Thursday, October 31, 2019

The concepts of determinism, compatibilism, and libertarianism Essay

The concepts of determinism, compatibilism, and libertarianism - Essay Example Moreover, it is a difficult theoretical issue with regards to different worldviews that individuals hold. This essay discusses, compares and contrasts, and analyzes the concepts of determinism, libertarianism, and compatibilism. The last section discusses the best perspective among the three. Comparison and Contrast Philosophers have long debated the nature of free will. Three schools of thought have emerged from this debate: determinism, libertarianism, and compatibilism. Determinism is defined as the belief that for every occurrence there are circumstances which guarantee that nothing else could occur. One variety of determinism describes it as the belief that every occurrence is caused by prior occurrences and the important conditions needed for the creation of that occurrence. Every occurrence is the inevitable consequence of a series of occurrences resulting in that occurrence.1 Hard determinism supports libertarianism in claiming that determinism is irreconcilable with free wil l. Hard determinists refute the presence of free will and libertarianists believe in the existence of free will and rejects determinism as regards human freedom. ... Because everything is indispensable, predetermined, and imposed, individuals cannot be held responsible for their behaviors. Hard determinism accepts the intuitive character of free will but claims that it is a false impression.3 The pure impossibility of free will can be viewed in how hard determinism characterizes freedom. According to hard determinists, real freedom cannot have a source. Since everything is an outcome of causation, free will is ruled out. Hard determinists view human beings as physical entities and human behavior is determined by natural laws. In contrast, while taking into account the deterministic nature of some forms of reality, libertarianism fully accepts moral responsibility and the intuitive character of free will. This perspective does not disregard the existence of causation and natural laws in the physical realm but argues that it is not applicable to everything, especially to human actions. Libertarianists believe that free individuals act for reasons. Causes explain human actions but do not determine or create them.4 Libertarianism willingly accepts that some occurrences could be necessitated but refutes the idea that every action is the outcome of an antecedent cause. Therefore, libertarianism recognizes the causation model in the physical realm but argues that human actions should be understood in terms reasons, intentions, or internal conditions. Basically speaking, external forces could influence the action, but in the end it is up to the individual to choose between several available alternatives. Compatibilism, on the other hand, is presented as a way of reconciling the opposing views of determinism and libertarianism. This perspective establishes a totally deterministic view of

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

The darkness of mans heart Essay Example for Free

The darkness of mans heart Essay The question I have chosen to do this essay on is to discuss the way the novel is described; it is described as exploring the darkness of mans heart. The novel is set in the not too distant future where war is waging between nuclear powers in the world. Because of these circumstances a large number children have been evacuated from their homes but before they reach their destination their plane is shot down and the survivors land on a tropical almost paradise like island, unspoiled by man. This island is a microcosm representing the world. On the island the survivors all meet together and create a chief Ralph. Things soon go wrong due to members of the original group creating trouble and they decide to form their own tribe with a new chief Jack. I am going to look at how the events on the island have created an idea that the novel is exploring the darkness of mans heart. There are many areas within the novel which give evidence to support the view that the main theme is about the darkness of mans heart.. The first part of the novel is a very important part as it sets the scene of how these boys have such beautiful surroundings and how they are keen to think of ways to be rescued and just the pleasures of day to day life they enjoy. During the opening stages you can sense that the boys still have a strong memory of law and order and how to conduct themselves. One thing that shows this is when Roger an almost non existent character with little dialogue throws stones at a small child, not to hit him as he is circled with the taboo of old life Another time when we are shown the way the children have been restricted in their basic instincts due to the fact that they have been subjected to societys rigid rules, is when they go on their first hunting expedition. Jack could not bring himself to kill the pig because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood. All these games are all right to begin with but the darkness of mans heart ie the evil which many are capable of but lies hidden, needs to be controlled or else it will flourish. This shows us how we need to have rules in society or else anarchy and savagery will reign. The way in which the children remember the rules and power of the old life is  through the conch. The conch is just a shell to you and me but through it they see power and authority as whoever holds the conch has the right to speak. The conch represents in our own world today the mace in the House of Commons; this mace has the greatest of importance, as without its presence the House of Commons cannot begin. The conch I think holds them all together for a while, but its when they try to bend its rules by suggesting to remove its power in different areas of the island and eventually destroy it along with Piggy. Then I believe the darkness of mans heart becomes clearer as the conch symbolises law/order and authority. Another important part of the novel is when the beast takes on a physical persona. The beast we learn at the start is non-existent and only an empty shell that the younger children and some of the elders talk about. But it is when Ralph appeals to the adult world for help, if only they could send us something grown-up a sign or something, then from the sky a dead airmen falls from the sky. The sign the adult world gives them is one of death and destruction and we soon realise that it is not a beastie they are afraid of it is themselves, its mans own nature. This is confirmed by Simon later what I mean is maybe its only us, he is the only one to make the connection and he pays dearly for trying to communicate it to others. The deterioration in the boys sense of moralitys through the novel are ever so clear. And when we reach towards the end of the novel we see how that has happened, through the lack of authority and law. The boys have now become savages, they have gone through a massive transformation because of their surroundings and their ability to destroy and kill, and this is shown through the scar made in the island. It does this by showing mans destructive powers he is capable of. There are many things each of the characters symbolise at the end of the novel, Roger is evil a Satan like creature who has no conscious, Jack is savagery and anarchy, the beast is the inner evil in everyone (darkness of mans heart). The whole novel is symbolic in nature except the rescue in the end where adult life appears, dignified and capable, but in reality enmeshed in the same evil as the symbolic life of the children on the island. The officer  having interrupted a manhunt, prepares to take the children off the island in a cruiser, which will presently hunting its enemy in the same way. And I believe the cruiser is very important as it makes you think who will rescue the adult and his cruiser. This novel message about the darkness of mans heart means that society holds everyone together, and without these conditions, our ideals, values and basic choices of rights or wrong are lost. Without societys rigid rules anarchy and savagery can and will come to light. This novel is valuable not that it tells us of the darkness of mans heart, its valuable as it shows it by allowing us to enter into the island.

