Judaism an Example of the Topic History Essays by

Judaism by Expert Dr Olivia | 05 Oct 2016 "The beliefs and practice of religion play a vital role in a person's everyday life, and influence uniqueness in their culture". (direct essays 2002-2007)The ancient tradition and faith are the pillars on which a person image, culture, and nation solidly rest. Judaism's central belief is that people of all religion are children of God, and are equal before God. (direct essays 2002-2007) Ethics is a very important requirement in the life of Jewish people. Judaism does not require that people should convert to Judaism in order to achieve salvation, it emphasizes the notion of monotheism, the idea that there is one God. Need essay sample on "Judaism" topic? We will write a custom essay sample specifically for you Proceed Zionism is the national movement which marks the return of Jewish people to their homeland, Israel. It has certain concrete political and spiritual aims at the resumption of sovereignty in the Land of Israel. The term Zionism was coined in 1890 by Nathan Bird Baum. (A definition of Zionism(2007). "We want to lay the foundation stone of the house which is to shelter the Jewish nation," and " Zionism is a return to the Jewish fold even before it is a return to the Jewish land." A few days later, Herzl wrote: "[I] gradually worked the people up into the atmosphere of a State and made them feel that they were its National Assembly." (Friedman & Carciente, 1992-2007)2Theodore Herzl became the prophet and creator of the Zionist movement. Undergraduates Very Often Tell EssayLab writers: How much do I have to pay someone to write my paper today? Essay writer professionals recommend: Your Academic Success Is Our Goal Cheap Writing Services Write A Paper Online Cheap Essays Within Hours Cheap Writing Service Reviews Herzl led a life of contradiction while growing up, studying and getting into a successful profession in Europe. With his background, Herzl could completely assimilate in Vienna, which was the hub of cultural and intellectual activity, but it was also a place where he would encounter the darkness of anti-Semitism. For many young and sensitive Europen Jews of Herzl's generation being born Jewish was a curse. It could be felt in social interaction in universities(because of which Herzl quit the Fraternity he had joined), they were denied entrance to government positions, to national banks, to high army ranks and to positions of real power. "One of the greatest of composers and conductors, Gustav Mahler, had to convert to Catholicism in order to get his contract to conduct the Vienna Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic, the musical positions which were fully worthy of his greatness. Otto Wengen, a brilliant young philosopher, committed suicide out of profound Jewish self-hatred." (Friedma n & Carciente, 1992-2007). These events of that period had made a profound impact on his own Jewish identity and on his thinking about the problems of being a Jew. Herzl had the luxury of being a reporter: he could play the role of being an observer, a witness, or someone in the audience; in fact, what he saw was hitting home. This was probably the first powerful indication to Herzl that while Jews may have achieved legal equality in much of Europe, they (and he among them) continued to be outsiders socially. In too much of what he read whether in German or in French and in too much of Viennese and Parisian politics, anti-Semitism was "in the air". (Friedman & Carciente, 1992-2007). Ahad Ha-am was considered an important contributor to the Jewish character of the modern Jewish state. He basically used his excellent mind and writing skills to outline the need for a Jewish character for the new Jewish state. At the end of 1800's and beginning of 1900's, which marks the beginning of the Zionism, the Jew were down and scattered in many directions. Herzl was not ready to address the Zionist congress, did not even reveal his dream. Life in Israel was wrought with danger from Arabs and disease. It was Ahad Ha-am who proposed a rigorous training program in Europe to give the agricultural skills to those who desired to emigrate along with philosophy to carry them through the difficult period of re-adjustment. He advocated continuity between tradition and the emergence of the new Israeli culture. He felt that without the traditional Jewish values, the Zionist dream would turn into a secular state devoid of inherent Jewish values. Ahad Ha-am clashed with the other leaders of Zionism, notably Herzl and Nordau. He basically used his excellent mind and writing skills to outline the need for a Jewish character for the new Jewish state. A man of tremendous stature and influence in his lifetime, today his works are perhaps too philosophical for a generation of enjoyment seekers. (Rosenbarf, February 2004) Work Cited Direct Essays, Christianity and Judaism, 2002-2007, www.directessays.com/viewpaper/39913.html C A definition of Zionism(2007). Retrieved February 20, 2007, from Jewish Virtual Library Web site: www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Zionism/zionism.html0 Friedman & Carciente, Dr.Motti & Esther (1992-2007). Herzl Creates the Zionist Movement. Retrieved February 20, 2007, from Israel and Zionism (Friedman & Carciente, 1992-2007)2-2 0 Rosenbarf, Sidney (February 2004). The Influence of Ahad Ha-Am on modern Israel. Retrieved February 20, 2007, from Ahad Ha-Am Web site: www.jewishmag.com/76mag/ahadhaam/ahadhaam.htm (Rosenbarf, February 2004)07o

Rorschach essays

Rorschach essays There are several different tests that psychologists can use to analyze different things. While some social psychology tests are like the Thematic Apperception Test or others like the Rorschach Test are ore widely used in the field, they all have the good and the bad side of the test. The Thematic Apperception Test is used primarily to see how individuals reveal parts of their own personalities while looking at an ambiguous picture. The TAT consists of 31 pictures that depict a variety of social and interpersonal situations. The subject is asked to tell a story about each picture to the examiner. Of the 31 pictures, 10 are gender-specific while 21 others can be used with adults of either sex and with children. One test found online asked you to write for 10 minutes about this picture. The test can be located at: http://www7.psy.utexas.edu/liwc/. While this particular test is only to be for example use, it does a generally good job at the evaluation. Most people have heard of the Rorschach test (pronounced "raw-shock"), but few have ever seen a real Rorschach inkblot. The blots are kept secret. When you see an inkblot in a popular article on the test (as in the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on the Rorschach test), it's a fake: it's an inkblot, but not one of the inkblots. There are only ten Rorschach inkblots. Psychologists want the blots to remain a secret from the general public so that reactions to the blots will be spontaneous. Dr. Rorschach hoped these spontaneous reactions would yield valuable clues to the test subject's personality. Whether they do remains controversial. Many psychologists think the Rorschach test is hopelessly unreliable; others see it as one of the cardinal tools of modern psycho diagnosis. Even among those who acknowledge the value of the test, there is disagreement on interpretation of responses. During the Rorschach test, the psychologists gives you points based on everything you do a ...

Butterfly

Butterfly There is a man in my neighborhood that plays the bagpipes. He sits under his tree and allows his music to rise above the drone of the coming and going traffic. The song is Amazing Grace—the only song he knows. I am a musician; I have played the viola for nine years. But music can still amaze me. A brass tube with holes in it, costing $11.50, taught me that. A penny whistle. It could transport me to a place that was entirely my own. The first time I placed my fingers over those empty holes, my dog tilted his head in surprise at the resulting sound. Days later, determined to produce a pleasing tone, I wandered into my room while punching notes out on the way. Setting up my chair in front of the mirror, I sat down and watched my clumsy fingers try to learn a new dance. My mind wandered and I could hear my friend’s mildly accusing voice. â€Å"So why aren’t you going to the football game?† I hit a high, shrill note. â€Å"I dunno,† I heard myself say, â€Å"I’m too busy, I guess.† The second time the note sounded clear and deep. Here in my room, I did know. An unexpected calm trickled over me like a sticky-sweet syrup, slowly pulling at the worries that had cluttered my mind. I knew why I wanted to be here and not in a crowd of faces. My grandmother’s condominium overlooks the Ohio River. So it was surprising to see, nine stories above the earth, a burning orange butterfly pass by the window. It fluttered along lazily, as if not aware it was climbing above buildings created to place holes in the sky. The girl in the mirror smiled. My stress floated away; I felt content for the first time that day. After a little practice, the pitches began to march in harmony. Melodies poured from my little penny whistle. My fingers cautiously hammered out the notes that formed Amazing Grace and I was lifted above the commotion of the week. My friends may think I am a lost cause, but it is they who will never understand how wonderful the view is from up here.

