Descartes Notion of the Mind/Body Problem in Relation to Free Will

Descartes notion of the mind/body problem in relation to Free Will Descartes took an extreme skeptical position by asking, â€Å"What is impossible to doubt, even when trying to believe that everything is false? † His answer was: â€Å"I think, therefore I am†; which is Descartes' most famous one-liner and is the one that explains his understanding of the dualism argument. The term ‘dualism’ has a variety of uses in the history of thought. In general, the idea is that, for some particular domain, there are two fundamental kinds or categories of things or principles.In the philosophy of mind, dualism is the theory that the mental and the physical or mind and body are, in some sense, radically different kinds of thing. The main discussion about dualism tends to start from the assumption of the reality of a physical world, and then ways of considering arguments for why the mind cannot be treated as simply part of that physical world. According to substance dua lism, our minds and our bodies are two distinct substances capable of existing apart.Descartes substance dualism was based in the belief that the universe consisted of two different kinds of substances that he called res extensa (physical things) and res cogitans (thinking things). In other words, the essence of mind is thought while the essence of body is extension. This belief also leads to his assumption that Free Will is self-evident. In other words, if one is capable of doubting the existence of things learned through experience even when some of these may be true, then it is obvious that we have the freedom to disbelieve, thus free will.The full argument can be broken down into seven steps: (1) if I can clearly and distinctly perceive something, then God makes something that exists that corresponding to my clear and distinct perception, otherwise God would be a deceiver. (2) If I can clearly and distinctly perceive X and Y as complete things whose principal attributes exclude each other, then God can make X and Y exist apart from each other. (3) If X and Y can exist apart from each other (whether or not they really do) then they are really distinct. 4) I can clearly and distinctly perceive mind as a complete thing to which extension does not pertain. (5) I can clearly and distinctly perceive body as a complete thing to which thought does not pertain. (6) Therefore, God could bring it about that mind and body exist apart from each other. (7) Therefore, mind and body are really distinct (SparkNotes Editors). This argument is clearly understandable when we separate it as is shown at the previous line.In overall, what is most important to remember about the argument is if I am able to perceive is because I exist, if I exist a divine being must had created this thought on my mind, which would imply, that God make me able of perceiving mind and body as two completely separate substances; If God allows me to perceive this two things separate, then it must be tr uth that mind and body exist apart from each other. The problem for Descartes is two-fold. First, if humans are free, then that which is free is not subject to the laws of physics or res-extensa like Descartes called the term.By definition all physical things are subject to the laws of physics. When we contrast these conditions of physical laws, and we are talking about the mind, it fails. The mind which is described as the source of will, must be distinct from the body and must not be physical in the natural world. In other words, the presence of a mind allows human beings to transcend their physical bodies and be free. However, we need to be aware that even is Descartes is claimed this separation of substances, he recognizes that the mind is affected by the body in certain special way.He would argue this by explaining the religious concept of the soul. Descartes complicates the simplistic notion of â€Å"mind-body† by introducing â€Å"soul† as part of mindful awaren ess. This whole argument would turn from mind-body problem to Mind, Body and Soul. The problem is that the strong attributes of the mind/body combine tend to determine the attributes of the soul. † The soul moves and feels in the body directly. The pineal gland allows the mind and body to interact said Descartes, which was proven wrong lately. Descartes such as many other philosophers was a believer of the soul.Plato for example, argued that, as the body is from the material world, the soul is from the world of ideas and is thus immortal. He believed the soul was temporarily united with the body and would only be separated at death, when it would return to the world of Forms. Since the soul does not exist in time and space, as the body does, it can access universal truths. For Plato, ideas are the true reality, and are experienced by the soul. The body is for Plato empty in that it cannot access the abstract reality of the world; it can only experience shadows.Aristotle, said, â€Å"It is not necessary to ask whether soul and body are one, just as it is not necessary to ask whether the wax and its shape are one, nor generally whether the matter of each thing and that of which it is the matter are one. For even if one and being are spoken of in several ways, what is properly so spoken of is the actuality†; in overall, the soul is a property exhibited by the body, one among many. Moreover, Aristotle proposed that when the body perishes, so does the soul, just as the shape of a building block disappears with destruction of the block.On the other hand, Descartes said, â€Å"My view is that this gland is the principal seat of the soul, and the place in which all our thoughts are formed†. This previous sentence definitely proves Descartes belief in the human soul and his concern of understanding it and explains it thru his works at the same time. Descartes conclude his argument saying that Since we can clearly and distinctly perceive of mind with out body and of body without mind, God can bring it about that mind can exist without body and body without mind. In other words, they are really distinct- Rene Descartes.Now, that we understand the mind-body argument from Descartes perspective, we can explain how he relates these two substances with the ability every human being free will. After the Scholastics, Descartes takes the conception of will and affirmed that the main ability of the mind is the ability of free will. In other words, for Descartes the essence of the mind consists of thought. Now, we found that the main focus of the argument is not the mind body argument, but the significance that Descartes gives to free will in his work. First thing, is to understand the significance and real purpose of the will.The will's practical function consist in fighting the passions; which means that we are literally able to control any action that we do, because we have freedom of choice. The argument here would be that the will is just the mind in its active capacity so the functioning of all mental faculties (intellect, imagination, memory, and sense perception) are dependent on the will (Ferguson). I truly believe that studying and understanding Descartes study of the will would resolve many of the gaps that philosopher had left on the way.Finally, we have got to the major argument of the paper that is explained how Descartes argument of mind-body is strictly relate with humans free will. Everything begins with the claim made by Descartes in his Meditation II, in which he affirms that willing, affirming, and denying is what gave us absolute freedom. Whenever we are aware of something, we are willing something, simple as that. Descartes concept of will is very cautious and quite interesting if one put himself of herself to understanding it.To explain this, Descartes begin by explain what is the intellect and how it relate and differ from the concept of will. Descartes complex treatment of freedom is due to t he complexity of the subject matter, which even with it difficulties it is pretty cogent and interesting. For Descartes, the will (which implies freedom) is dependent on the intellect for its functioning. In other words, without an idea there is nothing in which we can take a stand. Willing is just nothing but a way of thinking; will is infinite, while intellect is finite.The intellect is finite and limited because there are varying degrees at which perceptions and understanding can function. For example, some of us have extremely analysis ability while other can just do simple understanding. The will, on the other hand, is infinite because its efficacy is not a matter of degree. My ability of having free will, make me able to affirm or deny any proposition put to me by my intellect alone. From Descartes perspective, God has given us a will which has no limits and that can be dependent. Believe or not the will and the intellect are interacting most of the time.This is why; Descartes emphasizes the unity of the mind as the faculty of knowledge which he called pure â€Å"intellect†. However, the main focus is the interaction of the will with the soul on the one hand, and with the body, on the other. In conclusion, Descartes presented us a mind body problem from a Christian perspective, which had a purpose of affirmed the existence of the two substances, res-extensa and res cogitans completely separate from each other. To explain this, He described the mind as the source of will that must be distinct from the body and the physical world.We cannot will anything without understanding what are we willing and if we get a little deep into this thought is quite easy to make sense to it. We cannot leave behind either that Descartes, showed a strong concern to show his belief in the human soul while he would try to prove the existence of God, and even of himself. This would turn the whole argument to Mind, Body and soul, which is the real Christian perspective. In overall, he claimed that soul cannot exist in time and space; and that the attributes of the mind-body combine are the one that truly determine the attributes of the soul.Descartes began his explanation of the concept of will by affirming that the main ability of the mind is the ability of free will. Will, in other words, is the whole mind in its active capacity. To support this statement Descartes used many concepts in relation that in his theory, they all work together to make free will happen. By having theorical functions, practical functions, actions caused by the soul, and a strong direct relation with the mind-body problem, I truly believe that Descartes purpose of explaining his concern of the concept of will was well clearly done. Work CitedMihali, Andreea. â€Å"Descartes' Concept of Will. † Wilfrid Laurier University (Canada), 2007. Canada: ProQuest. Web. 11 Apr. 2013. Ferguson, Christopher J. â€Å"Free Will: An Automatic Response. † American Psychologist 55. 7 (2000): 762-763. PsycARTICLES. Web. 12 Apr. 2013. SparkNotes Editors. â€Å"SparkNote on Principles of Philosophy. † SparkNotes. com. SparkNotes LLC. n. d.. Web. 14 Mar. 2013. Marias, Julian. History of Philosophy. New York: Dover Publications Inc. , 196721. 210-222. Print. Angeles, Peter. The Harper Collins Dictionary Philosphy. 2nd. United States: Harper Collins Publishers, Print.