Sunday, October 27, 2019

Examining Media Discourse And The Amounts Of Crime Criminology Essay

Examining Media Discourse And The Amounts Of Crime Criminology Essay Media discourse is sutured with crime. Crime consumes an enormous amount of media space as both entertainment and news. Much of our information about the nature and extend of crime comes to us via the secondary source of media. We should expect then, that as distributors of social knowledge, they play a significant role in our perception and understanding of the boundaries between order and disorder. (Surette, 1998: 11) Because of the importance of media in everyday life, the study of crime and the media becomes a vital concern of sociology and media studies. Since media has the ability to interpret and give meaning to events through dramatization, this places it at the pinnacle of all social institutions in its ability to shape perception and reactions of its readership. It has been criticized over years by enormous sociologist that media is responsible for fomenting moral sensibilities and anxieties about crime and disorder. (Cohen, 1963; Young, 1971; Hall, 1978; Reiner, 1997; Munice:2001) The media manufactured of news (Cohen and Young, 1973/1981), created moral panics (Cohen, 1973) and fear of crime (Gerbner et al: 1980; Carlson: 1985) about folk devils, stigmatized outsiders, and amplified their deviance (Young, 1971) thus legitimating the drift to a law and order society (Hall et al, 1978) and a more authoritarian style of policing the crisis. (ibid.) In this assignment, I will discuss how and why these consequences of representation of crime are develop, and how they will affect the society. Fear of crime: In recent years policy debates have focused increasingly on fear of crime as an issue as serious s crime itself. As Home Office working party noted that fear of crime as an issue of social concern; it has to be taken as seriously as crime prevention and reduction. (Home Office, 1989: ii) When the media representation of crime is compared to real world crime as measured by official crime statistics, it appears that the media images exaggerate the probability of danger. This is said to cultivate a misleading view of the world based on unnecessary anxiety about levels of risk form violent crime. According to the BCS 1983, people are concerned most about those crimes which they are least likely to experience. (Hough and Mayhew 1983:23) The BCS data show a discrepancy between peoples fear of being a victim and their chances of being that victim. (Reiner 1997: 210; Munice, 2001: 59; Hewitt, 1995: 19) This has engendered a debate about why there should be such a disparity between the perception of risk and the actual risk. Most commonly, the media are accused of exaggerating the risk of crime, representing an image of the world which is scary and mean, (Carlson 1985) (Sparks 1992: Chapter 1) which lead to publics fear of crime in an unreasonable fashion. (Reiner 1997: 199) Most analyses of newspaper crime reporting have been concerned with the potentially distorted impression is created by the high proportion of reports of violent crimes. Ditton and Duffy (1983) analyzed the crime content of three Scottish newspapers concludes that the proportion of violent and sexual crimes are far more than those reported in the official statistics. (Ditton and Duffy, 1983) Many British studies also showed the same pattern of over representation of violent and interpersonal crimes. The risks of crime as portrayed by the media are both quantitatively and qualitatively more serious than the official statistically recorded picture.  [1]   Although media representation of crime is biased and they present crime in an exaggerated way, we cannot simply conclude that fear of crime is associated with media presentation of crime. The reason why people can be easily influenced by media is because they are lack of knowledge about crime. It is rare for people to experience or witness crime. Therefore, they need to rely on media as source of information to understand crime and use it as a guideline in assessing probability of being a victim. Furthermore, people are tended to use a simplistic way and the most available information to make assessment without reviewing other alternative source before they make judgment, this can lead to people use newspaper and television as source of information to understand crime and construct perceptions of crime. (Williams and Dickinson, 1993: 36) Base on these assumptions, it is sensible to say that medias representation of crime do have influence peoples perception about crime. The media biases associated with public misperceptions argument is confirmed by the study of relationship between newspaper crime reporting and fear of crime by Williams and Dickinson and 1996 BCS. According to Williams and Dickinson, there was a significant relationship between reading newspapers with more emphasis on violence crime and measure of fearfulness expressed in a survey. This association survived control by a number of demographical variables. (William and Dickinson, 1993) Thus, the research concludes that readers of those newspapers that report crime in the most dramatic and salient fashion have the highest levels of fear of crime. (William and Dickinson, 1993) Moreover, in the 1996 British Crime Survey, Hough and Roberts also concluded that there are some strong associations have been found between media biases representation and public misperceptions. (Hough and Roberts, 1996) These study both evident the media have direct influence on constructing fear of crime. The news media may constitute biased perception of crime, however, some scholars have a controversial view on the association between media representations and its effects. Increasingly, it is acknowledged that media representations are unlikely to be received passively, but rather interpreted by an active audiences but as one element in their lived experience. (Ericson, 1991; Livingstone, 1996, Reiner, 1997) Many studies show that the media is not the crucial agent in accounting for fear of crime, increasingly, it is more widely accepted that demographic factors such as age, sex, class, background, level of education, area of residence are significant determinants of anxiety about crime and violence. (Gunter, 1987; Sparks, 1992; Ericson, 1991: 287; Schlesinger and Tumber, 1994: 188) Crawford and his fellows (1990) also support such argument that fear does indeed accord to peoples real life circumstances. It may be generated by any number of personal, cultural or environmental factor s. Box et al also concur with Crawfords opinion, he further suggested that fear of crime depends on an interactive complex of vulnerability, environmental conditions, personal knowledge of crime, confidence (or lack of ) confidence in the police. (Munice, 2001: 59) Since there are many factors can affect the perception of crime, we should bear in mind that fear of crime is extraneous, generated by social and personal factors other than risk of crime per se. Moreover, we should remain alive to ability of the public to differentiate and interpret the information they receive. Though there is evidence concerning media partiality and distortion, it cannot by any mean be assumed that media representation are always received uncritically. (Munice, 2001: 62) The issue of media effect on perceptions of crime remains controversial. It is because of the difficulties in rigorously establishing straightforward casual relationships between images and effects. (Reiner, 1997: 191) Since the association between tow factors are remain unknown, it is plausible to conclude that media may have influence on perception of crime. What is more important about the issue of fear of crime is not whether it has any rational basis or it is solely cultivated by media, but rather how far its emotiveness as a topic can be used for ulterior and political motives. (Munice, 2001: 62) Moral Panic: During the 60s to 70s, the British public was riveted by magnified coverage of highly unusual crime stories of violence crime committed by youth that turned into what some news outlets described as an all too familiar story. Rather than providing context, the medias labeling of these youth violence as symptom of social decline has tended to exacerbate peoples moral sensibilities about youth violence. The result is that misdirected public policy is being generated to increase social control, even though the real threat is minimal. Study of Mod and Rockers by Cohen: The first systematic empirical study of a moral panic in the UK was Stanley Cohens research on the social reaction to the Mod and Rockers disturbance of 1964. (Cohen 1973b) (Munice, 2001: 50) A group of youths broke out sabotage in the seaside resort of Clacton over the Easter bank holiday in 1964. The events were to receive front page outrage in the national press. The media spoke out of a day of terror of youngsters who beat up entire town. Youth were described as organized gangs who deliberately caused trouble by acting aggressively towards local residents and destroyed a great deal of public property. In Cohens research, however, found no evidence of any structured gangs within that area, thus, the total amount of serious violence and vandalism was not as great as media described. (Cohen, 1973) According to the Cohens analyses, it is obvious that media have exaggerated the seriousness of the Clacton event, in terms of criteria such as the number taking part, the number involved in violence and the amount and effects of any damage or violence. Such distortion took place primarily in terms of the mode and style of presentation characteristics of most crime reporting: the sensational headlines, the melodramatic vocabulary and the deliberate heightening of those elements in the story considered as news. (Cohen, 1973) The frequent use of misleading headlines and vocabulary like riot, beat up the town, attack, screaming mob which were discrepant with the actual story and left an image of a besieged town from which innocent holidaymakers were fleeing to escape a marauding mob. Medias distorted reporting not only exaggerated the seriousness of the initial events in 1964 but also amplified the youth deviance. The incessant news coverage of Mod and Rockers initiated a wider public concern, youth are labeled as a symptom of social decline. They are portrayed as being outside the central core values of our consensual society and as posing a particular threat to society. (Cohen, 1981: 273) Once youths have been identified with negative labeling, they will believe themselves to be more deviant and segregating out from the community, which will create a greater risk of long term social disorder. Thus, overreaction of the police and general public will contribute to further polarization between youth and the society. As a result, more crime would be committed by stigmatize group and lead to less tolerance of deviants by conforming groups.(McRobbie and Thornton,1995: 561) (Munice, 2001: 52) As Cohen shows in Mod and Rocker study, The continuing disturbance attracted more news coverage would increase police activity and further public concern. Media exaggerate the problem can give rise to local events seem ones of pressing national concern, and an index of decline of morality standards, which obliged the police to step up their surveillance. Consequently, the stepping up of controls lead to further marginalization and stigmatization of deviants which, in turn, lead to more calls for police action and into a deviancy amplification spiral. (McLaughlin, 2001: 176) Study of Mugging by Hall et al Hall et al (1978) reused the concept the moral panic in identifying a series of major social problems to do with permissiveness, vandals, student radicals and so on, culminating with the moral panic of mugging. Hall and others revealed that the media make use of moral panics to both define and distort social problems was fleshed out into a general critique of the medias construction of social reality. (Munice, 2001: 52) In Halls study of mugging in Policing the crisis, the media regarded mugging not as a particular type of robbery but rather a general social crisis and rising crime. (Hall et al., 1978: 66) The media presented mugging as a new and rapidly growing phenomenon. In fact, the crime was not new, only the label was, and official statistics did not support the view that it was growing rapidly, however, with a name for the crime now in existence old offenses were categorized as such, creating the impression of growth. The medias generated new category of crime created the impression of a crime wave, it further whipped up a moral panic around the issue which served to legitimate an increase in punitive measures; they conclude that the media played a key role in developing and maintaining the pressure for law and order measures-for example, police mugging squads and heavy sentences. (Munice, 2001:52-53) (Hewitt, 1995: 17) In this regard, moral panic can strengthen the powers of state control an d enabling law and order to be promoted without cognizance of the social divisions and conflicts which produce deviance and political dissent. (Munice, 2001: 55) It is not just a new category of crime has been defined by media, the media misrepresentation of crime also stigmatize the black youth as the cause of mugging without further explaining the structural reason of the crime, like poverty, social deprivation and class and racial inequality. (Munice, 2001:53) This ready application of stereotypes in mugging crime reporting portray crime in a way to be depicted in terms of a basic confrontation between the symbolic forces of good and evil. The process of deprivation and modes of social organization are rarely provided. (Chibnall, 1977: 79) As Hall concluded, crime reports tend to undo the complexities of crime by constructing a number of easy categories into which each type of crime can be placed. (Hall et al, 1978:13-15) (Munice, 2001: 47) After the analyses of issue of moral panic or fear of crime, there is one common element between two consequences of media representation of crime-both are generated by the media biased representation of crime. In order to investigate cases of apparent moral panic and fear of crime, it is necessary to understand how news is developed and the structural relationship between media and source of crime stories. The element of newsworthiness: The media appear to be involve in a continual search for the new unusual and dramatic. This is what makes the news. Under the market model (Cohen and Young, 1981), because of the business concern, news content needs to be generated and filtered primarily through reporter sense of newsworthiness to produce what makes a good story that their audience wants to know about in order to engage audiences and increase readership. The core elements of these are immediacy, dramatization, personalization, titillation and novertly. (Chibnall, 1977:22-45; Hall et al., 1978; Ericson et al., 1991) Thus, there are five sets of informal rules  [2]  of relevancy which govern the professional imperatives of popular journalism: these are visible and spectacular acts, sexual or political connotations, graphic presentation, individual pathology and deterrence and repression. (Chibnall, 1977: 77-79) These rules help us to understand how news values are structured and explain why there is a predominant e mphasis on violent offences. Organizational pressures: Besides the element of newsworthiness, there are a variety of concrete organizational pressures, for example, the periodicity, or timing, of the events and how they match the scheduling needs of the agency, cost effectiveness and efficiency, all these factors not only determine what is reported, they also lead to an unintended consequences- that is bolstering the law and order. (Reiner, 1997: 142) For example, numerous police personnel are available and willing to provide comments about an incident, which resulting in frequent citation of police sources in all types of crime stories. (Chermak, 1995: 38) Thus, court cases are frequently used by media, because lots of newsworthy cases are expected to recur regularly, therefore, court cases are an economic use of reporting resources. (Reiner, 1997: 221) Because police and courts resources are easily accessible and constantly available, media become more habitually rely on them as the main source of news information, and over time, the s tructural dependence of media on between criminal justice bureaucracies will be established, which permits the institutional definers to establish the primary interpretation of the topic in question. (Hall et al, 1978: 58; Chibnall 1977: chaps. 3, 6; Schlesinger and Tumber 1993) The notion of impartiality and the use of accredited source: The notion of impartiality and the news source used by journalists are the crucial reason to explain media biased representation of crime and the tendency towards institutional definers ideology. (Hall, 1981: 341-343) The media reporting is underwritten by the notions of impartiality, balance and objectivity. (Hall et al., 1981: 341) The practical pressures of constantly working against the clock and the professional demands of impartiality and credibility resulted in constant use of accredited representative of major criminal justice institutions- the police, the courts and the Home Office as the main source of news. These institutional representative agents are accredited because they are in a position to provide initial definitions or primary interpretation of crime and locate them within the context of a continuing crime problem. Because they control over material and mental resources, which news media have little direct access to, and their domination of the major institutions o f society, this classs definitions of the social world provide the basic rationale for those institutions which protect and reproduce their way of life. This control of mental resources ensures that theirs are the most powerful and universal of the available definitions of the social world. (Hall, 1981: 343) As a result, these rules which are originally aim to preserve the impartiality of media turn media as an apparatus to reproduce the definitions and ideology of primary definers. The study of Crimewatch UK-case illustration of relationship between Media and source of crime news The study of Crimewatch UK by Schlesinger and Tumber (1993) is a modern example to illustrate the above argument. The production team of Crimewatch UK has heavily used the information provided by the criminal justice institutions as the main source of crime stories. It is partly because of the notion of cost effectiveness, more importantly, it is because they want to make the program as documentary reconstruction rather than merely a crime drama without a realistic and documentary basis. (Schlesinger and Tumber, 1993: 24) However, the police as the source of crime stories broadly define the terms of reference within which Crimewatch UK may operate. It can be shown by the two basic ground rules of productions requested by the police in exchange for information: first, anything filmed would be embargoed and could not be used again unless the force involved gave its permission, and second, the police must reveal all the known facts and their suspicions to the Crimewatch team. (Schlesing er and Tumber, 1993: 23) Although the production team exercise editorial judgment over how the cases that they reconstruct are to be presented in television terms in order to maintain their impartiality, it is inevitable that their decisions are still within the criminal justice bureaucracies defined framework. (Schlesinger and Tumber, 1993: 30) From the above analyses, we can see how the notion of impartiality lead to the use of accredited source, and how the source provider- the criminal justice institutions turn a documentary program into the polices public relations program to reproduce the definitions of primary definers. Furthermore, this study also demonstrated the asymmetrical relationship between the news and source of information. Journalists are always in an inferior negotiating position in the negotiation process regarding to the definition and presentation of crime. News media are constrained to sacrifice their relationship with the police personnel because they fear losing information access. Reporters rarely challenge the police perspective because of the information police can provide. As what Chibnall described, The reporter who cannot get information is out of a job, whereas the policeman who retains it is not. (Chibnall, 1977: 155) This asymmetrical relationship between media and the source is evidently demonstrated in the case of Crimewatch study. Since the production team is heavily dependent upon the police to provide information of crime cases, they realize that if the police do not provide such information, the program can never be successfully produced. Therefore, editorial judgmen t is limited and the presentation of crime stories are constrained within the polices basic grounded rules and their defined framework. Representation of crime and definition of criminal justice bureaucracies Most commonly, the media are accused of exaggerating the risk of crime, representing an image of the world which is scary and mean, creating crime waves in order to cultivate moral sensibilities and fear among the society. However, such argument ignores the significant influence of the source of crime and overestimates the representation power of the media. It is important to understand that the power to construct social reality rests not merely with media, but also with those who can control the medias raw materials for news-the criminal justice institutions. (Fishman, 1981: 136) Crime news is mutually determined by journalists, whose image of crime is shaped by police concerns and by police, whose concerns with crime are influenced by media practices. However, if criminal justice bureaucracies are not cooperative in providing relevant information as requested by media, media would not have sufficient resource to form crime waves and representation of crime will be changed. In this regard, criminal justice institutions are the crucial determinant to define what is produced and presented. Journalists convey an image of crime wholly accord with the police departments notion of serious crime and social order as orchestrating with criminal justice institutions. Therefore, as long as the routine source for crime news is criminal justice institutions, the presses are inevitable to reinforce the crime definition from criminal justice institutions. Representation of crime and social control According to hegemony theorists, media are regarded as a secondary definer to orchestrate with dominants consent by actively intervening in the space of public opinion and social consciousness through the use of highly emotive and rhetorical language. This exaggerated way of presentation has a effect of requiring that something has to be done about it. Thus, the impartiality notions of media can be served to objectify a public issue. That is, the publicizing of an issue in the media can serve as an independent opinion to a real issue of public concern rather than merely official information or a direct projection of the governments ideology. In this regard, media can be leveraged as a public agenda setting function to translate primary definers definition of crime into a public issue. (Hall et al., 1981: 346) Once the prolonged public agenda concern in particular crime is formed, moral sensibilities and anxiety are cultivated among society, the press can help to legitimate and reinfo rce the actions of the primary definer by bringing their own independent arguments to bear on the public in support of the actions proposed; or it can bring pressure to bear on the primary definers by summoning up public opinion in support of its own views that stronger measures are needed. (Hall et al., 1981: 348) In late 1976, a great deal of publicity and anxiety was generated over an apparent crime wave against the elderly in New York, which led to the setup of a police sponsored community deference program. However, the official statistics did not support the view that violent crime against elderly was rapidly growing at the same time as the media were reporting a crime surge. The US sociologist Mark Fishman used this example to demonstrate the above argument. According to Fishman, the police do play a crucial role in reinforcing journalistically to produce concern about crime waves by selecting further incidents for reporters based on what has been covered before. Furthermore, the police are in a position to intimate perceptions of a crime wave themselves by the way in which they select crime incidents for their press release. (Fishman, 1981) In this regard, media play an orchestrating role to present what is defined by the police in order to create crime wave, the widespread of news cove rage cultivated anxiety among society, as a result, like what we have concluded above, media in respond to public opinion to pressure the police in order to increase social control by forming the deference program. In this case, the initiation of social control can be legitimated as the reaction of the criminal justice institutions to the public opinion Newspaper reports are disproportionately concentrated on violent crimes, even it seems they are not deliberately focus on this particular category of crime due to medias organizational pressures and code of practice, however, as what I have discussed above, without the source of news provided by criminal justice institutions, crime stories can never be formed. Therefore, the criminal justice institutions are also responsible to affect the media representation of crime by manipulating the source of information. Criminal justice institutions and media can generate fear by providing same kind of crimes persistently in epidemic proportions. For instance, media will suddenly focus on crimes that they had previously ignored and report them to the public. (E.g. mugging and violent crimes against elderly) (Fishman, 1976). In this regard, criminal justice institutions and media are both responsible for exaggerating the magnitude of the problem to sustain public attention for prolonged periods , as a result, fear and moral sensibilities can be instilled. What is important to recognition that moral panic and fear of crime are the first link in a spiral of events leading to the maintenance of law in society by legitimize rule through coercion and the general exercise of authority. The sudden defining and focusing of the historically recurring event of street crime have created the impression of a crime wave, this provides government with the justification to introduce repressive legislation in order to increase its control among the society. (Munice, 2001: 53) Since fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled, more susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard line postures. They may accept and even welcome repression if it promises to relieve their insecurities and other anxieties. (Signorielli 1990:102) (Reiner, 1997: 217) Consequently, the report of crime waves will produce public pressure to call for tough authoritative institutional control, public support can be mustered to institute formal sanctions. The study of Mod and Rocker by Stanley Cohen and the study of muggers by Stuart Hall and his fellows both demonstrate medias exaggeration of crime risks is claimed to increase political support for authoritarian solutions to a crisis of law and order which is largely the creation of media misrepresentation of crime. Media act in a role to stigmatize young Afro-Caribbean as folk devils and generate moral panic in order to created social conditions of consent for the construction of a society more focused towards law and order. The government uncontrollable and structural causes of social unrest can be overlooked, when the public gaze is fixed by stigmatizing young Afro-Caribbean as visual symbols of what was wrong in society, with the increase of social control measures initiated by the government. As a result, the threats of society seems to be eliminated by social and legislative action; the tough punitive measures can be legitimized to control the unstable social environment, the l egitimacy of the government can be reassured by providing public a image of strong government and strong leadership. (Cohen, 1973; Munice, 2001: 52; McRobbie and Thornton, 1995: 562, Hewitt, 1995: 12-16) The media not only exaggerate crimes, on the other hand, they portray the criminal justice bureaucracies, especially the police in a positive light. Routine news reporting about police and crime has a public relations function for police, promoting organizational and occupational ideologies. (Ericson, 1991: 224) The news media dramatize the polices routine works and give the police a ceremonial force. This has promotional value for the police, because it often shows them to be quite effective in fighting crime. (Marsh 1988) (Ericson, 1991:224) Several researchers have examined the relationship between news and police personnel (Chibnall, 1977; Ericson, Baranek and Chan, 1989; Fishman, 1980; Hall et al., 1978) . Most ethnographic research concludes that the police determine what is presented in the news, and describe news media as conduits for police ideology (Chibnall, 1977; Fishman, 1980; Hall et al., 1978) Police frame crime stories in a self promoting way to exaggerate their effectiveness by compiling statistics on performance measures such as the number of offences as well as arrest data. Furthermore, the police can decide when story information should be released, limiting access to reports and diverting attentions from specific events, in order to manipulate medias representation of crime and criminal justice. The US sociologist Chermaks media contend analysis study (Chermak, 1995) and Roshiers study in the UK  [3]  both evident that (Schlesinger and Tumber, reading list: 186) criminal justice bureaucracies, espe cially the police can manipulate the medias representation of crime and criminal justice system by manipulating information in order to provide a favorable image of police and strengthen the states legitimacy. Furthermore, it has been also suggested by Carlson (1985) that such biased representation of criminal justice bureaucracies can lead to support of more social control. He claims to show that heavier television viewers are comparatively ill-informed about legal process; they have a propensity to believe that the police are effective in combating crime and support. As a result, heavy viewers are tended to support more social control. (Sparks 1992, , Ericson, 1991: 283) Criticism of hegemony and Halls theory: The theory of hegemony has been criticized by many scholars that it has paid inadequate attention to the communication process. They argued that the hegemony theory supporters have been characterized by a tendency to treat media as homogeneous, this largely ignores the distinctiveness of particular media and the ways in which such media are internally differentiated. (Schlesinger et al., 1990: 96-97; Ericson et al, 1991) It has been suggested by Ericson et al that there are systematic variations between the presentations of crime in different media and markets.(Ericson et al, 1991) This is partly because of they have different variants to political and professional journalistic ideology according to patterns of ownership and perceived audience. There are interconnected with differences in technological resources, budge