Organizational Communication and Conflict Resolution Essay

Organizational Communication and Conflict Resolution - Essay Example Under this new configuration, corporate communication is defined as "an instrument of management by means of which all consciously used forms of internal and external communication are harmonized as effectively and efficiently as possible to create a favorable basis for relationships with groups upon which the company is dependent (Van Riel, 1995)." This reflects a growing recognition by top management and corporate boardroom that the ability to succeed and rise above the competition depends upon the firm's capability to communicate effectively with its stakeholders, thus making corporate communication an absolute and integral part of top management functions. In line with this thinking, communication managers and departments are now assigned such loftier titles as corporate communications, public affairs or corporate affairs (Fombrum, 1996). It also gave rise to a new corporate communication vocabulary, which consists of words like stakeholders, identity and reputation, among others. Moreover, the work of corporate communication has widened in scope to take place at three dimensions: corporate, market and operational levels. This corporate work involves communicating the organization's mission and vision to its shareholders, employees, customers, etc., while the market-oriented activity explores and implement ways by which the company can compete best in a given market. At the operational level, the communication group is left to manage its own resources, processes and people, a function used to be done on its behalf by the finance department, the engineering section and the human resource department. Relationship to Management How corporate communication has wormed its way into the top rung of the corporate ladder may be seen at Siemens, whose productivity, profitability and corporate image continue to be the envy of its competitors. At Siemens, communication managers oversee a wide range of activities related to management and decision-making, including analysis and research, formulation of communication objectives for the entire organization, and counseling of senior management. The company maintains a corporate communication department that handles advertising, internal communication and media relations. In addition, there is a central corporate messages section that supervises the senior communication professionals responsible for developing and protecting the overall corporate image of Siemens, as well as copywriters for the speeches of senior managers. Such consolidation of communication activities in one or two departments is now commonplace in progressive companies, with the communication practitio ners having the ear of CEOs and senior executive teams, especially on stakeholder and reputation issues (Grunig & Grunig, 1998). The same importance is given to corporate communication by Philips, which keeps a large corporate communication department at its head office in Amsterdam that counsels the CEO and senior managers on

PEDE and PEAP assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 1

PEDE and PEAP - Assignment Example Ethical decision making is the very cornerstone of the Professional Mission Statement and may very well be the guiding principles of the entire document. As you progress through the OLS program of study, you will increase your knowledge, crystallize your beliefs and expand your skills. Therefore, you will keep modifying and perfecting your mission statement during the next few months and years. A mission statement should enable you to attain unsurpassed excellence, inspire you to lifelong honesty and ethical behavior, and serve as your continuous guidepost during difficult personal and professional times. Many leaders put their mission statement on their business cards, display it in their offices and/or keep a copy in their homes. The first step in writing your mission statement is to do some reflecting, soul searching, and imagining. This is often called harnessing the potential of your creative imagination and mobilizing allied forces of concentration. The sequence is: The first step in the process of developing a Personal Mission Statement is to outline your various roles in life and describe how you desire to be in each of those roles. You have roles in maintaining total well-being in your family, at work, with friends, in the faith community, in lifelong learning, and in your community. It is important to maintain â€Å"life balance† in these areas. How you define each of your roles is up to you. The life roles are in the left hand column and the question about how you would like to be described in each role is in the right hand column. Please complete this worksheet: I would like to be described as kind, caring, forgiving, Godly, loving. God is always described in such a manner that associates these character traits with Him. I would like to follow into the footsteps of Christ. He is always the father of all admirable virtues that many Christians

Conflicting Perspectives Essay Example for Free

Conflicting Perspectives Essay Composers are able to evoke in the audience certain reactions to characters or events in their texts by presenting conflicting perspectives on different issues through the manipulation of the language forms and features of their medium, often communicating their own ideas about issues in question, which results in the creation of meaning within their texts. (?). David Guterson in his 1995 novel Snow Falling on Cedars (Snow) and Henry Bean in his 2001 film The Believer (Believer) demonstrate conscious choices made regarding structure and techniques in the construction of their texts in order to represent conflicting perspectives exploring ideas on racial prejudice and hatred and cultural contrasts and thus engage the audience. Composers can examine racial/religious prejudice brought on by war by using form specific techniques to present conflicting perspectives on the same event, designed to incite certain audience responses. Guterson, in Snow, purposely presents conflicting perspectives between Arthur Chambers and Hatsue and other members of the white community on San Piedro, particularly Etta Heine, in order to draw sympathy for the treatment of the Japanese after Pearl Harbour is bombed. Arthur is empathetic towards them, saying in his local paper the San Piedro Review, â€Å"†¦ those of Japanese descent on this island are not responsible for the tragedy at Pearl Harbour. Make no mistake about it.† The high modality language and short, direct sentences used by Guterson highlights Arthur’s deeply-held opinion of the innocence of the Japanese on the island. In support of Arthur’s argument, Hatsue, through the narrative’s non-linear structure, recalls her pain and confusion at the treatment of her people, saying, â€Å"It just isn’t fair – it’s not fair. How could they do this to us, just like that?† The emotive appeal in addition to Arthur’s article triggers audience support of the Japanese community. Guterson, however, also presents the contrasting racial hatred of the white islanders towards the Japanese. Etta Heine justifies the deportation of the Japanese with blunt, monosyllabic sentences – â€Å"They’re Japs†¦ We’re in a war with them. We can’t have spies around.† The use of the derogative term â€Å"Japs† and the distinct differentiation between â€Å"them†, the Japanese, and â€Å"we†, the white people, illustrates her bigoted hatred of the Japanese. Through the conflicting perspectives of Etta against Arthur and Hatsue, Guterson sways the audience to feel for the ill treatment of the Japanese, and shows them his own opinion on the negative effect of racism in wartime on the perceptions and conduct towards certain groups. Conflicting perspectives are established by Bean in Believer between Daniel, a neo-Nazi who is paradoxically a Jew himself, and a number of Holocaust survivors pertaining to the strength of their actions during WWII which aims to convey a pro-Jewish sentiment to audiences. At a sensitivity training session, Danny is enraged at a Jewish man’s lack of action while watching his son being murdered by a Nazi during the Holocaust. Rapidly cutting over-the-shoulder shots between Danny and the Jews indicate their opposing views. A close-up of Danny when he is asked by the Jews what he would have done in the situation shows his contempt and incredulous disbelief of the Jews’ weakness as he replies â€Å"Not what he did. Just stand there and watch?† Bean immediately employs a close-up reaction shot of the female Jew who rebuts with, â€Å"How do you know? You’ve never been tested like he has. Here in his rich, safe, stupid country it is so easy to imagine oneself a hero.† The personal address through 2nd person and the accumulation of adjectives to build a negative image of America strongly opposes Danny’s prejudiced conviction that Jews are pathetic, and also appeals to audiences the idea that religious prejudice towards Jews is unjustified. As Guterson does in Snow, conflicting perspectives are represented by Bean in order to sway his audience to respond negatively to unfounded sentiments of prejudice. Conflicting perspectives between characters can be used by composers to control the way in which an audience perceives them by exploring the cultural clashes that exist in the text as a reflection of societal (or social?) behaviour. In Snow, Guterson presents conflicting perspectives between Kabuo and the jury during his murder trial. In the opening chapter, a vivid description of Kabuo’s posture and expression is given from the jury’s perspective; he is shown as â€Å"proudly upright†¦ rigid†¦ detached.† This initial portrait portrait of Kabuo makes him suspicious not only to the jury but also to the audience, as Hatsue tells Kabuo using a simile that he â€Å"looks like one of Tojo’s soldiers.† However, Guterson, through the novel’s non-linear structure, refutes this perspective by explaining Kabuo’s behaviour to the audience via a flashback. Through his father’s teachings that â€Å"the greater the composure, the more revealed one was†, the audience learns the reason behind Kabuo’s unemotional stance. Third person omniscient allows the audience to sympathise with Kabuo’s emotive explanation that â€Å"he sat upright in the hope that his desperate composure might reflect the shape of his soul.† Guterson, through conflicting perspectives, influences his audience to understand Kabuo and the impact of contrasting cultural values on the perception of an individual. In Believer, Bean likewise shows contrasting opinions between Danny, who cannot fully repress his secret Jewish identity, and his anti-Semitic ‘skinhead’ friends to create audience sympathy for Danny’s inner struggles with the opposing aspects of his identity. When Danny and his friends break into a synagogue, Daniel shows a surprising respect for his religion which clashes with those of the other neo-Nazis. This directly conflicts with Danny’s character established at the film’s opening, when he violently beats up a Jew for no apparent reason. Wearing a brown shirt symbolising the Nazi SA (brown-shirts), Danny’s dark costuming contrasts with the light coloured one of his Jewish victim, highlighting the evil in his nature. Bean, however, challenges the audience’s view of Danny in order to allow them to understand his conflicting identities. In one frame, Danny is in the foreground walking down an aisle, which is juxtaposed with the othe r Nazis vandalising the synagogue. Their loud, raucous whooping contrasts to that of Danny’s respectful silence, highlighting their different treatments of the Jewish culture. When one of the Nazis tears up a Torah, a sacred Jewish text, after much opposition from Danny, a reaction shot of him shows sadness and pain accompanied by melancholy music, underlining Danny’s unspoken deference for Judaism. Bean’s portrayal of conflicting perspectives on Jewish culture incites the audience to respond more sympathetically towards Danny, and to understand that his veneer is a product of cultural differences in his society. The composers in Snow and Believer have effectively utilised techniques within their medium to represent conflicting perspectives about racial or religious prejudice and cultural differences in order to provoke certain audience responses to the characters, events or situations in their story. This includes reactions of sympathy for a certain perspective or disbelief and even dislike of opposing perspectives. In this way, the composers connect to the audience and generate meaning within their texts. In Snow, Hatsue is confined by the traditions of her culture, as shown when her mother Fujiko says to her â€Å"don’t allow living among the hakujin to become living intertwined with them. Your soul will decay†¦ rot and go sour.† The change in language to refer to the Americans as hakujin and the emotive metaphor of Hatsue’s breakdown of purity highlights Fujiko’s dislike of American culture. This

Psychological Development Essay -- Psychology, Pregnancy

Psychological development is the development of a person’s emotional, intellectual, cognitive, and social capabilities and functions that they acquire throughout their lifetime. This starts from birth and carries on until death, but how does pregnancy affect the development stage? There are many myths that when women become pregnant their cognitive capabilities begin to decrease and the mother suffers from ‘baby brain’ or ‘placenta brain’. Scientists are interested in this and some wondered what role pregnancy plays in the increase or decrease of a woman’s cognitive function. An experiment by Christensen et al (2010) they tested cognition speed, immediate recall, working memory, and delay memory in pregnant, non-pregnant women, and during motherhood. The hypothesis of this study was to see if pregnancy affects cognitive skills in women, and this was tested through surveys and questioners (Christensen et al., 2010). With all the multiple tests there was no negative impact on the pregnant women’s intelligence (Christensen et al., 2010). Therefore, with this study there was no s...