A Jury of Her Peers – 1

An Analysis of Characterization in â€Å"A Jury of Her Peers† In â€Å"A Jury of Her Peers† written by Susan Glaspell and published in 1917 a man named John Wright was choked to death in his bed with a rope. John Wright’s wife, Minnie is the prime suspect and has been taken to the jail to await her trial. The county lawyer George Henderson, the sheriff Henry Peters, his wife and the local farmer Lewis Hale and his wife Martha arrive at the home of John and Minnie Wright trying to locate clues so they could hold a trial and convict Minnie for the murder of her husband. Mrs.Peters and Martha Hale, both very observant, quickly take note of the obvious clues in the home but choose to not reveal them to the men. This story takes place during a time when women were made to feel inferior to men. This is ironic because the men fail to see the obvious clues, that the ladies are uncovering, that are important to their investigation. Minnie Foster Wright, who is the main ch aracter in the story, has been forced to change her identity from a lovely girl who loved to sing in the choir and wear pretty dresses to one of a subservient housewife.Minnie is a very dynamic character whose dreams were represented by her pet canary and ultimately choked by the hands of her husband. The story gives a lot of insight into the life of Minnie Wright and how she felt as a housewife but it is done through the eyes of her peers. George Henderson comes across as being narrow-minded and egotistical. He talks down to the women throughout the entire story, he looks inside the cupboard and says, â€Å"Here’s a fine mess† (Glaspell 540).After multiple comments and derogatory looks toward the ladies the lawyer remembers his role in the community and states, â€Å"for all their worries, what would we do without the ladies† (Glaspell 540)? George Henderson then falls back into superiority by criticizing the disarray and dirt in the farmhouse. Lewis Hale and H enry Peters share the same opinion of women and do not mind letting their wives know their place in the home. Mr. Hale made a statement that the women wouldn’t know a clue if they came upon one and that they were only used to worrying over trifles. Ironically Mr.Hale never realized that while he was busy keeping the women in their place they were solving the murder. Mr. Hale and Mr. Peters are so detached from the domestic world they didn’t view the kitchen and its condition the same way the women did. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale were under no illusions as to why the kitchen was in such disarray. The story indicates that Mrs. Hale is an obedient housewife that is very comfortable in her role being married to a farmer. She is a strong lady, a woman of principle and a lady that is given to neatness and that leaves no job unfinished.For example, Paragraph 1 states â€Å"her bread all ready for mixing, half the flour sifted and half unsifted†. This may seem to hold li ttle significance to the story however we find that Mrs. Hales neatness and sense of organization allows to her see clues that the men overlook because of their views of the home. Mrs. Peters on the other hand seems to be very uncomfortable in her role as the sheriff’s wife. Initially in the story Mrs. Peters appears weak and unwilling to withhold the clues from the men investigating the crime. Mrs.Peters also discourages Mrs. Hale from withholding clues and tampering with evidence, however as the story progresses we find that Mrs. Peters has very strong convictions and that she can and will rise to the occasion. The ladies quickly pieced together what had happened, however because they relate to Minnie they chose to keep it between themselves. To these ladies dirty towels and dishes were signs that things were not well at home. Mrs. Peters knew Minnie as a young lady that was full of life, had a beautiful voice and wore pretty clothes.Over time things changed for the ladies and they grew apart and the guilt that was felt for not being a better neighbor and friend weighed heavy on their minds. Mrs. Peters said, â€Å"I know what stillness is† (Glaspell 550). Mrs. Peters understood where Minnie had been in life because her life wasn’t that different. Although the ladies knew Minnie had committed the crime it wasn’t until they found the broken cage and the choked canary that they felt empathy for her and begin defending her actions.They both understood that John Wright had taken her song, â€Å"She used to sing. He killed that too† (Glaspell 550). The ladies knew that the crime should be punished but they justified the crime in their minds based on their personal situations, the way John Wright had treated Minnie, and the fact they hadn’t taken the time from their own lives to visit. The ladies seemed to secretly enjoy knowing they have solved the puzzle based on their domestic skills of working in the kitchen down to th e type of stitching on the quilts, even if that meant Mrs.Peters going against her husband who was the law. They continued to talk in domesticated code to the men to the very end of the story where Mrs. Hale gave the men the final clue by using quilting terms and stating, â€Å"We call it knot it, Mr. Henderson† (Glaspell 553). Works Cited Glaspell, Susan. â€Å"A Jury of Her Peers. † Perrine's Literature, Structure, Sound, and Sense†. Arp, Thomas R. & Greg Johnson. 10th edition. Thomson/Wadsworth. 2009. (page number)

What Are the Principle Strengths and Weaknesses of Nomothetic and Idiographic Approaches to Personality? Illustrate You Answer with at Least One Theory Associated with Each Approach.

This essay discusses the major strengths and weaknesses of nomothetic and idiographic approaches to personality with the help of associated theories. Personality is defined as the psycho-physcial traits and mechanisms within an individual, influencing their interactions and adaptability to the ‘environment’. Nomothetic and idiographic approaches are two different methods used to provide an insight into and determine the personalities of people. While both approaches are meant to further ones understanding of personality in different situations, there are significant differences as well as advantages and disadvantages for, in addition to, each method as this essay will highlight. Falk (1956) defines the nomothetic approach as a method to illuminate the laws and principles that define behaviors of a populace by interpreting general patterns which emerge, and the idiographic approach as an in-depth exploration of a subject where the understanding achieved is unique and personalized to the individual. The nomothetic approach takes on the ‘history repeats itself’ attitude as expressed by Skinner’s radical behaviorism theory divulged by his experiments on rats, pigeons etc. (Smith and Woodward, 1996). The nomothetic approach’s greatest strength lies in its ability to distinguish certain trait behaviors of a population or community. This is efficent in determining an effective solution for individuals with identical behavior patterns based on the trait theory of personality. Cattell’s (1946) 16PF trait theories, large scale studies recorded as a score on a dimension is an example of nomothetic investigation of human personality by which an individual’s personality is able to be described and generalized, as well as group behavior of same scoring individuals predicted. Research such as Milgram’s experiment and the I. Q. test suggest nomothetic notions hold true for certain behavioral principals and can be used to a certain extent to generalize groups of people. The ‘Big 5’ theory in collaboration with nomothetic data is considered satisfactory to illustrate the features of personality. This method relies heavily on trait theories of personality to predict and establish behavioral personalities for a populace. On the other hand classification of a particular populace may not hold true for a particular individual due to specific individual traits and experiences suggests Gordon Allport (Nicholson, 2000). He stated that standardized testing would not be able to examine a greater part of an individual’s personality traits thus it required focused and customized study and observation. While the nomothetic approach is relatively accurate to determine personality of general communities, it is shown to only propose surface principle behavior, not an accurate personality detail of a person. Moreover a bulky sample has to be chosen accurately to determine emerging patterns of behavior; classification might not be precise for all the people in that particular generalization. Another evident disadvantage is the classification of a person or people based on their result such as I. Q. which is show in certain situations to create bias among the society they are in. The idiographic approach is highly focused on an individual under investigation and is mostly qualitative based as opposed to the quantitative nomothetic way. It is largely based on Freud’s theories of consciousness, that each person has an I,D. , ego and super ego and that it is unique to that particular individual. The study is comprehensive and long term, highlighting a complete understanding of the subject such as Freud’s explicit and long term clinical studies of his patients, catering to their specific needs and issues rather than a general assumption of their base persona (Gay, 1988). It is shown to be a more flexible and detailed study to gain valid knowledge about the subjects being studied; Piaget was also able to unambiguously determine his children’s behavioral patterns and psyches (Auger and Rich, 2007). Idiographic approaches focus on the understanding of the structure of the mental i. e. the conscious, the unconscious and the preconscious such as George Kelly’s repertory grid technique in addition to Carl Rogers’ Q-sort procedure (Mcleod, 2007). Data gathered from idiographic research allows the creation of unique and effective treatments. The key advantage of this method is the treatment offered after research will be efficient as it has been tailored to suit the particular individuals problem. On the other hand the results derived from idiographic approaches are highly specific and cannot be generalized; they’re based on a limited sample of the population along with unreliable experimentation which makes the data gathered useless to define general characteristics of a group. The information analyzed is unique to the particular individual being studied and does not hold true globally in which case it is considered unscientific by psychologists. In conclusion, while nomothetic and idiographic approaches to personality each have their advantages and disadvantages, it is evident that the type of method used would be based on what the researcher is trying to record. To distinguish a general law of similar characteristic personalities a large, accurate sample from a populace would need to be nomotheticly studied with correlation factors as well as psychometric testing and other forms of quantitative research to drawn upon a fairly conclusive theory. While precise study of an individual, would use the informal, idiographic method to derive an acute understanding of their personality. The nomothetic approach to personality is mainly supported by the trait theories of personality and idiographic approaches to personality are backed up by psychodynamic theories of personality. The main advantages these methods have is they are predominant in their own introspective fields of research while their main downfall poses as long as they remain standalone theories.

