Role of Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility Assignment

Role of Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility - Assignment Example Ethics can be defined as the study of moral which is appropriate for taking decisions after judging the plan of action. The two concepts are linked with each other for most of the firms. It is observed that in today’s competitive world, sustainable development is required in every organisation for its successful operation. It also leads to the enhancement of quality of products and services that they offer to their customers (Aybars and Kutlu, â€Å"Managing corporate performance†). Corporate responsibility can be regarded as the degree to which an organization complies with rules and legal guidelines which is made for the betterment of society (Nicolau, â€Å"Corporate social responsibility†). The contemporary business practices often identify noteworthy levels of understanding between the good and responsible corporate practices. In today’s world, the stakeholders and shareholders, who have understood the importance of CSR, is focusing on incorporating b usiness activities within the societal norms, which leads to good management practices. CSR has been regarded as the technique which assists an organization in evaluating the business activities and its effect on the environment and society through transparent and ethical decision making. World Business Council for sustainable development has stated that CSR approach can be defined as method of attaining sustainable development by contributing to the society. The different CSR activities include health and safety, corporate governance and ethics, environmental stewardship, human rights and sustainable development. It, thus, focuses on the features like, societal and community involvement, corporate philanthropy, development and investment, customer satisfaction, employee volunteering, anti-corruption... The assignment highlights the theory of Corporate Social Responsibility and its impact on the community and modern society. The researcher also elaborates the importance of ethics in leading a business organisation in a proper manner today. The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility, that is described in the assignment helps in revenue generation for a particular organisation in an ethical way. It also contributes positively to the society and environment. The assignment presented by the researcher also depicts the role of Corporate Social Responsibility practices in contemporary organisational practices. It can be concluded though that business ethics and corporate social responsibility have immense importance in development of an organisation. Without following the two fundamental concepts that are mentioned in the assignment, an organisation will not be successful in the long run and can even face challenges. Corporate social responsibility has become the best part of sustaina ble development program. For long-term sustenance, the organisation has to take into account the shareholder’s interest, environment and society as a whole. Ethics elaborates the correct and incorrect behaviour of any human being, which can affect the operation of an organisation and also, lead to disturb the entire society. Therefore, the researcher concluds the discussion and states that ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility both are required for organisational effectiveness for corporations and to run a peaceful business.

Child Life During the American Revolution Essay Example for Free

Child Life During the American Revolution Essay During the American Revolution, children were not a big involvement in it, but, they were still active during it. Well, during this time, there was not really a good schools system for children. Boys were usually out working a job or going to school. They did most of the money work out of all the children. Also, while the boys were working, the girls were at home learning proper etiquette from their mother or a house slave. Girls were taught to be very lady-like during all hours. It was very rare to see a girls go to school getting a proper education. Lastly, some of the older boys were out fighting in the Revolutionary War. Boys would do war work at a young age back then. One thing that boys did during the American Revolution is go to school and get jobs. Their type of school system during the American Revolution was not like our school system today. In the late 1700s weren’t as structured, settled, and complicated. At the schools the boys went to they learn mostly about Christianity and how to read and write. Boys went to grammar school and college. There was a public school that was free for education and then there was a private school that you have to pay. People in the Middle Class and Upper Class were usually the only class of people that attended school. Back then, school wasn’t mandatory. If a boy wasn’t in school he would usually be working. It was usually a low paying job because money was limited during the American Revolution. There are very few jobs that a boy (not a man) can get during the American Revolution. One of the only jobs a boy could get is a place in the war. As in, they’d be participating in the Revolutionary War. One thing that girls did during the American Revolution is staying at home learning proper etiquette. They’d usually learn this from their mother. If they were in a household where slaves were treated respectably and knew how to read and write, (for example, how Miss Mary Finch treated Isabel and her family in the book Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson) then sometimes an elderly house slave would teach her while her mom is gone. Sometimes when a family doesn’t own a slave they stay home and clean, usually. It was very rare for a girl to have a proper education in this period of time. Girls were not allowed in in grammar school or college, but most girls still knew how to read and write. I a girl waned to have an education whatsoever she would have to attend a homeschooled education. Homeschooled girls were not educated at the same level the boys that went to school were. The girls were taught religion too, but, hey were only taught simple math and simple English. They weren’t really taught anything complicated. Lastly, a common job that a boy would get during the American Revolution is going into the Revolutionary War. Though most of the men fighting in the war were from the ages 8 to 50 or 60, there were boys that were 12 at the youngest. The actually had a pretty important job in the war. Most of the 12, 13, and 14 year olds were â€Å"drummer boys†. The drummer boys made â€Å"field music† for the soldiers. The drums were an important means of conveying orders to the soldiers on the battlefield. Some children were â€Å"powder monkeys†. â€Å"Powder moneys† are the people whose job was to run and carry powder charges from the lower ship below the waterline to the gun crews shooting the cannons during the battles. The older kids (about 15 or 16) went out to sea as midshipmen. A midshipman is a navel cadet. As you can see, children weren’t handed that many opportunities during this period of time. There weren’t children out playing with their friends, going to the movies, etc. They were very limited to what they could do. Boys could, really, only go to school or get a job. Girls just stayed home and rarely go a proper education. Also, boys could join he war. The child life during the American Revolution was very limited.

Holens Breakdown :: essays papers

Holens Breakdown â€Å"This fall I think you’re riding for- it’s a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit the bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement’s designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn’t supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started.† Holden Caulfield’s fall to psychological breakdown begins with his brother Allie’s death. To Holden, Allie represents everything that was good in this world. When Allie is first described, Holden only says great things about him. â€Å"You’d have liked him... He was terrifically intelegent... He was the nicest (member of the family).† Therefore when Allie dies, the good things in his world disappears. After this first major event, Holden gradually realizes that he is powerless to change the evil and corrupt world that he lives in. Holden is looking for something that his own environment couldn’t supply him, the only thing that he ever liked, Allie. â€Å"Just because somebody’s dead, you don’t just stop liking them, for God’s sake- especially if they were about a thousand times nicer than the people you know that’re alive and all.† Another early event in Holden’s life is the death of James Castle. Holden sees himself as James in many ways. James would not take back what he said about a conceited boy, and jumped out of the window before he would do something that he did not believe in. Holden is the same in many ways. He refuses to accept the fact that the world is evil, and does everything in his power to change it. â€Å"The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature one is that humbly for one.† Another similarity between them both is that James was wearing Holden’s sweater when he fell out of the window. As he saw James lying on the ground, Holden sees a part of himself die with him. The part that dies is the part that believes in the goodness of people and the world. Holden’s tendency to get kicked out of schools is both a reason and effect of

Astron 2b03

Astronomy / Origins 2B03 Practice Midterm Questions 1. Our solar system is located in the a) Milky Way's galactic halo b) Milky Way's central bulge c) Milky Way's galactic disk d) space between the Milky Way and its neighbouring galaxies e) none of the above 2. What happens when you shine a laser beam horizontally across a room? ) the light would be deflected upwards slightly b) the presence of the gravitational field makes the light move slightly faster c) light travels a perfectly straight path d) the path of the light is curved downward very slightly e) none of the above 3. The terrestrial planets are a) Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars b) Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune c) Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto d) Venus, Earth, and Mars e) none of the above combinations 4. From lowest energy to highest energy, which of the following correctly orders the different categories of electromagnetic radiation? a) gamma rays, X rays, visible light, ultraviolet, infrared, radio b) visible light, infrared, X rays, ultraviolet, gamma rays, radio c) radio, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X rays, gamma rays d) infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X rays, gamma rays, radio e) radio, X rays, visible light, ultraviolet, infrared, gamma rays 5. Evidence of the expansion of the universe is shown by a) the Einstein Cross b) the 4. billion year age of the Earth c) the abundances of the elements in stars d) the redshifts of distant galaxies e) time dilation 6. Suppose we look at two distant galaxies: Galaxy 1 is twice as far away as Galaxy 2. In that case, a) Galaxy 1 must be twice as big as Galaxy 2 b) we are seeing Galaxy 1 as it looked at an earlier time in the history of the universe than Galaxy 2 c) we are seeing Galaxy 1 as it looked at a later time in the his tory of the universe than Galaxy 2 d) Galaxy 2 must be twice as old as Galaxy 1. ) none of the above 7. A black hole and a normal star have the same mass. They each have an Earth-sized planet orbiting them at the same distance as the Earth is from the Sun. a) the black hole pulls harder on its planet than the normal star does b) the two planets feel identical pulls c) the normal star pulls harder on its planet than the black hole does d) the planet is sucked into the black hole e) none of the above statements are correct 8. Which of the following is not part of the official International Astronomical Union definition of a planet? A planet †¦ a) is close to round in shape b) is a satellite c) is in orbit around the Sun d) has â€Å"cleared the neighbourhood† around its orbit e) none of the above 9. We can determine the distance to a galaxy that contains Cepheid variable stars by using a) the period-colour relation b) the mass-luminosity relation c) the mass-radius relation d) the period-luminosity relation e) none of the above 10. Ann sees Bob travel by her in a very fast spaceship a) Ann observes Bob’s clock to be running slowly and Bob observes Ann’s clock to be running slowly b) Ann observes Bob’s clock to be running slowly and Bob observes Ann’s clock to be running fast c) Ann observes Bob’s clock to be running fast and Bob observes Ann’s clock to be running slowly d) Ann observes Bob’s clock to be running fast and Bob observes Ann’s clock to be running fast e) something else 11. Which space time diagram(s) violate special relativity? a) ii b) ii and iv c) iv and v d) i and iii e) iii and v