Theme of Sexuality in Andre Brink ‘s Other Lives

Brink’s Other Lives: A Rewriting of history through eroticism The dissident writer's preeminent role, as Brink sees it, is to â€Å"explore and expose the roots of the human condition as it is lived in South Africa: (.. ) With the fundamentals of human experience and relationships†(Mapmakers 152).That is to say, he aims, through narrating and referring to kinships, mainly sensual ones, at unveiling the racial practices of the past apartheid system which is, according to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary and thesaurus, defined as â€Å"a former policy of segregation and political and economic discrimination against non-European groups in the Republic of So. Africa† in doing so, he makes use of erotic scenes between black and white people of both sexes. This essay tackles Brink’s choice to make use of erotic fiction as an inventive way of writing history.Also, it deals with sexuality, in this particular novel, which stands as an epitome for racial, colonia l and political relationships between black and white people, as well as the numerous interpretations of the coitus either through symbolism or feminism or psychoanalysis. According to Brink â€Å"the author’s reinvention of history would involve a choice between two kinds of concepts, two ends on a sliding scale: namely, history as fact and history as fiction. He opts for fiction in this novel to rewrite the history of South Africa: â€Å"In forthcoming novels I shall be trying to get more and more of an imaginative grasp on reality, to invent history†, so that he lays naked the remainders of the post-apartheid system in an innovative style, skillfully inserting here and there several incidents, including sexual relations, that may be real or even personal, encompassing and resuming the aftermaths of the colonial experience. Brink’s answer to the inevitable question:† Why re-sort to fiction?Why reduce history to storytelling? † is summarized in Rus sell Hoban’s famous dictum:† We make fiction because we ARE fiction. â€Å"Brink elaborated on this idea explaining that â€Å"Whether one composes a c. v. for a job application, or reviews a day or week or year or a life traversed, or relates a crucial experience to someone else, or writes a letter, or describes an event-however one sets about it, it is inevitably turned into narrative. † The will to power, to dominate the other race and prove oneself to be superior has its links with sensuality and chauvinism.At first reading, some sexual acts in the novel seem to be scenes of pure passion, but then, they turn out to be mere longing for annihilation. For instance, In the second part Mirror, when Steve, a black man, is provoked by the utterances of the seductive young white woman named Silke telling him â€Å"your skin, I like very much how it feel, how it look† he becomes infuriated since he considers her words as a racial Remarque that echoes past memo ries of racial insults that he heard earlier in the novel such as â€Å"jou ma se swart poes† (=your mother’s black cunt) and â€Å"these kaffirs think they own the bloody place†.Consequently his reaction may be depicted as an attempt to free the rein of his wrath and avenge himself on the white race embodied in Silke, by conducting violent sexual intercourse saying that â€Å"for the first time I become aware of what is happening inside me. Not passion, not lust, not ecstasy, but rage . A terrible and destructive rage. † Moreover, racism is deeply rooted in social institutions such as marriage. As A. J. Hassall argues:† In Brink's South Africa blacks and whites are seen as natural equals separated only by the uncompromising racism of the whites.In all his books Brink explores sexual relationships between blacks and whites and he portrays them as natural sexual partners who might be natural political and social partners if only the Afrikaner establi shment would allow it. † This is perfectly illustrated in the example of the love relationship between a white man and a black woman in the first part The Blue Door, David Le Roux and Embeth, which is, even after the apartheid regime, still considered as a taboo kinship, completely rejected by David’s family; â€Å"why should we allow our lives to be dictated by the unreasonable reasonableness of my family?If we love each other.. † as David puts it. Added to its consideration as a racist attitude, Steve’s degradation of the white woman Silke may be read, as an act of political defiance, nevertheless, it fits only too well into the traditional master narrative of colonialism (â€Å"Natives have a rape-utation,† says Modisane, 1986), as well as the master narrative of sexism: the male who, in order to justify his aggression against and his â€Å"possession† of the female, blames her for provoking the attack, and for â€Å"deserving what she ge ts† ecause of her innate libidinal provocation. This is best illustrated in Steve’s words to Silke â€Å"if this is what you’re after, this is what you’re going to get. Fucking little white bitch. † Speaking of colonialism, Mellor suggests that men are attempting to penetrate mysterious foreign regions where they do not rightfully belong.Nina’s hair color turning into black, and the repetitive use of the words â€Å"dark† and â€Å"black† in the final paragraph depicting Derek â€Å"press[ing] [his] face into the fragrant and fatal darkness between her legs† calls to mind the notion of the exotic land reduced to the symbol of the female pubic hair which testifies for the mysterious south African jungles which should be discovered by white colonizer Derek. Feminists object to the depiction of women, in any respect, as a degraded sex, Objectified and reduced to serve the basic function of shoring up a man's ego.This machism o attitude is evident in Derek’s utterances:†Come what may, Nina Rousseau, you’re going to end up in my bed. † Symbolically speaking, it is widely known that white women represent power, so the more that you have of them the more you absorb that power into yourself. They also, of course, represent repression, so the more that you defile them the more you are fighting the battle and winning as Nicol puts it.This idea brings to mind Steve’s state of mind when copulating Silke, putting it into words: â€Å"now it is turning into pain, she becomes terrified †¦ while I feel myself growing in strength and rage. † This is further illustrated in Modisane’s words:† Through sex, I proved myself to myself. I am a man†¦ When the trance of sex had passed and the pleasure exhausted itself out of my system there remained only the anger and the violence to repeat and indulge myself into a more lasting satisfaction†¦ Furthermore, th e stereotypes of the â€Å"chaste white woman† and the â€Å"potent black man† who acts violently, with or without a reason, are challenged by Brink. The recurrent image of the black male is that of a virile man including the assertion of one of the crudest myths of sexist racism, the size of the black penis and his manhood to which it is alluded in Steve’s discourse: †bloody black stud (=virile)†. This racial cliche is set off in contrast with that of the white woman’s spiritual superiority and â€Å"absolute pureness† as Steve puts it.The terms in which the white woman is broadly described are based on an archetypal image borrowed from Camoens: â€Å"the symbol of purity and light, saintly flesh, raped, violated by the brutal force of a dark continent†. In order to criticize this cliche, Andre draws an image of the impure Silke who surrenders herself to Steve pleading him to â€Å"fuck [her]†. Psychologically speaking, L acan perceives the other as the creative force in shaping the consciousness of the â€Å"I†.When joined at the hip with Sarah, David ponders â€Å"you are my wife, but who are you? Who am I? † He feels compelled to know her in order to know himself and apprehend his existence, in other words, as feminists assert, sexuality is the keystone of identity. To elaborate on this idea, â€Å"Man's desire,† according to Lacan (1977), â€Å"finds its meaning in the desire of the other, not so much because the other holds the key to the object desired, as because the first object of desire is to be recognized by the other. Steve is inventing himself through the Other, Silke, who is, herself, a projection of his consciousness: his own identity, the raison d’etre of his actions and of his life, depends on the girl's approval and affirmation. Accordingly, he desires her so he can be recognized by her, and since â€Å"she is looking at [him]. She is seeing [him]. As [ he is] now. As [he is]. But there is no shock or disapproval in her face†, meaning