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Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

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Capstone Paper - Coursework Example rimary objective of this business plan is to describe the company, present the market analysis, highlight the market strategy, and define the implementation strategy. The marketing plan will also present financial statements and projected financial report for the first year of operation. The mission of Cypress Workforce Training is to take a unique and innovative approach towards providing educational services that help employees and fresh graduates connect their classroom education to workplace requirements. 1. To provide high quality, experienced, and professional workers to business entities that currently rely only on the formal academics, and are spending excessive resources to train employees for short-term contracts. 1. Cypress Workforce Training intends to develop methods of approach that links workplace requirements and classroom teaching particularly in solving ethical dilemmas and dealing with cultural and behavioral diversities. This is critical to the success of the business because employees will develop self-adjustment mechanisms to enable them fit into the workplace regardless of widespread diversities. 2. The company will create effective marketing strategies that can reach as many people as possible. Reaching a variety of people will increase demand for the company’s services. Cypress Workforce Training will benefit from increased number of customers in terms of profitability and sustainability. 3. Listening to the requirements of the clients and striving to institute their needs and proposals into training programs will be vital for the success of the business. Success of the business is founded on principles of quality service provision. Quality implies tailoring the services to meet customer satisfaction. This implies that the institution will operate in accordance to the customer demands. Meeting customer needs and requirements will guarantee business growth and sustainability. Cypress Workforce Trainers will work under the industry of

Law Enforcement Today Essay Example for Free

Law Enforcement Today Essay There are many issues facing that law enforcement today from things such as racial discrimination to probable cause and for the officers who go through this on a daily basis it is has been a long and hard fight. In today’s law enforcement agencies there are many local, state and federal agencies that are in contact with the Department of Homeland Security. Racial discrimination is an issue for law enforcement today because there are cases in which a white officer arrests or shoots someone who is a minority and the minority public sees this to be an act of racial discrimination versus it being that someone who happens to be a minority not abiding by the laws that govern them and all the citizens around them as well as attempting to cause harm to those around them. For instance I am sure everyone has heard about the Michael Brown case that occurred in August 2014 where a white police officer shot and killed a black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri which has caused a problem in other agencies while their officers are on the road. Another incident that has become an issue is the safety of officers. For instance back on September 12, 2014 when a man who was seeking change shot and killed a Pennsylvania State Trooper while injuring another. Another issue all local, state and federal agencies deal with would be the issue on immigration. The reason immigration is an issue for police agencies is because when you have a person or a group of people that have come to the U.S. illegally they can cause problems in society that are unwanted and that cause crime to rocket in a specific area or all over the country. Another issue that the police agencies go through would be cybercrime. Cybercrime is a big issue for police agencies because the job of the police department is to protect the citizens and when a child is being bullied to the point the child takes their life or child pornography is being exposed on the internet it is a crime because it is causing someone else to become unsafe as well as it being illegal. Cybercrime is also very difficult for law enforcement  agencies to deal with because they can be very difficult to catch unless someone points out in plain view the specifics of who, when, where, what, and how it is occurring. Local, state and federal law enforcement agencies interact with Homeland Security in many ways. Some ways that these agencies interact with Homeland Security is by helping to continue in keeping the citizens of the United States of America safe report and by eliminate terrorist attacks or anything that will hinder the lives of the American people in any way in the United States. For instance if a local police agency runs a traffic stop that positively identifies known terrorists than they can bring the terrorists for questioning and to alert the state and federal agencies and the government on information about the terrorists and their groups. The way the Department of Homeland Security gets the federal, local and state law enforcement agencies involved is by collecting data, information, tools and resources that each of these agencies are going to need in order help eliminate terrorism in the United States. While trying to get all the agencies involved there are also different things that DHS and the local, state and federal agencies can do in order to improve their relationship. Such things include on how they communicate and share information, enhance federal resources as well as supporting them through grants, training and other means. Lastly, they would be to strengthen its analytic capabilities to achieve better awareness of new and emerging threats. As one who would like to become a police officer one day I too would like to gain access in helping to resolve the issues that the local, state and federal governments are facing today as well as in the future as well as protecting the citizens of the United States. Taking it step by step will help eliminate the threat of terror as well as even the issues of the department and the Standard Operating Procedures they go through.