Clearwater Technologies

Clear Water Technologies : A Case Study QTX is a sales support server that allows multiple users to simultaneously maintain their sales account databases. These databases covers contact information, quote histories, copies of all communications, and links to the customer's corporate database for shipping records. The basic QTX package consists of a processor, chassis, hard drive, and network interface, with a manufacturing cost of $500. The package provided simultaneous access for 10 users to the system, referred to as 10 â€Å"seats. Each seat represented one accessing employee. The product line consisted of 10-, 20-, and 30-seat capacity QTX servers. Each incremental 10 seats required $200 of additional manufacturing cost. Yearly sales were at the rate of 4,000 units across all sizes. In initial sales, approximately 30 percent of customers bought the 30-seat unit, 40 percent bought the 20-seat unit, and 30 percent bought the 10-seat unit. Customers who needed more than 30 seats ty pically went to competitors servicing the medium-to-large company market segment.Clearwater set a per-seat manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) that decreased with higher quantity seat purchases, reflecting the customer perception of declining manufacturing cost per seat. Clearwater also saw this as advantageous because it encouraged customers to maximize their initial seat purchase. Clearwater typically sold its products through value-added resellers (VARs). A VAR was typically a small local firm that provided sales and support to end users.The value added by these resellers was that they provided a complete solution to the end user/customer from a single point of purchase and had multiple information technology products available from various vendors. Using VARs reduced Clearwater's sales and service expense significantly and increased its market coverage. These intermediaries operated in several steps. First, the VAR combined the QTX from Clearwater with database software from other suppliers to form a turnkey customer solution.Second, the VAR loaded the software with customer-specific information and linked it to the customer's existing sales history databases. Finally, the VAR installed the product at the customer's site and trained the customer on its use. Clearwater sold the QTX to resellers at a 50 percent discount from the MSRP, allowing the VARs to sell to the end user at or below the MSRP. The discount allowed the VARs room to negotiate with the customer and still achieve a profit. The Upgrade Initially, the expectation had been that the 30-seat unit would be the largest volume seller.In order to gain economies of scale in manufacturing, reduce inventory configurations, and reduce engineering design and testing expense to a single assembly, Clearwater decided to manufacture only the 30-seat server with the appropriate number of seats â€Å"enabled† for the buyer. Clearwater was effectively â€Å"giving away† extra memory and ab sorbing the higher cost rather than manufacturing the various sizes. If a customer wanted a 10-seat server, the company shipped a 30-seat capable unit, with only the requested 10 seats enabled through software configuration.The proposed upgrade was, in reality, allowing customers to access capability already built into the product. Clearwater knew that many original customers were ready to use the additional capacity in the QTX. Some customers had added seats by buying a second box, but because the original product contained the capability to expand by accessing the disabled seats, Clearwater saw an opportunity to expand the product line and increase sales to a captive customer base. Customers could double or triple their seat capacity by purchasing either a 10- or a 20-seat upgrade and getting an access code to enable the additional number of seats.No other competitor offered the possibility of an upgrade. To gain additional seats from the competitor, the customer purchased and ins talled an additional box. Because customers performed a significant amount of acceptance testing, which they would have to repeat before switching brands, the likelihood of changing brands to add capacity was low. The objective of this morning's meeting was to set the price for the two upgrades. As QTX product manager Rob Erickson stopped to collect his most recent notes from his desk, he reflected: What a way to start the week.Every time we have one of these meetings, senior management only looks at margins. I spent the whole weekend cranking numbers and I'm going in there using the highest margin we've got today. How can anybody say that's too low? He grabbed his notes, calculator, and coffee and headed down the hall. From the other wing of the building, financial analyst Hillary Hanson was crossing the lobby towards the conference room. She was thinking about the conversation she had late Number MSRP to VAR Unit Unit of Seats End User Price Cost* Margin** 10 $8,000 $4,000 $500 87 . 5% 20 $14,000 $7,000 $700 90. 0% 30 $17,250 $8,625 $900 89. % TABLE 1 *Unit cost reflects additional $200 for memory capability for each additional 10 seats. **Margin _ VAR Price _ Unit Cost VAR Price Number Original Original Actual Actual of Seats Unit Cost Unit Margin Unit Cost Unit Margin 10 $500 87. 5% $900 77. 5% 20 $700 90. 0% $900 87. 1% 30 $900 89. 6% $900 89. 6% TABLE 2 Friday afternoon with her boss, Alicia Fisher, Clearwater's CFO. They had been discussing this upcoming meeting and Alicia had given Hillary very clear instructions. I want you to go in and argue for the highest price possible. We should absolutely maximize the profitability on the upgrade.The customers are already committed to us and they have no alternative for an upgrade but with us. The switching costs to change at this point are too high since they've already been trained in our system and software. Let's go for it. Besides, we really need to show some serious revenue generation for the year-end repor t to the stockholders. Hillary had not actually finalized a number. She figured she could see what the others proposed and then argue for a significant premium over that. She had the CFO's backing so she could keep pushing for more. From the parking lot, Brian James, the district sales manager, headed for the rear entrance.He, too, was thinking about the upcoming meeting and anticipating a long morning. I wish marketing would realize that when they come up with some grandiose number for a new product, sales takes the hit in the field. It's a killer to have to explain to customers that they have to pay big bucks for something that's essentially built in. It's gonna be even tougher to justify on this upgrade. At least with the QTX, we have something the buyer can see. It's hardware. With the upgrade, there isn't even a physical product. We're just giving customers a code to access the capability that's already built into the machine.Telling customers that they have to pay several thou sand dollars never makes you popular. If you think about it, that's a lot of money for an access code, but you won't hear me say that out loud. Maybe I can get them to agree to something reasonable this time. I spent the weekend working this one out, and I think my logic is pretty solid. Price Proposals Once everyone was settled in the conference room, Rob spoke first: I know we have to come up with prices for both the 10-seat and 20-seat upgrades, but to keep things manageable, let's discuss the 20-seat price first.Once that number is set, the 10-seat price should be simple. Because the margin on the 30-seat unit is the highest in the line, I think we should use that as the basis to the price for the upgrade. He went to a whiteboard to show an example: If a customer is upgrading from a 10-seat unit to a 30-seat unit, they are adding two steps of capacity costing $200 each to us, or $400. $400 /1-0. 90 _ $4,000 to the reseller, and $8,000 to the end user. We keep the margin structur e in place at the highest point in the line. The customer gets additional capacity, and we keep our margins consistent.He sat down feeling pleased. He had fired the first shot, had been consistent with the existing margin structure, and had rounded up the highest margin point in the line. Brian looked at Rob's calculations and commented: I think that's going to be hard for the customer to see without us giving away information about our margins, and we don't want to do that, since they are pretty aggressive to begin with. However, I think I have solved this one for us. I've finally come up with a simple, fair solution to pricing the upgrade that works for us and the customers. He walked over to a whiteboard and grabbed a marker:If we assume an existing 10-seat customer has decided to upgrade to 30-seat capability, we should charge that customer the difference between what the buyer has already paid and the price of the new capacity. So . . . New 30-seat unit $17,250 Original 10-seat unit $8,000 Price for 20-seat upgrade $9,250 It's consistent with our current pricing for the QTX. It's fair to the customer. It's easy for the customer to understand and it still makes wads of money for us. It also is easy for the customer to see that we're being good to them. If they bought a 20-seat box in addition to the 10-seat box they already have, it would be costing them more.He wrote: New 20-seat unit $14,000 A new unit provides customers with redundancy by having two boxes, which they might want in the event of product failure, but the cost is pretty stiff. Upgrading becomes the logical and affordable option. Hillary looked at the numbers and knew just what she was going to do. That all looks very logical, but I don't see that either of you has the company's best interests at heart. Brian, you just want a simple sale that your sales people and the customers will buy into, and Rob, you are charging even less than Brian. We need to consider the revenue issue as well.These people have already bought from us; are trained on our hardware and software and don't want to have to repeat the process with someone else. It would take too long. They've got no desire to make a change and that means we've got them. The sky is really the limit on how much we can charge them because they have no real alternative. We should take this opportunity to really go for the gold, say $15,000 or even $20,000. We can and should be as aggressive as possible. All three continued to argue the relative merits of their pricing positions, without notable success.Jefferies listened to each of them and after they finished, he turned to a clean whiteboard and took the marker. I've done some more thinking on this. In order to meet the needs of all three departments, there are three very important points that the price structure for these upgrades must accomplish: 1. The pricing for the upgrades shouldn't undercut the existing pricing for the 30-seat QTX. 2. We want to motivate our buye rs to purchase the maximum number of seats at the initial purchase. A dollar now is better than a potential dollar later. We never know for sure that they will make that second purchase.If we don't do this right, we're going to encourage customers to reduce their initial purchase. They'll figure they can add capacity whenever, so why buy it if they don't need it. That would kill upfront sales of the QTX. 3. We don't want to leave any revenue on the table when buyers decide to buy more capacity. They are already committed to us and our technology and we should capitalize on that, without totally ripping them off. Therefore, while Hillary says â€Å"the sky's the limit,† I think there is a limit and we need to determine what it is and how close we can come to it.If we assume that those are the objectives, none of the prices you've put together thus far answers all three of those criteria. Some come close, but each one fails. See if you can put your heads together and come to a consensus price that satisfies all three objectives. OK? Heads nodded and with that, Jefferies left the conference room. The three remaining occupants looked at one another. Brian got up to wipe the previous numbers off the whiteboards and said: OK, one more time. If our numbers don't work, why not and what is the right price for the 20-seat upgrade?

Gunpowder essays

Gunpowder essays The Renaissance was a time of ingenuity and innovation. A time of new beginnings and inventions which would change our history forever. This was the period of time that gave individuals the freedom to create and invent new things never before seen or done. In the following paragraphs you will read about gunpowder, how it was created and its uses in the renaissance time. A weapon of power and strength that was all put into one, that changed our history forever and molded our modern weapons of today. Gunpowder, the word tells us only the beginning of the story, which follows in its path. Not many can truly say they know everything about gunpowder, but some can say they know enough. Also known as black powder, gunpowder served as a tool to express beautiful lights in the night sky. Soon to be known as the invention of fire works, the creators were non- other than the Chinese. The Chinese were to have said to make gunpowder in 1040. After being invaded by Mongol hordes they also invented the first exploding arrow (the rocket). Made with a bamboo shoot, which was filled with gunpowder and iron shards, proved to be a superior weapon that could easily injure or kill a bunched up group of horseback riders. Soon the Koreans built the first cannon as well as the first iron turtle boat and the first to use cannons on a boat. These cannons used gunpowder that was similar to the Chinese and the cannons them selves were a great advancement in history. The cannon, later to be known as artillery, was first used in the years between 1280-1340. The word cannon was first used in a Florentine document which dates back to 1326. The word cannon derives from the Latin canna, meaning reed, an obvious reference to the tubular constructions of such devices at the time. Not until 1327 would King Edward III of England use the cannon in his invasion of Scotland. This campaign gave us a rough description of an ear ...

