Describe Major Depressive Disorder, highlighting the neurochemical and Essay

Describe Major Depressive Disorder, highlighting the neurochemical and physical changes that are associated with this disease. Based on the known neurochemical - Essay Example The importance of MDD lies in the fact that it causes considerable impairment in social functioning, role functioning, employment and physical health of the afflicted person (Wells et al, 1989). Experts are of the opinion that depression is actually a heterogeneous syndrome comprised of numerous diseases of distinct causes and pathophysiologies (Nestler et al, 2002). MDD is also known as clinical depression or unipolar depression. According to the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R),  which studied the epidemiology of MDD across the United States, the prevalence of MDD for lifetime was estimated as 16.2% and that for 12-month was estimated as 6.6% (Kessler et al, 2003). There are very few studies which relate the prevalence of MDD to race or ethnicity (table-2). Infact, severe forms of depression affect 2-5% of the US population (Nestler et al, 2002). As far as age is considered, the risk is fairly low in the younger age groups (Figure-1). While major depressive disorder can develop at any age, the median age at onset is 32 (Kessler et al, 2005). It is more prevalent in women than in men (Kessler et al, 2003). MDD is comorbid with anxiety and substance use disorders (Kessler et al, 2003). Studies have shown that MDD with anger attacks are significantly associated with increased cholesterol levels and years of smoking (Fraquas et al, 2007). MDD is a debilitating and complex psychiatric disorder that involves multiple neural circuits and genetic and non-genetic risk factors (Sahay et al, 2007). Whether environmental factors or genetic factors play a major role in the pathogenesis of MDD is still debated. Exaggerated early error-detection processes have been incriminated in the etiology and maintenance of major depressive disorder and thus such processes may then recruit excessive neural and cognitive resources that manifest as symptoms of depression (Chiu and Deldin,

The freddie Gray story in the media Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The freddie Gray story in the media - Essay Example umerous journalists failing to maintain objectivity in order to unearth the facts in the case as present the story objectively as the discussion below portrays. The media plays an integral role in the society. Key among the primary roles of the media is agenda setting which in turn leads to the formulation of opinions. The media influences public opinion and the media in the United States played a role in enhancing the wave of violence and riots in Baltimore following Freddie Grey’s story. Objectivity lacked in the coverage of the story with the media including the CNN following a wave of narratives that could sell. The media for example began by propagating the story showing videos of Mr. Grey’s arrest and alleged maltreatment. Showing the videos was not a mistake. However, the media failed to play its watchdog role by exercising caution. They carried out extensive analysis of numerous other cases of African Americans who have died while in police custody thus making Mr. Grey a growth to the statistics. Such biased yet widespread coverage of the story enhanced the spread of a particular narrative that shows that the predominantly white police service in the country continues to target African American minority. This contributed to the outbreak of the riots in Baltimore. None of the numerous journalists cared to investigate the background of the various suspects who have died in police custody. Some were hardcore criminals and the police had issues to suspect Grey. After contributing to the outbreak of the riots in the city, the media adopted yet another skeptic position in their coverage of the story. Fox News anchors for example claimed that the city was under blockade by â€Å"thugs†. CNN on the other hand even assigned an African American reporter to cover the story claiming that he was safer and could blend in the mayhem. The media once again showed a lack luster attitude with no media attempting to investigate the history of police brutality in

Scientific Theories Essay Example for Free

Scientific Theories Essay One of the major preoccupations of XX’s century scientific philosophers was the development of complex scientific theory explaining how science comes to be and how it works. Since 1900-s several basic theories have been proposed to explain science. This paper aims to provide an overview of those theories especially concentrating on ideas of scientific revolution by Thomas S. Kuhn. Already David Hume in â€Å"A Treatise of Human Nature† noticed, that we can never truly prove the existence of casual laws but we can only perceive them and their consequences. And as we can not know the truth about laws, we can never know the law itself, so it is always open for reconsideration. W.V. Quine went even further by proposing, that even mathematical theorems can from time to time be revised if necessary. Thusly they have created grounds for illogical negativism, under which no statement can be recognized absolutely true. In the 1920-s Moritz Schlicks and Hans Reichenbach offered another view which they called logical positivism. Basically recognizing that no statement can be true or false a priory, logical positivists held that every piece of knowledge is based on logics of â€Å"protocol sentences† based on observable events. In order to be recognized true or false a statement is to meet a verifiability criterion. Only in this case a statement can be recognized meaningful. However, some of the positivists noticed, that even non-verifiable statements may have some cognitive value[1]. In the 1930-s Karl Popper raised criticism against positivist model and introduced a theory based on ideas of practicing scientists. Under his idea scientific progress is achieved by rejection of earlier false theories and creation of a new theory when the old one no longer fits the empiric facts. The new theory is therefore closer to truth. So physics of Aristotle has been replaced by physics of Newton and physics of Newton by the one of Einstein. Every new theory explains the world in new terms and on a new level, Progressive theory has been sharply criticized by Thomas Kuhn in his â€Å"Structure of Scientific Revolutions†, published in 1962. Under his idea, scientific progress is a set of dominant structures, which he called paradigms.   