The Definition Of Stress Psychology Essay

The Definition Of Stress Psychology Essay Stress  is a term that is commonly used today but has become increasingly difficult to define. It shares, to some extent, common meanings in both the biological and psychological sciences. Stress is the bodys reaction to a change that requires a physical, mental or emotional adjustment or response. Stress can be defined in terms of all people responding in the same biological way to the same stimulus, or as dependent upon the persons response to the stressor. Any perception of a stress stimulus triggers the persons physiological and psychological responses to situations or events that disturb the equilibrium. Stress is any event that a human being perceives as harmful or threatening. The body reacts to stress with fight or flight response. Stress hormones like adrenalin, dopamine, cortisol, noradrenalin, and endorphins are released in the blood when one experiences stress. The term  stress  had none of its contemporary connotations before the 1920s. In the 1920s and 1930s, the term was occasionally being used in biological and psychological circles to refer to a mental strain, unwelcome happening, or, more medically, a harmful environmental agent that could cause illness. Walter Cannon  used it in 1926 to refer to external factors that disrupted what he called homeostasis. Homeostasis is a concept central to the idea of stress. Environmental factors, internal or external stimuli, continually disrupt homeostasis.  Factors causing an organisms condition to waver away from homeostasis can be interpreted as stress. A life-threatening situation such as a physical insult or prolonged starvation can greatly disrupt homeostasis. Psychologists have defined stress in a variety of ways. Contemporary definitions of stress regard the external environmental stress as a stressor, the response to the stressor of distress, and the concept of stress as something that involves biochemical, physiological, behavioural and psychological changes. While there is little consensus among psychologists about the exact definition of stress, it is agreed that stress results when demands placed on an organism cause unusual physical, psychological, or emotional responses. In humans, stress originates from a multitude of sources and causes a wide variety of responses, both positive and beneficial (Eustress) and negative and harmful (Distress). The most commonly used definition of stress was developed by Lazarus and Launier (1978), who regarded stress as a transaction between people and the environment and described stress in terms of person-environment fit. Stress typically describes a negative concept that can have an impact on ones mental  and physical well-being, but it is unclear what exactly defines stress and whether or not stress is a cause, an effect, or the process connecting the two. With organisms as complex as humans, stress can take on entirely concrete or abstract meanings with highly subjective qualities, satisfying definitions of both cause and effect in ways that can be both tangible and intangible. Both negative and positive stressors can lead to stress. The intensity and duration of stress changes depending on the circumstances and emotional condition of the person suffering from it (Arnold. E and Boggs. K. 2007). Humans may all be faced with the same stressor (stimulus) but the stress response that they show will depend on their individual differences or gender or culture. Stress is an extremely adaptive phenomenon in a person which contributes to his/her survival, activities, and performance.1 Physical and psychological stress can induce a number of immunological alterations in the cell mediated.2 Stressors may influence the immune system through their impact on neuroendocrine, autonomic and central nervous system.3 Psychological stress may influence the functions of the immune system both indirectly through hormonal changes, and directly through nervous regulation during brief but acute stressful periods.4 Exposure to psychological stressors can modulate the primary antibody response.5,6 (4) Some common categories and examples of stressors include: Life experiences such as poverty, unemployment, clinical depression. Obsessive compulsive disorder, heavy drinking,  or insufficient sleep  can also cause stress. Students and workers may face performance pressure stress from exams  and project deadlines. The medical student: Medical students are frequently individuals with a long-standing need for caring, a capacity to tolerate, being in a providing, dispensing, and nurturing relationship with other people. It is not uncommon for medical students to have chosen medicine after a death of a family member or close friend, sometimes with the quite conscious desire to learn how to fight wasteful death. The goal of medical education is to graduate knowledgeable, skilful and professional physicians. The medical school curriculum has been developed to accomplish these ambitions. Medical students are a highly self-selected group who arrive in medical school with a set of developed abilities, motives, adaptive styles, and values that must be taken into account if we are to understand the impact of their medical studies on them. Teams of sociologists have studied the ways medical students organize themselves to excel and to manage the vast amounts of information that they should learn. They consider success in medical school as the first step to a future of helping others and they are not about to jeopardize that. Medical students as a group are attracted to medicine partly because of their special sensitivity to and concern on three psychological issues: death, suffering, and care. Secondly, medical students are distinguished by a preference for certain adaptive techniques, styles, and defences-specifically by a propensity to counter, master, and overcome sources of anxiety, a tendency to react to stress and anxiety. (3) Stress and medical studies: There is extensive literature demonstrating that medical students begin medical school with mental health profiles similar to their non-medical peers. Since the healing profession is distinctively motivated to confront the issues of suffering, death and care, issues that most of their fellows anxiously avoid, through the course of medical school, they experience substantial deterioration in their mental quality of life, due to stress and anxiety. Medical students have to deal with stressors specific to medical school in addition to normal stressors of everyday life which explains this high prevalence of anxiety. (1) Medicine is a kind of training which is emotionally demanding and therefore medical education can be regarded as stressful. High levels of stress have been found in medical students in various studies. Amongst medical students, stress has been reported to be caused by academic pressure, perfectionist standards, increased psychological pressure, mental tension and too much work load. The demanding nature of medical practice requires involvement with the most personal or emotionally draining aspects of life (human suffering, death, sexuality and fear) and these are considered to be stressors. Stress during medical school can lead to problems later in professional life compromising patient care. (1) Studies suggest that medical students experience a high incidence of stress with potential adverse consequences on academic performance, competency, professionalism and health. Medical students experience substantial stress from the beginning of the training process. Students use various coping mechanisms to process stress that vary by year in training and source of stress. The specific coping strategies that students use may determine the effect of stress on psychological and physical health and may determine whether stress has a positive or negative influence. Strategies that centre on disengagement such as problem avoidance, wishful thinking, social withdrawal and self-criticism have negative consequences and correlate with depression, anxiety and poor mental health. In contrast, strategies that involve engagement such as problem solving, positive re-interpretation, reliance on social support and expression of emotion enable medical students to respond in a manner that leads to adaptation, which can reduce stress. Medical education has deleterious consequences. Trainees (students, interns, and residents) suffer high levels of stress, which lead to alcohol and drug abuse,  interpersonal relationship difficulties, depression and anxiety,  and even suicide.  Medical students have mean anxiety scores one standard deviation above those of non-patients. (12) Studies which have tried to identify the sources of stress among medical students generally concern three main areas : academic stress: enormous syllabus to be covered in a limited time, sudden change in their style of studying, flooding of medical science with new concepts, lack of proper guidance, thought of failing in exams, inadequate time allocated to clinical posting, insufficient bed side teaching, social stress : relationship with peer groups, hostel friends, senior teachers, displacement from home, expectations of parents, peer pressure, change in the medium of education, physical stress : inadequate hostel facilities, hostel food etc. (5) Anxiety is also associated with feeling of loneliness, peer competition, long hours and loss of social time. The majority of stressful incidents in traditional curricula are related to medical training rather than to personal problems. (7) Stress may not only impair the quality of life of medical students but can also influence patient care and the complex psychodynamics of the doctor- patient relationship. (5) Stress is receiving increased attention because of the realization that tired, tense, anxious doctors may not provide as high quality care as do those who do not suffer from these debilitating conditions. A medical career can be particularly stressful due to the combination of involvement with life and death and the high expectations of medicine and of doctors held by both the public and doctors themselves. Partly as a result of these pressures and the need to acquire a substantial body of knowledge and skills, medical students experience considerable anxiety at various stages in the curriculum (Arndt et al., 1986; Firth, 1986; Firth-Cozens, 1987; Kidson Hornblow, 1982; Moss McManus, 1992; Tooth et al., 1989). Such anxieties may result in, for example, reduced examination performance (Tooth et al., 1989), increased alcohol consumption (Firth, 1986) and attempted suicide (Warren Wakeford, 1990). (6) Some students may perceive factors such as nutrition, exercise routines, sleep patterns, social activities, having a child to care for, job responsibilities, finances as stressors that they need to overcome in order to achieve a higher academic standing. By themselves, these constraints may have no effect at all on a student, but when combined, a student could perceive them as stressful and these stress factors could have a dramatic effect on a students academic performance. Exam stress during medical studies: Medical students are repeatedly subjected to rigorous examinations in order to check their potential to be a doctor as they have to deal with human life every single day. They have chosen a career which demands not only responsibilities but also ethical and legal liability for others lives. The onus of this responsibility and sheer volume of syllabus places a medical student under tremendous stress prior to professional exams. This stress may manifest with varying magnitude of anxiety (Kidson and Hornblow, 1982) and decrease in psychological health (Aktekin et al, 2001). (13) To a student, the prospect of sitting for an examination could be identified as a stressor and the resulting emotional and physiological state could be described as an exam stress. (4) Many students experience anxiety before a test or exam; a little bit of nervousness can actually enhance performance. However, if stress levels rise to the point where they inhibit performance on the test, then this is considered exam stress. 92% of students said that they got worried during exam time; one fifth of students surveyed revealed that they had suffered anxiety attacks as a result of pre-exam stress. Furthermore, 61% of those questioned cited lack of sleep/insomnia as a result of stress, 51% said that they suffer from headaches or migraines and 47% admitted turning to the one of the worlds best comforts, food. (10) Here below are some of the symptoms of exam stress, which can vary widely in intensity. Some test-takers experience only mild anxiety, and still perform well, but others are left nearly unable to function, failing the test or even experiencing a panic attack. Physical symptoms of exam stress include tremors, sweating, dry mouth, nausea, rapid heartbeat and even fainting. Milder cases include symptoms of butterflies in the stomach, but severe cases can lead to physical illness which must be treated. Behavioural and cognitive symptoms include defiant avoidance of exam situations, or just a little fidgeting. In some cases, exam stress can become so severe that the student is forced to drop out of school entirely just to avoid testing. Many students attempt self-medication with alcohol or drugs; still others report blanking out completely, or experiencing difficulty concentrating, inability to control thoughts and a negative outlook, which are all common behavioural / cognitive symptoms of exam stress. Emotional symptoms of exam stress include low self-esteem, anger, depression and feelings of despair. The students taking the test often feel unable to do anything about their situation, so they may berate or belittle themselves about their performance and their feelings. Exam stress is reported to have a significant impact on the well-being of the student and is associated with changes in the mental and physical health such as increasing anxiety, increasing negative mood and changes in the functions of the immune system. (4) In other words, the exam is one of the stressful events associated with lowered immune system function.14 Academic examinations have often been used in stress research because they are predictable, standardized, and discrete examples of real-life stressors. It was demonstrated that this stress caused a significant neurohormonal change. A small but significant increase in their emotional distress is indicated by an increase in anxiety during the final examination. Glucocorticoids can downregulate the immune activity, but acute stresses were reported to increase the cortisol level.19 Results show that the exam stress can result in significant increase in the cortisol level. (4) According to a study conducted by Shamsdin, et.al. (2010) on thirty five university medical students, two blood samples were provided from each participant one month (first stage) and one hour (second stage) before the exam. The results show that stress has determining effects on the immune response. The exam stress can result a significant increase in the cortisol level. So, these changes may indicate the alterations of immunological status and presence of stress in an immunosuppressed individual, affecting his / her health. Under stressful conditions, the hypothalamus releases corticotrophins into the blood circulation and when it reaches the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland, adrenocorticotrophic hormones are released into the blood circulation. When this reaches the adrenal gland, lucocorticoids are released which are chemicals that modulate or regulate the immune response. Since lymphocytes have receptors for glucocorticoids as well as other steroid hormones associated with r esponses to stress, the brain and immune system are sufficiently well connected to one to influence the other. Exam stress  involves a combination of physiological over-arousal, worry and dread about test performance, and often interferes with normal learning and lowers test performance. It is a physiological condition in which people experience extreme stress, anxiety, and discomfort during and/or before taking a test. Exam stress is prevalent amongst the student populations of the world, and has been studied formally since the early 1950s. During states of excitement or stress the body releases the hormone adrenaline. This hormone is responsible for preparing the body for danger, or the fight or flight response. Adrenaline is known to cause the physical symptoms one might experience that accompany exam stress such as increased heart rate, sweating, and rapid breathing.  [3]   Symptoms of exam stress can range from moderate to severe. Students who exhibit moderate symptoms are still able to perform relatively well on exams.  [5]  Other students with severe stress will often experience panic attacks. Student expectations are one major mental factor. For example, if a student believes that he or she will perform poorly on an exam, he/she is far more likely to become anxious before and during a test. (9) Exam stress is the emotional reaction that some students face before exams. The fear is not irrational, but excessive fear interferes with performance. Many researchers suggest that a little worry is good for students because it keeps them task oriented; however excessive worry on the other hand can be very debilitating and interferes with the results if not managed appropriately. (2) Exam stress is a set of responses that includes excessive worry, depression, nervousness and irrelevant thinking to a class of stimuli from an individuals experience of assessment / test and outcome. It is experienced by many students while undertaking any exam. There are four main areas of reported stresses which can contribute to exam stress including life style issues, lack of required information, studying style and psychological factors. (2) Life styles related issues include inadequate rest, insufficient physical activity, poor nutrition and lack of time management are found to be the contributing factors leading to exam stress as reported by many authors. Psychological factors which contribute significantly to exam stress are negative and irrational thinking about exams, outcomes of exams and feelings of no control over exam situation (e.g. going blank during exam) are reported by many authors. Students perception of extensive course load is also reported to cause exam stress in medical students. Examination system itself is a major stress factor for medical students. (2) In other words, the phrase exam is the same stimulus, but some medical students will be feeling very worked up about the exam, others will be more laid back. The internal and behavioural response will be different for each of them. Psychologists try to find out the factors affecting this interaction and stress management depends on the perceived interaction and response. Gender is likely to be an important factor in students anxiety. Women are reported to be more anxious than men, both overall and for most individual situations. (6) Anxiety levels increase in medical students just before exams, with female students found to be more anxious than males, shows a study undertaken by the Armed forces Medical College (AFMC), Pune, India (Pahwa, et. al., 2008). (14) According to this study labelled A study of exam related anxiety amongst medical students pre-exam anxiety levels are seen to be higher in female than male population indicating greater increase in anxiety levels amongst females. This is in agreement with other studies that substantiate presence of sex differences in exam related anxiety, with female students having higher test anxiety than male students (Chapell et al 2005, Eller et al 2006). (13) Females are more likely to report concern and stress due to self expectation, a feeling of lack of competence and a tendency to over report symptoms. (1) Comparison of rankings between 1992 and 1995 Birmingham students shows that rankings were consistent over time for both genders, particularly for the higher ranked questions. More detailed analysis of the 1995 data shows that individual female students were more likely to have higher total scores than male students. (6) All stress factors were more common among female students with statistically significant differences in factors which included: studying all night before exams, feeling no control over exam situations, improper nutrition and lack of exercise. Personality and stress: Mental health professionals believe personality plays a significant role in how individuals perceive stress (Martin, 2011). Lazarus and Folkman (1984) define stress as a product of the relationship between the person and the environment. Stress occurs when a person appraises a stressful event as exceeding his / her coping abilities or threatening his / her well being. Personality can influence both health related and everyday behaviours and is also related to an individuals appraisal of a stressful experience (Booth-Kewley, 1994). Stress is not a simple, stimulus-response reaction; rather it is the interaction between an individual and the environment, involving subjective perception and assessment of stressors, thus constituting a highly personalised process. Specific inherited characteristics, early experience in life, and in particular, learned cognitive predispositions make individuals more or less susceptible to the effects of stressors. Resilience and vulnerability to stressors as well as intensity of stress response mainly depend on age, gender, intelligence, and many other characteristics of personality (19). (Psychiatrike. 2011. Stress and personality. Lecic-Tosevski D, Vukovic O, Stepanovic J. psychiatric Department, Belgrade University, School of Medicine, Belgrade, Serbia.) Research has indicated that certain personality traits can make individuals more vulnerable to stress. There is a number of personality traits that could be described which measure human personality. A broad and comprehensive way of identifying the traits and structure of human personality is the Five Factor model (Digman, 1990). J.M. (1990). (Personality structure: Emergence of the five-factor model.Annual Review of Psychology  41: 417-440). Five Factor Model: This model has originated in a decades-long factor-analytic research tradition (13). Most researchers goal was to create a brief inventory that would allow efficient and flexible assessment of the five dimensions when there is no need for more differentiated measurement of individual facets. (6) Big Five has proven useful as a framework for organizing any findings on adult personality in areas such as behavioural genetics and industrial psychology. (6) The five factor model of personality is better understood as a lexical and factor analytic derived personality approach (Haslam, 2007). McCrae and Costa (1991) claim that this model provides a comprehensive taxonomy of personality traits. However this model has not always been regarded as noteworthy (McAdams, 1992). McCrae and Costa have conducted a lot of research on the model, including cross-sectional and longitudinal research designs (Cavanaugh Blanchard-Fields, 2006) and they argue that the model includes a large number of traits found in language and scientific theory. Thus, this model allows for a systematic approach to personality (12). The five factors model is more than a simple classification of basic personality traits. By the late 1980s, Costa and McCrae were convinced that they and other researchers had found a stable structure of personality. (11) In McCrae and Costas (1996, 1999, 2003) personality theory , behaviour is predicted by understanding the three central or core components and the three peripheral ones. The three central components include (1) basic tendencies, (2) characteristic adaptations, and (3) self-concept. (11) The five factors are labelled by McCrae and Costa (1992) as extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. These dimensions make up the personality traits of the five-factor model, which is often referred to as the Big Five (Goldberg, 1981). The first of the five factors is extraversion. Extraversion has a different importance in different measures. Sometimes it is based on assertiveness, sometimes on spontaneity and energy. Sometimes it is based on dominance, confidence, and agency (Depue Collins 1999), sometimes on a tendency toward happiness. Extraversion is often thought to be implying sociability (Ashton et al. 2002). Others see a sense of agency and a sense of sociability as two facets of extraversion (Depue Morrone- Strupinsky 2005). Finally, others argue sociability is a by-product of other features of extraversion (Lucas et al. 2000). A connection has also been made between extraversion and the approach temperament; thus, some now view extraversion as reflecting a relative sensitivity of a general approach system (DepueCollins 1999, Caspi Shiner 2006, Caspi et al. 2005, ElliottThrash 2002, Evans Rothbart 2007). People who score high on extraversion tend to be affectionate, jovial, talkative, joiners, and fun-loving. In contrast, low extraversion scorers are likely to be reserved, quiet, loners, passive, and unable to express strong emotion (11). The second factor, neuroticism, refers to the ease and frequency with which a person becomes upset and distressed. Moodiness, anxiety, and depression indicate higher neuroticism. Measures often include items or facets relevant to hostility and other negative feelings, but they are dominated by vulnerability to anxiety and general distress. Neuroticism has been associated with the avoidance temperament discussed above (Caspi Shiner 2006, Caspi et al. 2005, EvansRothbart 2007), suggesting that anxiety and sensitivity to threat is its emotional core. People who score high on neuroticism tend to be anxious, temperamental, self-pitying, self-conscious, emotional, and vulnerable to stress related disorders. Those who score low on neuroticism are usually calm, even-tempered, self-satisfied, and unemotional. (11) The next factor is agreeableness. Agreeable people are friendly and helpful ( John Srivastava 1999), empathic (Graziano et al. 2007), and capable of inhibiting their negative feelings (Graziano Eisenberg 1999). Agreeable people become angry over others transgressions than do less agreeable people (Meier Robinson 2004), and this probably short-circuits aggression (Meier et al. 2006). At the opposite pole is an oppositional or antagonistic quality. People who are low in agreeableness display their power to deal with social conflict (Graziano et al. 1996). Agreeableness as a dimension is often characterized as being broadly concerned with maintaining relationships (Jensen- Campbell Graziano 2001). People who score high on agreeableness tend to be trusting, generous, yielding, acceptant, and good-natured. Those who score low are generally suspicious, stingy, unfriendly, irritable, and critical of other people (11). The most commonly used label for the next factor is conscientiousness, although this label does not fully represent the qualities of planning, persistence, and purposeful trying to achieve goals that are part of it (Digman Inouye 1986). Other suggested names include constraint and responsibility, reflecting qualities of impulse control and reliability. Specific qualities included in this trait vary considerably across measures (Roberts et al. 2005). Individuals who score high on conscientiousness are hardworking, conscientious, punctual, and persevering. In contrast, people who score low on conscientiousness tend to be disorganized, negligent, lazy, and aimless and are likely to give up when a project becomes too difficult (11). Agreeableness and conscientiousness share an important property. Both suggest breadth of perspective. Many manifestations of conscientiousness imply taking future contingencies into account. Agreeableness implies a broad social perspective: taking the needs of others into account. It has been suggested that both of these traits have their origins in the effortful control temperament (Ahadi Rothbart 1994, Caspi Shiner 2006, Jensen-Campbell et al. 2002). The fifth factor, most often called openness to experience (Costa McCrae 1985), is the one about which there is most disagreement as far as content is concerned. Some measures (and theories) enrich this factor with greater overtones of intelligence, terming it intellect (Peabody Goldberg 1989). The fifth factor involves curiosity, flexibility, imaginativeness, and willingness to immerse oneself in atypical experiences (McCrae 1996). People who consistently seek out different and varied experiences would score high on openness to experience. They are creative, imaginative, curious, liberal and have a preference for variety. Those who score low on openness tend to support traditional values and to preserve a fixed style of living and they are typically conventional, down-to-earth, conservative, and not at all curious. (13) Big Five and Medical students: Most of the research on the Big Five is based on self and peer ratings, typically made by college students. (6) Conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness have been shown to be related significantly to academic performance (Poropat, 2009). (15) Neuroticism, in contrast, has a negative significant relationship with academic performance. The relation between educational operation and neuroticism, particularly with regard to anxiety in stressful situations such as university examinations has been clarified 14 (18). It is often claimed that, besides cognitive abilities, a mixture of personality characteristics is necessary for people to be successful in medical studies and eventually in the medical profession. However, there is debate as to which personality traits are typical of students in medical studies as compared to students in other academic fields 1-3. (5) A study conducted by Nauert (2009) which was labelled Personality profile of medical students studied more than 600 Belgian students over their seven years of medical studies to determine what impact their personality had on their performance. The researchers employed a commonly used test to measure the Big Five personality traits. Although the study was conducted in Belgium, the personality factors and the modern medical practices are similar around the world so personality should consistently relate to valued outcomes in medical education. Personality traits can reveal a lot about how students perform during the different demands and emphases of a students medical studies. For example, trait conscientiousness was a good predictor of learning success throughout the medical studies of the students. The researchers speculated that extraverted students are more likely to spend less time on studying than on their social relationships during the first years of medical school, which could hinder their academic performance and result in lower grades, whereas students who scored well in persistence and conscientiousness experienced success in their studies (Grohol, 2009). Big Five and Stress: Personality has been linked to the probability of experiencing stressful situations (Bolger Zuckerman, 1995) and to the evaluation of an event as stressful (Guthert, Cohen Armeli, 1999). Stress plays a role in personality/psychopathology associations (Klein, Wonderlich, Shea, 1993). Stressful reactions act as a medi