Friday, October 25, 2019

Origins Of Distrust Between Th :: essays research papers

The Arab world has been one of the most confusing areas known to the western world. Because of this confusion, the people of the Middle East have been made to suffer, not only at the hands of the west, but also by their own. Even though Arab and western world relations have been stabalizing, they are still long way off from achieving a lasting peace. â€Å"The roots of all these problems go back to the settlement imposed on the Middle East in 1918-1922†(Field 26). Since before the start of World War I, there was a great Western presence in the area we know today as the Arab world. Britsh and French forces occupied Northern Africa since 1882; British occupied Egypt, at the request of Sultan in Constantinople, and the region we today call the Mahgreb: Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. In addition, to its presence in Egypt, Britain also kept the Gulf states under her protection and held Aden as a colony. According to the â€Å"version of events one hears in the Middle East, is that British and French policy at the time was a straightforward betrayal of the Arabs†(Field 28). Because of the Ottoman rule in the Middle East, the Europeans began to persuade the Arab leaders to revolt by promising them their independence. But what was meant, was independence from Turkish rule with the aid, supervision and/or protection from Britain and France. In simple terms, the Europeans powers would be the new occupiers of the Middle East. The deception came in the form of two documents; one important to the Europeans powers, and the other to the Jews. The Sykes-Picot Agreement of February 1916, was the document that divided the Middle East between Britain and France. The agreement stated that Lebanon and Syria would be set aside as areas of French interests and the British were free to intervene in the Arab region in the South. Sykes-Picot remained a secret to the Arabs till 1917, when after the Bolshevik Revolution, Russia had published it. From 1918 the Europeans began to place monarchs in the countries(lands) they had established. Some remained in power for a short amount of time (Sherif Hussein) and others began a lineage (Abdullah in Transjordan). Nevertheless, the rulers that were placed by Britain, were deposed of due to the nationalistic ideas that were arising in the Middle East. The second form of deception was the Balfour Decleration, in which was stated that the British government favoured and supported â€Å"the establishment in Palestine of a natural home for the Jewish people†(Field 44).

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Tradition v.s Common Sense

Traditions are a very Important aspect of human life. They are seen as another way of life. Many traditions teach things of value to children, things which parents hope will be passed on to future generations. In many societies however, traditions have taken over the common sense of the people.Nowadays, humans blindly follow traditions, not knowing or even acknowledging what they are really doing. Whether It Is a celebratory tradition or a tradition that has been followed since ancient times, unmans will not question the motives behind it; they will just continue to follow it. In the short story â€Å"The Lottery† by Shirley Jackson, villagers blindly follow their annual tradition, one that claims a life every year.All the villagers take part in this event knowing that there will be death yet no one dares to stop and question It, Even when some people do stop and question the reasons that began the tradition, they will not do anything about it because it is a tradition that ha s been followed countless and they do not want to be the only ones to question it or even worse, not follow it. This shows that human beings will tolerate acts of evil and Injustices In traditions, making them unable to step out of that circle and see what is really going on because of their preference of tradition over common sense.It does not matter if the tradition FIFO Traditions have been around for thousands of years, even before civilized human life began. They have been performed all over the world, in all points of time. In the overview by Joyce Moss and George Wilson, it is explained that ancient cultures believed sacrifices were necessary to benefit the community. In fact, during ancient times a tradition similar to â€Å"The Lottery' was such â€Å"a highly regarded mean of decision-making that eventually most civic matters were resolved by. † Joyce Moss & George Wilson) This is because traditions were among the main parts or sections of ancient human life.Even n ow, traditions are still a big part of human life. Many traditions around the world are a huge thing for humans. They will make special foods, decorations, and even rituals. However, many of these traditions are performed without thought. Many traditions are followed because it has been done before, no one has questioned it before, and so there is no reason to stop it now. In â€Å"The Lottery' one can analyze that the original meaning and aspects of the tradition have indeed been lost and that the tradition is followed Just because.The analysis made on study mode suggests that â€Å"Substituting slips of paper for chips of wood, a recital prior to the lottery, and a salute to address each person† are some of the aspects that have changed prior to the original lottery, the first one that began everything. (Analysis of the Tradition in Shirley Jackson's â€Å"The Lottery') It also mentions that the actual tradition has remained a routine. This leads to the conclusion that th e lottery is no longer continued because of the tradition, but because it has been done for so long it Just feels right to continue to follow it.In many societies, rituals are part of the traditions. Many believe these rituals are performed because of religion or a similar idea. What people do not know is that not all rituals are needed or performed because of religion. Many rituals are Just performed because of tradition. It does not matter if the ritual is harmful and has a active impact on society; many societies will still perform them Just to keep the tradition going. The short story, â€Å"The Lottery' by Shirley Jackson, shows a perfect example of this.The people of the town still perform the ritual because of the tradition held every year. They do not care if someone they love or care for dies; they just want to follow the tradition. Even the own family members participate in the ritual, which is stoning one of their own family members to death. These types of rituals are i ncredible acts of evil but humans still participate in them. In the last section of the overview by Jennifer Hicks, she explains very thoroughly the tradition of stoning. In it she explains that it was a standing ritual.She does mention that the â€Å"original paraphernalia for the lottery has been lost long ago. † (Hicks) There is a part in the story where old man Warner stated, â€Å"Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon. † This refers to human sacrifices benefiting the community with food, which is something that by the time the story takes place, which is around the 1700 to sass, should be known that it is not real. So why do they continue to do this? It is the simple reasons of following a tradition. There are many concerns on why human beings follow traditions that are inhumane instead of using their common sense.Most of the issues are due to the fact that many rituals followed by humans consist of bloodshed or even death. In many societies, traditions play a big r ole, causing more and more people to be a part of them. The main dilemma is why people accept traditions that sense that traditions that involve bloodshed and death can be no good to societies, especially societies filled with children. Traditions like these will only poison the minds of the young with the idea that a tradition must be followed no matter what. The reason people do not stop them is because they do not want to stand out.In the book â€Å"Shirley Jackson† by Friedman Lineman, it explains that Shirley Jackson was new to a small town when she moved. She did not really know anybody so she did not participate in the town's traditions. This caused other towns people to look at her weird, like an outsider. This can reflect on her short story of â€Å"The Lottery', in which the analysis can be made that Mrs.. Hutchinson was an outsider, not so much of Ewing new but the type that does not do what everyone else does, in this case, the tradition of the lottery.It is clea r that these traditions have taken over the common sense of the people. Now, people do not think before acting. They Just follow traditions to the letter. They do no stop to think about their traditions and if they are beneficial or plain out dangerous. They Just do not want to stand out; they want to be the same as everyone else. It is around these thoughts that the main concern revolves around. Humans will argue that traditions are needed when the reality is that they are not. They have gotten surrounded so much by traditions; it is like a second language to them.The short story â€Å"The Lottery' by Shirley Jackson explains how human beings in the village have been blinded by a tradition, which is the lottery. With careful analysis, it is easy to spot all blind actions carried out by the villagers. Everybody seems nice and Joyful throughout the story until the very end. â€Å"It seems as though Jackson is making a statement regarding hypocrisy and human evil. † (Analysis of the Tradition in Shirley Jackson's â€Å"The Lottery') What Shirley Jackson wants us to realize y writing this story is that people are so blinded by traditions; they might kill someone thinking it is alright.Shirley Jackson uses ideas similar to these to suggest that there is an underlying evil and weakness in human beings. The village, having performed such an act for so many years, continues on with it, with no complaints or questions being asked, and the main purpose being to carry on the tradition. In the story, it states, â€Å"There's always been a lottery says Old Man Warner. â€Å"Nothing but trouble in that,† he says of quitting the event. (122) However, almost all the villagers how some type of anxiety or fear toward the tradition.Comments like â€Å"Don't be nervous Jack† (122) and â€Å"Get up there Bill† (123) indicate that the people may not be entirely comfortable with the lottery. Yet everyone still goes along with it. Nobody openly express es or shows their fear toward the lottery. Shirley Jackson may be trying to show the reader that many individuals are not strong enough to go against or stand up to their disapproval for the fear of being rejected by their own society. Instead, the villagers will continue to risk not only their lives, but the lives of their Emily members as well.She makes suggestions that human beings are not always who they seem and can turn their back on you at any time for the sake of their beliefs, or in this case, tradition. Throughout history, humans have made the choice to choose their traditions over their common sense. They do not think of the effects that will be caused because of their actions. Nowadays, people in societies continue to follow traditions or â€Å"trends† side to watch an argument, accident or incident, rather than stepping in and doing something about it.They do not step in because they do not want to stand out in front of everybody else; they do not want the spotli ght on them. They are frightened that they will be rejected later on. It is the same thing with traditions. Human beings do not care if there is death in the tradition, they will continue to follow it as long as they do not stand out and are not rejected or looked down on. This shows that human beings will tolerate acts of evil and injustices in traditions, making them unable to step out of that circle and see what is really going on because of their reference of tradition over common sense.People need to stop and think about the effects caused by traditions instead of Just blindly following the traditions of their ancestors. If this is not stopped, future generations will continue to make blind choices as well, due to the lack of common sense. Works Cited â€Å"Analysis of the Tradition in Shirley Jackson's â€Å"The Lottery†. † Studded. Com. Studded. Com, 2008. Web. 2008.. Friedman, Lineman. Shirley Jackson. Boston: Twenty Publishers, 1975. Print. Hicks, Jennifer. â €Å"Overview of the Lottery. † Short Stories for Students. Detroit: Gale, 2002.