Sierra Leone Politicians Redefining Purpose Essays

Sierra Leone Politicians Redefining Purpose Essays Sierra Leone Politicians Redefining Purpose Essay Sierra Leone Politicians Redefining Purpose Essay It sounds easy. The dictionary defines something â€Å"purposeful† simply as â€Å"full of meaning†. Yet, expressing our politicians purpose, as popular as it should be in other countries, is in reality not that simple. There are many things we see as having meaning that may be we can’t define the most popular politician(s) in Sierra Leone as of purpose. Or maybe because we have never tried to define our politicians’ purpose towards our country and the people in the hopes that they would just come to us suddenly. Is the purpose of our politicians about corporate responsibility?Well.. No. We want our country and communities to endure and thrive, but that cannot happen if the economic system is not thriving. Is the purpose of our politicians about doing well in Sierra Leone? Well.No. we may agree that majority of our politicians in Sierra Leone do not share the same definition of what it means to do good, and most of them do not feel that theirgood work makes a difference in the country. Is the purpose of our politicians about uniformity and consistency? Well..No. Our past and current government does not believe that we are most effective as a country when our values, goals and strategies align.But diverse perspectives have proven to help us innovate, excel and become more creative. One thing we can be sure about: purpose can be powerful, palatable and even tangible if we understand its true meaning on a multitude of levels – individual, collective, systemic – and how to activate it in a unified manner. Being a good political leader with purpose means being a good listener, great at your own work, able to look after, motivate and train others, tactful, decisive when it’s important and being able to judge circumstances and react proactively.So far our past and current politicians in Sierra Leone are lacking these qualities. Hence they continue to inflict their manmade poverty in the lives of our people, whilst

Your Guide through the Receptionist Interview Maze

Your Guide through the Receptionist Interview Maze Are you on the hunt for the perfect receptionist position? Finding the ultra-competitive job search jungle a bit daunting? Best-Job-Interview.com helps you catapult to the front of the interview pack with an inside look at the sort of questions you can expect on the big day.Your potential next boss will want to know if you have the experience to hit the ground running and start making his or her office run smoothly and efficiently from day one. Expect to hear the following questions: â€Å"What were your primary responsibilities?,† â€Å"How many calls did you take on an average day in your last job?,† â€Å"What sort of people did you interact with on a daily basis?,† and â€Å"What sort of inquiries did you have to handle?†They’ll also want to know if your receptionist skills are top notch, so be ready for the following sorts of questions as well: â€Å"What are the most important skills for a receptionist?† and â€Å"What computer skills do you have?†Great receptionists can always think fast on their feet, multi-task like champs, and come up with effective strategies for handling any situation. Therefore, expect interview questions designed to task your on-the-job behavior and ability to think fast when it’s needed: â€Å"Tell me about a recent situation where you had to handle a difficult customer?,† â€Å"Describe how you organize your tasks for the day?,† â€Å"Tell me about a tough problem you had to sort out recently,† and â€Å"Can you give me an example of where you used your initiative in your previous job?†Beyond a great receptionist background and stellar skills, potential employers will want to know if they’re hiring someone with a motivated and positive work attitude and ethic. After all, receptionists are typically the face of the organizations they work for and have to work with every department and person in the office. Be prepared to hear the following questions on the day of your interview: â€Å"Why do you want to work as a receptionist for this company?† and â€Å"What do you like and dislike about working as a receptionist?†Now that you know the sort of questions you should expect when you’re on an interview you should invest some time leveraging your experience and skill set to craft the perfect responses to dazzle potential employers. Forewarned is forearmed!

New Product Management Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

New Product Management - Case Study Example BlackBerry, other than regular mobile telephone function, simultaneously supports various additional functions like web surfing/browsing, internet based fax, text messaging and e-mailing. BlackBerry works on the wireless data networks of cellular phone service providers and an ordinary mobile phone user will be able to utilise its entire functions by simply buying and switching on it. Originally BlackBerry devices have monochrome displays but soon after successful launch of this model we plan to market next models with color displays. In addition to Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) functions, BlackBerry has its own built in 'thumb-enabled' keyboard for easy operation and use. Our BlackBerry is also able to send emails, messages and data to the users using other devices. It also has an ability to send and receive emails to and from computers of any user types. We have also added a track wheel to scroll and click while using. Our aim is that cell phone users should not depend on traditional mobile phone devices for communication. Present BlackBerry model 950, uses Intel process 80386 and 16MB RAM in it. Technically BlackBerry offers multi task system that enables it to perform various functions as single function and doesn't compromise on speed and quality. One can send digitally secure messages by using BlackBerry too. Up to our enthusiastic plans and expectations, this device will be very popular in all mobile phone users and specifically among business users. For this purpose we intend to do a complete concept and product testing plan 2-0: Research objectives: Objective of research is as important as research itself is. Without a focused objective, no good findings can be expected from any type of research. Research objective is to have maximum feedback form selective and targeted customer groups so that enough information which may be needed for any modification would be available to us. Though product has gone through various in house and laboratory tests, but unless we have a solid view about consumers' perception about bb we cannot proceed further. This research enabled us to improve the product before its test marketing. 3-0: What Information is needed Our research includes following questions and we vigilantly tried to find out the answers of these questions by applying Primary Research and conducting Focus Group Discussions: Further points include collection of information about various issues: (1) Should we offer BlackBerry as such or some changes are required If no changes needed, which market is most likely the best appropriate market to target in the beginning Should we offer BlackBerry to all mobile users or only to the business users in the beginning What price should be charged for this high end innovation In which demographic markets we should focus in the beginning 3-1: Our Research

Code Of Silence among police officers Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Code Of Silence among police officers - Essay Example Second, members are expected to observe a certain way of life in which they find emotional identity. Third, the tribe needs an enemy. An enemy provides strong motivation, with emotions going deeply to the level of survival, that keep the tribe in existence. A police officer said to me, "Ninety-eight percent of the people in the world are sorry S.O.B.'s and the two percent that are good are cops." He didn't include anyone above the rank of sergeant in the two percent and only about half of them were included. An extreme statement Yes! A unique attitude No! That officer succinctly stated a common conclusion of a prevalent value system in police-the tribal value system. Ethics in law enforcement has become a popular topic in police literature and courses, and I am glad. Ethical behavior by police is important-more, it is crucial. But I am concerned about the approach taken in the articles I have read and the seminars I have attended. The approach has followed a legal model. Authorities make pronouncements about how officers "shall" or "will" behave and what they "shall not" or "will not" do. The language is in the imperative voice with an expectation that officers will follow these ethical imperatives because they have been officially stated. The motivation for following is similar to obeying the law (Morrison 2001). Laws must be obeyed and ethical principles should be heeded, but the two are not the same. The legal model assumes that there is only one system of values, the authority based system, and that assumption is false. Notice the change in wording from "ethics" to "values". The two are not the same, but they can't be separated. People's ethics reflect their values. There are several value systems by which people decide right and wrong, and the authority value system is only one means by which people build ethics. Each system exists in all people at varying degrees in different circumstances and times in their lives. For example, one system may predominate at home and another at work. Likewise, the values most affecting a rookie are not the same as the predominant values in an officer of ten years. The concept of values emphasizes a living process through which people come to their ethical conclusions. The things important to people change throughout their lives, and as a result, their ethical understandings change. The legal model of ethics assumes a static authority value system in all officers in all phases of their careers and is weak because officers do in fact change. Authoritative pronouncements will not and cannot determine the ethical standards and behavior of officers. If the current dialogue in ethics is going to have any real effect, we must deal with the realities of police-who they are and where they live. I want to focus on the tribal value system-the one that allows an officer to believe that almost all people are bad, as expressed in the first sentence. This system dominates in almost all officers at some point in their careers. Keep in mind that very few people are aware of different value systems in them vying for dominance. They are just aware of struggling with right and wrong without being able to articulate the process going on in them (Pinker 1994). The National Institute of Ethics has concluded the most extensive research ever conducted on the police Code of Silence. Between February, 1999 and June, 2000, 3,714 officers and academy recruits from forty-two different states were asked to participate in the

Response and Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 5

Response and Analysis - Essay Example In addition, Margi gets involvement with older girls, who tells her to skip classes, â€Å"If I wanted to be friends with 14-year-olds, I had to do it† (Satrapi, 111) Margi gets into smoking but secretly whenever she and her mother engage in a conflict. An indication to that is, â€Å"With this first cigarette, I kissed my childhood goodbye. Now I was a grownup† (Satrapi, 117). However, Margi’s parents regard her as a young adult by the fact that they agree to send her to a boarding school as an indication of their sense of Margi as a young adult. Her mother informs her that, there is no need to cry, as she is a big girl, â€Å"No tears. You’re a big girl† (Satrapi, 152). What is the impact of the revolution both positive and negative? Women in Iran have the obligation to follow tradition and rules at disposal for them. This substantially includes the dressing code that is to be into practice by all girls and women in general. For example, wearing of yoga pants is not in permission under any circumstance as it brings about distraction to young men. Women can regain their rights if only they agree to face those rules by rebelling with all energy at their disposal. Educating individuals on the importance of women to wear, as they like would be essential in correcting evil thoughts from the public. However, wearing miniskirts for girls or women was not in accordance with the laws "Look at her! Last year she was wearing a miniskirt, showing off her beefy thighs to the whole neighborhood. Now madame is wearing a chador. It suits her better, I guess" (Satrapi 75). During 1980 a rule of wearing a veil at all time so as to avoid distracting boys and look descent. "Then came 1980: the year it became obligatory to wear the veil at school." (Satrapi 3) .it is through educating men that can enable women to regain their rights as wearing is a choice that each woman should enjoy. What is the role of women as seen in the