Frederick Douglass Fight For Freedom History Essay

Frederick Douglass Fight For Freedom History Essay In his speech, The Hypocrisy of American Slavery, Frederick Douglass enforces his main concept of inequality in the nation and the cruelty of slavery. Douglass endured a rough childhood of slavery in Maryland without the presence or help from his parents. From the very beginning of his life, Douglass knew nothing about the whereabouts of his father nonetheless who he was and barely ever saw his mother. During a tough period of a nation infested with segregation and inequality, Douglass applied to his master to have the right to find work for himself. During employment, he concocted a plan to escape slavery. After a successful getaway, Douglass assisted the Underground Railroad. At this time, the country was in great need of change. Certain historical events that occurred during the time period, such as the Compromise of 1850, and Douglasss rugged life experiences as a slave are applied to help frame the speech and convey how African Americans feel on Independence Day. Through a tone progressing from earnest to inflammatory and the use of rhetorical questions, biblical allusions, and puns, the delivery of The Hypocrisy of American Slavery effectively brings forth an awareness of the deterioration of the nation, the inequality between races and reveals how African Americans are affected by the harsh treatment they receive to help persuade the audience that slavery must be abolished. The Compromise of 1850 and Douglasss life as a slave during this time are important factors that help shape Douglasss speech. To help please the nation, The Compromise of 1850 was passed in an attempt to abolish and control slavery. The document states that it is inexpedient to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia whilst that institution continues to exist in the State of Marylandà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ (Compromise). This affected Douglass negatively as well as other states in America because as long as Maryland accepted slavery, other places were not allowed to abolish it. To Douglass, this was unfair and contributed to his reasoning on why he spoke to the public emphasizing the need of a free nation. Douglass lived a good part of his life in Maryland and had to endure the challenging life of a slave because he did not live in a free state. As a child, Frederick Douglass did not get to live a luxury life like whites. In an excerpt from his novel he writes I never saw my mother, to kn ow her as such, more than four or five times in my life; and each of these times was very short in duration, and at night (Frederick, Being). Douglass never got to have a relationship with his parents thus forcing him to grow up faster. In effect, it made him a stronger person in the end. He got split up from his mother because of silly things like the color of his skin. Later in his speech, Douglass references these silly things by referring to America as a blacker nation which is a pun between race and the status of the nation. The African Americans of the audience are captivated by the speech as they relate to the common struggles endured. Also, Douglass was educated about religion when he was young which explicated his frequent use of biblical allusions. He states that à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦if their increase do no other good, it will do away the force of the argument, that God cursed Ham, and therefore American slavery is right (Frederick, Being). Things pertaining to God were always p resent in his life which explains his use of biblical allusions. These biblical references appealed to his audience that comprised of Christians. Also, the irrelevant claims towards why slavery is acceptable are recognized. All of this information about history and Douglasss life are important components when understanding Douglasss purpose for giving his speech. Douglasss experiences of suffering and mistreatment along with being asked by the leading citizens of Rochester on Independence Day led him to his exigency. He passionately expresses his feelings about the life he endured during slavery in an excerpt of the narrative of his life: I say, let him place himself in my situation- without home or friends- without money or credit- wanting shelter, and no one to give it- wanting bread, and no money to buy it, and at the same time let him feel that he is pursued by merciless men-hunter, and in total darkness as to what to do, where to go, or where to stay,- perfectly helpless both as to the means of defense and means of escape,- in the midst of plenty, yet suffering the terrible gnawings of hunger,- in the midst of houses, yet having no home,- among fellow-men, yet feeling as if in the midst of wild beasts, whose greediness to swallow up the trembling and half-famished fugitive is only equaled by that with which the monsters of the deep swallow up the helpless fish upon which they subside,- I say, let him be placed in this most trying situation,- the situation in which I was placed,- then, and not till then, will he fully appreciate the hardships of, and know how to sympathize with, the toil-worn and whip-scarred fug itive slave. (Frederick, Narrative) At this point in his life it is evident that he is already fed up with the struggles of hunger and homelessness along with the rights he was not able to enjoy. Frederick Douglass was finally ready to speak his mind to the dark world. Another reason for his exigency is the concept of freedom. Frederick Douglass was all for Lincolns platformà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦free soil, free men, and free labor (Abolition). Knowing that could possibly become the outcome of his efforts, he was quickly enthused to deliver his speech. The overall concept that drove him to give the speech was the possibility of a better future for him as well as the entire nation and to persuade his audience at Corinthian Hall in Rochester that slavery must be abolished. Douglass begins with an earnest tone and polite diction to appeal to his audiences feelings and uses rhetorical questions to get everyone thinking about the issues between the nations need of freedom and equality. At the start of his speech he declares Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are today rendered more intolerably by the jubilant shouts the reach them? (Douglass). Douglass uses nice words that contrast with harsh words like fellow citizens, to ease the seriousness of the critical references to slavery. Rhetorical questions were incorporated into his speech to make his audience feel accountable for the greatly needed equality and freedom in the nation. Most importantly, he asks Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in the Declaration of Independence, extended to us? (Douglass). This one question forces everyone to think about what rights exist in the nation and who they are extended to. Also, Frederick Douglass became fed up with the inequality of the nation because of race. He expresses that This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn (Douglass). He feels very strongly about the indifference of the nation and its status between the freedom and rights extended to all people. Douglass brings up a valid point that the Declaration guarantees the rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness and that slaves are not all blacks are privileged to enjoy these. Douglasss first half of his speech captivated his audience and enabled him to shift to more serious matters. The speech soon shifts to a vexed tone as Douglass explicates the obstacles of slavery and uses biblical references to point out the injustice of the mistreatment of slaves. Douglass becomes irritated when he complains Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? No I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply (Douglass). Douglass progressively becomes more passionate with his words as he becomes annoyed. He states here that it is ridiculous for people to not understand how seriously wrong slavery is and hopes it is a wakeup call to everybody. Next, he uses biblical references to relate to the audience. When mentioning the act of selfish men that would not rejoice when slaves are free, he implies that I am not that man. In case that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the lame man leap as an hart (Douglass). The meaning behind this biblical reference is that a man is healed by God and then l eaps like a deer. Douglass acknowledges that he would be the one to rejoice when slaves were finally free. Certain references that come from the Bible relate to everyone because it points out the mistreatment of slaves and reminds everyone that God would not approve of this injustice. Both his tone and his references have transformed to be more harsh and unpleasant. Lastly, the tone is shifted to sound inflammatory and Douglass uses puns in order to point out the status of the nation due to race. Douglasss tone becomes bombastic towards his audience when he begins to bring up similarities between blacks and whites to prove that they are equal. He implies à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦that we are engaged in all the enterprises common to other men-digging gold in California, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦feeding à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in the families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all, confessing and worshiping the Christian Godà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦-we are called upon to prove that we are men? (Douglass). Douglasss inductive argument continues to incorporate references to God and rhetorical questions. These things repetitively remind the audience to think of what they can do to change the nation because God would not approve of such behavior. Finally, Douglass cleverly incorporates a pun into his speech. He reasons I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July (Douglass). He cunningly uses blacker to reference race as well as the shadowing darkness the nation lies under. Usually puns are used for comic relief; this one is not. Frederick Douglass effectively conveys his message to his audience by all three of those rhetorical strategies along with his change in tone. Douglasss remarkable speech led to many accomplishments like abolitionist movements with William Lloyd Garrison as well as contributions to the Emancipation Proclamation. In the end, the Thirteenth Amendment was passed which completely abolished slavery in all of America. With the efforts of Garrison and the delivery of Douglasss speech, life in America was greatly impacted. It is recorded that In 1841, Garrison hired Frederick Douglass, a former slave, as an agent for the society. Douglass was an immediate success on the lecture circuit, first in the North and later on a six-month tour of meeting halls throughout the American West (Abolition). Both men teamed together and became a successful duo. Douglass and Garrison started successful abolition movements in the North and rattled the South. Soon after, propaganda in the South arose. It is concluded that When Lincoln was elected, the South saw him as a threat to Southern institutions and resorted to secession. And the Civil War bega n (Abolition). It can be assumed that the efforts of Douglass and Lincoln began the Civil War. The war led to an outcome of abolishing slavery for which Douglass speech will always be remembered. Finally, In 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in the Southern secessionist states free. Two years later, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist in the United States, was ratified, and the abolitionists finally had their victory (Abolition). The country finally saw change and began to lighten up. Slavery was finally abolished as an effect of the hard work of Garrison, Lincoln, and Douglass. Most importantly, Douglasss efforts will always be remembered because it caused an unforgettable change in America. Frederick Douglass was an outstanding man with great character and strong beliefs. He did not care what others would think of him and stood strongly for what he believed and knew was right. The struggles of being a slave child shaped him to be the man he turned out to be. Also, historical events including the Compromise of 1850, shaped the phenomenal speech he gave on July 4th, 1852. By using rhetorical questions, biblical allusions, and puns, Douglass effectively conveyed his message that the freedom of slaves all around America was essential and that the nation was unhealthy, unjust, and slowly deteriorating as time progressed. Another key element he incorporated were shifts in tone. Douglass starts off nice and not over bearing but evolves to a bombastic tone. The legacy of his speech will forever be remembered because of the astounding things it caused including but not limited to abolitionist movements, the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and most importantly the Thirt eenth Amendment to the Constitution. If it were not for the hard work of Frederick Douglass, slavery may not have been abolished to this day.