that she does acknowledge him, he realizes his true identity.Contrary to Silke’s sexual attraction to Steve, he notices his cat’s repulsion. The widely known meaning of the hissing or scratching cat in dreams, is that this person â€Å"feels rejected by women or that his current relationships with women are strained or that he feels the women in his life are unappeasable, not to be trusted, overbearing, or just downright mean in which case the dream may mean it is time to reassess his relationships. †Ã‚  This is exactly the case with Steve and the female cat Sebastian which â€Å"draws her slender back into an arc and hisses at [him]. This may be explained by the fact that, when metamorphosed into a black man, Steve falls a prey to self-depreciation and speculates his wife Carla’s rejection of his new â€Å"black† self. So, when he realizes the impossibility o f achieving any human or even nonhuman connectedness, he chooses to seek release through the powerful emotion created by the suffering of Silke, an emotion which simultaneously produces his sexual arousal. This can be proved psychoanalytically in Bersani’s work analyzing Freud’s â€Å"Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality† in which he dentifies a counter argument running through Freud’s essays that â€Å"sexuality [is] not†¦originally an exchange of intensities between individuals, but rather a condition of broken negotiations with the world, a condition in which others merely set off the self shattering mechanisms of sadomasochistic jouissance† Regarding Derek’s unsatisfied and unstoppable longing for the sadistic Nina, The last erotic scene of the novel, when he gets stuck between her thighs, seems to be quite predictable, inasmuch, death will be the consummation of his passion.Bersani explicates Freud’s theory of the death d rive by arguing that â€Å"if sexuality is constituted as masochism, the immobilization of fantasmic structures can only have a violent denouement†¦ masochism is both relieved and fulfilled by death†.Isidore Diala refers to Andre Brink’s viewpoint about the writer’s role in the post-apartheid South Africa, saying that:† The dissident writer must awaken the Afrikaner to a sense of his potential for greatness and struggle aiming at liberating the blacks from oppression by whites, but also a struggle for the liberation of the Afrikaner from the ideology in which he has come to negate his better self. † Main References: -â€Å"Reinventing a Continent (Revisiting History in the Literature of the New South Africa: A Personal Testimony)† By Andre Brink 2-â€Å"Constructing Connectedness: Gender, Sexuality and Race in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein† by Jessica Hale 3-â€Å"CONCEPTUALIZING SEXUALITY: FROM KINSEY TO QUEER AND BEYONDâ₠¬  4-â€Å"An Ornithology of Sexual Politics: Lewis Nkosi's Mating Birds† by Andre Brink 5-â€Å"Andre Brink and Malraux† by Isidore Diala -â€Å"PORNOGRAPHY ( VS) EROTIC FICTION (aka Why I Continue To Do What I Do)† By Jess C Scott, 9 Mar 2011 ——————————————– [ 1 ]. In her article â€Å"PORNOGRAPHY VS. EROTIC FICTION†, Jess C Scott gives a definition of erotic literature saying that: † it comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of human sexual relationships which have the power to or are intended to arouse the reader sexually. The emphasis of each is quite different.Porn's main purpose is to make money via adult entertainment; erotic literature tells a story. Stories that are realistic. Stories that make one think. Stories that â€Å"dive into the depths of navigating gender, sexuality, and the lines of desire† (blurb from m y  first erotic anthology,  4:Play). She illustrates her viewpoint by referring to Nabokov in the same Article explaining that â€Å"Mr. Vladimir Nabokov said so succinctly in  an essay on  Lolita, â€Å". . . Lolita has no moral in tow.For me, a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall call aesthetic bliss. . . â€Å"He also writes that â€Å"in pornographic novels, action has to be limited to the copulation of cliches. Style, structure, imagery should never distract the reader from his tepid lust. The novel must consist of an alternation of sexual scenes. † Ultimately, She draws this conclusion: Lolita  is more than a pornographic novel. Erotic literature is more than pornographic writing. † Theme of Sexuality in Andre Brink ‘s Other Lives Brink’s Other Lives: A Rewriting of history through eroticism The dissident writer's preeminent role, as Brink sees it, is to â€Å"explore and expose the roots of the human condition as it is lived in South Africa: (.. ) With the fundamentals of human experience and relationships†(Mapmakers 152).That is to say, he aims, through narrating and referring to kinships, mainly sensual ones, at unveiling the racial practices of the past apartheid system which is, according to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary and thesaurus, defined as â€Å"a former policy of segregation and political and economic discrimination against non-European groups in the Republic of So. Africa† in doing so, he makes use of erotic scenes between black and white people of both sexes. This essay tackles Brink’s choice to make use of erotic fiction as an inventive way of writing history.Also, it deals with sexuality, in this particular novel, which stands as an epitome for racial, colonia l and political relationships between black and white people, as well as the numerous interpretations of the coitus either through symbolism or feminism or psychoanalysis. According to Brink â€Å"the author’s reinvention of history would involve a choice between two kinds of concepts, two ends on a sliding scale: namely, history as fact and history as fiction. He opts for fiction in this novel to rewrite the history of South Africa: â€Å"In forthcoming novels I shall be trying to get more and more of an imaginative grasp on reality, to invent history†, so that he lays naked the remainders of the post-apartheid system in an innovative style, skillfully inserting here and there several incidents, including sexual relations, that may be real or even personal, encompassing and resuming the aftermaths of the colonial experience. Brink’s answer to the inevitable question:† Why re-sort to fiction?Why reduce history to storytelling? † is summarized in Rus sell Hoban’s famous dictum:† We make fiction because we ARE fiction. â€Å"Brink elaborated on this idea explaining that â€Å"Whether one composes a c. v. for a job application, or reviews a day or week or year or a life traversed, or relates a crucial experience to someone else, or writes a letter, or describes an event-however one sets about it, it is inevitably turned into narrative. † The will to power, to dominate the other race and prove oneself to be superior has its links with sensuality and chauvinism.At first reading, some sexual acts in the novel seem to be scenes of pure passion, but then, they turn out to be mere longing for annihilation. For instance, In the second part Mirror, when Steve, a black man, is provoked by the utterances of the seductive young white woman named Silke telling him â€Å"your skin, I like very much how it feel, how it look† he becomes infuriated since he considers her words as a racial Remarque that echoes past memo ries of racial insults that he heard earlier in the novel such as â€Å"jou ma se swart poes† (=your mother’s black cunt) and â€Å"these kaffirs think they own the bloody place†.Consequently his reaction may be depicted as an attempt to free the rein of his wrath and avenge himself on the white race embodied in Silke, by conducting violent sexual intercourse saying that â€Å"for the first time I become aware of what is happening inside me. Not passion, not lust, not ecstasy, but rage . A terrible and destructive rage. † Moreover, racism is deeply rooted in social institutions such as marriage. As A. J. Hassall argues:† In Brink's South Africa blacks and whites are seen as natural equals separated only by the uncompromising racism of the whites.In all his books Brink explores sexual relationships between blacks and whites and he portrays them as natural sexual partners who might be natural political and social partners if only the Afrikaner establi shment would allow it. † This is perfectly illustrated in the example of the love relationship between a white man and a black woman in the first part The Blue Door, David Le Roux and Embeth, which is, even after the apartheid regime, still considered as a taboo kinship, completely rejected by David’s family; â€Å"why should we allow our lives to be dictated by the unreasonable reasonableness of my family?If we love each