HRM - exam preparation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

HRM - exam preparation - Essay Example How much of remuneration is to be paid (the absolute level) is important to the extent that it takes care of a person’s minimum needs. Fixing of a minimum wage by an employer or company, or legislating on minimum wages by the Government, therefore focuses on ‘how much’. This ‘how much’ depends on physical variables (what is needed to keep body and soul together) and cultural variables (what is perceived as ‘necessary’) (Here we may refer to the first two levels of Maslow’s Theory of the Hierarchy of Needs — taking care of the physiological and safety needs. Beyond the level of the minimum wage to be paid, equity and fairness should play an important part in determining wages (the relative levels). Further, equity should be ensured without having to sacrifice the other objectives mentioned. Equity and fairness considerations in pay fixation take care of the social and esteem needs (Maslow) of an employee. Both internal and external equity principles (relative fairness of wages of workers in the same organisation, and outside the organisation) should be kept in mind while fixing pay. Rewards (compensation) are of two kinds — direct and indirect. The direct reward is the salary; and indirect rewards are the benefits or perquisites (perks) that an employee gets. Benefits include company provided house, car, medical facilities, company paid holidays, company sponsored study courses and training and so on. Equity or fairness between one employee and another can be maintained by adjusting both the direct or indirect benefits. 1- Modification of input or output to match pay. A person who is underpaid would reduce work effort; a person who is overpaid may work more sincerely and for longer hours without further compensation. A worker may attempt to change the input/ output of others, by asking them to work/not work harder. 2- Workers may adjust

The Creation of the NAIOS Regional Organization Assignment

The Creation of the NAIOS Regional Organization - Assignment Example NAIOS is governed by five principles organs. The general assembly is the highest organ in the hierarchy. It is comprised of all the eight heads of states and an ex-official whose role is to chair assembly meetings and also acts as the head of the organization (United Nations, 2013). The ex –official is given the title of a secretary general. In this case, he or she is a non-partisan person elected by the eight members of states. The general assembly is in charge of forming commissions and committees that manage the affairs of the organization for instance peace keeping, financial control and planning as well as resource management. Second in the hierarchy is the Security Council. This arm is made up of a centralized defense force that is in charge of security in the whole region (United Nations, 2013). The council provides universal military support to countries with no defensive force such as Aldor. It also protects the region against pirates who plan to invade the harbors an d help in the control of the use of nuclear weapons by Rantania and Zwanen. The third organ is Economic and Social council. The council is made up of cabinet ministers from all the eight countries that are in charge of social and economic prospects in the region. In fourth place is the secretariat. This organ is headed by the secretary General. It acts as the center of activity in the organization (United Nations, 2013). In this case, it is involved in conflict resolution over resources for instance the conflict between Rantania and Aldonia over the Gok Harbor. NAIOS has control over political, financial, project planning and trade issues in the Eastern Africa region. The fifth organ is the international court of justice which is in charge of international prosecution and law control in the region. Its major role is to hear cases of conflict between member states. Regional history has made it hard for the organization to conduct a regional election. This is as a result of the

HRM and leadership 1 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

HRM and leadership 1 - Essay Example The company employees many workers, in 2012, it was estimated that he company had about 81,223 employees worldwide. The company’s revenue stands at ?9,934.3 billion, the operating income for the factory also stands at ?746.5 million with a profit of ?489.6 million (Kluwer 2006, p.52). Under the management, the company’s chairperson is Robert Swannell and the CEO is Marc Bolland, with over one thousand stores around the world. It will be appreciated the company has a daunting task to ensure that the employees are recruited in the best ways and that they select top of the list candidates, despite the diverse political, economic, and social factors. The company has endeavoured to ensure that maintain their niche in the market and that their customers remains happy with their services as well as the management of the company (Kluwer 2006, p.71). The human resource department in the company is therefore keen in ensuring that the policies of the company are met and that their esteem customers are also given the best of services. This is part of what has made the company to grow and became an international company with overwhelming customers all over the world. ... r to achieve this, the company should be creative and innovative o how they relate with the employees, they should establish a system that is open, flexible, and caring, this will enable the employees to feel that they are part of the management and they would tend to take responsibility, this is particularly important for the company. When the employees are contented with the work place, they tend to be more productive and the only way to ensure that they become productive is to ensure that their well-being is catered for in the workplace. Good HRM practices are essential in leading a department to achieve their objectives and for productivity enhancement. Marks and Spence is one of the international companies that have adopted several unique HRM practice in order to realize productivity through employee’s motivation. The practices that are offered by M&S are responsible for the company’s employee’s contention with their work place and are not always shopping fo r the next company for engagement. The company has organized a strong sense of HRM practices that unlike other companies that will be experiencing transit of employees, M&S do not experience such movement given the nature of the environment they have created for their employees. When employees are not contented with the working place because of poor HRM practices, it will be rare to find employees growing together with an organization as is the case with M&S. Below are some of the practice that have been employed M&S in order to come up with a highly motivated and productive team Work Environment One of the most important aspect for motivating employees that M&S has been working on since is the type of environment that there employees operates in. they realized that employees needs a safe and a happy

The Creation of the NAIOS Regional Organization Assignment

The Creation of the NAIOS Regional Organization - Assignment Example NAIOS is governed by five principles organs. The general assembly is the highest organ in the hierarchy. It is comprised of all the eight heads of states and an ex-official whose role is to chair assembly meetings and also acts as the head of the organization (United Nations, 2013). The ex –official is given the title of a secretary general. In this case, he or she is a non-partisan person elected by the eight members of states. The general assembly is in charge of forming commissions and committees that manage the affairs of the organization for instance peace keeping, financial control and planning as well as resource management. Second in the hierarchy is the Security Council. This arm is made up of a centralized defense force that is in charge of security in the whole region (United Nations, 2013). The council provides universal military support to countries with no defensive force such as Aldor. It also protects the region against pirates who plan to invade the harbors an d help in the control of the use of nuclear weapons by Rantania and Zwanen. The third organ is Economic and Social council. The council is made up of cabinet ministers from all the eight countries that are in charge of social and economic prospects in the region. In fourth place is the secretariat. This organ is headed by the secretary General. It acts as the center of activity in the organization (United Nations, 2013). In this case, it is involved in conflict resolution over resources for instance the conflict between Rantania and Aldonia over the Gok Harbor. NAIOS has control over political, financial, project planning and trade issues in the Eastern Africa region. The fifth organ is the international court of justice which is in charge of international prosecution and law control in the region. Its major role is to hear cases of conflict between member states. Regional history has made it hard for the organization to conduct a regional election. This is as a result of the

Disclousuer requirments in securities regulation between Saudi Arabia Research Paper - 1

Disclousuer requirments in securities regulation between Saudi Arabia and united States (compareson) - Research Paper Example Disclosures imply that public should be informed of any investment decisions, while the undermining of this confidence leads to the collapse of the securities market harming national economy for a very long period of time. Saudi Arabia is considered to be one of the largest developing stock markets in the world. Nowadays it shows increasing demands for various investments in corporate securities. While in 2006, Saudi Arabia securities market was regarded as the market which suffered from the lack of transparency and disclosure credibility less than average due to the economic crisis happened in this state. Great part of the investors received no compensation for the caused damages and had no any practical possibility to protect their rights with respect to the securities rights. Thus, some scholars define the current legislation of Saudi Arabia on the securities law and its disclosure as existing in place, but not functional in practice. Despite this fact, some states share the views that Saudi Arabia is one of the countries that has relatively strong disclosure requirements. This country is able to ensure investor’s protection during exercising of business transactions. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to describe the disclosure requirements applicable to the securities in Saudi Arabia and it comparison with the strong securities market conditions prevailing within the USA market. In Saudi Arabia, some principles applicable to the issuers of securities exist. Hence, issuers that offer securities through public offer are always subject to disclosure requirements involving shareholder voting decisions and equal treatment to each other. In any case, the body governing the issue of securities requires submission of the reports on the disclosure of significant amount of shareholders of the companies. At the same time, Saudi Arabia implements main

Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy Essay Example for Free

Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy Essay In October 24, 1999, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN approved the implementation of a legitimate policy that addresses the relationship between registrars of domain names where individuals may register domain names, and the clients who register themselves for a domain name under the registrars. The registrars or endorsers of domain names include domain names ending in . com, . org. , . edu, . net, etc. Registrars also include those who operate under â€Å"country-code top-level† types of domains. The â€Å"country-code top-level† types of domains include domain names ending in . au, . nu, . tv, etc. The purpose of ICANN’s espousal of the policy on Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution is to set up permissible rules and guidelines that shall be embodied in a contract or settlement, called the Registration Agreement, concerning the registered client to a domain name and other parties. The policy also ensures that clients who register under a domain name shall be accountable to the declarations agreed upon between the registrar and the client, as embodied within the Registration Agreement. Therefore, the act of registering under a domain name does not end with the registration itself. Clients who own domain names should be knowledgeable about the laws and regulations that are embodied in the Registration Agreement and implement them as long as the said domain name exists. When a client registers or renews a domain under the registrars of a domain name, he certifies the correctness and preciseness of the declarations written in the contract and settlement, that the client’s registration for a domain name under the registrar does not contravene with the rights of other factions, that the domain name under which the client is registered shall not be used for illegitimate functions, and shall not go against the recognized rules and guidelines for the use of the domain. These are the rules, which clients should be informed about upon registration. Moreover, unlawful functions that the registered domain name commits should be the responsibility of the client to detect or identify. Perhaps, examples of these unlawful functions or violations include those that violate copyrights or right of ownership, or those sites that promote the same themes or ideas as that with other registered domain names or, etc. It is the responsibility of the client to monitor subscribers or online users of the particular domain in order to determine if the domain name is being used unlawfully. For instance, subscribers of a domain name registered to a client, should also be warned and informed of legal clauses that fulfill their use or subscription under the domain name. At the same time, the client himself should be able to stray away from utilizing the domain name that offends other concerned parties. The registrar for domain names reserves the right to revoke or modify registration of clients under circumstances wherein the client informs the registrar to discontinue his registration under the particular domain name, a law-implementing body or a directorial panel informs the registrar to discontinue the registration of a client under the particular domain name, and with regards to the Registration Agreement, such as the expiration of the registration, domain names subject to renewal, etc. If the domain name registered under a client is found out to be operating illegally and implementing directives that are against the settlement, the client should be able to provide a mandatory administrative proceeding. This particular proceeding shall be handled by a body of service providers, which are in charge of the resolution of administrative disputes or arguments. The client shall be subject to provide a mandatory administrative proceeding under several reasons, such as the domain name be linked to another copyrighted trademark. Overall, this particular policy protects the rights of owners of trademarks or marks that are related to service. In order to resolve the dispute between the client who registered under a domain name and the owner of a copyrighted trademark, revocation of registration of the relocation of the domain name to the owner of a copyrighted trademark who espoused the complaint shall be implemented. Works Cited ICANN. â€Å"Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. † 15 Feb. 2002. Retrieved from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers 16 Apr. 2008 http://www. icann. org/udrp/udrp-policy-24oct99. htm.