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Letter to Octavian essays

Letter to Octavian essays When Lepidus retired, why did you choose to take the west and not the east? What strategies did you use to defeat Marc Antony and win the Battle of Actium to become the sole Dictator? Did it feel invigorating to know that you had earned even more power than Julius Caesar? You then were made the one who made all of the final decisions including laws and foreign policy. Was it hard to live up to all of your peoples expectations? Did you return Rome to power and glory like you promised? How did you act to end all civil wars, expand territories, and create more jobs, which you also promised the people of Rome? I think that you were a very positive Emperor and probably the best one Rome has had in all of history. Your popularity with the people must have influenced them in many ways. I am sure that you improving the Roman military helped get you tasks such as expanding territories done. Being the commander of the army and navy must have meant that you were a great strategist. It was extremely smart of you to offer citizenship to anyone who joined the army or navy and doubling the size of the military. How did you think of that? Extending trade routes to Europe, Asia, and Africa must have increased the trade significantly. Did your Empire make a lot of profits from trade? How exactly did you better the living conditions inside the Empire? Who were allowed inside the schools that you founded? Were people excluded because of their gender or race? Did encouraging the arts and literature have a large affect on your people because they adored you? When architecture increased did the cities become more compact? Thank you for all of the great tasks you have succeeded in doing that have effected life everyday up un till this year (2002). I hope that you can and will write back when you get a chance. ...

Monday, October 21, 2019

Great Compromises essays

Great Compromises essays Would the United States of America ever be united if it were not for compromises? I would say the chances are slim. During the early years of the new nation, there was a lot of conflict and turmoil. During the Constitutional Convention of 1786, one of the most essential compromises of the early United States was the Great Compromise. Another compromise that arose at the Constitutional Convention was the Three Fifths Compromise. These two compromises helped to establish the early government issues of the nation. Another compromise that was crucial to the survival of this great nation is the Missouri Compromise. Together these three compromises enabled America to become united. In 1786, fifty-five delegates from twelve of the thirteen states attended the Constitutional Convention. These delegates were there to make changes to the Articles of Confederation, what they did not know was that they would compromise to form a constitution. James Madison from Virginia proposed a plan that called for a three branch government; legislative, judicial, and executive (Notes 2/16/01). This was intended to separate the powers, ensuring that no one group or individual could have too much authority. In this plan was also a system that allowed each branch to check the other. This was instated to protect the interest of the citizen. Much of the controversy surrounding the plan centered on legislation. The plan called for membership in the legislature to be based on population (Tindall Plan. Since the small states disagreed, they formed their own plan. Some fifteen delegates came together and submitted the New Jersey Plan. This plan called for a unicameral legisla ture that had equal representation. It called for each state to have one representative. This legislative branch would have the power to levy taxes, reg...

Sunday, October 20, 2019

Barley (Hordeum vulgare) - The History of Domestication

Barley (Hordeum vulgare) - The History of Domestication Barley (Hordeum vulgare ssp. vulgare) was one of the first and earliest crops domesticated by humans. Currently, archaeological and genetic evidence indicates barley is a mosaic crop, developed from several populations in at least five regions: Mesopotamia, the northern and southern Levant, the Syrian desert and, 1,500-3,000 kilometers (900-1,800 miles) to the east, in the vast Tibetan Plateau. The first was long though to be that of southwest Asia during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A about 10,500 calendar years ago: but the mosaic status of barley has thrown a wrench into our understanding of this process. In the Fertile Crescent, barley is considered one of the classic eight founder crops. A Single Wild Progenitor Species The wild progenitor of all of the barleys is thought to be Hordeum spontaneum (L.), a winter-germinating species which is native to a very wide region of Eurasia, from the Tigris and Euphrates river system in Iraq to the western reaches of the Yangtze River in China. Based on evidence from Upper Paleolithic sites such as Ohalo II in Israel, wild barley was harvested for at least 10,000 years before it was domesticated. Today, barley is the fourth most important crop in the world after wheat, rice and maize. Barley as a whole is well-adapted to marginal and stress-prone environments, and a more reliable plant than wheat or rice in regions which are colder or higher in altitude. The Hulled and the Naked Wild barley has several characteristics useful to a wild plant that arent so useful to humans. There is a brittle rachis (the part that holds the seed to the plant) that breaks when the seeds are ripe, scattering them to the winds; and the seeds are arranged on the spike in a sparsely seeded two rows. The wild barley always has a tough hull protecting its seed; the hull-less form (called naked barley) is only found on domestic varieties. The domestic form has a non-brittle rachis and more seeds, arranged in  a six-rowed spike. Both hulled and naked seed forms are found in domesticated barley: during the Neolithic period, both forms were grown, but in the Near East, naked barley cultivation declined beginning in the Chalcolithic/Bronze Ages about 5000 years ago. Naked barleys, while easier to harvest and process, are more susceptible to insect attack and parasitic disease. Hulled barleys have higher yields; so within the Near East anyway, keeping the hull was a selected-for trait. Today hulled barleys dominate in the west, and naked barleys in the east. Because of the ease of processing, the naked form is used primarily as a whole-grain human food source. The hulled variety is used mainly for animal feed and the production of malt for brewing. In Europe, the production of barley beer dates at least as long ago as 600 B.C. Barley and DNA A recent (Jones and colleagues 2012) phylogeographic analysis of barley in the northern fringes of Europe and in the Alpine region found that cold adaptive gene mutations were identifiable in modern barley landraces. The adaptations included one type that was non-responsive to day length (that is, the flowering was not delayed until the plant got a certain number of hours of sunlight during the day): and that form is found in northeast Europe and high altitude locations. Alternatively, landraces in the Mediterranean region were predominantly responsive to day length. In central Europe, however, day length is not a trait which (apparently) had been selected for. Jones and colleagues were unwilling to rule out the actions of possible bottlenecks, but suggested that temporary climate changes might have affected the selection of traits for various regions, delaying the spread of barley or speeding it, depending on the adaptability of the crop to the region. How Many Domestication Events!? Evidence exists for at least five different loci of domestication: at least three locations in the Fertile Crescent, one in the Syrian desert and one in the Tibetan Plateau. Jones et al. 2013 report additional evidence that in the region of the Fertile Crescent, there may have been up to four different domestication events of Asian wild barley. The differences within groups A-D are based on the presence of alleles which are differently adapted to day length; and the adaptive ability of barley to grow in a wide variety of locations. It could be that the combination of barley types from different regions created increased drought resistance and other beneficial attributes. The DNA analysis reported in 2015 (Poets et al.) identified a genome segment from the Syrian desert variety in Asian and Fertile Crescent barleys; and a segment in northern Mesopotamia in Western and Asian barleys. We do not know, says Allaby in an accompanying essay, how our ancestors produced such genetically diverse crops: but the study should kick off an interesting period towards a better understanding domestication processes in general. Evidence for barley beer making as early as Yangshao Neolithic (ca 5000 years ago) in China was reported in 2016; it seems most likely to have been from the Tibetan Plateau, but that has yet to be determined.   Sites Greece: Dikili TashIsrael: Ohalo IIIran: Ali Kosh, Chogha GolanIraq: JarmoJordan: Ain GhazalCyprus: Klimonas, Kissonerga-MylouthkiaPakistan: MehrgarhPalestine: JerichoSwitzerland: Arbon Bleiche 3Syria: Abu HureyraTurkey: Çatalhà ¶yà ¼kTurkmenistan: Jeitun Sources This article is a part of the About.com guide to the Plant Domestication, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.Allaby RG. 2015. Barley domestication: the end of a central dogma? Genome Biology 16(1):176.Badr A, Muller K, Schafer-Pregl R, El Rabey H, Effgen S, Ibrahim HH, Pozzi C, Rohde W, and Salamini F. 2000. On the origin and domestication history of Barley (Hordeum vulgare). Molecular Biology and Evolution 17(4):499-510.Dai F, Chen Z-H, Wang X, Li Z, Jin G, Wu D, Cai S, Wang N, Wu F, Nevo E et al. 2014. Transcriptome profiling reveals mosaic genomic origins of modern cultivated barley. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(37):13403-13408.Jones G, Charles MP, Jones MK, Colledge S, Leigh FJ, Lister DA, Smith LMJ, Powell W, Brown TA, and Jones HL. 2013. DNA evidence for multiple introductions of barley into Europe following dispersed domestications in Western Asia. Antiquity 87(337):701-713.Jones G, Jones H, Charles MP, Jones MK, Colledge S, Leigh FJ, Lister DA, Smith LMJ , Powell W, and Brown TA. 2012. Phylogeographic analysis of barley DNA as evidence for the spread of Neolithic agriculture through Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(10):3230-3238. Komatsuda T, Pourkheirandish M, He C, Azhaguvel P, Kanamori H, Perovic D, Stein N, Graner A, Wicker T, Tagiri A et al. 2007. Six-rowed barley originated from a mutation in a homeodomain-leucine zipper I-class homeobox gene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104(4):1424-1429. doi:10.1073/pnas.0608580104Lister DL, and Jones MK. 2013. Is naked barley an eastern or a western crop? The combined evidence of archaeobotany and genetics. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 22(5):439-446. doi: 10.1007/s00334-012-0376-9Morrell PL, and Clegg MT. 2007. Genetic evidence for a second domestication of barley (Hordeum vulgare) east of the Fertile Crescent. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104:3289-3294.Poets AM, Fang Z, Clegg MT, and Morrell PL. 2015. Barley landraces are characterized by geographically heterogeneous genomic origins. Genome Biology 16(1):1-11.Riehl S, Zeidi M, and Conard NJ. 2013. Emergence of agriculture in the foothills of the Zagros mountains of Iran. Science 341:65-67. Riehl S, Pustovoytov K, Weippert H, Klett S, and Hole F. 2014. Drought stress variability in ancient Near Eastern agricultural systems evidenced by delta13C in barley grain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(34):12348-12353.Wang J, Liu L, Ball T, Yu L, Li Y, and Xing F. 2016. Revealing a 4,000-y-old beer recipe in China. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.Zhao Z. 2011. New Archaeobotanic Data for the Study of the Origins of Agriculture in China. Current Anthropology 52(S4):S295-S306.