Scientific research passes through stages of â€Å"normal† development including solving of current problems and â€Å"revolutionary stage†. Revolutionary stage or paradigm shift means testing of new theories and assumptions which causes a state of crisis in the old theories, when paradigms are sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group of adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity[2] For Kuhn a new paradigm is not only a new theory, but a totally new view on the world and a new way of thinking. A paradigm is not a new answer to a question, but it is revolutionary new way of putting questions themselves. Core questions of the old paradigm are rejected by a new one as those, which are no longer applicable[3]. Moreover, one paradigm can not be understood in terms of another paradigm, so changing paradigms necessarily causes a crisis. Kuhn explained this using examples from astronomy by noticing that Given a particular discrepancy, astronomers were invariably able to eliminate it by making some particular adjustment in Ptolemy’s system of compounded circles. But astronomy’s complexity was increasing far more rapidly than its accuracy and that a discrepancy corrected in one place was likely to show up in another.[4] Paradigm changes the world itself, and Kuhn offers an example of Lavoisier, who saw nature differently after discovering oxygen[5]. After scientific revolution has happened, communications are to restored between advocates of new and old theories. This is a hard and long lasting process, which often ends by physical death of the â€Å"old† scientists, because Conversions will occur a few at a time until, after the last hold-outs have died, the whole profession will again be practicing under a single, but now different, paradigm[6].   This caused claims of relativism which Kuhn himself denied in the later editions of his book. However, despite of all, Kuhn’s idea have deeply influenced the modern philosophic vocabulary. Such terms as â€Å"paradigm†, â€Å"paradigm shift†, â€Å"normal science† and â€Å"revolutionary science† are now widely applied by scientists and philosophers, especially in social science, political science and international relations theory[7]. Among the latest critics one should mention reasoning by Paul Feyerabend. He noticed, that there were many cases in the history of science, when scientists considered their theories a priory accurate long after some facts are discovered, which demonstrate the weakness of the theory. Under Feyerabend’s assumption there exist certain forms of scientific thinking, which allow scholars to recognize certain theories as scientific. So methodology of science can be pluralistic and include methods from different periods. New methods of reasoning do not substitute old ones, but they enter the scientific cannon together and mutually influence each other[8]. Works Cited Friedman, Michael, (1999) Reconsidering Logical Positivism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press Thomas S. Kuhn (1996) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University Of Chicago Press; 3 edition Fuller S. (2000) Thomas Kuhn: A Philosophical History for Our Times. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Bird A. (2000) Thomas Kuhn. Princeton and London: Princeton University Press and Acumen Press Paul K. Feyerabend (1999) Knowledge, Science and Relativism. Vol. 3, Cambridge [1]   Friedman, Michael, (1999) Reconsidering Logical Positivism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, p,- 43 [2] Thomas S. Kuhn   (1996) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University Of Chicago Press; 3 edition, p.-10 [3] Fuller S. (2000) Thomas Kuhn: A Philosophical History for Our Times. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p.-70 [4] Thomas S. Kuhn   (1996) ibidem, p.-65 [5] Supra note, p.- 118 [6] Supra note, p.-152 [7] Bird A. (2000) Thomas Kuhn. Princeton and London: Princeton University Press and Acumen Press. p.- 113 [8] See: Paul K. Feyerabend (1999) Knowledge, Science and Relativism. Vol. 3, Cambridge University Press

Modern Industrial Society

Modern Industrial Society This essay will attempt a brief review of the history of the concept culture and its relationship with the concept civilization, in order to understand the two concepts, without making any claims towards offering anything new in the analysis of the chronological account of how the definition of culture changed over time.  [1]  Instead, the essay will attempt to explore the harmonies and dis-harmonies in the utilization of the two concepts, as a way of coming to terms with immanent ruptures and continuities which were explicated in various ways in which the logic and lexicon of these concepts were deployed in the different anthropological traditions over the years. From the outset, I would like to mention that I almost abandoned this particular topic because of the difficulties I encountered in finding a concise definition of, mainly the concept of culture. When, after several weeks of reading, it finally dawned on me that actually there was none, it all started to make sense that the subject of defining the concept of culture has never been closed and was never intended for foreclosure. This meant that understanding how the concept was variously deployed was as important as appreciating the manner of its deployment, especially in ways in which this was always associated with the concept of civilization, whose definition was more straightforward. The notion of Culture: Following a very unsuccessful search for a concise definition of the concept culture, it dawned on me that Terry Eagleton and several others was after all correct when he said that culture was one of the few very complicated concepts to have ever graced the English language (Armstrong, 2010: 1; Eagleton, 2006: 1; Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952). Culture was a very difficult concept to define because the evolution of its etymology and its deployment varied in different contexts and anthropological traditions, both contemporary and classical. Its meaning in one setting was often contested in another. The word culture was first used in America  [2]  , and in etymological terms, its contemporary usage has its origin in attempts to describe mans relationship with nature, through which resources were extracted. It depicted the outcomes of extraction of resources from nature through a process of labor, for example, through crop farming and livestock production (Eagleton, 2006: 1). It was in this sense that the concept was first formally deployed in the 19th century in Germany, where the word used was Kultur, which in German referred to cultivation.  [3]  The early German usage of the word culture was heavily influenced by Kant, who, like his followers, spelled the word as culture, and used it repeatedly to mean cultivation or becoming cultured, which subsequently became the initial meaning of civilization (Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 10). The way the concept was first used in modern English borrowed from the usage first made of the word by Walter Taylor, which dates back to 1871 , although according to Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952: 9), Taylors use of the word culture, which was borrowed from German, was similar to the way the word civilization was used in Germany. The above sense in which the concept culture was for long deployed depicted it as an activity or occupation that entailed a materialist dimension related to the extraction of resources from nature. Coming from Walter Taylor, the modern scientific sense of the word culture no longer refers primarily to the process of cultivation, but more generally as a manifestation of customs, beliefs and forms of government (Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 10). The latter sense signifies some abstraction to the transcendent and divine realm of spiritualism. Over time, the concept was also deployed in other ways that depicted it as an entity (Eagleton, 2006: 1). There was also a sense in which the concept of culture also depicted the transformation that took place in societys experiences with changing technologies of production as capitalism developed, although this understanding was quite often deployed in racist terms to differentiate between less industrialized nations of the non-west from the more ind ustrialized European societies. It is true, as observed by Eagleton that the relationship between nature and culture was such that nature produces culture which changes nature (Eagleton, 2006: 3). In this sense, there is a part of nature that is cultural, and another that is not. The part of nature which is cultural is that part which labor transforms, for example, into works of art, monuments, skyscrapers (or building structures) or cities. Such products of culture are as natural as rural idylls are cultural (Eagleton, 2006: 4). Because culture originally meant cultivation, or managing the growth of crops, which means husbandry, the cultural therefore would imply that which was within ones means to change. As pointed out by Eagleton (2006: 4), the stuff to be altered has its own autonomous existence, which then lends it something of the recalcitrance of nature in much the same way as the extent to which culture transforms nature and also influences the rigorous limits nature imposes on the cultural project. To this extent, I am in agreement with Eagleton (2006: 4-5) that the idea of culture signified a double rejection, of, on the one hand, the representation of culture as an organic (biological) determinism; and, on the other, as an interpretation of culture as an embodiment of autonomous spiritualism. To this extent therefore, culture rebuffs naturalism and idealism founded in biological determinism by insisting that from the point of view of culture, there was also a representation within nature which exceeded and dismantled nature. It also represented a refusal of idealism because even the highest-minded human agency had its humble roots in our biology and natural environment. The resulting contradiction from this rejection of naturalism (emanating from organic determinism) and idealism (as a result of autonomy of spirit) led to a contest between what had actually evolved and what ought to, which transfigured into what Eagleton described as a tension between making and being made, between rationality and spontaneity (Eagleton, 2006: 5). Consequently, although the relation between humans and nature was important to an understanding culture, in this paper, I consider the social relations between humans and nature in the course of extracting from nature, through which humans change nature to be the most important. This is what is central to understanding the concept of culture, which makes it possible to view it as a systematic way of life and living, that humans consciously develop that is transferred from the past to the present and into the future. It depicts some semblance of historically assembled normative values and principles internal to social organizations through which a diversity of relationships are ordered. In this way, it is possible to see how culture becomes an abstraction of itself, in its own right, which does not reify culture as a thing as this essentializes culture. I am inclined to agree with Armstrong (2010: 2) in her definition, which presents culture more as a process of meaning making which i nforms our sense of who we are, how we want to be perceived and how others perceive us. The above said, we also need to recognize that while culture is important, it is also not the only factor that shapes social relations between humans in the course of impacting on nature in ways that change it. Several other social, economic, political, geographical, historical and physical factors come into play. It is necessary to recognize that culture, which embodies as much as it conceals its specific history, politics and economics; is, as also pointed out by Franz Boaz  [4]  , not inert. It is an inherently Boasian conception to view culture as extremely dynamic; as having life, and existing in a continuous state of flux, as new notions of and about culture continues to emerge. This means that cultures cannot be expected to be static and homogenous. As new cultures emerge, tensions are usually generated. The totality of any culture and its individual trait cannot be understood if taken out of its general setting. Likewise, culture cannot also be conceived as controlled by a single set of conditions (Benedict, 1934: xv). It is also Franz Boaz  [5]  who noted that culture is some form of standardized or normative behavior. An individual lives in his/her specific culture, in as much the same way as culture is lived by an individual. Culture has a materiality that makes it manifest in diverse patterns implying that it meaningless to try and generalize or homogenize about cultural patterns (Benedict, 1934: xvi). Thinking of culture as socially constructed networks of meaning that distinguish one group from another implies not only a rejection of social evolution but also an endorsement of cultural relativism, which is also a Boasian tradition.  [6]  Boaz  [7]  rightly argued that perspectives that view culture in evolutionary terms tend to end with the construction of a unified picture of the history of culture and civilization, which is misleading. Tendencies which view culture as a single and homogenous unit, and as an individual historical problem is extremely problematic (Benedict, 1934: xv). I consider the distinctive life-ways of different people as the most basic understanding of the notion of culture. Cultural relativity is a recognition that different people have cultures and life-ways that are distinct from those of others. The notion of civilization: The concept of civilization, like culture, also has a complex etymology. By 1694, the French were already using the verb civiliser, and referred to the polishing of manners, rendering sociable, or becoming urbane as a result of city life (Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 11). The French notion of civilization referred to the achievement of human advancement manifest in certain customs and standards of living. The French considered civilization as the end point of a process of cultivation that took place over centuries (Elliot, 2002). The English lagged behind the French.  [8]  In 1773, Samuel Johnson still excluded civilization from his dictionary, preferring civility, and yet civilization (from the word civilize) captured better the opposite of barbarity than civility. The English subsequently adopted the concept of civilization deriving it from the verb to civilize and associated it with the notion of civilizing others. The 1933 Oxford Dictionary defined civilization as: A developed o r advanced state of human society; a particular stage or type of this (Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 12). By the 18th century, the word civilization in German was associated with the spread by the state of political developments akin to the German state to peoples of other nations. It was somewhat similar to the English verb to civilize (Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 11). For the Germans and English, the concept of civilization invoked an imperial political agenda that was apparent in the way they deployed the concept. The harmony and dis-harmonies in deployment of concepts of culture and civilization: The evolutionary thinking about culture and civilization in the philosophy of Durkheim: Among the scholars who attempted a very rigorous narrative intended to distinguish between culture and civilization was Émile Durkheim, whose writings were first published in 1893. In trying to come to terms with the complex division of labor and associated behavioral changes that occurred with the industrial revolution in England, Durkheim, argued that inside modern industry, jobs were demarcated and extremely specialized, and while each product was a specialty, it entailed the existence of others in form of the labor they input into its production. As society evolved from agriculture to industry, so did culture of the pre-industrial era give way to civilization associated with the conditions of progress in human societies. Durkheim extended the concept of division of labor from Economics to organisms and society, from which its association with culture was derived, arguing that the more specialized an organisms functions were, the more exalted a place it occupied in the animal hierarchy. For Durkheim, the extent of division of labor in society influenced the direction of the development of the evolution of mankind from culture to civilization (Durkheim, 1984: 3). Durkheim used division of labor to make the distinction between culture as a preserve of the pre-modern mediaeval society and civilization as belonging to the modern industrial society. Durkheim argued that all societies are usually held together by social solidarity. In the pre-industrial societies, where social bonds were based on customs and norms, this solidarity was mechanical while in the industrial societies, which were highly individualistic, the solidarity was organic, and social bonds were maintained by contracts which regulated relations between highly individualistic beings. To Durkheim, societies transition from relatively simple pre-modern societies to relatively more complex industrial societies (Durkheim, 1984: 3). Durkheim argued that division of labor influenced the moral constitution of societies by creating moral rules for human conduct that influenced social order in ways that made industrial societies distinct from the pre-industrial ones. It created a civilized, individual man, capable of being interested in everything but attaching himself exclusively to nothing, able to savor everything and understand everything, found the means to combine and epitomize within himself the finest aspects of civilization. For Durkheim, tradition and custom, collectively defined as culture were the basis of distinction of the simpler societies which defined their mechanical form of solidarity that they exhibit. The modern societies, according to Durkheim, were characterized civilization (Durkheim, 1984: 3-4). Durkheim advanced an essentially Darwinian argument. In the biological determinism of Durkheim, it is argued that the shift from mechanical to organic solidarity was comparable to the changes that appeared on the evolutionary scale. Relatively simple organisms showing only minimal degrees of internal differentiation ceded place to more highly differentiated organisms whose functional specialization allowed them to exploit more efficiently the resources of the ecological niche in which they happened to be placed. The more specialized the functions of an organism, the higher its level on the evolutionary scale, and the higher its survival value. In similar ways, the more differentiated a society, the