy of rights was fundamentally new, yet there was also substantial continuity with his earlier thought. Moses demonstrated that history plays an even more important role in his political thinking than in his biblical exegesis since human liberties were the issue rather than divine work. In order to understand Jews’ situation in terms of rights, Moses translated Rousseau’s Discourse. Moses maintained a balance between individual rights and absolutist state, and asked Christian Wilhelm Dohm to write a tract advocating emancipation of the Jews, and it was widely influential. Moses wrote an elaborate preface to the translation of Rousseau’s Discourse, which was divided into three parts, and titled Vindiciae Judaeorum. In the preface, it was the first time he publicly advocated â€Å"civic acceptance† or equal rights. An occurring theme in the preface was Moses expressing what he did not agree with Dohm’s memorandum, specifically with Dohm’s ban of excommunication. Moses deemed that religious excommunication invaded on civil rights because it involved the political authorities. Since he denied religion’s right to excommunicate, he was set apart from the mainstream of that scholarship. A month after he published Vindiciae Judaeorum, he also published his translation of the Psalms. The Psalms received little attention, while Vindiciae had a huge impact. A pamphlet appeared criticizing Moses’ work, but it was published as a famous Austrian statesman in order to be taken seriously, but truly, a minor writer August Cranz wrote it. Cranz posed more of a challenge to Moses’ faith than the Lavater’s affair; Moses had to realize that Christianity was the true religion and prepare to convert or admit Judaism was imperfect and in need of fundamental reform. Moses reacted to Cranz’s pamphlet by creating Jerusalem, or On Religious Power and Judaism, which Sorkin views as Moses’ fullest elaboration of his views on rights and the nature of Judaism. Jerusalem is divided into two parts; part one addresses Cranz’ contention that in â€Å"repudiating the ban of excommunication, he had repudiated Judaism. Moses argues mainly on the basis of natural rights. Moses’ theory of church and state is rooted in his idea of benevolence. He thought the best state was one whose members were able to govern themselves through education, and the institution capable of providing such education was religion. Moses also went back to Wolffian principle of metaphysics by asserting that liberty of conscience was crucial for the achievement of man’s eternal vocation. In part two, Moses addressed Cranz’s view that Moses left Judaism, and abandoned religion altogether. Moses answered using philosophical views, and switched between his exposition of Judaism and a digression of a specific subject to advance his argument, and to continue his method of writing German philosophy in German, and Judaism in Hebrew. He argued on the basis of revealed legislation. He stated that Judaism is a religion of revealed legislation, not of revealed beliefs. He asserted that only through a second revelation, comparable to the one at Sinai, could God establish the authority necessary to introduce changes into the practice of the law. The two parts of Jerusalem, fit closely together, since many of the themes developed in part one are discussed in part two. To conclude Sorkin’s argument, Moses was a traditional Jewish figure who sought to renew traditional philosophy and Biblical exegesis in Hebrew. Sorkin successfully displayed how Moses made the German Enlightenment compatible with the Haskalah, and stayed constant with his philosophy throughout his life. It is only normal that after reading Sorkin’s Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment that certain parts were more striking than others. Not only are certain aspects of the book especially intriguing, but also, I do not agree with certain theories that Moses posed. Also, I cannot help but compare the Haskalah to the European Enlightenment that preceded it. First, it is miraculous how one person can make a difference in others lives. Moses lived during a time where Jewish communities were suffering from not having equal rights in society. Jews were denied education, certain occupations, citizen status, and were the first ones to be held responsible for problems or crimes. The fact that Moses, with his short stature and hunchback, still had the confidence and ability to make reforms in society is unbelievable. Sorkin only mentioned Moses’ deformity once, and it is of graver importance than that. People who are blessed without any deformities take for granted how easy their life is, and I believe that more acknowledgements should be given to Moses for enduring such a struggle. Also, in Sorkin’s reference to Moses’ deformity, he also mentioned a nervous debility that was linked to his abnormality, which prevented conceptual thinking, and grew worse after the Lavater affair. The fact that this was only mentioned once, and in one quick sentence gives the impression that this was not a serious issue. However, if such a physiological condition occurred in Moses, one would think that since all of his works entailed abstract thinking, since he was a philosopher, that this would have severe consequences on his career. Yet, Moses was able to produce numerous works after the Lavater affair and many of them were highly praised. It makes one speculate, if Sorkin’s information about Moses’ nervous disability is completely accurate. Another part of the book that caught my attention was the aftermath of Christian Wilhelm Dohm’s publication of On the Civic Amelioration of the Jews, even though he was doing Moses a favor by writing it, and it provoked a major debate that made the rights of Jews a public issue, which is what Moses wanted. However, Sorkin displayed many aspects that Moses did not agree with what Christian wrote. For instance, Moses