Training and Development is said to be beneficial for both firms and em

Training and development is said to have a positive impact for both firms and employees, this essay will explain the terms â€Å"Training and Development† and look at the advantages and disadvantages for the Employer and employees. One of the biggest limitations of â€Å"Training and Development† is how the impact of training and development on productivity and profit is measured for organisations and individuals. This essay will therefore attempt to address the â€Å"Why then are some organisations and individuals reluctant to invest in training?† since training and development is said to be beneficial to both parties. Assuming the long term benefits of training and development can be measured by quality or profit, and then the advantages for both the employee and employer will prove satisfactory. A relevant point that will be made is that more research needs to be done on the benefits of investing in training and development for both parties and how it affects productivity positively. The HR literature sees training as the â€Å"vital component† in organisational processes of cultural change and an important behavioural device in terms of securing workforce commitment (Keep 1989). It also refers to it as the process of imparting specific skills at one point in time, it could be an on the job training or off the job training either academic or online courses. (Laird et al. 2002) goes further to define it as the acquisition of technology that permits employees to perform to standard. Not all training researchers distinguish between training and development; they can be interchangeable and tend to overlap themselves. For (Nadler, 1970) in his Developing Human Resources, he defined Development as being concerned with preparing the employee so they ca... ... their skills. For example in the United Kingdom 77% of UK jobs are in the service sector which focuses mainly on low paid and low skilled jobs In conclusion, this essay has highlighted the benefits of training and development to the employee and employer. However at its peak most of the benefits are suitable for firms that have quality has their benchmark not cost being one of the reasons why most firms do not train. The essay went further to attempt the question on why some organisations and individuals are reluctant to invest in training by pointing out that despite all the potential benefits of training and development it is not easy to gauge the benefits and contribution it makes to the individual and organisations as discussed above. Employers are largely involved in a market of low value added service and do not necessarily need a large skilled force.

To Kill a Mocking Bird Newspaper Project -- To Kill a Mockingbird Essay

Today in Maycomb County, there was a trail against a local African American man named â€Å"Tom Robinson.† He was accused for raping and beating up a white girl named â€Å"Mayella.† His lawyer is â€Å"Atticus Finch† is facing off against â€Å"Mr. Gilmer† the district attorney. Judge Taylor, appears to be sleeping through out the trial, yet pays attention and tends to chew his cigar. The supposed crime occurred in Mayella’s home, when Tom Robinson went to fix something and then he raped her. Atticus calls up his first witness, â€Å"Bob Ewell.† He asked questions like â€Å"Would you ever beat your daughter?† and â€Å"Where you on the night of the crime?† Bob Ewell answered that he never has beaten his daughter and was somewhere else at the time of the crime. After that, he asked Bob to write his name, and Atticus not...