higher its chances to exploit the maximum of available resources, and hence the higher its efficiency in procuring indispensable means of subsistence in a given territory (Durkheim, 1984: xvi). There were fundamental contradictions in the perspectives of Durkheim. If Durkheim denigrated culture to the pre-modern, and viewed society as developing in evolutionary terms to the industrial, it could be assumed that he also believed that the solidarity which was associated with the industrial society was better. What then explains the fact that Durkheim was deeply convinced of and concerned about the pathology of acquisitiveness in modern capitalist society? Durkheim did not believe that the pathological features of the industrial society were caused by an inherent flaw in systems built on organic solidarity. Rather, he thought that the malaise and anomie were caused by transitional difficulties that could be overcome through the emergence of new norms and values in the institutional setting of a new corporate organization of industrial affairs (Durkheim, 1984: xxi). For Durkheim, the flaws in industrial and class relations did not mean that the pre-modern characterized by culture was better. That the class conflicts which were inherent in the industrial society and were associated with the structure of capitalist society would be overcome by the emergence of a new corporate society in which relations between employers and employees were harmonized. Beholden to none of the political and social orientations of his day, Durkheim always attempted to look for a balanced middle way (Durkheim, 1984: xxii). The contemporary play of relationships between culture and civilization has, to say the least, rendered wanting, the ideas which were advanced by Durkheim. For example, if culture is a preserve of the pre-modern, what explains the pervasiveness of barbarism within civilized formations of the industrialized world? Can we have culture in societies that are characterized as civilized or with civilization? Or are societies that are said to possess culture devoid of civilization? The contradictions in the etymology and deployment of concepts of culture and civilization: The usage of culture and civilization in various languages has been confusing. Websters Unabridged Dictionary for English defined both culture and civilization in terms of the other. Culture was a particular state or stage of advancement in civilization. Civilization was called advancement or a state of social culture. In both popular and literary English, they were often treated as near synonyms, though civilization was sometimes restricted to advanced or high cultures (Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 13). As early as the 1950s, there were some writers who were inclined to regard civilization as the culture of urbanized societies characterized by cities. Often, civilization was considered a preserve for literate cultures, for instance, while the Chinese had civilization, the Eskimo were seen as in possession of culture (Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 13). The English language distinction between civilization and culture made in the past was different from that made in the German language. In German, civilization was confined to the material conditions, while the English expression sometimes included psychic, moral, and spiritual phenomena (Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 13). The German Kultur also referred to material civilization, while culture in English over time came to mean something entirely different, which corresponded to the humanities. The German Kultur also related to the arts of savages and barbaric peoples, which were not included in any use of civilization since the term civilization denoted a stage of advancement higher than savagery or barbarism. These stages in advancement in civilization were even popularly known as stages of culture; implying that the word culture was used synonymous with the German Kultur (Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 13). In English, culture was a condition or achievement possessed by society. It was not individual. The English phrase a cultured person did not employ the term in the German sense. There was a sense of non-specificity in the way in which the concept culture (Kultur) was deployed in the German sense (Krober Kluckhorn, 1952: 13). From its etymological roots in rural labor, the word culture was first deployed in reference to civility; then in the 18th century, it became more or less synonymous with civilization, in the sense of a general process of intellectual, spiritual and material progress. In Europe, civilization as an idea was equated to manners and morals. To be civilized included not spitting on the carpet as well as not decapitating ones prisoners of war. The very word implied a dubious correlation between mannerly conduct and ethical behavior, which in England was equated to the word gentleman. As a synonym of civilization, culture belonged to the general spirit of Enlightenment, with its cult of secular, progressive self-development (Eagleton, 2006: 9). Form my reading of the literature on this subject, it was not clear at what point culture and civilization begun to be deployed interchangeably. Suffice to mention, however, that in English, as in French, the word culture was not unconditionally interchangeable with civilization. While it was not entirely clear, between the two concepts of culture and civilization, which predated the other, they both shared a transcendental association with the notion of cultivation, as something which is done to (or changes in) humans in the course of exacting labor upon nature to change it, that leads to the development of human qualities to suit the needs of collective humanity. Culture, which emerged in German from the notion of Kultur, which meant cultivation, appeared as a form of universal subjectivity at work within the particularistic realm of our separate individualities. For Eagleton (2006: 8), it was a view of culture as a component of civilization which was neither dissociated from socie ty nor wholly at one with it. This kind of focus also portrayed an essentially Kantian notion of man as becoming cultivated through art and science, and becoming civilized by attaining a variety of social graces and refinements (or decencies), in which the state had a role