Comparing Immorality in The Rise of Silas Lapham and The Octopus Essay

Motivation of Immorality in The Rise of Silas Lapham and The Octopus      Ã‚  Ã‚   In both William Dean Howells' The Rise of Silas Lapham and The Octopus by Frank Norris, a character is faced with the moral issues involved with operating his business. Howells' character, Silas Lapham (The Colonel) and Norris' Magnus Derrick are both desirous to have a prominent position in their respective societies, but are in the precarious situation of having to deploy immoral methods to achieve this coveted stature during the course of harder times. Each man has aspirations to be powerful, prestigious, famous, and/or wealthy. In combination with their lack of humility for their lofty position in society and their over ambitious definition of success, both are caused great distress on the path and during the fight to reach this egotistic plateau. The image created through their business venture became the primary tool to evaluate their own personal vision of success, and in doing so, the two men's morals and values became tainted, family relations were hurt and even devastated, in addition to creating social debacles that caused incredible harm to many others.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Silas' background consisted of poverty, hardships, and hard work. He acquired his own wealth and that opened doors that were unknown to him or his family. The Colonel's background and attributes led him into an awkward situation of always attempting to appear in society as something that he is not. He is a common, vulgar man, doing his best to appear sophisticated, educated, and knowledgeable, when, in fact, it is only his wealth that connects him to the upper class. His incredible wealth places within him the motivation and false sense of obligation to conform to the tastes and pre... ... or power or fame. The path to attain these goals is often filled with corruption, heartless doings, and unsympathetic forces. To see past material possessions and to crush one's ego and its self-centeredness should be sought. To accept one's lot in life and attempt to not control forces outside of one's power or nature should be admired. Being concerned with one's family as a primary responsibility and acting accordingly should be hailed an accomplishment. To face an evil force sweeping into one's reality and being able to hold onto one's morals and values in spite of it, an achievement.   Works Cited Howells, William Dean. The Rise of Silas Lapham. New York: Signet Classic, 1983.. Marx, Karl. "The Alienation of Labor." Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Richard Hooker, 1996: 1-9. Norris, Frank. The Octopus. New York: Penguin Books, 1986.

Mass Media and Economic Development Essay

Mass media has always been one of the pillars of modern society. With its wide range and base, it is indubitably, the most effective and efficient way of mass information dissemination. Yet, instead of mass media being a primary tool for education, it is mostly being used as a medium for entertainment; to show bland, superficial products with little, or no educational value. So, attempting to connect mass media with economic development would seem as disjoint as climate change and my inability to make good analogies. Surprisingly, this is what the last speaker, from ‘The Public Sphere’ talked about. The forum cites economic literacy as the main contribution that mass media can make to economic development. Defining economic literacy as ‘the ability to identify, analyze and evaluate the consequences of individual decisions and public policy,’ the speaker, Mr. Omar Dumdum of NEDA, goes in to explain the ineffectiveness of economic education in secondary school; therefore, mass media should take the primary responsibility of promulgating economic literacy, to promote economic development. This can be done, according to Mr. Dumdum, through better economic news writing and reporting, making economic news understandable for the general population, and information dissemination campaigns. There will be some difficulties encountered, of course, as Economics is wrought with technical terms that cannot be easily simplified, but, if information campaigns are done in tandem with better reporting, results can be achieved. Personally, I do think it is possible and feasible. Being someone who believes in the power of mass media to reform society, I think mass media could enhance the net economic literacy of the Philippines, which would, hopefully, increase Filipino participation in crucial economic activities, resulting in inclusive economic development. But of course, mass media has internal flaws that prevent this from happening. For one, it bears the inability to make economic news/information exciting, or even understandable. If not for my privileged secondary and tertiary education, I would not know anything about our country’s economic status, as I regularly skip the Business section of the papers, because it is simply boring. Economic reporting tends to be too technical, or elitist, so much so, that for the average Filipino citizen believes that the economic opinion of his/her neighborhood barber is more valid and believable compared to the TV guy in a suit. I am not dismissing the opinion of Manong Barber as incorrect or irrelevant (he might be an economist, who knows), but this points out the preference of Filipinos to opinion-based economic information, over rigorous, empirical economic reporting. And, so I have mentioned, we Filipinos are not entirely at fault. We cannot be blamed for giving more importance to comprehensible information than jargonic ‘gibberish.’ Also considering the fact that public opinion greatly influences economic policies in our country (i.e. sin tax bill), this, all the more makes the media’s role in promoting economic development crucial. I do agree with Mr. Dumdum’s proposed approach of information campaigns being conducted simultaneously with better news reporting, because better enws reporting alone would not fulfill the expected impact of mass media in the economic literacy of our society. In conclusion, I think that the mass media, is indeed, an important element in aiding the development of a Philippines as a globally competitive economy. It is not enough, however to merely educate people about the Economics and the economic condition of our country at present. Public policies, political will, exhaustive analyses and correct decisions are also parts of the solution to the enigma that is Philippine development. And, in these, mass media can only contribute so much; mass media cannot improve the Philippine economy alone.