Saturday, October 19, 2019

The Mezquita Mosque Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

The Mezquita Mosque - Research Paper Example It is the third largest mosque in the world and also one of the oddest, because it contains a Christian cathedral that was built inside it after the Moors got expelled in 1236. The graceful Moorish architecture combined with the triumphant Baroque cathedral memorializes in stone the conflict between Christianity and Islam that wracked Spain for 700 years. The Mezquita mosque was built in 785 and enlarged four times during the following 200 years; the cathedral was added in the 16th century. (Brockman, 2011, pg. 330) The Mezquita Mosque was founded by Abd ar-Rahman I in 785. Rahman I was the sole survivor of a tribe known as the Umayyards who fled Syria. Before Rahman I, the first Muslims who arrived to Cordoba shared la Mezquita with Christians. Rahman I bought the Christians out and started what would become a seven century dynasty of Muslim rule over Spain. After Rahman I died, he was followed by Abd ar-Rahmann II (822-52), who vastly extended the Mosque in the ninth century and un der Abd ar-Rahman III (912-61), Cordoba rose to become the largest and most prosperous city in Europe. Improvements on the Mosque continued under his son Al-Hakim II (961-76) who doubled its size and hired Greek contractors to build the new Mihrab (huge doorway used as the entrance to the Mezquita), which stands to this day. The final improvement in size, on the mosque, came under Al-Mansour (977-1002). (Ward, pg. 151) The Mezquita Mosque is a patchwork combination of all civilizations that occupied Cordoba. None, however, could bring themselves to destroy the Mosque, so each culture added their own personal touches. (Ward, pg. 151) Cordoba was probably a sophisticated center of the arts from the time of ‘Abd al-Rahman I. Chronicles suggest his keen interest in Syrian culture, which is apparently confirmed by aspects of the Mezquita. (Bloom, J.M., and Blair, S., 2009, pg. 506) The mosque began as the Christian Visigothic church of St. Vincent around 600, which was in turn buil t on the ruins of a Roman temple. In 784, the local emir bought it and began replacing it with the mosque. It got enlarged and embellished over the next two hundred years. (Brockman, 2011, pg. 331) The architectural uniqueness of the Mezquita lies in the fact that it was a revolutionary building for its time, structurally speaking. It defied precedents. Both Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock and the Great Mosque in Damascus had vertical, navelike designs, but the aim of the Mezquita mosque was to create an infinitely spacious, democratically horizontal and classic space, where the spirit could roam freely and communicate easily with God. The original space of Islamic prayer (normally the open yard of a desert home) was transformed into a 14,400 square meter metaphor for the desert itself. Men prayed side by side on the argamasa, a floor made of compact, reddish slaked lime and sand. A flat roof, decorated with gold and multicolored motifs, shaded them from the sun. The orange pati o, where the ablution fountains gurgled with water, was the oasis. The terracotta and white striped arches indicated a hallucinogenic forest of date palms, and upheld the roof with over one thousand columns, 1293 to be precise, (856 of which remain). (Ham, 2010, pg 204) Construction of the Mezquita It is almost certain that the building that

Friday, October 18, 2019

E-Environment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

E-Environment - Essay Example As the paper highlights  e-commerce (electronic commerce) is a process of carrying out business tasks using internet. However, there is a small difference between e-business and e-commerce. E-business does not engage commercial transaction, is an online company, a transition made on the web, however that does not essentially comprise a commercial transaction. In this scenario, the executive of e-commerce business, for instance, that professional is in-charge for dealing and managing relationship between the business and consumers on the web. On the other hand, the executive of e-business, actually, is accountable for consulting the business's internet. In this scenario, one has to work on company’s sales tasks and the other does not. This is the major dissimilarity.This discussion stresses that  with the developments in the information technology there have emerged a large number of opportunities and prospects for the businesses. Though, the information technology has offe red countless opportunities to businesses however also caused a number of legal, privacy and ethical issues. In this scenario, the web based businesses are facing a more open and less secure arrangement that can cause various serious problems for business arrangement. This can lead to a number of business and corporate issues. In this scenario, the customer security management is one of the main issues that need to be resolved in order to improve corporate performance.... In this scenario, the customer security management is one of the main issues that need to be resolved in order to improve corporate performance. Additionally, the implementation of information technology offers an excellent support for the business as a result improves corporate performance but also causes danger of exposing business customer details (Wolverton). In addition, in past few years we have seen a number of security and privacy attacks to the world’s big business corporations. In this scenario, one of the major corporations is Amazon.com that has experienced attacks from a website hacker who attacked the business network servers and hacked the records of more than 98,000 customers and forced the company to go offline. On the other hand, there are many cases in which business firms faced massive credit card frauds. Additionally, these situations caused serious issues and challenges for businesses for maintaining customer belief on business. Thus, the impact of legal and privacy and ethical issues extensively influence the business performance. In this scenario, business firms can face issues regarding customer loyalty that can negatively affect the business position in the marketplace. Such business arrangement can lead to some serious issues which create problems for business management. Thus, these all issues need to be effectively managed in order to improve the business performance (Wolverton). Impact on Organization’s Opportunities   E-business also offered a great deal of opportunities to business sector. At the present, businesses are more and more concerned with business performance and operational management. In addition, at the present business sector is having a lot of opportunities and ease of web and

Technology makes communication easier in today's world. Many people Essay

Technology makes communication easier in today's world. Many people choose to work at home in front of a computer screen. What d - Essay Example However, there are number of adverse effects of this trend, though only visible in the long term. Less communication leading to isolation One would easily assume that working from home using computer helps reduce wastage of time on travel to and fro. However, it also means that people no longer interact with others in the community. In other words, when someone works from home using computer, he shrinks into his own private world and does not get any chance to interact with other people, even the people next door. In simple words, it leads to alienation of individuals in the society. As Kraut, Patterson, Lundmark et al (1998) state man is a social animal that requires constant socialization, the absence of which will lead to many physical and mental illnesses which are seem to be increasing in the present world. For example, the increasing levels of stress related problems are attributed directly to the modern working culture, and thus to the use of computer that restricts social int eraction (Kraut et al). This, in turn, will lead to problems like high blood pressure. These issues are accompanied by all those problems which are associated with sedentary jobs in general starting from obesity. In addition, computer can be termed an asocial means of communication. The normal way of communication people have is to spend more time with ones friends and family and less time with strangers. However, computer altered this concept totally. Now, people prefer to spend more time with strangers whom they meet on the net and less time their near and dear ones. In other words, the entertainment offered by computer is totally asocial in nature. Impact of telecommuting on family Family, as the basic unit of society, requires proper attention and is the sphere where telecommuting has the greatest impact. To begin with, it is a common concept that when one works from home, he would get more time to interact with his family, thus leading to an improvement in familial relations. A ccording to many, it also provides time flexibility. However, in practice, what is seen is quite contradictory in nature. People often tend to spend more time on work than their usual working hours thus reducing the time spent on social interactions. In addition, there is more possibility of their work spillover affecting their family relations and family situations can affect the quality of their work. In addition, working from home takes away the usual concepts of weekend holidays and other free times and thus, instead of helping the people have more freedom, it only adds to their tension as many a time, working independently involves more care and responsibility than working under supervision. Effect on the quality of work It is often found that telecommuting seriously affects the quality of work done by employees. There are various reasons behind this fall. First of all, the raw recruits are denied the chance to interact with the more experienced ones who might be happy sharing their work-related experiences over a cup of coffee. In the office culture, a junior may get a ridiculously simple solution for a jargon nagging him for many days from a senior who had such experiences in the past. In addition, for bosses, it provides a chance to give a warning to an employee who errs very often. In fact, work-related knowledge grows only

Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham jail Essay

Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham jail - Essay Example It was through bold and inspirational speeches that King established a reputation as a great orator. However, this also painted him a radical and subject to federal surveillance for the rest of his life. In addition, King is recognized for his phlegmatic way of approaching crisis as he advocated for the rights of all. Martin Luther King Jr represented the African-American community, but in essence, this translates to all minority communities who lived an oppressed life. This oppression came about following colonization and the slave trade where the rights of those perceived to a weak community were subjected to a wide range of discrimination. Segregation and discrimination with regard to race, gender and education were outlawed following advocacy for civil rights. This marks a critical step towards generating independence among communities. This clearly illustrates that even as King fought for the rights of African-Americans, the benefits would be felt across different communities bo th regionally and nationally. King mounted a challenge to oppression by defying the status quo, which eventually got support from other members of the community other than African-Americans. ... Martin Luther King is no exception as highlighted in most of his speeches and letters, particularly the letter from Birmingham jail, which is the subject of this paper. This paper seeks to illustrate the means of persuasion applied in King’s letter from Birmingham jail. In the wake of his struggles to advocate for equal civil rights, King was arrested for his participation in the Birmingham campaign in Alabama. The campaign was organised by King’s organisation, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which saw a series of peaceful demonstrations against segregation. It is following the protests that he was arrested and his actions criticised by clergymen who published a letter terming his actions as unwise. In their letter, the religious leaders disapproved the position taken to hold the demonstrations, which in their view, imposed immerse tension in Birmingham. They also disapproved the timing of the demonstrations since the courts had previously issued an injunc tion to prohibit civil marches in Birmingham streets. The letter from Birmingham jail was in response to the sentiments expressed by the clergymen and aimed at justifying the need for action against prevailing civil injustices. It is in this letter that King employs Aristotle's rhetoric modes of persuasion to counter argument his audience’s recount of events, which appeal to ethos, pathos and logos. In the letter, King defends his reputation and wisdom by illustrating the need for action, which is in line with ethos before trying to arouse the emotions of his audience. He finally presents testimony and quotations from important thinkers and leaders of the time while appealing to the audiences’ logic. The effective