to play. This Kantian conception therefore distinguished between being cultivated and being civilized. Being cultivated referred to intrinsic improvement of the person, while being civilized referred to improvements of social interrelations (interpersonal relations), some kind of ethical pedagogy which served to liberate the collective self buried in every individual into a political citizen (Eagleton, 2006: 7; Kroeber Kluckhohn, 1952: 11). There was a sense in which the concept of civilization had an overwhelming French connection (coming from the concept civilizer), in the same way culture was associated with the Germans (from the concept Kultur). To be described as civilized was associated by the French with finesse with regards to social, political, economic and technical aspects life. For the Germans, culture had a more narrowly religious, artistic and intellectual reference. From this point of view, Eagleton (2006: 9) was right when he observed that: (i) civilization was deployed in a manner that played down national differences, while culture highlighted them; and, (ii) the tension between culture and civilization had much to do with the rivalry between Germany and France. I am reminded here of Eagletons famous phrase that: civilization was formulaically French, while culture was stereotypically German (Eagleton, 2006: 10-11). Towards the end of the 19th century civilization and culture were invariably viewed as antonyms. If, however, the description by Eagleton (2006: 9) of French notion of civilization as a form of social refinement is acceptable, then one can also accept Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952: 14) description of civilization as a process of ennobling (or creating nobility) of humanity through the exercise by society of increased control of the elementary human impulses. This makes civilization a form of politics. In the same light, I also agree with Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952: 14) that cultures German connections link it with the control of nature through science and art, which means culture embodies technology (including equipment) as well as knowledge systems (including skills) relevant for subduing and employing nature. The implications of the above are two-fold: (a) culture and civilization, can not be looked at as antonyms or binary opposites, in the sense in which evolution theorists would want us to view the relationship between these two concepts with culture as being akin to an inferior status while civilization is ascribed to the superior; (b) both tend to depict not only elements of normativity in advance in life-forms, but also constantly improving internal conditions of the internal elements of these concepts that define humanity which they embody. There is a way in which the elements embodied by these concepts depict superiority in their respective life-forms. Even when there are tendencies for overlaps in the elements depicted by these two concepts, for example, their association with politics, art, technology and urban living, there is a sense in which both concepts cannot be viewed as stages of development one from the other. It appears to me that Eagleton viewed civilization as a value-judgmental concept that pre-supposed an improvement on what went before, to whatever was not only right, but a great deal better than what was (Eagleton, 2006: 10). Eagleton was also non-presumptive when he pointed out that historically, the deployment of the term put it within the lexicon of a pre-industrial European middle class, which used the concept to justify imperial ambitions of mercantile and early industrial European capitalism towards those they categorized as of inferior civilization (Eagleton, 2006: 10). This fact has to be borne in mind if the concept when the concept is deployed today. Culture on the other hand, required certain social conditions that bring men into complex relationships with natural resources. The state becomes a necessity. Cultivation was a matter of the harmonious, all-round development of the personality. Because there was overwhelming recognition that nobody could do this in isolation, this helped to shift culture from its individual to its social meaning. Culture had a social dimension (Eagleton, 2006: 10). Whichever was, between culture and civilization, the progenitor of the other, there is a dual sense in which these concepts appear linked by their enlightenment era roots; and also not linked at the same time. I agree with Eagleton that civilization sounds abstract, alienated, fragmented, mechanistic, utilitarian, in thrall to a crass faith in material progress; while culture seems holistic, organic, sensuous, autotelic and recollective. However, I have reservations with Eagletons postulation of, first, a conflict between culture and civilization, and secondly, presentation of this conflict as a manifestation of a quarrel between tradition and modernity (Eagleton, 2006: 11). One of the greatest exports from the Enlightenment era was its universalism. Post-enlightenment political philosophy contributed significantly to critiques of enlightenments grand unilineal narratives regarding the evolution of universal humanity. We can look at the discourse of culture as a contribution to understanding the diversity inherent in different life-forms with their specific drivers of growth. Increasingly, it had become extremely perilous to relativize non-European cultures, which some thinkers of the time idealized as primitive (Eagleton, 2006: 12). In the 20th century in the primitivist features of modernism, a primitivism which goes hand-in-hand with the growth of modern cultural anthropology emerged, this time in postmodern guise, in form of a romanticizing of popular culture, which now plays the expressive, spontaneous, quasi-utopian role which primitive cultures had played previously (Eagleton, 2006: 12). While todate the concepts civilization and culture continue to be used interchangeably, there is also still a sense in which culture is still deployed almost as the opposite of civility (Eagleton, 2006: 13). It is not uncommon to encounter culture being used in reference to that which is tribal as opposed to the cosmopolitan. Culture continues to be closed to rational criticism; and a way of describing the life-forms of savages rather than a term for the civilized. If we accept the fact that the savages