Linguistics and Structuralism Essay

Structuralism is a mode of thinking and a method of analysis practiced in 20th-century social sciences and humanities; it focuses on recurring patterns of thought and behaviour ? it seeks to analyse social relationships in terms of highly abstract relational structures. Structuralism is distinctly different from that applied to Radcliffe-Brown? it involves more the bio and psychological aspect of human studies rather than social structures. Claude Levi-Strauss was the one to pioneer structuralism; he suggested that cultural phenomena such as myths, art, kinship systems and language display certain ordered patterns or structures. With these, he believed that the structure of the human mind could be revealed. He reasoned that behind the surface of individual cultures there must exist natural properties common to us all: innate structures universal to all man. Levi-Strauss focused his attention on the patterns or structures existing beneath the customs and beliefs of all cultures. Methodologically, Strauss drew his models from structural linguistics, analysing forms of social activity as though they were languages. In other words, the things a society does, the way people in this society act, is compared to language; behaviour is acted out unconsciously as is grammar in the case of language. Therefore, societies differ just as grammar differs between one culture and another, but what Levi-Strauss sought was the universal/common structure behind it. He believed that while the surface phenomenon may vary, the underlying ordering principles are the same. Levi-Strauss believed that basic thinking occurs as sets of contrasts. All cultures think in to terms of opposites so as to classify-meaning we must be able to distinguish between things. For example, life, death; spirit, body; black, white; red, green (stop and go) ? these words alone do not carry much significance; they have a meaning and that’s it ? basic facts. We take the words as they are by use of external references from what society acknowledges to it to be. A pen is not an eraser because society has accepted it to be a pen. Levi-Strauss argued that culture is to be understood as a surface phenomenon which reveals the universal human tendency to order and classify experiences and dynamics. He compared people’s language to the?  rules’ that govern society, in that the governed are largely unconscious of what they know. He compared speech – the use of sounds and rules, mainly in the form of sentences to the ideas and behaviour that result from the application of largely unconscious social rules. Members of a society are much more likely to be conscious of their actual ideas and behaviours than they are of the deeply structured rules that make these ideas and behaviours possible, but the ideas and behaviours of a given group of people, according to Strauss, can only be understood once the â€Å"deep† structures in their minds can be discovered. He says that human responses are largely dissimilar, and that the surface structure is what will consequently show different cultural behaviour. In T. O. K. , we are currently discussing language, mind and meaning ? we covered the same man, Noam Chomsky, the same man mentioned in the book. He pursued the same line of inquiry in linguistics as Strauss. Chomsky believes that the human brain contains a language system base before birth, but ? goes to seed’ if not stimulated after birth. All babies are programmed to all phonetic systems but are channelled into particular language groups on socialization. In other words, a child who has Danish parents will eventually end up speaking Danish unless brought up elsewhere. Structuralism is often criticized for not being able to prove something through hypothesis testing and validation. Strauss makes unprovable assumptions about humans, and some people find it hard to believe the concept of universal structures. Structuralism also tends to ahistorical, thus not accounting for the way history effects the present.