Impact of Exile on the Frankfurt School’s Theory

Impact of Exile on the Frankfurt School’s Theory GERMAN JEWS: INTELLIGETNSIA IN EXILE The atrocities of the Second World War (WWII) drove many of continental Europe’s Jewish intellectual elite to the United States and Great Britain. The Axis persecution not only targeted ethnic groups, but also persecuted an array of intellectuals and political thinkers. Among these was the political and philosophical institution known as The Frankfurt School (TFS). Some of its most influential members included Austrian-born art historian Ernst Gombrich (1909-2001), Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979), Theodor Adorno (1903-1969), Max Horkheimer (1895-1973) and Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), all of whom were at one point influenced by both political and intellectual persecution. Their European experience was affected by their Jewish identities as well as their respective theories of aesthetics and their affinity for a reformed system of Marxist thought. Unfortunately for the noted thinkers, their alienating experiences in exile did not stop after leaving Europe. As a proponent of Marxism and aspects of Communist thought, TFS’ encounters with elements of America’s notorious Red Scare had profound effects on the development of its work. Despite the inherently American institution of Ford’s mass assembly and naturally Communist implications of the American working class’ ideals, the bourgeois-idealism of TFS found it could not escape questions of its motives and widespread suspicions perpetuated throughout the American political environment. Spurred on by the relentless political witch-hunts of the Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin), scholars of the Frankfurt school found themselves perpetually marginalized throughout their lives. While ostracized intellectually for espousing Communist theory and rhetoric, TFS scholars were not limited to political systems. Gombrich and others followed paths similar to aesthetic thinker Michel Foucault in arenas ranging from art and music to popular culture at large. The experiences of TFS thinkers differed in this respect, with some challenged directly upon their arrival to the US. Others found that while they may not have been singled out in McCarthyism’s irreconcilable political aggression, their experiences in exile shared common traits ranging from the nonchalant acceptance of existentialist thought to the mobilization of Marxist revolutionary rhetoric. Unable to settle in any intellectual sphere, the constant alienation of TFS scholars weighed heavily on their philosophical conclusions, arguably cementing the unique characteristics of its thought. The political unrest and unconscionable harassment TFS thinkers encountered played as big a role in the development of its thought as religion played in the formulaic structure of a priori philosophy vis-à  -vis Kant and Rawls. Without their experiences in exile and resettlement in America and Britain, it is argued that their indirect sponsorship of Marxist thought would never have taken form. The particularly noteworthy traits of TFS scholarship are the irrevocable feelings of nostalgia and longing and perhaps the inevitable rebellion of those who simply could not accept intellectual ostracizing. Whether rejected by Heidegger or pursued by McCarthy, TFS found itself constantly in defense of its positions, its scholars either accepting of the situation or flagrantly unapologetic in their stance. Through identification of each key scholar’s beliefs and comparing shared experiences in exile, revelations of the weight of exile on the establishment of TFS schools of thought are clarified as well as the extent to which each scholar may have based his respective epistemological conclusions on sen timent rather than idealism. The German-Jewish experience, after all, was unique among Communist experiences throughout Europe and the United States. On one hand, Communists were persecuted both in the United States and Europe. On the other, the Jewish experience in Europe, especially that of the bourgeois, added a personal degree to marginalization. Europe had no propensity of goodwill towards Jews, but the American predilection to personal liberty found little room for acceptance in regards to Communism, especially in the years after WWII and the gradual Soviet ascension to the status of superpower. THE EXPERIENCE OF GERMAN JEWS IN CONSTANT EXILE: A LOOK AT AMERICAN TFS SCHOLARS Herbert Marcuse A student of German philosopher Martin Heidegger, Marcuse found himself at odds with society from the natal stage of his academic career. Marcuse found himself at odds in the forming of his epistemological stance; Feenberg believes this struggle is the product of â€Å"his own past, his complicated relationship to the doctrine of his teacher, Heidegger†[1]. Academically blocked as a German Jew, Marcuse would later find opposition in his career as a proponent of Communism; the two traits were hardly welcomed in German academic circles in the years preceding the rise of the Nazis. Even Heidegger hampered Marcuse’s development, the notorious Nazi supporter blocking publication of his student’s thesis in the infamous purge of dissenting ideas. Where Marcuse was remembered for being â€Å"guru of the New Left, the darling of 1968,† Heidegger is most known for having â€Å"betrayed his calling by becoming a Nazi and recognizing Hitler as his Fuhrer, never renou ncing his error publicly even after WWII†[2]. Marcuse differed from Heidegger’s nationalist positions as well as from his mentor’s stance on technology and social evolution. Marcuse believed technology had a profound effect on society, which in turn became a part of modern technology â€Å"not only as the men who invent and attend to machinery but also as the social groups which direct its application and utilization†[3]. To an extent, Heidegger’s avoidance of technology in regards to social evolution had much to do with the classical revolutionary stance Marxism upheld. The radical changes implicated in technological advancement, especially in the development of the wholly-efficient industrial ideology of Henry Ford, presented several philosophic and social implications, none of which could be tolerated in a society in constant intellectual upheaval. While Heidegger’s writings exuded a sense of existential realism in regards to technology and what he perceived as the end of human aesthetics and reason, Marcuse accepted modernity as part of an the ongoing Enlightenment, deviating from a priori traditions and accepting, for example, that concepts such as essence â€Å"can neither be based on tradition and community standards nor speculatively derived in an a priori metaphysics†[4]. In regards to his Marxist contemporaries, one of Marcuse’s shared traits with his other TFS scholars was his attempt to â€Å"combine critique and modernism in a revolutionary perspective†[5]. Perhaps the source of nationalistic suspicion, the revolutionary undertones of Marxist philosophy earned Marcuse the enmity of Germans and Americans alike, the extent of which will be later examined. A utopian thinker, Marcuse conceived â€Å"of a redeemed technological rationality in a liberated society, much as Plato,† imagining â€Å"a reformed rhetoric that would serve good ends†[6]. While Heidegger and other German nationalists believed in a utopia, their idealism was served by future ethnic cleansing and a politically-derived eschewing of Soviet-style Communism. â€Å"Safely checked after the mid-1930s,† Heidegger’s suppressed utopian impulses were a form of supplication to a regime that would not stand for intellectual deviance; also affected by the bleak reality of exile and intellectual persecution, TFS scholars Adorno and Horkheimer in turn â€Å"seemed to have lost not hope but even the capacity to imagine a better future†[7]. Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer Early in Adorno’s career, when he â€Å"started his study of philosophy in Frankfurt with Hans Cornelius, he was already complete outside the Neo-Kantian mainstream of the scholastic philosophy of that time that Cornelius himself represented†[8]. A priori epistemology was a staple of pre-war Germany for the ability to manipulate morals based on a code of law. Adorno’s anarchic themes and then-unconventional thinking added to his academic ostracism. In contrast, as the â€Å"son of an undertaker from Stuttgart, Horkheimer was no scholastic philosopher either, but he did stand closer to the traditional style of German philosophy than did Adorno†[9]. While a proponent of Marxism, Horkheimer often examined the nature of existing concepts rather than venturing into the realm of revolutionary action. In his â€Å"On the Problem of Truth,† Horkheimer wrote of the temporal nature of reality and truth, perhaps a reactionary piece to the propaganda and book-b urning espoused by the Nazis in 1938. Horkheimer placed a great deal of weight on the deviation of the individual from the perspective of the many, writing that â€Å"cognition never has more than limited validity† and that â€Å"every thing and every relation of things changes with time, and thus every judgment as to real situations must lose its truth with time†[10]. Perhaps slightly less existential than Adorno, Horkheimer did not fully discount the bleakness of the reality of his time. Though not outwardly optimistic, Horkheimer was taken aback by the negative light in which Adorno perceived the world around him. A lifelong friend and colleague of Max Horkheimer, Adorno â€Å"had, as Horkheimer once put it, a keen view of the existing world sharpened by hatred, and this coalesced well with the misanthropic inclinations of the Institute’s director who understood himself as its ‘dictator’†[11]. Welcomed almost instantly in to the TFS circle, Adorno was greatly affected by the persecution he encountered as a Jew and an intellectual. His negative views of the world and its people lead him to deviate in focus from the social institutions that would earn TFS infamy in America and Europe. Unlike his contemporary Horkheimer, Adorno was â€Å"not so much interested in social science and research as in music and aesthetic theory†[12]. Adorno’s negative view of the world, nationalist or not, had a profound effect on his writings and the development of his beliefs. His disdain of modernity and realism lead him to adopt surrealist views reminiscent of aestheticians such as Hume, not unlike fellow TFS scholar Walter Benjamin. Feenberg noted that: â€Å"From the point of view of an aesthetic modernism, Adorno made a sinister and radical critique of all non-aesthetic modernity. Here he was close to the French surrealists as was his friend Walter Benjamin. The aesthetic idea of freedom from all institutions of a repressive society was very different from a more scientific idea of freedom as controlling and planning this society and its economic anarchy, which was basically Marx’s idea†[13] Unlike Marcuse, who embraced technology fully as a manifestation of social evolution within the framework of the Enlightenment, Adorno acknowledged both the positive and negative potentials of a world philosophically and politically lead by technology. Both he and Horkheimer believed that technics â€Å"by itself can promote authoritarianism as well as liberty, scarcity as well as abundance, the extension as well as the abolition of toil†[14]. Though Marcuse shared several social views in common with Horkheimer and Adorno, he differed from the two in his methods of critiquing the Nazi ascension to power. Unlike Marcuse, Adorno believed technology and social evolution had as much to do with the pre-1938 German nationalistic purge of free thought as did the provincial thought espoused by the Nazi party. For instance, Adorno believed â€Å"National Socialism [to be] a striking example of the ways in which a highly rationalized and mechanized economy with the utmost efficiency in production can operate in the interest of totalitarian oppression and continued scarcity†; the Third Reich was what Adorno referred to as a form of technocracy, the â€Å"technical considerations of imperialistic efficiency and rationality [superseding] the traditional standards of profitability and general welfare†[15]. Despite the advances of technology and the social implications that should have set with society at large, the Nazis a nd their reign was sustained by the historically-familiar force of arms, propaganda, and ironically all the traits associated with Marxist society. In what was strikingly similar to Soviet-style Communism, the Nazis ascended to power on the coattails of â€Å"the intensification of labor, propaganda, the training of youths and workers, the organization of the governmental, industrial, and party bureaucracy—all of which constituted the daily implements of terror† and in doing so, following the lines of â€Å"greatest technological efficiency†[16]. Unlike Adorno and Horkheimer, â€Å"Marcuse followed a different trajectory,† believing â€Å"technology was to be reconstructed around a conception of the good in his terminology around life†[17]. The more pragmatic and academically optimistic of the two TFS colleagues, Horkheimer perceived the negative sociology of knowledge grasping Nazi Germany as a cyclical phenomenon, one that like its â€Å"existentialist counterparts, calls everything into question and criticizes nothing†[18]. Unlike Marcuse, whose philosophy held fewer checks and precautions on the evolution of society, Horkheimer held that â€Å"the growth of antagonisms† of their period was the product of â€Å"disproportionate development of human capacities,† as if to suggest the Nazi ascension was a matter of personality and not â€Å"of the anonymous machinery which does away with the individual†[19]. Horkheimer thus asserted that the negative state of the world leading to his and other German Jews’ experiences had more to do with the hasty elimination of the value of the individual, with the populace conned into fascism by belief in the good of the state over the good of the pe rson. He observed that â€Å"right and wrong are glossed over in like manner,† with â€Å"the average man abstracted from the concepts and assigned an ontological ‘narrow-mindedness’† reminiscent of pre-Enlightenment eras[20]. THE EXPERIENCE OF GERMAN JEWS IN EXILE: TFS SCHOLARS IN EUROPE Walter Benjamin and Ernst Gombrich Adorno believed Walter Benjamin’s â€Å"thinking constituted the antithesis of the existential concept of the person,† that Benjamin â€Å"seemed empirically, despite extreme individuation, hardly to have been a person at all, but rather an arena of movement in which a certain content forced its way, through him, into language†[21]. Benjamin was much more akin to Marcuse in his optimism for technology and its effect on society. Benjamin did not espouse the same existentialist negativity of Adorno and Horkheimer, his philosophy embodying the aspirations of a utopian dedicated to the transformation of society. While still revolutionary in the Marxist sense, Benjamin did not advocate as fully as Adorno the impetus of labor and its inherent connection to the human