have culture, then the primitives can be depicted as cultured and the civilized as uncultured. In this sense, a reversal means that civilization can also be idealized (Eagleton, 2006: 13). If the imperial Modern states plundered the pre ­-modern ones, for whatever reasons, is it not a statement of both being uncultured and lack of civility, quite antithetical to what one could consider as civilization of the west. What sense doe it therefore make to posture as civilized and yet act in an uncultured manner? Can viewing culture as civilization, on one hand, and civilization as culture, on the other hand, help to resolve the impasse in the contemporary deployment of these concepts? One fact is clear, either way; it has potential to breed postmodern ambiguities of cultural relativism (Eagleton, 2006: 14). Alternatively, if culture is viewed, not as civilization, but as a way of life, it simply becomes an affirmation of sheer existence of life-forms in their pluralities (Eagleton, 2006: 13). Pluralizing the concept of culture comes at a price the idea of culture begins to entertain cultural non-normativities or queer cultures, in the name of diversity of cultural forms. Rather than dissolving discrete identities, it multiplies them rather than hybridization, which as we know, and as Edward Said observed, all cultures are involved in one another; none is single and pure, all are hybrid, heterogeneous, extraordinarily differentiated, and non-monolithic (Eagleton, 2006: 15). Attempts to valorize culture as a representation of particular life-forms associated with civility can also be perilous. There is a post-modern sense in which culture can be considered as an intellectual activity (science, philosophy and scholarship), as well as an imaginative pursuit of such exploits as music, painting and literature. This is the sense in which cultured people are considered to have culture. This sense suggests that science, philosophy, politics and economics can no longer be regarded as creative or imaginative. This also suggests that civilized values are to be found only in fantasy. And this is clearly a caustic comment on social reality. Culture comes to mean learning and the arts, activities confined to a tiny proportion of humanity, and it at once becomes impoverished as a concept (Eagleton, 2006: 16). Concluding Remarks: From the foregoing analyses, it is clear that understanding the relationship between culture and civilization is impossible until we cease to view the world in binaries in which the West (Europe) was constructed as advanced and developed with the non-West perceived as primitive, barbarous and pagan. Historically, the Wests claim of supremacy was always predicated on their provincialization of the non-west, whose behavioral patterns were judged from the experience of the West, and characterized in generalized terms as traditional customs and therefore culture. I agree with Benedict, that the West did all it could to universalize its experience to the rest of the world, even when this experience was different from that of those from the non-west (Benedict, 1934: 5). Assumptions of the mutual exclusivity of culture and civilization in society are premised on perceived irreconcilability of values and beliefs. Religion was always used in the West to posit a generalized provincialism of the non-west. It was the basis of prejudices around which superiority was justified. No ideas or institutions that held in the one were valid in the other. Rather all institutions were seen in opposing terms according as they belonged to one or the other of the very often slightly differentiated religions. In this contemporary era of highly globalized populations of footloose movements an

Nikola Tesla Essays -- Tesla Coil Science Electricity Electron

"Nikola Tesla is the world's greatest inventor, not only at present but in all history...His basic as well as revolutionary discoveries, for sheer audacity, have no equal in the annals of the intellectual world." (Hugo Gernsback, science editor and publisher.) Father of Alternating Current and AC induction motors, Nikola Tesla is known best for the high voltage generator that bears his name- the Tesla Coil. But this limited recognition hardly does justice to his legacy as an inventor. His name should be placed besides Thomas Edison, perhaps his biggest rival, for his contributions to electronics. But while electromagnetism was Tesla's primary focus during his life, the scope of his work and ideas were not so limited. He had many strange inventions and discoveries, many of which where not realized because of his opponents or for personal reasons. Others, as we will see, were simply too far-fetched or ambitious. But much of that story's been told before, just as it has been for countless other great scientists and inventors. Here I hope to focus more on the nature of the man that gives birth to the idea of a global night-light or a mail tube beneath the Atlantic, and the other radical ideas that such a mind could create. It's difficult to say why some of the more abnormal, and perhaps more interesting, details of history are forgotten or conveniently left out. Perhaps for simplicity, or perhaps to make history look more noble and admirable. Personally, I believe it's similar to people trying to forget their mistakes and the times they were "less than bright," in order to create an exaggerated image of themselves. Similarly, history tries to forget its more embarrassing moments, so that it may create a more more noble... ...If she needed me, nothing else mattered. As long as I had her, there was a purpose in my life. Then one night as I was lying in my bed in the dark, solving problems, as usual, she flew in through the open window and stood on my desk. I knew she wanted me; she wanted to tell me something important so I got up and went to her. As I looked at her I knew she wanted to tell me- she was dying. And then, as I got her message, there came a light from her eyes- powerful beams of light...Yes, it was a real light, a powerful, dazzling, blinding light, a light more intense than I had ever produced by the most powerful lamps in my laboratory. When that pigeon died, something went out of my life.Up to that time I knew with a certainty that I would complete my work, no matter how ambitious my program, but when that something went out of my life I knew my life's work was finished."