other.. † as David puts it. Added to its consideration as a racist attitude, Steve’s degradation of the white woman Silke may be read, as an act of political defiance, nevertheless, it fits only too well into the traditional master narrative of colonialism (â€Å"Natives have a rape-utation,† says Modisane, 1986), as well as the master narrative of sexism: the male who, in order to justify his aggression against and his â€Å"possession† of the female, blames her for provoking the attack, and for â€Å"deserving what she ge ts† ecause of her innate libidinal provocation. This is best illustrated in Steve’s words to Silke â€Å"if this is what you’re after, this is what you’re going to get. Fucking little white bitch. † Speaking of colonialism, Mellor suggests that men are attempting to penetrate mysterious foreign regions where they do not rightfully belong.Nina’s hair color turning into black, and the repetitive use of the words â€Å"dark† and â€Å"black† in the final paragraph depicting Derek â€Å"press[ing] [his] face into the fragrant and fatal darkness between her legs† calls to mind the notion of the exotic land reduced to the symbol of the female pubic hair which testifies for the mysterious south African jungles which should be discovered by white colonizer Derek. Feminists object to the depiction of women, in any respect, as a degraded sex, Objectified and reduced to serve the basic function of shoring up a man's ego.This machism o attitude is evident in Derek’s utterances:†Come what may, Nina Rousseau, you’re going to end up in my bed. † Symbolically speaking, it is widely known that white women represent power, so the more that you have of them the more you absorb that power into yourself. They also, of course, represent repression, so the more that you defile them the more you are fighting the battle and winning as Nicol puts it.This idea brings to mind Steve’s state of mind when copulating Silke, putting it into words: â€Å"now it is turning into pain, she becomes terrified †¦ while I feel myself growing in strength and rage. † This is further illustrated in Modisane’s words:† Through sex, I proved myself to myself. I am a man†¦ When the trance of sex had passed and the pleasure exhausted itself out of my system there remained only the anger and the violence to repeat and indulge myself into a more lasting satisfaction†¦ Furthermore, th e stereotypes of the â€Å"chaste white woman† and the â€Å"potent black man† who acts violently, with or without a reason, are challenged by Brink. The recurrent image of the black male is that of a virile man including the assertion of one of the crudest myths of sexist racism, the size of the black penis and his manhood to which it is alluded in Steve’s discourse: †bloody black stud (=virile)†. This racial cliche is set off in contrast with that of the white woman’s spiritual superiority and â€Å"absolute pureness† as Steve puts it.The terms in which the white woman is broadly described are based on an archetypal image borrowed from Camoens: â€Å"the symbol of purity and light, saintly flesh, raped, violated by the brutal force of a dark continent†. In order to criticize this cliche, Andre draws an image of the impure Silke who surrenders herself to Steve pleading him to â€Å"fuck [her]†. Psychologically speaking, L acan perceives the other as the creative force in shaping the consciousness of the â€Å"I†.When joined at the hip with Sarah, David ponders â€Å"you are my wife, but who are you? Who am I? † He feels compelled to know her in order to know himself and apprehend his existence, in other words, as feminists assert, sexuality is the keystone of identity. To elaborate on this idea, â€Å"Man's desire,† according to Lacan (1977), â€Å"finds its meaning in the desire of the other, not so much because the other holds the key to the object desired, as because the first object of desire is to be recognized by the other. Steve is inventing himself through the Other, Silke, who is, herself, a projection of his consciousness: his own identity, the raison d’etre of his actions and of his life, depends on the girl's approval and affirmation. Accordingly, he desires her so he can be recognized by her, and since â€Å"she is looking at [him]. She is seeing [him]. As [ he is] now. As [he is]. But there is no shock or disapproval in her face†, meaning that she does acknowledge him, he realizes his true identity.Contrary to Silke’s sexual attraction to Steve, he notices his cat’s repulsion. The widely known meaning of the hissing or scratching cat in dreams, is that this person â€Å"feels rejected by women or that his current relationships with women are strained or that he feels the women in his life are unappeasable, not to be trusted, overbearing, or just downright mean in which case the dream may mean it is time to reassess his relationships. †Ã‚  This is exactly the case with Steve and the female cat Sebastian which â€Å"draws her slender back into an arc and hisses at [him]. This may be explained by the fact that, when metamorphosed into a black man, Steve falls a prey to self-depreciation and speculates his wife Carla’s rejection of his new â€Å"black† self. So, when he realizes the impossibility o f achieving any human or even nonhuman connectedness, he chooses to seek release through the powerful emotion created by the suffering of Silke, an emotion which simultaneously produces his sexual arousal. This can be proved psychoanalytically in Bersani’s work analyzing Freud’s â€Å"Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality† in which he dentifies a counter argument running through Freud’s essays that â€Å"sexuality [is] not†¦originally an exchange of intensities between individuals, but rather a condition of broken negotiations with the world, a condition in which others merely set off the self shattering mechanisms of sadomasochistic jouissance† Regarding Derek’s unsatisfied and unstoppable longing for the sadistic Nina, The last erotic scene of the novel, when he gets stuck between her thighs, seems to be quite predictable, inasmuch, death will be the consummation of his passion.Bersani explicates Freud’s theory of the death d rive by arguing that â€Å"if sexuality is constituted as masochism, the immobilization of fantasmic structures can only have a violent denouement†¦ masochism is both relieved and fulfilled by death†.Isidore Diala refers to Andre Brink’s viewpoint about the writer’s role in the post-apartheid South Africa, saying that:† The dissident writer must awaken the Afrikaner to a sense of his potential for greatness and struggle aiming at liberating the blacks from oppression by whites, but also a struggle for the liberation of the Afrikaner from the ideology in which he has come to negate his better self. † Main References: -â€Å"Reinventing a Continent (Revisiting History in the Literature of the New South Africa: A Personal Testimony)† By Andre Brink 2-â€Å"Constructing Connectedness: Gender, Sexuality and Race in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein† by Jessica Hale 3-â€Å"CONCEPTUALIZING SEXUALITY: FROM KINSEY TO QUEER AND BEYONDâ₠¬  4-â€Å"An Ornithology of Sexual Politics: Lewis Nkosi's Mating Birds† by Andre Brink 5-â€Å"Andre Brink and Malraux† by Isidore Diala -â€Å"PORNOGRAPHY ( VS) EROTIC FICTION (aka Why I Continue To Do What I Do)† By Jess C Scott, 9 Mar 2011 ——————————————– [ 1 ]. In her article â€Å"PORNOGRAPHY VS. EROTIC FICTION†, Jess C Scott gives a definition of erotic literature saying that: † it comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of human sexual relationships which have the power to or are intended to arouse the reader sexually. The emphasis of each is quite different.Porn's main purpose is to make money via adult entertainment; erotic literature tells a story. Stories that are realistic. Stories that make one think. Stories that â€Å"dive into the depths of navigating gender, sexuality, and the lines of desire† (blurb from m y  first erotic anthology,  4:Play). She illustrates her viewpoint by referring to Nabokov in the same Article explaining that â€Å"Mr. Vladimir Nabokov said so succinctly in  an essay on  Lolita, â€Å". . . Lolita has no moral in tow.For me, a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall call aesthetic bliss. . . â€Å"He also writes that â€Å"in pornographic novels, action has to be limited to the copulation of cliches. Style, structure, imagery should never distract the reader from his tepid lust. The novel must consist of an alternation of sexual scenes. † Ultimately, She draws this conclusion: Lolita  is more than a pornographic novel. Erotic literature is more than pornographic writing. †