took issue with the notion that artisanry and farming are the sole sources of wealth, and with the ban of excommunication. Moses affirmed that no one could legitimately claim to exercise authority over another’s belief. Sorkin’s writing gave the impression that Moses was angry with Christian for putting certain beliefs in writing. This caught me by surprise because I was under the impression that Christian and Moses were good friends. The fact that Christian agreed to write this document, even though Moses was asked to write it, implied that they were in agreement with what was to be written. The way that Sorkin addressed this conflict in the book further suggests that Christian went against what Moses asked of him, and used this as an opportunity to voice his own opinions on the issue of Jewish emancipation. Furthermore, in a way, one can view Christian as being a catalyst for Cranz’s challenge. The connection is that Christian published work that Moses felt the need to counter in Vindiciae Judaeorum, and thus gave rise to Cranz challenging Moses. Additionally, I discovered that certain areas in the book negated Moses’ entire goal of the Haskalah. First, it is important to recall that prior to the rise of the Haskalah, most Christian thinkers thought Judaism was an irrational dark religion that did not allow for the age of Enlightenment. Hence gave rise to the premise that Jews were incapable of reaching such intellectual levels. Interestingly, Sorkin and Moses both acted in ways that confirm this idea. First, Moses published philosophy in German and commentaries in Hebrew. This action can be seen as if he was making it harder for Jews to reach an enlightened state. By publishing philosophy in German, which most Jews could not read, he further separated them from society. Also, not only were his philosophical works in German, but also they were in such a high level of German, that was very rare for a Jew to be able to write at this level. This also made it harder for Jews to understand his German works. Another instance is seen when the translation of the Psalms was only a victory among the Jews, and while non-Jews stated, â€Å"nothing could be further from the truth. † Sorkin viewed this as a confirmation that Mendelssohn’s best medium is commentary, not translation. Two things are happening in this situation. First, the reaction from society demonstrates that indeed the Jews are not as intelligent as the non-Jews because they thought Moses’ commentary was brilliant, when the majority of the population thought it was not legitimate to be a valid translation. Second, Sorkin’s account that Moses’ best means is commentary, shows that Sorkin is agreeing with the statement that his translation did not contain enough truth, thus putting Moses in the category of not being able to obtain enlightened thought. Next, in comparison to the European Enlightenment, the Haskalah is very different, even though it emerged because of the Enlightenment. The European Enlightenment held faith in the power of human reason to illuminate the world, rather than divine revelation. It encouraged an attitude of critical reflection, rather than an acceptance of received wisdom. Also, the Enlightenment was in sync with the Scientific Revolution in the early 1770’s and created the concept that science is a form of knowledge (Western Civilizations). In contrast, Moses affirmed that the best state was one whose members were able to govern themselves through education, and it was through religious institutions that are most capable of providing such education. This thinking is completely opposite of the Enlightenment, because their goal was to forget about religious teachings, and only learn from science, and other forms of confirmed reason. Another example that is contrasted to the Enlightenment is when Moses pleaded that a general disquisition on â€Å"science† had no place in a commentary on Creation. Members of the Enlightenment used the theory of evolution to explain the creation of the universe, which is all based on science. Also, using Wolffian beliefs, Mendelssohn asserted that although things might look accidental to man, to God they are all necessary, implying that everything on Earth happens for a reason. Again, this is not in accord with the Enlightenment philosophy because they do not refer to a God creating the future of the world, instead they sought evidence and valid truths to prove their beliefs that all is created through science and man labor. Interestingly, there are similarities between Moses Mendelssohn and Immanuel Kant, who was a key figure of the European Enlightenment. Moses became a member of Wednesday Society, which was devoted to political subjects. He often gave lectures; his most common lecture was â€Å"What is enlightenment? Similarly, Immanuel Kant became known by answering the question: What is Enlightenment? † written as a response to the Reverend Zollner. Kant also proposed to eliminate certain church and state restrictions, just as Moses did in Jerusalem. Although a huge difference is Kant believed religion infringed on one’s ability to full reason, while Moses saw religion, specifically Judaism as an integral part of the Haskalah, it is important to notice the comparisons between the two, especially since they are regarded as holding such different ideologies (Perspectives on the Past). Overall, Moses Mendelssohn was a principal figure in the creation of the Haskalah. He was a model Jew, and made many contributions to Jewish life during the end of the eighteenth century. After reading the novel, Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment, I now have a better understanding and respect for Moses Mendelssohn and the Haskalah. David Sorkin succeeded in providing information that accurately describes Moses’ philosophical works and showed how Moses made the German Enlightenment compatible with Judaism.