Laughter Essay -- Biology Essays Research Papers

Laughter "Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it." --E. B. White Why do people laugh? Laughter is contagious and therapeutic. It helps us cope with stress, and relax with friends. It is an indication of happiness, the sole reason we go on living. But what causes people to laugh? People laugh at jokes, semantic humor, which relies on cognitive ability to process the "humor" therein, or sometimes at slapstick type behavior requiring no intellectual understanding. People laugh at different things and for different reasons, and for the few that are interested at the expense of the frog, it can be interesting to investigate. Every individual varies in their neurological pathways through their "boxes" in their brain to reach the output of laughter from a number of different inputs. Laughter is caused by certain visual or audio stimuli, often by perception of the unexpected or the incongruous. A surprise in expected input can result in an emotional change, however major or minor. As H. Spencer says in his Physiology of Laughter, "the nervous system in general discharges itself on the muscular system in general: either with or without the guidance of the will" (1). Incongruous input causes an emotional change, and in the case of humorous response, resulting in the contraction of facial muscles and certain muscles in the abdomen. The epiglottis half closes the larynx, resulting in giggling, guffawing, or gasping, and tear ducts are activated. These outputs of the nervous system we refer to as laughter can be arrived at through a number of pathways through the boxes of the brain, fabricated in each individual throughout their life to that point. Although different parts o... ...2Bbut%2Bits%2Bbenefits%2Bare%2Bmany,%2Band%2Bunmistakably%2Bclear.%2B%2522%26hl%3Des%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG 6) encontrar el hueso divertido del cerebro , http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=es&sl=en&u=http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro02/web2/mdrejka.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522The%2Borigins%2Bof%2Blaughter%2Bare%2Bprimitive%2Band%2Bstill%2Blargely%2Bnot%2Bunderstood,%2Bbut%2Bits%2Bbenefits%2Bare%2Bmany,%2Band%2Bunmistakably%2Bclear.%2B%2522%26hl%3Des%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG 7) gerencia de la tensià ³n y causas de la tensià ³n , http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=es&sl=en&u=http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro02/web2/mdrejka.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522The%2Borigins%2Bof%2Blaughter%2Bare%2Bprimitive%2Band%2Bstill%2Blargely%2Bnot%2Bunderstood,%2Bbut%2Bits%2Bbenefits%2Bare%2Bmany,%2Band%2Bunmistakably%2Bclear.%2B%2522%26hl%3Des%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG

Notice and Focus: Girl Culture by Lauren Greenfield Essay

†Girl Culture† photo essay by Lauren Greenfield’s was shot inside a department store’s dressing room. It is about a picture of a young lady name Sheena, who seems to me, fitting some cloths while another girl, amber, about her age; probably a close friend is sitting on the floor watching her. The shot was taken candid. It appeared like a shot from a hidden security camera of the store. By the angle of where the picture was taken, I think the camera is located near the mirror where it could take a clear shot on the subject’s full frontal image. Sheena was almost half naked, wearing only jeans and a sando shirt in which she pulls up to her chest as she holds her breast. It really gave me an impression that Amber might be a very close friend for Sheena allowed her to see her that way probably to solicits some opinion. By the look at Sheena’s face, I could tell that see is disappointed about something and by the tight hold on her breast, I think she was discontented of its size. There are few things about this picture that captures my attention. The way Sheena holds her breast, the presence of Amber inside the rooms and the camera itself. With this photograph, one could tell how the thread of fashion’s today affects the mindsets of young girls cultures today. Most of our young ladies today, like Sheena, now always dream for a much larger breast. It shows how they are conditions by society that big breast attracts more. Page 2 With the presence of Amber inside the room it reflects how liberated our teens today. They are now less conservative with their privacy but I think it is just fine, for as long as they really know their friends. The good thing about it is that they know how to solicit suggestions among their peers for no one can really tell how good they look excepts for the peoples that surrounds them. This photo might be reflections of how young girl cultures today but what bothers me is the means this photo had taken. It’s a stolen shot from a dressing room of a public place and if this is true, I found it very alarming. This is a clear violation of privacy of every individual entering that room. It’s very abusive on the part of the owner of that establishment. Girl Culture by Lauren Greenfield February 10–March 27, 2005 Tisch Gallery