psyche. However, his focus on aesthetics paralleled his thinking along the lines of Adorno, which prompted an exchange of ideas among the two contemporaries. Where Marcuse focused on technology as a tool to revolutionize the proletariat in keeping with Marxist ideals, Benjamin focused more on art, media, and popular culture’s consumption of the latter. Benjamin was among the first to identify the impact of transforming aesthetics and their ability to change society. Where Benjamin saw a great chance â€Å"for a revolutionary transformation of art by the new technical mass media, Adorno and Horkheimer were much more skeptical,† focusing equally on the negative potential as well as the potential to contribute to the betterment of mankind[22]. Though an advocate of the individual and markedly more optimistic than Horkheimer (and Adorno), Benjamin’s philosophical perspective was one of bleak realism. Constantly pursued, Benjamin allegedly committed suicide while fleeing the Nazi regime of whom he was sharply critical. Never leaving Europe, Benjamin’s obstinate refusal to flee lead to his demise but ironically espoused his bleak outlook on life. Though he had th e means to do so, Benjamin remained in continental Europe at the end of his life, not following in the footsteps of the German Jewish intelligentsia who found refuge in America. Where Gombrich and Benjamin unfortunately differed most as European aestheticians was their end; Gombrich remained in the United Kingdom during the war as in the employ of German broadcast monitoring living to the age of 92. Benjamin, however, would never know acceptance or peace in his life, dying a manifestation of his perspective of man. Ironically, it was Horkheimer and Adorno who emphasized what they believed to be â€Å"the obvious power of the new media in fascist dictatorships† and â€Å"the manipulative potential to impose the will on the leaders to passive and authoritarian masses of people†[23]. Adorno and Horkheimer’s pessimism surpassed whatever bleak outlook Benjamin may have exuded, countering Benjamin’s emphatic support of mass media as equally malignant as beneficial to society. They believed, unlike Benjamin, that the propensity for immobilization of the individual was present â€Å"not only in fascist countries but also in democratic regimes like the USA and in totalitarian or authoritarian socialism such as the Soviet Union under Stalin†[24]. Benjamin most markedly departed from Horkheimer’s views in his take on subjectivity. He exuded a â€Å"refusal to speculate on the role of subjectivity in the critical process in large measure explicable as a reluctance to incorporate idealist philosophical baggage into an exploration of the metaphysical structure of truth, which, as he had been convinced from very early on, was objectively present and objectively discoverable in the phenomena themselves†[25]. Like Adorno and Marcuse, Benjamin’s perception was a marked departure from neo-Kantian phenomenology and a priori-based philosophy. Benjamin’s â€Å"unwillingness to regard contemplative subjectivity as a constitutive in the critical discovery of truth was a philosophical predilection he shared with peers† who â€Å"were engaged in critical receptions of Marx, Nietzsche, and Weber†[26]. Pensky notes that: â€Å"†¦the potential endlessness of the process of subjective speculation might close out for good the receptive capacity whereby the messianic moments of historical experience could disclose themselves in the medium of critical thinking. Subjectivity, which is the medium in which the act of critical redemption takes place, is also the realm of contemplation and poses risk of an abyssal, endless descent into the inner recesses of speculation as bad infinity†[27]. Like Benjamin and Adorno, Ernst Gombrich was an accomplished aesthetician. Quick to make note of the innately negative potential of art, Gombrich claimed in his article â€Å"Art and Propaganda† that the modern age’s â€Å"sinister technique which gradually converts human beings into something like mental robots† rendered art and propaganda sharing â€Å"at least one common frontier†[28]. The exploitation of art’s aesthetic appeal coincides with propaganda; for art and propaganda to be received successfully by the general public, Gombrich argued that sensationalism in one shape or form had to be communicated. Where art had to break boundaries and the norm set by the precedence of the imagination, propaganda had to break boundaries set by the precedence of accepted logic. Gombrich stated plainly that â€Å"aesthetics of bygone days could name rhetoric† as the realm where art and propaganda met[29]. Gombrich believed â€Å"persuasion through t he eye, pictorial propaganda, is far from holding a similar rank in theory, but in practice its possibilities have always been exploited†[30]. THE TFS INTELLECTUAL EXPERIENCE IN AMERICA DURING MCCARTHYISM â€Å"According to information compiled by the various national and international aid committees formed in 1933 to rescue German intellectuals, about 1,200 academics lost their jobs in Germany during that year. This number was to grow by the end of the 1930s to about 1,700, to which another 400 university faculty were added after the annexation of Austria. If the various other academic professionals, doctors, lawyers, and so on, as well as students suspended from the universities are included, the total number comes to about 7,500. If we add writers, artists, and other freelancers, we may safely assume that—not counting family members—about 12,000 intellectuals lost their jobs and were eliminated from Germany’s social and cultural life†[31]. Perhaps more ominous than the volume of intellectuals exiled from Germany was the indication made by the mass-exodus of field-specific academics. Krohn notes that no sooner was the so-called â€Å"Law to Restore the Professional Civil Service† of April 1933 passed than â€Å"over 16 percent of all university faculty were dismissed†[32]. These â€Å"dismissals,† as they were termed, reached new heights, culminating in the forced-departure of â€Å"more than one-quarter of all university teachers†; in retrospect, the loss of â€Å"university faculty through the end of 1938 has been assessed at 39 percent†[33]. The fact that nearly 80 percent of German philosophical intelligentsia was Jewish and estranged on two fronts—ethnicity and intellectual affiliation—only hastened the effective neutralization of dissent inside Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, however, the departure of the German Jews whose beliefs fell outside the auspices of American political favor comprised a majority. TFS scholars comprised a minority of intellectuals whose formerly high-profile status carried over to the United States. Ironically, those â€Å"who had first experienced Hitler’s wrath benefited from their privileged position†; â€Å"the academics he booted out in 1933 were extended assistance and hospitality almost at once by American and British institutions; hence their crossing was comparatively smooth†[34]. Intellectuals who later reached the shores of Britain and the United States well into the war, however, experienced a different welcoming. With Britain under constant attack and the main city centers such as London almost shut down in Nazi bombing campaigns, several lacked the institutional umbrella of academia to transition into their new lands. Without such protection, many such â€Å"intellectuals often supported themselves initially with menial jobs, working as gardeners and dishwashers or, if strong enough, as stevedores and mechanics†[35]. Finding themselves in a state of near-poverty, many intellectuals including professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and en gineers never resumed their academic pursuits. Most notably, the American academic environment at the end of WWII left many German intellectuals to find â€Å"that their specialties did not transport well†[36]. A common assumption in regards to intellectuals in McCarthy-era America is that all were persecuted in the â€Å"Red Scare† that ensued at the beginning of the 1950s. But those intellectuals who were fortunate enough to remain in their fields found themselves in a much more favorable position than those who were struggling to survive in the blue collar marketplace. In comparison to these â€Å"foiled scholars, the most abused academic rested on a flower bed of ease†; â€Å"these unfulfilled à ©migrà ©s remained present in the academics’ lives, as their friends, their relatives, the audiences for their lectures and publications†[37]. This is not to say, however, that the German-Jewish academics in 1950s America did not encounter tribulation in their assimilation to New World society. Contentions such as Marcuse’s support of the Marxist tenet emphasizing labor as â€Å"man’s means of realizing his essence† and an irrevocable aspect of â€Å"man’s nature† were only slightly more welcome in American intellectual circles as they were in pre-war Germany[38]. Suspected by many as agents provocateurs of the Soviet Union, German-Jewish intelligentsia were marginalized further after having fled a land inflamed by similar conditions. Tensions flared following the capture and execution of convicted Communists Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, whose 1953 executions were part and parcel of McCarthy’s fervent vigil for Communists of all sorts. Given Benjamin, Adorno, and Horkheimer’s fears about propaganda, McCarthy-era America was hardly a place to feel welcomed. The isolation felt in America by TFS after fleeing Nazi persecution contributed greatly to the molding of its philosophic rhetoric. Marcuse often wrote of â€Å"the horror of capitalism produced by the type of objectification it fostered,† finding glaring similarities in the death of individuality embodied in the American industrial working class as in the nationalist characteristics of Nazi Germany. Furthermore, TFS scholars were alarmed at the scant modicum of utopian values espoused by a competitive drive set on besting one’s fellow man. Marcuse and others agreed â€Å"with the analysis of alienated labor in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, to which Horkheimer and Adorno rarely referred in their writings†; â€Å"un-alienated labor, Marcuse suggested, implied working with others, not against them†[39]. As capitalism p revented the Marxist ideal of solidarity, TFS scholars perceived it as one more cause against which revolutionary tactics were mandated. Such revolutionary overtones, as one might imagine, were demonized by intellectual circles advocating McCarthyism’s rhetoric. As a corollary, further existential rhetoric pervaded TFS philosophy, the impetus of the constant necessity of revolution alienating themselves from American society simultaneously lending to their own feelings of nostalgia and desire for a sense of belonging. Adorno was among the TFS scholars who never found a place among American academics. Estranged from non-Communist circles, he was among several who found themselves as perpetual intellectual refugees. Brunkhorst claims that â€Å"all in all America remained foreign to Adorno†; during his exile, â€Å"Adorno never gave up the hope of coming back to Europe and Germany†[40]. Like other TFS scholar, Adorno was acclimated to a certain â€Å"distinction† as was the norm among â€Å"the old European educated classes†[41]. America, however, was entering a point of mass industrialization, ironically paralleling pre-war Germany in its focus on the state and the relative muting of intelligentsia in the era. THE DEVELOPMENT OF KEY TFS THEORY Development of key TFS theory evolved through conversation and communication, which were â€Å"among the guiding mottos of contemporary thought†; Dallmayr questions, however, if TFS socio-political perspectives could be â€Å"integrated into a common conversational framework† in a manner â€Å"yielding transparent understanding of all points of view†[42]. It is just as likely that such idioms as Marcuse’s take on technology and Gombrich’s theories of propaganda and truth were formulated on the precepts of an â€Å"unbridgeable gulf† or the â€Å"incommensurability of linguistic and epistemic rules†[43]. TFS theory, Dallmayr contends, was shaped by contact with its a priori counterpart in the Freiburg Institute, comprised of Heidegger and Kantian colleagues. In measuring the extent of exile’s effect on TFS, it is of the utmost importance to examine TFS’ experiences in its indigenous setting, that is to say its experiences in Germany and Europe. According to Dallmayr, â€Å"nowhere are the dilemmas of communication and non-communication more glaringly apparent than in the context of recent German thought† as manifested between TFS and Freiburg; â€Å"to a large extent, contacts between the two schools of thought have been marked either by neglect or indifference or else by polemical hostility and an insistence on incommensurability, often coupled with hegemonial [sic] claims†[44]. It is, after all, equally as possible that as a proponent of revolutionary rhetoric that TFS’ existence was dependent on a measure of exile of the metaphoric type. To a large extent, TFS scholars’ conclusions were drawn within the framework of Marxism, whose fundamental precept is revolution on a large scale. When taken into the context of â€Å"moral indictment† as described by Dallmayr, the experience of TFS in Germany would put into perspective the exchange of ideas espoused by TFS in ex ile and in its natal setting of pre-war Germany. Given the tendency of Marxist ideology and the radicalization of its writings, perhaps even Benjamin’s bleak outlook on life could have been regarded as carrying with it the requisite novelty of individuality; how would any revolutionary school of thought conduct itself if it followed in the footsteps of convention? Adorno, after all, â€Å"maintained a relentless opposition to Heidegger’s work and lavished on it an unending stream of polemical venom, a practice aggravated by personal distance†; Heidegger, on the other hand, â€Å"remained aloof from the Frankfurt School and at one point confessed complete ignorance of Adorno’s writings†[45]. While the personal contingent of Heidegger’s latent support of the Nazi party cannot be dismissed, it also does not dismiss the tone with which Adorno and other TFS thinkers indicted their opposition and the contempt they held for some of their a priori, Kantian contemporaries. Sherratt examines the possibility of Adorno’s â€Å"Positive Dialectic,† in which she purports there is a â€Å"positive† solution to what Adorno and others â€Å"envisaged as the problems of subjectivity and knowledge in enlightenment†[46]. Sherratt examines Adorno’s aesthetic, extricating and examining from Adorno’s work on enlightenment that would have the potential for positive dialectic. Unlike many of his other works, Sherratt finds that following his exile from Germany, Adorno’s epistemological and aesthetic conclusions are indirectly and dialectically positive. She concludes that the â€Å"newer† dialectic was positive in contrast â€Å"with the ‘old’ dialectic, which is already shown as negative†[47]. If Sherratt’s conclusions are of any sch