Rationality, Educated Opinion and Peace Essay

Abstract: This paper addresses the relevance of interwar thought to the building of peace through examining the ideas of three important writers of the period: Edward Hallett Carr, Norman Angell and Alfred Zimmern. The role of public opinion was under much query in the politics of the period they wrote in, and crucial to this issue are the questions as to whether the public mind is rational and capable of reason. These writers are concerned with the influence of public opinion and believe that through educating the public mind, the possibility of peace can be increased. Drawing from their ideas, this paper thus postulates that peace is a product of rationality and there is possibility of progress through education. The birth of international relations as a separate discipline was founded against the context of the interwar years, which brought about important consequences for the subsequent development of the interwar years. The tensions prior to and the subsequent devastation of the Great War forced intellectuals of the early twentieth century to seek explanations for the causes of war and to postulate measures by which another catastrophe could be prevented. The general psyche of the people exerted an influence on the direction of international studies. As David Long points out, the academic study of international affairs during this period of time possessed â€Å"a normative though not necessarily utopian interest in the avoidance of war†1. Such a trend is manifested in the trust deed of the Wilson Chair of International Politics (one of the first few schools of the discipline), which states that international politics is the â€Å"political science in its application to international relations with special reference to the best means of promoting peace between nations.†2 Woodrow Wilson, being a leading statesman at the time, presents one of the possible avenues for peace. He consciously and deliberately tied issues of foreign policy to domestic politics, giving rise to what will come to be known as the â€Å"democratic peace thesis†. Wilson advocates the belief that â€Å"popular participation, public life and opportunity for all [will be] the guarantee of peace†. Wilson believed that diplomacy and foreign policy must be taken with regard to public opinion and the public being rational would prefer peace to war.3 The crucial premise here is that public opinion matters in a democratic political system. The assumption further made is that the political leaders are sensitive to public opinion and will be susceptible to their demands. The issue of public opinion gives rise to another set of issues, and one of the foremost in this period, is the skepticism that the basic assumption of a rational public rejecting war is true. Is the public rational? Is war a rational choice? The political definition of rationality is the ability of the public to discern the options open to them, and to adopt the best option to achieve their prioritized goals. The Great War cast doubts as to whether public is necessarily aware of what their options and goals are, much less their ability to choose the best option to fit their preferred purpose. As historian A. J. P. Taylor argues that the intellectual backlash against the dehumanizing war made the interwar years an â€Å"age of intellectual and artistic activity†, where intellectuals from various fields of study question the power of man to reason.4 The devastation of war brings queries, particularly from the idealists, as to whether war can be a rational choice. Even if the assumption holds true, there is still the question as to whether public opinion has any weight on policy formulation. Given this particular context, this paper questions the foundations of Wilsonian politics. This paper will thus postulate on the influence of public opinion and the impact of rationality on the maintenance of peace by drawing from the ideas of three important writers of this period: Edward Hallett Carr, Norman Angell and Alfred Zimmern. This paper will first introduce the positions of all three writers. It will then examine the fundamental assumption shared by all three writers with respect to public opinion, before expounding on their arguments on the rationality of the public and why the issue matters. The paper will then look into the possibilities of peace, and how the three concur on the issue of education. Due to source constraints, this paper will draw on secondary references to the works of the three writers, where the primary sources are not available. Carr, Angell and Zimmern Peter Wilson in Thinkers of the Twenty Years’ Crisis introduces Carr’s book as â€Å"a work which not only set the tone for subsequent discussion of inter-war thought, but also substantially shaped postwar attitudes towards it.†5 The premise for The Twenty Years’ Crisis is the critique of inter-war idealism, which Carr terms ‘utopian’6. Carr dismisses the ‘utopians’ as being unable to understand political reality and sets up a dichotomy that supposes â€Å"utopia: reality= free will: determinism= theory: practice= morality: power =universal: relative= intellectual: bureaucrat= Left: Right† 7 The dichotomy presented by Carr undermines interwar idealism, and leads, in part, to the rejection of the practical value of these theories. This dichotomy shapes subsequent debate and is consequentially identified as the polarity of realism and idealism, which will dominate international studies for the next few decades. In order to posit queries of the dichotomy, it is first necessary to expound on the assumptions that are conventionally made of either school. Brian C. Schmidt summarises the assumptions of idealism as follows : a pervasive faith in reason and rationalism, a belief in the infallibility of public opinion, the view that war was irrational, that the best way to end conflict was through education, international law, and world government, and, finally, a belief that the essential harmony of interests existed, which translated into the international doctrine of â€Å"war-does-not-pay8. Superficially, both Norman Angell and Alfred Zimmern adopt such assumptions in their writings. Significantly, both Angell and Zimmern share the same devotion to one key tenet: the possibility of progress through educating public opinion and conditioning human behaviour. Their devotion to the tenet became stronger later into their careers, especially after the Second World War. The realist school of thought as represented by Carr, refutes the idealist assumptions. In particular, the realists argue that the concept of ‘power’ is central to international affairs. Carr adopts Thomas Hobbes’ argument on human nature and advances the argument that the state as a rational actor will choose to maximize its capacity for power in order to secure its survival. He argues that public opinion, even when informed, is not necessarily pacifist and that thought can be mould by political purposes. Through defining his position by rejecting and critiquing the idealists assumptions, Carr’s realist position is thus seen as the diametric opposite of the idealists. It is then necessary to redress both the ideas of Carr and the much-maligned interwar idealists, among whom are Zimmern and Angell. The choice of juxtaposing Angell and Zimmern with Carr in this paper is conscious. Both Zimmern and Angell are among the few ‘utopians’ whom Carr explicitly criticizes in The Twenty Years’ Crisis. Andreas Osiander points out that Zimmern is â€Å"still widely regarded as what Oslon and Groom have called the ‘consummate’ idealist†9, and is thus identifiable with the idealist school of thought. Yet Zimmern, as Paul Rich and Peter Wilson suggest, is considerably less adverse to Carr’s ideas than his idealist colleagues.10 Angell, on the other hand, is one of the fiercest adversaries to The Twenty Years’ Crisis, but J. D. Miller raises the argument that â€Å"Angell should†¦ be regarded less as an idealist than a far sighted realist† because of his â€Å"acute awareness† of the issues o f political reality11. The interplay of their ideas then calls to question the validity of a clear dichotomy. In essence then, this paper seek to question if the positions of these writers on the assumptions raised by Schmidt are as concrete as they appear to be. In other words, this paper examines the complexities of Carr, Angell and Zimmern’s ideas on the applicability of public opinion, rationality and possibilities of peace. On closer examination, this paper argues that despite the differences, the three share a fundamental similarity: the belief in progress. The dichotomy between the realists and idealists is permeable, and in their postulation of the long term, the arguments of Carr, Angell and Zimmern coincide. Public Opinion First and foremost, the underlying assumption that Carr, Angell and Zimmern adopt is that public opinion matters, even though their understanding of public opinion differs. Zimmern argues that â€Å"[p]ublic opinion is the lifeblood of a civilized community† but unfortunately, the majority of the peoples is guided by â€Å"caprice of ignorance, passion or greed, and the other devils if unreason.†12 The title of Carr’s inaugural speech at the University College of Wales, â€Å"Public Opinion as a Safeguard of Peace† says much. Carr argues that public opinion can exert tremendous influence over a foreign policy issue that it feels sufficiently strongly about, using the case of the public rejection of the Hoare-Laval plan to build his case. He states that, â€Å"No nation, and least of all a democracy, can wage war unless it has the support of an overwhelming majority of its people†13. The implication of such a statement in light of guarding the peace is that insofar as the public is not in favour of war, a state and particularly a democratic state will not and cannot adopt war as a policy instrument. Angell’s Nobel Lecture, â€Å"Peace and the Public Mind†, adopts the same position, except that he argues public opinion, being misinformed and â€Å"disastrously erroneous† can lead to war. 14 Interestingly both Angell and Carr argue that public opinion is easily manipulated. Carr devotes a section to â€Å"Power over opinion† in The Twenty Years’ Crisis, suggesting that the greater proportion of public becoming conscious or involved in politics relates to the importance that the ruling elite place on propaganda as an instrument of power. The influence of propaganda rests on the premise he sets earlier in the book that the crucial contribution of realism is the idea that thought is relative to purpose. 15 For instance, nationalism, as a form of ideology, could be seen as a means by which the public can be persuaded to go to war. Similarly, Angell contends that a small militant minority is capable of appealing to the majority towards a policy that may not be in the majority’s best interests.16 Rationality Having established that public opinion has a role to play, we then move on to the crucial questions: is the public rational, and is war a rational choice? On both issues, there are significant differences between Carr and the idealists, arising from the difference in the way they interpret and infer from past and current events. Reason and rationality give rise to different outcomes for Carr and the idealists. An important observation is that Carr places more faith in reason and rationality than do the others, contrary to our earlier presupposition that it is the idealists who have a â€Å"pervasive faith in reason and rationalism.† A proper definition of what is meant by rational behaviour has yet to be provided as a premise for argument. To proceed, we adopt James Mill’s argument for the rational public opinion quoted in Carr as a guide to what rational behaviour entails: Every man possessed of reason is accustomed to weigh evidence and to be guided and determined by its preponderance. When various conclusions are, with their evidence presented with equal care and with equal skill, there is a moral certainty, though some few maybe misguided, that greatest number will judge right, and the greatest force of evidence, whatever it is, will produce the greatest impression. 17 Whereas Carr believes that the public, being self-interested, is capable of defining their goals and seeking the best possible means to achieve toward that end, he rejects Mills’ definition of rational behaviour. Mills’ definition is in turn based on the ideas espoused by Jeremy Betham who assumes that the ideal option is the â€Å"greatest good to the greatest number†. Carr argues that public opinion comes from the masses, who are for large part, neither enlightened nor educated and thus â€Å"the greatest number† need not necessarily â€Å"judge right†. He argues that Betham and Mills’ assumption that self-interest can be sacrificed for the sake of â€Å"the greatest good† to the collective is based on â€Å"some kind of intuition of what is right and cannot be demonstrated by rational argument.