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Transsexual Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Transsexual - Research Paper Example Negative, unoptimistic views towards transsexualism and prejudice normally accompany a number of cultural values or religious beliefs. There are traditions, which have no obscurity accepting individuals who switch gender. In fact, they hold them with high standards such as promoting them to leaders of the Two-Spirit individuals found amongst a number of Native American tribal groups (Ekins & King, 2006). The National Center for Transgender Equality estimates that one percent of the United States population is a transsexual population (Garcia & Swaab, 2008). It can be extremely wearisome and scary knowing that someone’s is different, but does not know why. Comprehending the nature of these distinctions can feel both frightening and empowering at the same time. Many transsexuals live in a â€Å"closeted† world hiding from who they are and convincing themselves that their thoughts are provoked by an over-active imagination. Even though, not everyone might support transsexu als, it is vital that they acknowledge and respect who they are, regardless of what others think. Diagnosis Transsexualism can be seen in the two main diagnostic manuals utilized by mental health experts globally, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). ICD defines transsexualism as an urge to live as a member of the opposite gender and still be acknowledged as a member of that sex, normally accompanied by a feeling of uneasiness with one’s God-given sex. APA does not differentiate between transsexualism and sex identity disorder, and explains transvestic fetishism as a distinct fact, which might co-occur with transsexualism. The APA diagnosis needs four components: An insistence or desire that someone is of the opposite biological sex. Proof of constant discomfort with the person’s biological sex The individual is not intersex Proof of clinically important impairment or distress in social or work life. Process of Diagnosis The recent diagnosis of for transsexuals who offer themselves for mental treatment is gender identity disorder (APA, 2000). This diagnostic label is normally vital to acquire sex reassignment psychotherapy with health insurance coverage. The labeling of gender identity disorders as psychological illness is not an authorization for discrimination such people. It does not also permit for the deprivation of transsexuals’ civil rights. Nevertheless, some individuals diagnosed with the disorder do not wish for sex reassignment therapy at all (Green, 2004). Whereas some consider that formal diagnosis assist in stopping discrimination, others consider that it simply adds stigma, feeling that the diagnosis is equal to claiming something is wrong with transsexuals (Green, 2004). The management of "gender identity disorder" is perceived as an insulting and inappropriate endeavor to some transsexuals, and might be regarded a causal matter in cases of harm occurring to tran ssexuals due to discrimination and prejudice when they are deprived of their own civil rights. A lot of transsexuals have requested the APA to eliminate Gender Identity Disorder from their guide (APA, 2000). These transsexuals feel that some

Conversion Testimony Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Conversion Testimony - Assignment Example But as a young man who had more independence, I did not feel obliged to attend services. And only on extreme occasions, such as to attend burial services did I join relatives and friends, such occasions which to me were social events. Without that religious bent, I really thought I was simply being practical, making the most of life and the opportunities it gave me. The biggest change in my life was when the television sermon of Rev. Robert Schuller accidentally caught my attention. Much as I wanted to switch channels, I could not do so, since I found him to be a powerful speaker. Giving straightforward explanation of the Gospel, he pointed at its concrete application in modern life. And as I felt drawn to regularly listen to Rev. Schuller’s TV sermons, slowly, I also felt drawn to the Person of Christ. Yes, Jesus Christ was Rev. Schuler’s focal point in all his sermons. Rather than the seemingly mythical character in the Gospel, Jesus Christ now appeared to me as a rea l person, someone who is timeless, someone who transcends the time and place he once lived on earth. In time, I discovered that possibly it was not really the power of Rev. Schuller’s rhetorical language which drew me to Christ. As a true Christian preacher, Rev. Schuller exhorted his audience using words of the Bible, and this really did the trick, because as I found out later and became fully convinced: The word of God is like a two-edged sword, so sharp that it can cut the heart and spirit of those who hear it (Hebr. 4:12). Realizing the power of the Written Word, I now took time to privately read the Bible. But finding much of it too mysterious and difficult to grasp, I started to read slowly and reflectively. I didn’t realize that this was really the key to profitable Bible reading: the reading of not many chapters and stories, but much of the Word, relishing and reflectively reading as in savoring food slowly to relish and enjoy it. . Then I felt that through the Word, God was personally speaking to me, teaching me how His Son Jesus Christ serves as His messenger Slowly, the life of Jesus and his words dawned on me with greater and greater clarity to lead me to a relationship with Him—God’s way, truth and life. I am now a regular Bible reader, not really devoting long hours for reading, but spending regular 10-15 minutes a day to read slowly, to reflect on what, how, why these Words were written, and after each reading to pray silently, and to dialogue with God or Christ. What happened to me can happen to anyone of us. After all, God’s call is for all of humanity, And the saving grace His Son won through His life and death is for all times, and for all of us. Constantly and patiently, God always leads us to the love of his Son and the victory His Son Jesus won for us. . . Recovery Story Even as a Bible reader, I found out later that I was not immune from problems or struggles. Something happened which could happen to an yone. I lost a close friend. He was a boyhood friend with whom I shared much in play, study and work. Our attachment was real as we found alike temperaments and interests in hobbies and games. At 28, he was a bachelor although I know he had healthy relationships with girls. But one day, I got word he was brought to the emergency hospital and I reached him in his last moments at the Emergency Hospital Room where he suddenly slumped on a chair and lost consciousness. Under Intensive care, blood tests showed he had leukemia, and

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham jail Essay

Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham jail - Essay Example It was through bold and inspirational speeches that King established a reputation as a great orator. However, this also painted him a radical and subject to federal surveillance for the rest of his life. In addition, King is recognized for his phlegmatic way of approaching crisis as he advocated for the rights of all. Martin Luther King Jr represented the African-American community, but in essence, this translates to all minority communities who lived an oppressed life. This oppression came about following colonization and the slave trade where the rights of those perceived to a weak community were subjected to a wide range of discrimination. Segregation and discrimination with regard to race, gender and education were outlawed following advocacy for civil rights. This marks a critical step towards generating independence among communities. This clearly illustrates that even as King fought for the rights of African-Americans, the benefits would be felt across different communities bo th regionally and nationally. King mounted a challenge to oppression by defying the status quo, which eventually got support from other members of the community other than African-Americans. ... Martin Luther King is no exception as highlighted in most of his speeches and letters, particularly the letter from Birmingham jail, which is the subject of this paper. This paper seeks to illustrate the means of persuasion applied in King’s letter from Birmingham jail. In the wake of his struggles to advocate for equal civil rights, King was arrested for his participation in the Birmingham campaign in Alabama. The campaign was organised by King’s organisation, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which saw a series of peaceful demonstrations against segregation. It is following the protests that he was arrested and his actions criticised by clergymen who published a letter terming his actions as unwise. In their letter, the religious leaders disapproved the position taken to hold the demonstrations, which in their view, imposed immerse tension in Birmingham. They also disapproved the timing of the demonstrations since the courts had previously issued an injunc tion to prohibit civil marches in Birmingham streets. The letter from Birmingham jail was in response to the sentiments expressed by the clergymen and aimed at justifying the need for action against prevailing civil injustices. It is in this letter that King employs Aristotle's rhetoric modes of persuasion to counter argument his audience’s recount of events, which appeal to ethos, pathos and logos. In the letter, King defends his reputation and wisdom by illustrating the need for action, which is in line with ethos before trying to arouse the emotions of his audience. He finally presents testimony and quotations from important thinkers and leaders of the time while appealing to the audiences’ logic. The effective

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Conversion Testimony Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Conversion Testimony - Assignment Example But as a young man who had more independence, I did not feel obliged to attend services. And only on extreme occasions, such as to attend burial services did I join relatives and friends, such occasions which to me were social events. Without that religious bent, I really thought I was simply being practical, making the most of life and the opportunities it gave me. The biggest change in my life was when the television sermon of Rev. Robert Schuller accidentally caught my attention. Much as I wanted to switch channels, I could not do so, since I found him to be a powerful speaker. Giving straightforward explanation of the Gospel, he pointed at its concrete application in modern life. And as I felt drawn to regularly listen to Rev. Schuller’s TV sermons, slowly, I also felt drawn to the Person of Christ. Yes, Jesus Christ was Rev. Schuler’s focal point in all his sermons. Rather than the seemingly mythical character in the Gospel, Jesus Christ now appeared to me as a rea l person, someone who is timeless, someone who transcends the time and place he once lived on earth. In time, I discovered that possibly it was not really the power of Rev. Schuller’s rhetorical language which drew me to Christ. As a true Christian preacher, Rev. Schuller exhorted his audience using words of the Bible, and this really did the trick, because as I found out later and became fully convinced: The word of God is like a two-edged sword, so sharp that it can cut the heart and spirit of those who hear it (Hebr. 4:12). Realizing the power of the Written Word, I now took time to privately read the Bible. But finding much of it too mysterious and difficult to grasp, I started to read slowly and reflectively. I didn’t realize that this was really the key to profitable Bible reading: the reading of not many chapters and stories, but much of the Word, relishing and reflectively reading as in savoring food slowly to relish and enjoy it. . Then I felt that through the Word, God was personally speaking to me, teaching me how His Son Jesus Christ serves as His messenger Slowly, the life of Jesus and his words dawned on me with greater and greater clarity to lead me to a relationship with Him—God’s way, truth and life. I am now a regular Bible reader, not really devoting long hours for reading, but spending regular 10-15 minutes a day to read slowly, to reflect on what, how, why these Words were written, and after each reading to pray silently, and to dialogue with God or Christ. What happened to me can happen to anyone of us. After all, God’s call is for all of humanity, And the saving grace His Son won through His life and death is for all times, and for all of us. Constantly and patiently, God always leads us to the love of his Son and the victory His Son Jesus won for us. . . Recovery Story Even as a Bible reader, I found out later that I was not immune from problems or struggles. Something happened which could happen to an yone. I lost a close friend. He was a boyhood friend with whom I shared much in play, study and work. Our attachment was real as we found alike temperaments and interests in hobbies and games. At 28, he was a bachelor although I know he had healthy relationships with girls. But one day, I got word he was brought to the emergency hospital and I reached him in his last moments at the Emergency Hospital Room where he suddenly slumped on a chair and lost consciousness. Under Intensive care, blood tests showed he had leukemia, and

Types of Soil Essay Example for Free

Types of Soil Essay This is how one sixth-grader describes the way of playing video games. Such video games can seem like harmless fun, but what if the violence gets personal and addicts young teenagers, affecting their behavior and their view of reality? Some studies have shown that violent game players just do not leave it there on their game screens; they transfer the violent acts they get attached to, to the real world. Violent games have been shown to increase game player’s quest to experiment how all that stuff will look like in the real world. There is no doubt that violent video games have no effect on certain people, but for the most and especially in teenagers, the effects are negative and have led to fatalities and destruction of properties in certain instances. Although some parents claim that violence video games have bad effects on teenagers because they’re behavior changes, teenagers play too much violent games because they are very addicting. Some parents say that violent video games have bad effects on young teenagers. But most video- game players have normal lives. Most important, just because a player does not instantly take or follow violence found in video games does not mean the games will not have negative result on that player’s views and behavior. The violent games will have negative effects on teenagers. Young teenager’s behavior will have a big change. Because of this case, parents should be responsible for buying video games and should forbid young teenagers from buying those games that are violent. If parents do not take the responsibility than teenagers do not know what they are doing and what is good for them. Before teenagers take a big wrong step, parents should be there to take care of the situation. I have a little nephew in seventh grade and he loves violence video games. He loves playing call of duty. My aunt always gives him the money to buy any game that he likes. He loves the smell of money. She never checks to see what game he might have bought. Because of her not being responsible, my little cousin always gets into school fights with other children. So every parent must be responsible for their own child. Some parents say that violent video games have bad effects on young teenagers because a number of people claim that playing a violent video game does present a bad threat to user’s health. For an example, I have a younger brother who is seventeen years old. He loves playing violent video games. Every day, when he is home from school with his spiky brown hair, he starts playing the WrestleMania game. He does not eat anything and he talks to himself while playing the game. He does not realize that his behavior is changing by playing violent video games. One time, he tried to kick me in my stomach but a police man saw him and told him to stop. My parents made him quit playing violent video-games. Ever since he stopped playing violent video games his behavior has changed a lot. He now realizes he was out of control and it is all because of the violent video games. He sold his Xbox to one of his close friends. I am glad my parents took good care of it because it is their responsibility to look after their son. Some parents say that violent video games have bad effects on young teenagers because; there was a shooting in Colorado movie theatre. Twelve people were killed and fifty eight were injured by a graduate student. The guy who killed all these people was a very educated man. But he lost his sense of humor. He was out of control. People thought that the shooting was a part of the movie also. He was dressed up as the joker from the movie batman. Later the doctors found out he had some type of brain damage watching too much violent movies and playing games. So, he was not okay in his head. His behavior made so many people lose their lives. So many people lost their loved ones that day. And again violent community and games can damage people’s brains. Some parents say that violent video games have good effects on young teenagers because violent games can be new information to some teenagers, because it is something new and different from their daily lifestyle. They think violent games can help their child with memorization because it provides pretty text to look at. The video games have nice graphics for teenagers. It helps a teenager look at new information and advances them. Some parents think that teenagers learn better by looking at graphics and text that are provided by violent games. Parents think new and different inspires teenagers and games inspire them in a good way. But mostly business owner parents are saying this. But at the end of the day, it is every parent’s job to be responsible for their own child. Parents should pay more attention to their children while children are playing violent video games.