Bite Me: A Love Story Chapter 11

11. Being the Chronicles of Abby Normal, Pathetic Failure to All Creatures Great and Small I have failed as a minion, a girlfriend, and a human being in general, and that doesn't even count Biology 102, which I am still totally failing despite actually going to class twice. The Countess has been gone for like a week, and no one has seen her or the vampyre Flood. I've gone looking for them, mainly when I'm supposed to be at school. I don't even know where to look. I kind of walk around asking people if they've seen a totally hawt redhead and they either hurry away really fast or, in the case of one guy, who I suspect was a pimp, offered me a thousand dollars to bring her to him if I found her. Then he offered me a job, because he said, â€Å"Johns go for that skinny Lolita shit.† And I was all, â€Å"Oh, that's very flattering, sir. Thank you. Once I find my friend I will bring her back and we'll both be happy to service the disgusting choads of creepy strangers and hand you all of our money along with any self-worth we might have left.† And he was all, â€Å"You do that, little momma. You do that.† Which is just another reason that I need to find the Countess and beg her forgiveness, because my new phone has video and I can't wait to post a clip on my blog of Jody scattering bloody pimp parts all over the Tenderloin. (The Countess has lectured me about respecting myself and how a woman must never sacrifice her dignity to a man unless he gives her jewelry or is a smoking hottie and has a job, so I think there will at least be broken bones and a beating of many colors.) Evidently there's a shortage of hookers and homeless people in the City, it was on the Chronicle's Web site. They reported it like it was a good thing, VICE ARRESTS DOWN or something, and another article about homeless shelters having plenty of room for the first time, ever. OMFG! They're kitty treats, you douche nozzles! That's why I refused to be on the school paper. Journalists are oblivious to the obvious and they won't even let you say fuck. ‘Kayso, when I finally got back to the love lair, the windows were all boarded up with plywood and Foo and Jared had like alphabetized all of the rats and had them stacked up and labeled and whatnot. So, I, like, ran into Foo's arms and kissed him a good long time, then I looked around and I was all: â€Å"They're dead. Our loft is full of dead rats.† And Jared is all, â€Å"Not dead. Undead.† So to Foo I'm all, â€Å"‘Splain, s'il vous plaà ®t.† And Foo's like, â€Å"It's amazing, Abby. You just have to inject them with a little vampyre blood and it turns them, but not until you kill them. It took us a while to figure that out.† â€Å"So you killed all these rats?† â€Å"I did,† goes Jared. â€Å"It made me sad, but I'm okay with it now. Science.† â€Å"How?† And Foo says, â€Å"Potassium chloride.† At the exact same time Jared says, â€Å"With a hammer.† And Jared gets all big scared anime eyes and is like, â€Å"Yeah, potassium chloride. That's what I meant.† And I'm all, â€Å"You have been killing and vamping rats while the Countess and Tommy are lost and the whole city is papered with missing cat flyers, and like Chet and his minions are eating all the homeless and probably the hookers?† And they were like, â€Å"Well-yeah.† â€Å"And I had to work and go to class,† says Foo. â€Å"And polish my car.† And Jared's all, â€Å"And we've been making sunlight jackets for those two cops, which takes like a million little wires.† And he, like, points to our coffee table, which is the only surface that doesn't have cages full of dead rats, and there's not even jackets there, just, like, jacket-shaped nets of wire with little glass beads all over them. And I'm all, â€Å"Cops can't wear those. They look like robot lingerie.† And Jared is all, â€Å"Trs cool, non?† â€Å"No!† I go. â€Å"And do not further endorken the French language by wrapping your disgusting penis port around it. You'll ruin the whole language before I even learn enough to express my deep despair and dark desires en franà §ais, you rat smasher.† ‘Kay, I know that was a little harsh, but I was angry, and in my defense, I was grinding Foo's leg a little when I said â€Å"dark desires,† so I said it with love. Foo's all, â€Å"We didn't have time to actually get jackets. They need to be leather and they're expensive.† So it's clear that despite his mad ninja science skills, even my beloved Foo cannot be left without female supervision. But he has been going home lately, and his parents are a bad influence on him. So I'm like, â€Å"I got this. I'll go see Lily.† Lily is my backup BFF. She used to be my BFF, but at the same time I met Lord Flood and the Countess, Lily got a book in the mail at her work, which is Asher's Secondhand, and it convinced her that she is Death, so I'm all, â€Å"Whatever, ho.† And she was all, â€Å"Free to live my own nightmare, skank.† So we were cool. ‘Kayso, I took the 45 bus from the dead-ratted love lair to North Beach. Walking through Chinatown sort of creeps me out 'cause of all the Chinese grandmothers on the street, who I'm pretty sure are talking about me because they think I have ruined Foo with my Gothy-Anglo charms. Also, I get mad dim sum cravings for which I should someday seek treatment, or, like, snacks. ‘Kayso, at Asher's, Lily comes out from behind the counter and gives me a hug and a big kiss on my forehead (because she is taller than me in addition to having surplus boobage). And I'm like, â€Å"There's a big violet lip print on my forehead, huh?† And Lily goes, â€Å"Kiss of Death-get used to it, beyotch-matches your hair tips, trs cute.† So I'm all, â€Å"‘Kay.† It wasn't really the kiss of Death, but it did match my tips. Then I was all, â€Å"Lils, I need men's leather jackets in these sizes.† I gave her the note Foo wrote out with the sizes and cut and whatnot. And she was all, â€Å"WTF, Abs? Fifty long? You buying a jacket for an orca?† â€Å"Ginormous gay cop. You got it?† â€Å"Yeah. You wanna smoke a clove?† And I'm all, â€Å"Do you have enough violet lipstick?† Because smoking is, like, the worst for your lipstick and it did match my hair. And she's all, â€Å"Bitch, please.† Meaning, â€Å"Do I ever not have enough makeup?† Which is true, because Lily carries a PVC ROBOT PIRATES messenger bag you could hide a small kid in, only she carries beauty products. So I was all, â€Å"‘Kay.† So Lily and I went out the back door and stared at the Dumpster like it was the very abyss of our despair while we smoked. And I'm just getting ready to tell her about the love lair, and Foo, and vampyre kitties and all, because I've sort of been in boyfriend mode, so, like, out of contact, which Lily totally gets. And Lil's like, â€Å"So, the big gay cop have a Hispanic partner?† And I'm like, â€Å"Rivera and Cavuto. Crusty day dwellers, but Rivera kind of has a secret-agent vibe. You know them?† And Lily is all, â€Å"Yeah, they were here yesterday. Rivera wears expensive suits. Smells good, too. I'd do him.† And I'm like gagging. â€Å"Lils, he's like a thousand years old, and a cop. The Motherbot was getting squishy over him. OMG! You're disgusting!† â€Å"Shut up, I'm not saying I'd do him normal. I mean like zombie Apocalypse trapped in the mall right before we have to shoot each other to keep them from eating our brains and turning us to the undead-then I'd do him.† So I'm all, â€Å"Oh sure, then.† To make her feel better, because she doesn't have a BF and often oversluts to compensate, but I still thought it was disgusting. But to change the subject, I was all, â€Å"So what did they want?† â€Å"They were asking all kinds of irrelevant bullshit. Had I seen any strange cats, did I see the Emperor, or some redhead.† And I'm all, Fucksocks! Fucksocks! Fucksocks! inside. But on the outside I'm all chill and I'm like, â€Å"So, you like didn't know anything, right?† â€Å"No, Asher said a hot redhead came into the store the other night, and then I was on the cable car last night, going down to Max's Deli for a sammy, and I think I saw her going into the Fairmont Hotel. Like a crazy cape of long red curls I would slaughter puppies for.† â€Å"Red leather jacket?† â€Å"Sweet red leather jacket.† â€Å"You didn't tell them, did you?† And Lil's all, â€Å"Well, yeah.† And I was all, â€Å"You traitorous whore!† And I punched her in the shoulder. In my defense, you're supposed to tell your ex-BFF when you get fresh ink, so the screaming was completely over the top. I had no way of knowing that she had a new tattoo on that shoulder, so her punching me in the boob was totally uncalled for. So, I'm ouching trs loud and this Russian lady from upstairs peeks her head out the window and she's all, â€Å"Quiet please, is sounding like burning bear out there.† ‘Kayso, Lils and I start to laugh and say, â€Å"Like bear,† over and over again until the Russian lady slams the window shut, like bear. Then it comes back to me and I'm all, â€Å"Lils, I have to get those jackets and get to the Fairmont. I have to save the Countess.† And Lily is like, â€Å"‘Kay,† not even asking details, which is why I love her-she is so nihilist it's, like, not funny. ‘Kayso, I take the jackets and catch a cab to the Fairmont, which totally pisses off the cabbie because it's only like six blocks, but when I get to the hotel I'm all, â€Å"Fucksocks!† because I'm too late. JODY Falling asleep was one of the things Jody missed about being human. She missed the satisfied, tired feeling of falling into bed and drifting off in a dreamy twilight sea of dreams. In fact, since she'd turned, unless she'd just gone too long without feeding, she never even felt tired. On most mornings, unless she and Tommy had been making love, and they went out in each other's arms, she just found a relatively comfortable position and waited for the sun to rise and put her out. Maybe a flutter of an eyelid, lasting a second, then off like a light. The closest thing to a dream state she'd experienced as a vampire was when she'd gone to mist inside the bronze statue, and even then, the door into dreamland slammed shut at dawn. The constant alertness of being a vampire was, well, it was a bit irritating. Especially since she'd been searching the City for Tommy for a week, pushing her jumped-up senses to their limits, and had to return to the hotel every morning with nothing. Apparently, Tommy had limped down an alley and vanished. She'd checked everyplace in the City that she'd ever taken him, every place he'd ever been, as far as she knew, and still there was no evidence of his having been there. She'd hoped she would have some special vampire â€Å"sixth sense† to help her find him, like the old vampire who had turned her seemed to have had, but no. Now, she was returning to her room at the Fairmont for the seventh morning. And for the seventh morning she would put out the â€Å"Do Not Disturb† signs, lock the door, put on her sweats, drink a pouch of the blood she kept locked in a mini-cooler, brush her teeth, then crawl under the bed and go over a mental map of the City until dawn put her out. (Since she was technically dead at dawn, sleeping on top of a comfortable mattress was a dangerous luxury, and by climbing under the bed she put one more layer between her and sunlight, should a nosy maid somehow find a way into her room.) Part of her new pre-dawn ritual had been returning to the hotel a little later each morning; like the skydiver who will let himself fall closer and closer to earth before pulling the ripcord to boost the adrenaline rush just a little more. The last two mornings she'd just been entering the hotel when the alarm watch she wore, which was set to go off ten minutes before sunrise on any given day, based on an electronic almanac, had started beeping. She'd bought one for Tommy, too, and wondered if he was still wearing his. As she strode down California Street, she tried to remember if he'd been wearing it when they cut him out of the bronze shell. Two blocks from the Fairmont her alarm watch went off and she couldn't help but smile a little at the thrill. She picked up her pace, figuring that she'd still be safely inside her room with time to spare before sunup, but she might have to forgo the sweats and the blood snack. As she came up the steps into the lobby she smelled cigar, and Aramis cologne, and the combination sent an electric chill of alarm up her spine before she could identify the danger. Cops. Rivera and Cavuto. Rivera smelled of Aramis, Cavuto of cigars. She stopped, her boot heels skidding a little on the marble steps. There they were, both at the front desk, but a bellman was leading them to the elevator. He was taking them to her room. How? she thought. Doesn't matter. It was getting light. She checked her watch: three minutes to find shelter. She backed away from the door, out onto the sidewalk, then began to run. Normally she would have paced herself so someone didn't notice the redhead in boots and jeans running faster than an Olympic sprinter, but they'd just have to tell their friends and not be believed. She needed cover, now. She was a block and a half down Mason Street when she came to an alley. She'd survived her first night as a vampire under a Dumpster. Maybe she could survive the day inside one. But there was someone down there, the kitchen crew of a restaurant, outside smoking. On she ran. No alleys in the next two blocks, then a narrow space between buildings. Maybe she could shimmy down there and crawl in a basement window. She crawled on a narrow, plywood gate and had one foot down before a pit bull came storming down the corridor. She leapt out onto the sidewalk and started running again. What kind of psychopath uses a two-foot-wide space between buildings as a dog run? There should be laws. This was Nob Hill, all open, with wide boulevard streets, a once-grand neighborhood now made incredibly irritating to a vampire in need of shelter. She rounded the corner at Jackson Street, snapping a heel off her right boot as she did. She should have worn sneakers, she knew, but wearing the high, expensive leather boots made her feel a little like a superhero. It turned out that turning your ankle hurts like hell, even if you're a superhero. She was up on her toes now, running, limping toward Jackson Square, the oldest neighborhood in San Francisco that had survived the great quake and fire of 1906. There were all kinds of little cubbyholes and basement shops in the old brick buildings down there. One building even had the ribs of a sailing ship in its basement, a remnant built over when the Gold Rush left so many ships abandoned at the waterfront that the City literally expanded over them. One minute. The shadow of the Transamerica Pyramid was lying long across the neighborhood ahead like the needle of a deadly sundial. Jody did a final kick-sprint, snapping off her other boot heel as she did. She scanned the streets ahead for windows, doors, trying to sense movement inside, looking for stillness, privacy. There! On the left, a door below street level, the stair-case hidden by a wrought-iron railing covered in jasmine. Ten more steps and I'm there, she thought. She saw herself jumping the rail, shouldering through the door, and diving under the first thing that would shelter her from the light. She took the final three steps and leapt just as the sun broke the horizon. She went limp in the air, fell to the sidewalk, short of the stairwell, and skidded on her shoulder and face. As her eyes fluttered, the last thing she saw were a pair of orange socks right in front of her, then she went out and began to smolder in the sunlight.