†18 Carr suggests, instead, that rational necessarily demands a consciousness and the ability to adjust to the balance of power existing in international affairs, which serves as a constraint on the options available. The discerning public thus does not only take into account what is right, but also what is most practical in catering to self-interest. Carr then adopts an argument that is parallel to Thomas Hobbes’. Hobbes, in Leviathan, states the fundamental law of nature as: it is a precept, or general rule of reason that every man, ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek, and use all helps, and advantages of war Carr comments, to the same effect, that although war is undesirable, it is not possible to impose an absolute judgement that war is â€Å"always and unconditionally wrong.† The implication of Hobbes and Carr’s argument is that the public being rational favours peace. However, when the public believes that they have more to gain from war, or more to lose from not going to war, war becomes a rational and logical solution. Historically, Carr’s argument seems to find sufficient basis in the outbreak of World War I. One of the reasons contributing to the war was the increase in bellicosity, arising from rationalization of cost and benefit or cooperation and non-cooperation. Prior to the Great War, the perceived cost of non-cooperation19 had decreased. The perception was influenced by beliefs that any war would be short, a consequence of â€Å"a highly exaggerated faith in the efficacy of offensive military strategies and tactics†20 and by the system of alliances. The perception was further coloured by nationalism. Secondly the perceived gains of non-cooperation had increased. The general belief was that expansionism and offensive foreign policy was perceived to be too high, due to the general suspicion of the intentions of the other states. Given these perceptions then prevalent, European states saw it to their advantage to go to war, and in fact to initiate the war so as to reap the greate st advantage of the ground. This international game theory exemplifies in part the rational process that Carr espoused. The idealists depart greatly from Carr. Angell and Zimmern accept that Mills’ definition is greatly desired but finds it incongruent with political reality. Reus-Smit, in his essay â€Å"The Strange Death of Liberal Theory†, argues that the conflict between morality and political reality is seen by Angell as a divide between â€Å"reason and unreason†. He argues that, â€Å"If the former prevailed, there was some hope of a reconciliation between morality, defined as the well-being of all and reality, which in [Angell’s] favoured area was the incompatibility of warfare and such well-being.21† However, within the historical context, Angell believes that ‘unreason’ prevailed. Angell believes that the public mind is often irrational, because it is too easily persuaded; it does not possess sufficient information, nor the ability to process vast amounts of information when it is available and it lacks the skill to seek evidence for the variou s conclusions, as Mill points out, i.e., it cannot â€Å"see the likely results of actions.† 22 The public mind cannot compute cost-benefit-analysis, which is central to rationalization. Angell accounts for this irrationality of the public mind, stating that it arises from the â€Å"failure to apply to our international relationships knowledge which is of practically universal possession†23 In Angell’s opinion then, it is not for the lack of intellectual capacity on the part of the public that lead to the irrational behaviour, but the inability to apply knowledge. Resting on his idea of the irrational public, Angell expounds on the war and why the public’s choice to go to war is actually irrational. In his aptly named book, The Great Illusion, he puts forth a convincing argument on the futility of war on grounds of rationality and economic considerations. Angell argues that the perceived benefits of war under modern circumstances, are reduced, as victors can no longer expect to benefit as much from the spoils of war. The change is largely because goods and spoils are no longer portable (such as gold, silver, slaves, precious stones) as they had before. Goods and services are non-physical such as currency, shares, and fixed assets, and are thus not transferable wealth. As such, if states act purely in their self-interest, given the expectation not to gain from war, states would be unlikely to pursue war.24 Angell considers this line of reasoning to be simplistic and easily applicable to the conduct of international relations. Yet as the advent of World War I proves, the public is incapable of applying such rationale to political practice. Angell argues that the pervading reasons behind war, then, are irrational. Not only does war not serve to the benefit of the state concerned, better alternatives of action could be sought such as building economic relations, social interaction. Such connections can be used in persuading, as opposed to coercing, other states into behaving in the manner that is beneficial to the state concerned. Thus the argument adopted is that war is irrational, i.e. not the best-laid option, and man being irrational and susceptible to external influences, chooses to use war as a policy instrument. Andreas Osiander points out that â€Å"unlike what Carr implies, Zimmern, like Angell, was very far from seeing public opinion as necessarily a force for peace.25† Like Angell, he believes that the conflicts in the international arena, giving rise to war are resultant of intellectual, and not political failure.26 However, if Carr is to be believed, Zimmern can, in fact, be seen as being more extreme than Angell. Carr states in The Twenty Years Crisis that Zimmern is inclined towards the hypothesis that â€Å"If mankind in its international relations has signally failed to achieve the rational good, it must †¦ have been too stupid to understand that good.† Carr’s statement is not altogether justified. Although Zimmern does point out that the impediment to overcoming the obstacle towards peace is that man â€Å"are beings of conservative temper and limited intelligence27†, what he implies is that man is reluctant to adjust to present realities brought b y modernity. As a result of the inherent resistance towards change, man’s mental capacity does not adapt to the fact that previous ways of managing international relations are no longer applicable. Consequentially, public opinion cannot be trusted to be rational. Zimmern subscribes to John Stuart Mill’s argument of the â€Å"tyranny of the majority†. He argues that the ruling elite, that is, the politicians in positions of power tend to be capable of rationalization. However this intellectual minority in government is consumed by the irrational public: â€Å"for statesmen, however wise and far sighted, are limited in their policies by the public opinion and parliaments to which they are responsible.28† Angell concurs on this issue. J. D. Miller, drawing from Angell’s comments, argues that Angell too â€Å"feared the impact upon politicians of an unreasoning crowd mind, and doubted the capacity of politicians to resist it†. Both Angell and Zimmern, then, prefer that the intellectual minority be given the ability and power to lead the rest of the populace, so as to govern rational foreign policies. In this regard, Carr again differs. Whereas Carr does agree that the intellectual minority has a role to play in leading public opinion,29 he believes that the intellectual minority is however, sadly, out of touch with reality. He argues his case by drawing on the difference between intellectuals’ perceptions of the League of Nations with those of the man on the street. The intellectuals, who tend to be idealists by his definition, strive to secure and maintain peace via means of treaties, covenants and legal codifications. The general public, however, is more concerned with the practice of international affairs (as opposed to the theory.) Going by Carr’s understanding of rational behaviour to be taking into account what is right and also what is most practical in application, the intellectual mi nority is in practice less rational than the public. Change and the possibility of progress As it is, there seems to be a great divide between Carr and his two contemporaries with regards to whether man is rational. However, central to their arguments is the shared belief that history is a directional process, that is, there is the idea of constant change. Carr argues that war occurs because of the conservative reluctance to allow change to the status quo and the way to peace is to provide means of peaceful change.30 Angell and Zimmern suggest that war occurs because man has yet to come to terms with change, and that the mentality and psyche of the populace has not kept in line with international developments. As Zimmern states, â€Å"the statesmen and the peoples have not adjusted their minds to the new realities†31. The central concern with the issue of change harkens to a broader issue on which the three writers concur: the possibility of progress. The interwar context is one of pessimism. The first decade had been one of recovery and rehabilitation from the shock of the Great War and the second decade of mounting tensions and escalation to an even more disastrous war. The context in which these writers write in, therefore, begets the question of whether man can move away from destruction of war, and by what means. The three writers agree that the current situation calls for change, as present movements and measures to maintain peace are insufficient and inadequate, and are reasonably optimistic that such change can be effected. Carr notes even in 1936 that, â€Å"the cause of peace has made tremendous stride during the past fifteen years and shows his preference towards progressive history, arguing that â€Å"a sense of change as a progressive factor in history, and belief in reason as our guide for the understanding of its complexities† are crucial to the current world. Angell is of the same mind when he questions the unchangeability of human nature and argues that just as cannibalism and slavery can be systematically reduced in our society, so too can the warlike nature of man and states32. Zimmern, even when decrying the decline of international standards (which he defined as rules of behaviour) at a meeting at Chatham House in 1937 argues that the process of change allowing for pea ceful coexistence was already taking place.33 The ultimate aim of change is the maintenance of peace, which is assumed to be the preferred good, through the avoidance of war. The question that is then posited is, by what means? Carr, Angell and Zimmern propose different measures but the one pertinent to the prior argument on public opinion and rationality is their faith in education. Due to their fundamental belief that public opinion matters, it is logical to argue that if the public mind, as Angell would call it, could be trained and conditioned to favour ‘peaceful change’, then the chances of states going to war would be minimized. Angell quotes in his The Great Illusion that â€Å"Not the facts, but men’s opinions about the facts is what matters†, and making a parallel with the abolishment of witch hunts, he comments that â€Å"just as in the matter of burning witches a change of behaviour was the outcome of a change of opinion†¦ in a same way a change in the political conduct of can only com e about as a result of a change of thought†34. The way to peace then is to shape man’s perceptions about war. Given this understanding, the most basic and possibly most efficient way of bringing about this conditioned public is through education. However in his address given to Chatham House in 1931, Angell claims that the current education system does not adequately prepare the individual to make intelligent and informed inferences from the facts presented to him. He believes that the reason behind this lack in the system is that education tends to follow a tradition whereby an older generation influences and instruct the younger through a process of socialization.35 Unfortunately this tradition means that values and ideas that are taught are often unable to catch up with present realities. The educational system had also focused on provision of information, without equipping the individual with means to discern the motivations, the causation analysis, the implications et cetera behind the piece of information. According to him, â€Å"We have thought too much of the facts and too little of their meaning.