Portrait of a Lady - From Novel to Film Essay -- Movie Film Essays

Portrait of a Lady - From Novel to Film Jane Campion's most recent film, Portrait of a Lady (1996), offers a distinct departure from her previous work, The Piano (1993), with which some critics have found fault. In her 1998 article, for example, while commending Campion for introducing two characters able to renounce the gender warfare that characterizes Western culture, Diane Long Hoeveler criticizes Campion for celebrating marriage, the idea that women cannot survive without a man at the center of their lives (Hoeveler 110, 114). Second, she asserts that while Campion toys with feminist issues and images, Piano is Aromantic and escapist, with Ada's decision to be reborn with Baines a step hardly worthy of the serious feminist issues that Campion seems to be raising in the film (Hoeveler 114). Finally, she points out that Campion is heavily indebted to a 1920s work, The Story of a New Zealand River by Jane Mander. Partly as a consequence of not acknowledging this debt, the film has conflicting sources, Campion's rat her permissive twentieth century script about adultery, superimposed on Mander's original, in which the Victorian heroine is not united sexually with her lover until after her husband's death. Enacting a basically contemporary drama in anachronistic costumes and setting, Hoeveler says the film contains gaps, ...fissures we sense while viewing it (Hoeveler 114). For example, how likely is it, she asks, that an 1850s heroine would conduct an adulterous affair? In (Re)Visioning the Gothic (1998), Cyndy Hendershot echoes this view, calling Baines, the film's nontraditional male (Harvey Keitel), a deus ex machina, a fairy-tale character, an imaginary resolution to two real problems, on the one hand the castratio... ..., Campion breaks his barrier of reticence about sex, money and behavior and delivers the facts straight. Hardly faithful to him as she is, though, Jane Campion's work is itself made possible by the original master, Henry James. Sources Cited Bluestone, George. Novels Into Film. California UP, 1971. Campion, Jane. The Piano. London: Bloomsbury, 1993. Dapkus, Jeanne R. Sloughing off the Burdens. Film Literature Quarterly 25.3 (1997): 177-187. Giannetti, Louis. Understanding Movies. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1972. Hendershot, Cyndy. (Re)Visioning the Gothic. Film Literature Quarterly 26.2 (1998): 97-108. Hoeveler, Diane Long. Silence, Sex, and Feminism. Film Literature Quarterly 26.2 (1998): 109-116. James, Henry. The Portrait of a Lady. 1881. New York: Random House, 1996. Jones, Laura. The Portrait of a Lady. New York: Penguin, 1996.

Of Mice And Men – Crooks PEE Paragraph

Racism was a strong form of prejudice in the 1930’s, and throughout the novel is violently used against the stable buck Crooks. From his first introduction in the book, he is constantly being described and treated like an animal. In the first description of Crooks’ room in chapter 4, it is referred to as ‘A little shed that leans off the wall of the barn’. This gives the impression that Crooks is not important enough to sleep with the other ranch hands, and must be isolated and separated from them: giving him no other choice but to sleep with the animals: creatures that are on the same level of the hierarchy as him.Also, Crooks’ possessions reflect this image. His bed is described as ‘a long box of straw’ which implies that Crooks isn’t worth his own bed, and must settle for a horse’s trough: something that even a horse doesn’t sleep in, but eats out of. As well as this, most of his other possessions don’t eve n belong directly to him. For example, ‘a broken harness in process of being mended; strips of new leather’ and ’a range of medicine bottles, both for him and the horses.’This shows that even his own room, isn’t fully his own room, and that he has to share it with the horses; suggesting that even the horses are more important than Crooks as even they have the power to invade crooks’ space. It could also mean that all of crooks’ possessions are considered just as worthless as a horses ‘broken harness’. This shows the reader that crooks means no more to the ranch hands than one of the other horses.