Monday, October 14, 2019

Kautilyas Arthasastra: Military Aspects

Kautilyas Arthasastra: Military Aspects CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1. Army has been regarded from time immemorial as one of the essential instruments for the maintenance of a state. Kings, not only in India but throughout the ancient world, maintained well organised and well equipped armies both for the defence and expansion of their kingdoms. History is abounds in instances that whenever any ruler or state neglected the proper maintenance of their armies, unpleasant results in the form of loss of sovereignty or territory have occurred. The study of the organisation and administration of the army of a particular country in a particular period shall always give clues of its basic fabric. The topic under study deals with the role of Kautilyas Arthasastra in organising and administrating large armies and its relevance in todays world armies. 2. Kautilyas Arthasastra had never been forgotten in India and is often mentioned in later literature, sometimes eulogistically and sometimes derisively. But the text itself was not available in modern times until, dramatically, a full text on palm leaf in the grantha script , along with a fragment of an old commentary by Bhattasvamin, came into the hands of Dr R Shamasastry of Mysore in 1904 who was then the Librarian of the Mysore Government Oriental Library. He published not only the text (1909) and an English translation (1915) but also an index Verborum in three volumes listing every word in the text. Subsequently another original manuscript and some fragments, in a variety of scripts, were discovered as well as old commentaries of the text. An another author Dr RP Kangle of the University of Bombay devoted many years of painstaking edition and comparing the various texts and translations. His monumental three volume edition of the Arthashastra was first published between 1960 a nd 1965 with detailed note.[1] 3. Kautilyas Arthasastra is a treatise on artha and sastra. [3]. Artha is an all- embracing word with a variety of meanings in 1.7.6-7 , it is used in the sense of material well being; in 15.1.1 livelihood; in 1.4.3, economically productive activity, particularly in agriculture, cattle rearing and trade ; and, in general, wealth as in the wealth of nations. Arthashastra is thus the science of politics as it is used in 1.1.1 or 1.4.3 .It is the art of governance in its widest sense. The subjects covered include administration; law, order and justice; taxation, revenue and expenditure; foreign policy; defence and war. 4. Kautilyas Arthasastra contains fifteen adhikaranas or books. Of these the first five deal with tantra or the internal administration of the state. The next eight deals with avapa or its relation with the neighbouring states and the last two are miscellaneous in character. The eighth adhikarna or book is concerned with vyasanas, that is, the calamities ,shortcomings or weakness affecting the various prakritis. It is necessary to overcome the shortcomings before any aggressive activity can be undertaken. The ninth adhikarna deals with preparation for war and describe the kinds of troops that should be mobilised for an expedition, the proper seasons for starting an expedition, the precautions to be taken and the dangers to be guarded against before starting and so on . The tenth book deals with fighting, and describes the camping of the army, its march, various modes of fighting, types of battle arrays and other topics.[4]Thus this study shall primarily concentrate on book eight, nin e and ten in particular and other books in general. 5. The Legend K autilya : This mastermind, who could write a definitive treatise on economics and government at a time when large parts of the world was steeped in intellectual darkness? All sources of Indian tradition – Brahmanical , Buddist and jain-agree that Kautilya (also refer to as Vishnugupta in a stanza included at the end of the work) destroyed the Nanda dynasty and installed Chandra Gupta Maurya in the throne of Magadha. The name Kautilya denotes that he is of the Kutila gotra ; Chanakya shows him to be the son of Chanaka and Vishnugupta was his personal name[6] Kautilya then retired from active life and reflected on all that he had learnt during the process of overthrowing Dhana-Nanda. Since he found the earlier works on statecraft unsatisfactory in many respects, he composed his own definitive work presenting his ideas concerning the ways in which a ruler should gain power and maintain his authority. He was way ahead of his times in his thinking and covered every conceivable aspect on th e art of politics and warfare, which could be imagined at the time he lived. For Kautilya, military strategy was an integral part of the science of polity and he made no distinction between military techniques and statecraft. Kautilyas Arthashastra is a practical work which could have been written only by one who had implemented the tactics which he preached. How to form alliances, how to organise and administer them, how to attack a powerful king, how to deal with revolts in rear, what tricks to play on gullible people- there is plenty of evidence in the text to indicate that the author was giving real life answers to every conceivable hypothetical situation. 6. Statecraft and battle craft have changed over the centuries due to the fast changing technology and increasing requirements of human beings. Kautilya a mastermind contributed immensely to the development of the same, his extraordinary arrangement of battle groups in war and administering them during peace keeping all extraneous factors in mind still remains a masterpiece for century armies. CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY Statement of Problem 7. To study the military aspects as enunciated by Kautilya in Arthashastra with a specific reference to organisation and administration and analyse its relevance for todays armies. Justification of the Study 8. The Legend Kautilya in his renowned work ARTHASHASTRA has dealt with various contemporary subjects which formed the basis of Chandragupta Mauryas rule and victories, in fact there is a general view that Kautilyas Arthashastra deals only with matters of foreign policy and economy. It is seldom realised that a great portion of this book does in fact, deal extensively with matters of military, he indeed consolidated all the prevailing grand strategy and tactics of those times and gave his expert opinion on the subjects, which ultimately led to victories of Chandragupta Maurya , who never lost a single campaign. It thus emerges that the brilliance of Kautilya was not only in diplomacy but also in warfare, but the fact that strikes out is that he was able to lay down methods to organise and manage the armed forces in a vast empire. The concepts of military administration and organisation in war and peace were inadvertently covered and spread out in all the adhikaranas, thus leading for topic of research for bringing forth, integrating and analysing those sublime aspects of organisation and administration which formed the bed rock of administering and organising large armies as of Mauryan empire, and at the same time analyse its relevance for 20th century armies. Scope 9. This study concentrates on the relevance of Kautilyas teachings with regard to military aspects in general and organisational and administrational aspects in detail including the aspects of tactics, strategy. The study aims to focus on aspects, which are still relevant for the better management of a large army like ours. 10. Methods of Data Collection. The information has been gathered from books, journals and the internet. The bibliography of sources is appended at the end of the text. Chapterisation 11. The subject under study shall be covered under following chapters: CHAPTER III : ORGANISATION OF ARMY 12. Chandragupta maintained a large standing army , though he acquired a big army from his Nanda predecessors, he made impressive accretions to its strength, so that it stood at six lakh infantry,30000 horses,9000 elephants and 8000 chariots . An efficient war office supervised this powerful army. Its thirty members were divided into five member boards . The six boards were : (a) Admirality. (b) Transport. (c) Commissariat and Army Service Infantry. (d) Cavalry. (e) Chariots. (f) Elephants. 13. Kautilya had divided the army into four arms i.e Patti or Padati(Infantry), Asva(Cavalry), Ratha(Chariots) and Hast (Elephants) and hence it was named as Chaturangabala or the four limbed army headed by their respective Adyakshas or Superintendents[7]. They had Following roles to play: (a) War Elephants. The king relied mainly on elephants for achieving victory in battles. They were the premium arm of the army and relied on their strength and shock effect to route the enemy from the battle field. They were required to destroy all arms of the service of the enemy and to break his battle formations. Kautilya has laid much emphasis on the use of elephants as a battle winning factor with following functions: (i) Marching in front, making new roads. (ii) Protecting the flanks. (iii) Helping to cross water and climb and descend from mountains. (iv) Breaking up enemys unbroken ranks, trampling enemys army. (v) Causing terror, capturing battle positions. (vi) Destroying ramparts, gates, and towers. (b) The Cavalry. The cavalry being the most mobile arm in the army was used to influence the battle. It was tasked for the following. (i) Reconnoitring battle grounds, camping sites, forests. (ii) Securing level grounds, water supply sources. (iii) Destroying enemies and protecting own supplies and reinforcements. (iv) Extending the range of raids. (v) Assault the enemys battle formation. (vi) Attack the enemy from the rear. (vii) Cut off the enemys line of supply. (viii) Isolate the enemys strong point. (ix) Feign retreat so as to persuade the en to pursue, once the enemy lost its cohesion the cavalry was supposed to turn around and rout him. (x) Restoration of sit by plugging gaps in own def made by enemys assault. (xi) Making the initial attack, penetrating or breaking through (xii) Pursue the defeated en. (xiii) Rallying the troops.[8] (c) Chariots. The war chariots had lost their effectiveness particularly against well trained cavalry, Maurian army retained war chariots as an independent arm, and they were restricted to a single offensive role of launching a charge against infantry and a near static defensive role. The arm lacked versatility and was too sensitive to terrain; it could produce result only under ideal conditions. According to Kautilya the chariots were to act as the mainstay of the formation in offensive and defensive roles. Their main function was to break up the opponents battle formation during offensive operations and repulse the enemy assault own formation and recapture lost ground by counter attack. (d) Infantry. There were primarily two types of infantry in Mauryan times, archers and spearmen and both were employed together. Archers performed the role of close support weapons as well as artillery and spearman carried out close combat. The spearman carried a large shield for protection. Chandragupta Maurya had turned the infantry into large standing force like the other three arms in the service. Infantry was the main fighting arm as it had the ability to fight over all types of terrain during all seasons and both by day and night. They were also used to protect captured grounds. Apart from the tasks mentioned above, the infantry was also supposed to give close support to the other arms ie the Elephants and the Chariots[9]. Organizational Structure 14. Kautilya had emphasised on hierarchal system for administration of army. The structure of the defence forces at the highest levels was as shown below: Commander -in- Chief Senapati(Chief of Defence) Chief Commanders of Chariot Corps Elephant Corps Cavalry Infantry Divisional Commanders 28. The chief of the four wings were subordinates to the chief of defense. Under the Chief Commanders, there were Divisional commanders. There were other officers such as Camp Superintendents who were given specific functions during the march to battle. The structure below the level of Divisional Commanders is specific to battles. 29. Every division of the formation had its own distinguishing trumpet sound, flags and banners, these were be used to signal the commands to the division-dividing themselves in to sections, joining together ,halting, advancing, turning and attacking. Battalion commanders and Divisional Commanders were responsible for moblisation and demoblisation. Secret agents, prostitutes, artists and artisans and retired military officers were kept to watch over the loyalty or otherwise of soldiers. Duties of Defence Officials 30. The Chief of Defence. (a) Qualifications. The chief of defence was suppose to be an expert in the use of all kinds of weapons used in warfare, riding elephants, horses and chariots and he was conversant with the relative strength of the four wings of the army and how to deploy them in battle. (b) Responsibilities. (i) Discipline in armed forces. (ii) Formations. (iii) Strategy and Tactics. (aa) Choose the best time to start an expedition. (ab) Choose the best terrain and the best season for fighting. (ac) Arrange the disposition of own forces (in the light of the enemies array). (ad) Plan the breakup of the enemies rank. (ae) Destroy enemies scattered troops. (af) Besiege and destroy enemy forts. 31. The Chief Commander Of Elephant Corps. Responsibilities were:- (a) Protection of elephants. (b) Construction and Maintenance of stables, stalls. (c) Training of elephants. (d) Assigning tasks to them. (e) Equipping them for war 32. The Chief Commanders Of Other Corps. Responsibilities Common to all were: (a) Knowledge of different type of equipment needed for his wing and use of such equipment in war. (b) Giving appropriate training. (c) Keeping account of equipment and animals under his charge. (d) Maintaining their equipment in good condition and repairing them when necessary. (e) Supervising the work of all employed by him. (f) Maintaining Discipline. (g) Reporting to the king the state of readiness of his troops[10]. 