† 36 Thus the socialization/education of an individual does not adequately provide him with the skill to make rational choices. Given his premise that war is irrational under any circumstances lest in defence and a rational public will therefore reject war, the skill deficiency means that man may choose to go to war due to their lack of understanding, unless the educational system can be changed. Beyond the suggestion that education shifts its focus from its informational purpose towards equipping successive generations with the skill to possess information, Angell does not however provide for how education can be otherwise structured. Zimmern elaborates on his ideal educational system in his book Learning and Leadership, which is not only designed to impart the skill of discerning information but also specifically equipped to teach students about international life. Particularly, he believes that practical experience through interaction with people from other nations will allow students to imbibe the habit of cooperation and harmonious living37. Zimmern believes that once people are given more exposure to the international arena, they will be able to understand foreigners and foreign influences better and become more acutely aware of the idea of universal brotherhood. This basic premise being established, man will be more able to understand the actions of others, less inclined to take preemptive action and to go to war. The assumption of such an argument is that people are less inclined to advocate war against a party that they share an understanding with. Education is thus seen as an instrument which can build commonality among peoples, as well as a means by which the public can be trained to be rational. In The Twenty Years’ Crisis, Carr argues for the application of reason to understanding current situations and political reality; in his later work What is History he extends the role of reason to the capacity to reform: The primary function of reason, as applied to man in society, is no longer merely to investigate, but to transform; and this heightened consciousness of the power of men to improve the management of his social, economic and political affairs by the application of rational processes seems to me one of the major aspects of the twentieth century. 38 The core assumptions here are that reason leads to progress and progress is necessarily an improvement. Remembering the key concern of the study of international relations in the interwar period, a foremost improvement of the human condition is the eradication of war. As do Angell and Zimmern, Carr believes that education was to be the tool by which such improvement can come about. However, unlike Zimmern and Angell who believe that the public has to be thought how to make rational choices in the first place, Carr believes that education can be used to shape the way the public thinks about their choices. Carr notes then that education policy must be shaped: Educators at all levels are nowadays more and more consciously concerned to make their contribution to the shaping of society in a particular mould, and to inculcate in the rising generation the attitudes, loyalties and opinions appropriate to that type of society: educational policy is an integral part of any rationally planned social policy.39 It is then assumed, that rationally, a society will be prefer not to resort to war in a conflict of interest, and a means by which this can be ensured is to design an educational system which, in the context of the interwar years, should imbue in them the moral norm that ‘peaceful change’ is the preferred means of achieving policy objectives. To put it more plainly, Carr’s ideal is using education to persuade man against the doctrine of power, providing a basis whereby a compromise between morality and power can be reached and peaceful change achieved. In his contention that thought is relative to purpose, Carr postulates that mass opinion can directed and in fact ‘mass-produced’ via ‘universal popular education’. It is imperative to note that by popular education, Carr has included the mass media.( Carr does not, however differentiate between education and propaganda in The Twenty Years’ Crisis though in What is History, he associates education with rationality and the â€Å"growing consciousness from below as well as from above of the role which reason can play†40). The application of reason and rationality therefore means that education can be used to persuade mankind against war. Instead of making an argument that war is irrational, educators can influence the public into making a conscious choice not to use war as a policy instrument. As Carr states, â€Å"I regard as of immense importance and promise the gradual extension of the area of the world’s surface within which war has been effectively been placed under the ban,† such that war is actually unthinkable41. What becomes interesting is how closely Carr mirrors the ‘utopians’ he derides. Peter Wilson, in his attempt to understand what Carr means by ‘utopian’, lists the various characteristics that Carr associates with the term. According to his analysis, all of these characteristics are † ‘progressive ideas’; and it might be therefore be concluded that the core characteristic of interwar idealism is belief in conscious, progressive change†. On this basis, Carr does not seem to be any much different, which recalls Reus-Smit’s observation quoted earlier in this paper that Carr is himself not a consummate realist. It is also possible to put forth an argument that Carr’s argument against utopianism was never meant to be an outright and unconditional rejection of the interwar theories. Conclusion Whether or not these three writers think the public mind is rational depends largely on whether they believe war can be a rational choice, and yet regardless of their perspectives on these two issues, they believe that progress towards avoidance of war can be ensured through changing human behaviour. Education policies thus become important, as they can shape the perceptions of the public and thus affect their choices, which is in turn reflected in the chosen foreign policy. However there is a point to note based on this argument set. All three writers are writing within a democratic framework and tradition, where by definition, requires that public opinion matters. Yet, public opinion is less likely to make an impact in an authoritarian state, and even in democratic states, there is the consideration of public apathy, the leaders gambling and taking risks by not going according to public opinion, et cetera. These complications bring us back to the consideration of Wilsonian politics. Woodrow Wilson professes that his aim is to make the world safe for democracy, and that democracy will bring peace. His tendency has been to look at the building and maintenance of peace from a top down approach, where the political structure and political ideological apparatus are enforced. In other words, he looks to providing a mechanism which will allow the rational public to prevent the tendencies of the militant minority from dragging the state to war. However, from the ideas of Carr, Angell and Zimmern, such a mechanism would not function effectively against war unless the public mind can be first conditioned through a fitting educational system emphasizing co-operation and peace. 1 David Long, â€Å"Conclusion: Interwar idealism, liberal internationalism and contemporary international theory†. Thinkers of the Twenty Years’ Crisis: Inter-war idealism reassessed. p. 303, pp. 306-307. 2 Quoted in E. H. Carr’s inaugural speech in the University College of Wales. â€Å"Public Opinion as a Safeguard of Peace† International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1931-1939). Vol. 15. No. 6. (Nov- Dec 1936), p. 846. 3 Mortimer Chambers, et al. The Western Experience Vol C: The Modern Era. pp. 892-893 4 A. J. P. Taylor, From Sarajevo to Potsdam. London: Thames & Hudson: 1966 pp. 103-106 5 Peter Wilson. â€Å"Introduction: The Twenty Years’ Crisis and the Category of ‘Idealism’ in International Relations†. David Long & Peter Wilson. (ed.) Thinkers of the Twenty Years’ Crisis: Inter-war idealism reassessed. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 1995. p.1 6 Carr’s term ‘utopians’ is generally taken to refer to the idealists, though he does not clearly define who he considers to be utopians. 7 Wilson, â€Å"Introduction†, p. 12. Wilson adapted the equation from Hedley Bull, â€Å"The Twenty Crisis Thirty Years On†, International Journal, Issue 24, Vol. 4 (1969), p. 627-8. E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis: 1919-1939. New York: Harper: (1946) 1964. pp. 11-21. 8 Brian C. Schmidt. â€Å"Lessons from the Past: reassessing the Interwar Disciplinary History of International Relations†. International Studies Quarterly (1998) 42. p 452 9 Andreas Osiander, â€Å"Rereading Early Twentieth Century IR theory: Idealism Revisited†, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Sep.,1998). p. 417 10 Paul Rich, â€Å"Alfred Zimmern’s Catious Idealism: the League of Nations, International Education, and the Commonwealth†. Thinkers of the Twenty Years’ Crisis: Inter-war idealism reassessed. p.88; Peter Wilson, â€Å"Carr and his Early Crtics: responses to the Twenty Years’ Crisis†. Michael Cox (ed). E. H. Carr: A critical appraisal. New York: Palgrave: 2000. p. 167. 11 J. D. Miller. â€Å"Norman Angell and Rationality in International Relations†. Thinkers of the Twenty Years’ Crisis: Inter-war idealism reassessed. pp. 116, 119. 12 Alfred Zimmern, Learning and Leadership: a study of the needs and possibilities of international intellectual co-operation. London: Oxford University Press: 1928. p. 10; p. 82. 13 Carr, â€Å"Public Opinion as a Safeguard of Peace† pp. 857-858. 14 Norman Angell, Peace and the Public Mind. June 12, 1935. http://www.nobel.se/cgi-bin/print. March 24, 2004. 15 E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis. pp. 132-133; pp. 67-75 16 Norman Angell Peace and the Public Mind. para. 19 17 quoted in E. H. Carr, The Twenty Years Crisis. p 24. 18 Ibid. p. 26; p. 41 19 The line of reasoning here is tied to the idea of an international game theory, which due to practical constraints cannot be covered here. The argument is made in line with Robert Jervis theory on international behaviour in his â€Å"Cooperation Under Security Dilemma† World Politics. Vol. 30, No. 2 (Jan, 1978), pp.167-214. 20 Stephen van Evera, â€Å"Why co-operation failed in 1914†. World Politics, Vol. 38. No. 1 (Oct, 1985). p. 81 21 Christian Reus-Smit, â€Å"The Strange Death of Liberal International Theory†. European Journal of International Law. Vol. 12. No. 3. pp. 578-9. 22 J. D. Miller. Norman Angell and the Futility of War: Peace and the public mind. London: Macmillian: 1986. pp/ 124-125. 23 Norman Angell. Peace and the Public mind. para. 17 24 Norman Angell. Europe’s Optical Illusion. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent , 1909(?)24-40; The Great Illusion:A study of the relation of military power to national advantage. London: William Heinemann 1913. pp. 26-40. 25 Andreas Osiander, â€Å"Rereading Early Twentieth Century IR theory† p. 417 26 Alfred Zimmern, Learning and Leadership. p. 11. 27 Alfred Zimmern, â€Å"The Problem with Collective Security† (ed) Q. Wright. Neutrality and Collective Security. Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 1936. p. 8. 28 Ibid. 29 E. H. Carr, â€Å"Public Opinion as a Safeguard of Peace†. p. 854. 30 E. H. Carr. The Twenty Years Crisis. pp. 208-223 31 Alfred Zimmern Learning and Leadership. p. 22 32 Norman Angell, The Great Illusion. 1913. pp. 200-221. 33 Alfred Zimmern, â€Å"The Decline of International Standards†International Affiars (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1931-1939). Vol 17. No. 1 (Jan.-Feb. 1938), p. 21. 34 Norman Angell, The Great Illusion. P. 327 35 Norman Angell, â€Å"Popular Education and International Affairs† International Affairs (Royal Institute of International affairs 1931-1939) Vol. 11, No. 3 (May 1932), p. 323 36 Ibid, p 335-338, 338 37 Alfred Zimmern Learning and Leadership. p. 26-60 38 E. H. Carr. What is History? New York , St. Martin’s Press , 1961 p 190 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid p. 195. Propaganda is associated with the emotive and not with reason. 41 E. H. Carr. â€Å"Public Opinion as a Safeguard of Peace†. p. 861.

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