Children in Foster Care Essay

Statement: Upon ageing out of the foster care system, foster kids end up either dead, homeless or incarcerated due to lack of independent living skills and lack of knowledge about programs in their communities! Due to many children being so displaced and neglected, it is hard to provide for children because foster homes are overcrowded. Due to lack of financial stability roughly 20,000- 100,00 children in the United States are discharged to live on their own while approximately 1,100 young adults are discharged and left to fend for themselves throughout the country.† Having reached the age, they are presumed to be productive, self reliant and fully self sufficient† (Retrieved January 2, 2013, from www.childrenaidsociety.org). Unfortunately, these young adolescents are looked at as a failure before even given a chance in society due to not growing up under the best circumstances. Already troubled by their childhood experiences of neglect, abandonment and abuse, the vast majority of young people leave the system without knowledge, skills, experience, habits and relationships that can engage them in connective and productive programs within their communities. With this in mind, it also stops them from being connected members of society. According to statistics â€Å"foster children that age out of the system are far more likely to encounter poverty, homelessness, compromised health, unemployment and incarceration† (Retrieved December 29, 2012, from www.angelsfoster.org). Having access to both resources and programs during and aftercare can help alleviate alot of tension that children in the system encounter when trying to maintain and survive on their own. If the United States government help foster care agencies foster more programs and provide adequate funding in the right areas, then foster children would have more knowledge and skills when it comes down to independency. Without any friends, social workers, or dependent foster parents to turn to for help or assistance, these young people are pre dominantly at greater risk of becoming homeless, jobless, incarcerated or dead. According to statistics, young people discharged to themselves in different states have high numbers of poor preparation and independent living skills. â€Å"12-30 percent struggled with homelessness, 40-63 percent did not complete high school, 25-55 percent were unemployed and those employed had earnings far below the poverty line. 31-41 percent were arrested, 18-26 percent were incarcerated 12-18 months after leaving the system† ( Retrieved January 2, 2013 from www.whitehousetaskforceondisadvantagedyouth).

Unification of Spain

Unification of Spain: the Good, the Bad, and the Really Ugly | Alexis Wilson | The Europeans wanted to expand their minds and their wealth with what the â€Å"unknown† world had to â€Å"offer†. When I say offer, I mean what they could take and run with without consequence. The Europeans wanted to â€Å"expose† and â€Å"enlighten† the new world people with their religion. When I say â€Å"expose† and â€Å"enlighten†, I mean force the new world people to convert to Christianity or they would be slowly tortured to death or burned at the stake.Portugal, one of the all mighty Iberian Sates, was in a hard-hitting competition with Spain, another Iberian State. According to the textbook, Portugal was losing manpower and resources needed to control a vast empire of three continents. Spain on the other hand, depleted their newfound wealth on wars and other unnecessary things when they should have been developing their economy (Wallbank et al. 482). Portugal and Spain were battling for greatness, immortality if you will. They would have done anything to get it, even if it meant eradicating peoples and their cultures.Unfortunately, that was exactly what Portugal and Spain did. Spain and Portugal were trading across the â€Å"known† world. Spain exported olive oil, asparagus, conserved fish and more. That was how they received their funds and their power. The Iberian States had a general idea that there were more lands to discover and more money to make. So they set sail to discover and take over anything that were in their way, with their bibles in their pockets and swords in their hands, fueled by the desire of unthinkable wealth and power.According to Juan Pimentel, Portugal and Spain entered the sixteenth century with an advantage in nautical technology and navigation relative to other European nations (20). â€Å"The overseas enterprises of Spain expanded dramatically following the first voyage of Christopher Columbu s in 1492. Even before this historic Atlantic crossing, Spaniards had begun the conquest of the Canary Islands which served as a base and proving ground for the invasion and conquest of Spanish America, known as the Indies† (Andrien 55).Even though Christopher Columbus was not from Spain, he set sail for them because the King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain were the only ones that agreed to fund for the exploration that made Christopher Columbus famous, the exploration that Christopher Columbus dreamed of. â€Å"Spain became strongly centralized under an assertive and aggressive monarchy in 1479, when Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon began a joint rule that united the Iberian Peninsula except for Navarre, Portugal, and Granada† (Wallbank et al 455).Portugal was known as incredible competition relative to Spain. Columbus wanted to prove that he could find a shorter and cheaper way to sail to India and China by taking the unknown west route. While Columbu s was looking for a shorter route to reach the country of India and China, he inadvertently discovered America. Columbus was oblivious to the fact that he â€Å"discovered† America, and he did not reach his intended destination of India. Columbus called the inhabitants â€Å"Indians†. He had his men capture the â€Å"Indians† and made them slaves.When Columbus came to America he came with diseases. The inhabitants did not have a strong enough immune system to fight off, which decimated the inhabitants of America. Even though the people were sick, it is safe to say that Columbus did not show mercy and still made the slaves work so he would be able to bring gold, spices and other new world items he promised to the King and Queen of Spain, in high hopes that they would fund for more explorations . He did not wish to disappoint the very people that invested in him.After â€Å"discovering† the diversity of the Indies, intellectuals of Spain argued over the hum anity and proper social role of the indigenous people they have come to encounter and the offspring of the men that Columbus traveled and the women of the Americas. Intellectuals of Spain struggled with what to call the indigenous people and their illegitimate offspring. They were not sure whether or not to call them â€Å"beasts†, â€Å"barbarians†, or â€Å"brothers† (Andrien 59). Columbus, being the pocketful of sunshine he is, forced the inhabitants to convert to Christianity to ensure that the land was for Spain, all of Spain practiced one religion.If the inhabitants did not agree to convert they severely punished, as mentioned before (Wallbank et al 482 ). The Catholic Majesties were smart to invest in Christopher Columbus. Without his exploration and â€Å"discoveries† of gold, slivers, spices and slaves, they would not have been able to replenish their wealth and rebuild the broken economy. Back in Spain, Isabella and Ferdinand is working on unify ing Spain and sharing the crowns of Castile, Aragon and Spain (â€Å"History of Spain†). Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon planned on making Spain the best it has ever been.They wanted their beloved country to be unified in everything they did, especially in religion. That is where the legendary Spanish Inquisition comes into action. The â€Å"Catholic Majesties†, as the pope titled King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, set out to establish effective royal control in all of Spain. Isabella and Ferdinand started the Spanish Inquisition, for the pope allowed. Not only did they have power over Spain, they had power over the church also. They were able to have power over the church by making it the law for the monarchs of Spain to have power over the church.The Spanish court of inquisition seized the property of many converters (Jews and Muslims who were afraid of the inquisition and avoided persecution) and terrified the Christian clergy and laity into accepting ro yal absolutism as well as religious orthodoxy (Wallbank et al 455). Not only did they force religion on the peoples of the new world, Isabella and Ferdinand forced religion on their own people as well, without mercy may I add. Spanish absolutism, defined by Isabella herself as â€Å"one king, one law, one faith† (Wallbank et al 455).Terrified but still determined to practice their faith, the â€Å"converters† practiced their religion in secret. Without a doubt, the Spanish Inquisition strengthens the Spanish crown. It also caused many people to leave Spain. Inquisitors made sure the King and Queen of Spain knew that people where performing acts of heretic and suggested to the King and Queen of Spain all those who were unwilling to convert to Christianity must leave the country, needless to say they agreed and the Inquisitors went into action and rid the country of Spain of non-converters (Wallbank et al 455).In 1492, the same year Columbus set out to sail to India and China, about 150,000 Spanish Jews left the country and resided in the Netherlands, England, North Africa, and the Ottoman Empire (Wallbank et al 455). About 10 years later same demands are made for the Spanish Muslims. Spain used to be one the most tolerant of religions, but under the rule of the â€Å"Catholic Majesties†, Spain became the most intolerant country when it came to terms of religion (â€Å"History of Spain†). King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella did not stop there. They set out to clear surrounding countries of non-converters and expand their empire even more.One of the most notable successes of the Catholic Majesties was the completion of the Reconquista with the defeat of Granada, the last Muslim state on the Iberian Peninsula in 1492. With a few more defeats of surrounding countries, the unification of the Spanish nation-state was complete in 1516, right before King Ferdinand died, a dozen years after queen Isabella died (Wallbank et al 456). In my opinio n, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella‘s policies did work for them in the long run, in every sense. Do I agree on how they executed their plans for progressing Spain? No, I absolutely do not agree with the Catholic Majesties tactics.But, they reached every goal they set. Their goal was improving Spain and broadening their empire. With Isabella inheriting the crown of Castile and Ferdinand inheriting the crown of Aragon, the couple had a lot of power that made it possible for them fully convert and unify their empire (â€Å"History of Spain†). In the textbook it explains that Ferdinand and Isabella controlled the church, with the grace of the Pope, and they took control of surrounding countries, rid them of non-converting heretics and converted them to Christianity. King Ferdinand fought against the non-converters until his dying breath (Wallbank et al 456).People lost their lives, their homes and the freedoms to express themselves and their religions because the King and Queen wanted to â€Å"unify† their country and empire. They wanted to do what the rulers before them were not be able to do. They were rough and ruthless in a sense to achieve their goals of expanding their country and spreading their religion. They had to be if they wanted their country to be unified and practicing one religion. I guess it is safe to say that they would agree with Machiavelli’s renowned book The Prince. â€Å"It is better to be feared than to be loved†¦the end justifies the means†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ (Machiavelli’s The Prince).Works Cited Andrien, Kenneth J. , Atlantic History: A critical Appraisal. New York. Oxford University Press. 2009. The Spanish Atlantic System. Print History of Spain Historyworld. net. N. p. n. d. History of Spain. Web. 10 Feb. 2013 Pimental, Juan. The Iberian Vision: Science and Empire in the framework of the universal monarchy, 1500-1800. Vol. 15 issue 1. 2000. Wallbank, Walter T, Alastair M. Taylor, Nels M. Bailkey, C lyde J. Lewis, Palmira Brummett. Civilizations Past and Present. Twelfth Edition. Volume 2. Pearson Education 2008. Spain: Ferdinand and Isabella and the Reconquista, The Iberian Age. Print.