33. Other Commanders:- (a) Commander of the Kings Guard (Antarvamsika). This very high official, who ranked just below the seven highest paid officials including the senapati, must have been an army general, promoted after having held the appointment of director-general of his own arm. He was directly in line for promotion to senapati. He was in the pay scale of 24,000 pannas, in the same scale as the kings chamberlain and the chancellor. His importance was due to his responsibility for the security of the king and other members of the royal family in the palace. There must have been two other officers directly under his command who assisted him in ensuring the safety and security of the king and the royal family. One was the commander of the male guards who guarded the palace and the commander of the female archers who were detailed as immediate guards for the kings person and his personal quarters. (b) Commander of the Marches (Antapala) The antapala was responsible for guarding the borders of the State. For this purpose border posts were established; their primary purpose was a check on entry of enemy agents, undesirable elements, collection of customs duties and control over the entry of foreigners. Kautilya advocates the establishment of only four border posts, one in each direction of the compass. The siting of border posts on naturally defensible terrain is advocated so these must have served a defensive purpose as well. The antapala must have been a military officer, possibly with detachments from the army for the protection of his posts. (c) Durgapala. Durgapala (fort commanders) must have been army officers who also commanded detachments of regular troops which acted as garrisons, Kautilya mentions at least one fortified city or capital of the State which needed a durgapala. In the text, he refers to other forts. sited to take advantage of naturally defensible terrain. Larger States obviously had more than one fort which acted as bases for military operations and offered refuge in case of need. Types of Troops 33. Kautilya lists six types of troops which may become available to a king and examines the relative merits. The troops are maula (standing army), bhrta (local volunteers auxiliaries), serni (organized mercenaries), mitra ( trops of an ally), amrta ( enemy deserters) and atavi ( tribal levies). [11] (a) Maula Troops. These are the standing army of a state composed of soldiers who may have served the kings family for several generations. They are residents of the state and their interest coincides with those of the king. Their loyalty is assured, their weapons, equipments and the animals are the best the state can provide and their motivation and state of training is high. It is however only prudent that a proportion of this force be left behind for the security of the state. Kautilya recommends that around one- fourth of the maula troops be left in the capital. The maula troops should form a large part of an expeditionary force if : (i) The enemys troops are well trained. (ii) The campaign is expected to be difficult and hard. (iii) Other available troops are unreliable. (iv) Surplus maula troops are available after fully meeting the requirements of the capital and the rest of the state. (b) Bhrta troops. These are locally raised volunteers engaged for the duration of the campaign. They are either veterans or first time volunteers, usually trained in the handling of personals weapons. By profession they were either farmers or small traders who decided to take part in a campaign. As natives they have a stake in the security and welfare of the state. Such troops are reverted back to their professions after the end of the campaign. Their employment is recommended if:- (i) The enemy is weak and a large number of volunteers are available. (ii) The campaign is expected to be easy with little actual fighting. (iii) Success is more or less assured by the use of other means like covert operations or diplomatic efforts. (c) Sreni troops. These were trained, equipped and organised bodies of mercenaries under their own leaders who were available for hire to fight for a specified period of time. Their employment is recommended when:- (i) The opposing forces consist of primarily mercenaries. (ii) Much hard fighting is not anticipated. (iii) Sreni troops are available in adequate numbers for the campaign as well as for the defence of the capital. (d) Mitra troops. These are troops loaned for a campaign by an ally. Their utilisation is advocated if :- (i) Such troops are available in large numbers. (ii) A short campaign is anticipated because of good chances of early success of diplomatic moves underway. (iii) To oblige an ally. (iv) It is proposed to deal at first with the irregular part of enemys army, with his allies and his population centres, prior to attacking his main forces. (e) Amrita troops. These comprise enemy deserters and prisoners of war. They are not to be trusted but their employment is recommended if the eventual outcome of battle is of little consequence. (f) Atavi Levies. These were bands of tribesmen from the jungle who join the king under the command of their own chiefs with the primary purpose of collecting loot. These bands and amitra troops are unreliable and Kautilya considers both categories as dangerous as a snake. The above two categories of troops may be employed if:- (i) If they are available in large numbers to attack the enemys cities and irregular troops. (ii) It is proposed to delay the employment of the main force. (iii) It is Politic to get rid of them because their loyalty is suspect. Atavi troops may be employed as guides or to counter the use of similar to levies by the enemy both categorys of troops. 34. An army composed of units recruited from diverse sources and ready to fight for plunder may be an energetic army. On the other hand, an army whose soldiers belong to the same region, caste or profession is a mighty army; it will continue to fight even if its pay is in arrears and there is shortage of food. It shows bravery even in adverse conditions and its loyalty cannot be subverted. 35. A king should make efforts to obstruct the mobilisation of his opponent. His potential recruits should be intercepted and if necessary recruited into own army. Such personnel should however be discharged at the right time but well before the commencement of actual operations. Analysis 36. A close analysis of Organisational structure propounded by Kautilya in his Arthashastra is a sterling resemblance of what is followed in Indian Army with slight modifications. And it is clearly evident that the basic finer intricacies of the organisation remained the same though the gross structure underwent a change keeping latest technological development in mind. 37. Kautilya was way ahead in his times with clear vision and military thinking thus created an organisational structure catering for civil supremacy and ensured effective coordination between various components of the army which is still relevant at large. Chandra Gupta Maurya had a large standing army to manage similar to that of Indian Army and without a sound organisational structure it would have been virtually impossible to achieve victories which he had set for himself. 38. Kautilya had clearly categorised his army into various corps i.e Cavalry, Elephants, Infantry, Chariots etc with a clear division of roles in war, which is very much akin to our present system of various line directorates in our armies. He had also formed clear command and control structure with minimum scope for ambiguity. He had emphasised on Hierarchical system Command and control in armed forces some 2300 years ago which is still relevant in todays times. 39. The organisation of the Maruan army was little different than the one followed in our army today. Though a striking similarity is the presence of the adyakshas that can be related to our line directorate which are too led by a Lieutenant General. The rank structure is not restricted to any arm but common throughout the army. To elaborate, the pattika was a rank not belonging to a particular arm but he commanded elements of all the arms. This helped in better command and control. This also ensured of a clear demarcation of command structure which was irrespective of the arm, this practice is still followed. 40. When coming to appointment of heads of departments, Kautilya had ensured that they had requisite degree of qualifications for tenanting that kind of appointment and had a clear defined standards and roles for all of them, which is still largely relevant in our armies where selection processes ensure that the said officer had undergone necessary courses and has a requisite skills suitable for tenanting that kind of appointment. 41. Kautilya had imposed various degrees of confidence in terms of loyalty and integrity depending upon the community of troops, probably a relevant thing in those times, but in present times it is debatable whether it is relevant or not as for some community specific armies it may hold good but in Indian context, though the Indian army still have pure regiments based on caste system but the pedestal of loyalty and integrity attributed to each community is the same thus this particular thing is not relevant to Indian Army of present times. 42. Kautilya proposed to have a standing core army consisting of officials down to the Pattika and the regular soldiers to be recruited for the period of war. Specialists like elephant riders archers etc were also recommended to be retained as permanent soldiers. Though India has a large standing army which is used both for protection of its borders and for launching offensive. There is no differentiation in the kind of troops used for both the tasks as envisaged by Kautilya. Probably We can have smaller standing army which can be well trained and equipped with the best of the equipment. On the other hand we can have a larger component of Territorial Army that can be mobilised before an operation. The defensive formation can have Territorial Army and some of the regular troops where as the strike formations can be composed of regular troops. This will help in reducing the defence expenditure and the money saved could be better used for equipping and training of the regular troops. CHAPTER IV: ORGANISATI ON OF LAND FORCES IN OPERATIONS Brave men, giving up their lives in good battles, reach in one moment even beyond those (worlds), which Brahmins, desirous of heaven, reach by a large number of sacrifices, by penance and by many gifts to worthy persons- Kautilya 43. Kauilya gives an exhaustive description of how to arrange the land forces for a set piece of battle, starting with positioning various kinds of forces at various echelons of battle field after giving due considerations to planning parameters. War fighting as propounded by Kautilya has an uncanny resemblance to the methodology in practice today. He was a believer of a strong central force along with two wings which can manoeuvre and the importance of reserves. He is perhaps one of the first thinkers to suggest a tactical grouping of forces with a clear cut commander. This helped in easier organisation of the forces as well as downsizing the army when not in need. Tactical Grouping. 44. Grouping of arms for battle at the lowest level has been practised in ancient India since epic times. Kautilya suggested a standard form of grouping of all arms, for the first time ever. The suggested groups corresponds to a remarkable degree with the current practice in modern armies adopted well after WW II . The lowest grouping was at platoon level, a group now referred to as combat team. Because of this remarkable similarity, the modern designations of combat team, combat group and combat command.[12] Each horse was supported by six foot soldiers three of which were archers (Pratiyodhas) and the remaining three were armed with a sword, spear and a shield (Pratigopas) Initially the archers were placed in front so that they could exploit the range of their weapons and as the battle came to close contact, they would recede and the pratigopas would come in front. 45. Patti. Each elephant or a chariot enjoyed the support of five horse groups. This entire group including an elephant / chariot, five horses, 15 Pratiyodhas and 15 Pratigopas formed the lowest tactically grouped sub unit called the Patti. The patti was commanded by a Pattika. 46. Sena. Consisted of ten patties and was commanded by a Senapati or a battle group under a battalion/regimental commander and ten or less senas formed a brigade commanded by a Nayaka. 47. Intervals .There are two sets of intervals or gaps between the files and ranks laid down by Kautilya, one is a narrow gap with the proviso to increase it by double or three times and the other is a larger gap between archers which extends to other arms. It is possible that smaller gaps are for forming up on ceremonial and drill purposes (close order) were archers do not need extended space and larger intervals (open order) for battle information. In a battle formation adopted in an open order the minimum gap between two files of archers was one dhanu(bow) of five hastas(forearm) or 2.5 mtrs, between horses it was three dhanu(7.5 mtrs) and between elephants or Chariots it was five dhanus(12.5 mtrs). The interval between the centre and a wing as well as a wing and its flank was also 12.5 mtr. Kautilya does not indicate the gap to be maintained between ranks but it may safely be assumed that the interval between sub ranks,ie. Within a rank of elephant or chariots, i.e between a sub rank of patiyodhas and a horse would be three dhanus and between ranks, i.e the rare sub rank or padagopas of the front rank and the front sub rank of patiyodhas of the second or centre rank would be five dhanus(12.5 mtrs). These intervals could be increased in accordance with the ground available for battle and the size of the force to be deployed. 48. Reserves. Reserves held an important place in the battle formations as per Kautilya, reserves were directly involved in shaping of the battle field and were placed directly under the control of the king. A firm base was to be established on a suitable terrain approximately 600 -700 m behind the army and it was here that the reserves were placed. The reserve consisted of about one third of the best available troops. The king was advised to be stationed at this firm base after the actual fighting commenced and be in a position to influence the battle by sending reinforcement when and where needed and to make the firm base as a rallying point in case of a reverse.[13] 49. Standard battle formation (vyuha). A standard brigade group was formed for battle is referred to as a standard battle formation or array. Additions and alterations were made to it, according to a formula, in order to accommodate additional troops available for deployment. The standard brigade group deployed five senas each which contained nine to ten pattis; total troops deployed were: (a) Elephants or Chariots : 45 (b) Horses : 225 (c) Patiyodhas(archers) : 675 (d) Padagopas(foot soldiers) : 675 This force of five senas formed up in five groups i.e centre (urasysa) in middle, the right wing (kaksa) and the left wing (kaksa) after an interval of 12.5 mtrs on both sides and after another similar interval the right flank and the left flank (paksa). Each of these groups or senas formed up for battle in three ranks of three elephants each (three patti). Each elephant had three horse groups in front and two behind it with standard deployment as illustrated earlier. Thus making a total of 27 archers a head of each sena. The archers could effectively utilise their long range capability before close contact was made with the enemy and the change over placed them with the spearmen behind the horses, just prior to the two sides engaged in close combat. However in such a deployment the interval between elephants was at around nine dhanus or 22 mtrs which is tactically unsound and out of supporting range of neighbouring elephants , in any case Kautilya places the suitable gap between ele phants at 12.5 mtrs. The only solution seems to be to for