Plato or dubois Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Plato or dubois - Essay Example Between the fire and those who are shackle that is behind their backs there runs a walkway at a certain height. Imagine that a low wall has been built the length of the walkway, like the low curtain that puppeteers put up, over which they show their puppets. The images carried before the fire (Griffith, 2003). So now imagine that all along this low wall people are carrying all sorts of things that reach up higher than the wall: statues and other carvings made of stone or wood and many other artifacts that people have made. As you would expect, some are talking to each other as they walk along and some are silent (Griffith, 2003). This clearly opens up to us that these prisoners are viewing shadows of the objects and that what’s they believe in not the really objects. Latter on one of the prisoners is released and what he encounters is the fire whose light hurts his eyes, the same happens when he is dragged out of the cave the sun’s rays do only intensify his pain. This indicates change of environment. He still doesn’t believe in what he sees but with time he adapts and this is a result of gradual interaction with the new environment that he was introduced. He comes to the realisation that all that what he has been seeing during his stay in the cave were mere shadows and the echoes didn’t necessary signify the projection of what the passing shadows were engaging in; actions such as footsteps and the conversations they held as they passed by. Finally the prisoner has come to this realization that the reality is based on frequent and deep exposure to the environment. According to the Allegory of the Cave by Plato this freed man should go back to the cave and shade light that they truly lack; those prisoned in the cave. In today’s life the Allegory of the Cave actually is a true reflection of man’s life, and the way he does carry out himself out in his daily activities. We are very stubborn and don’t want to let in the reality, we do claim that we

A Cause For Concern

A Cause For Concern Subject of language and identity, which leads to the death of a language, if language dies. Language and identity comes under my course, part 1, under language and cultural context. On the 4th of February 2010, while browsing through BBCs website I stumbled upon a captivating and according to me a very sad article. It read last speaker of ancient language of Bo dies in India, Boa sr.s story saddened me, she died at the age of 85 and for almost thirty years she didnt have anyone to converse with in her native language. Imagine not being able to use English for thirty years, you loose the freedom to express in your first language. As a journalist I knew what it meant for the world to loose a language, its disheartening, in essence a piece of history and culture is lost, I believe it is as important to preserve and save a language as it is to save and preserve the environment, but everyone is not aware of the adverse affects language death can cause. As a journalist, I thought of it as my moral responsibility to throw light on language death and its adverse effects. Thus, I wrote this article and decided on publishing it in a newspaper as it would reach a larger gr oup of people and educate them on why they should preserve their native language. Language death Approximately 7000 languages exist in todays world and this number is rapidly dwindling, is it a cause for concern? As globalization spreads around the world, it is natural that smaller communities would like to move out of their seclusion and seek interaction with the rest of the world. The number of languages dying is sorrowful. People naturally tend to shift their language use due to globalization and they leave behind their native language if it is not spoken by a lot of people. Asking them to hold onto a language they do not want anymore and preserve it, just for the sake of linguists and not the community itself, it is a bit too much to ask for, isnt it?But theres actually more to it than what meets the eye. Why fight this? A national geographic study states that every 14 days a language dies. By 2100 more than half of the languages spoken on the earth may disappear, taking away with them a wealth of knowledge on world history, culture and natural environment. Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going. Rita Mae Brown This quote by the American writer Rita Mae Brown gives us an insight into why preserving a language is of importance. A language defines a culture, through the communities who speak it. Every language has words that portray a particular cultural practice or idea, when translated into another language, the precise meaning might not come across. What we essentially lose is cultural heritage. The way of expressing the relationship with nature, with the world, it is also the way in which people express humor, their love, their life; most importantly communicating effectively with family is lost. Languages are living, breathing organisms holding connections that define a culture. When a language dies a culture is lost. Because of the close links language and identity share, if an individual or group thinks of their language as useless, they think of their identity as the same. This could have adverse effects; it could lead to depression, drug abuse and social disruption. And as parents no longer pass on their language to their children the connection between grandparents and children is lost which leads to traditional values not being handed on and theres a vacuum that remains where people for generations realize they have lost something. Many languages are in danger of extinction that have rich oral cultures with stories, songs, and histories passed on from generation to generation, but with no particular written form. Much of what us humans know about nature is encoded in oral languages. For thousands of years now native groups have interacted closely with the natural world and have insightful understanding on local lands, plants, animals, and ecosystems. Many still are not documented by science itself. Therefore studying indigenous languages proves to be beneficial while learning about the environment and conservation. Sanskrit is one such ancient language that is loosing its prominence and its speakers decreasing everyday. It was said to be the mother of all languages. Sanskrit is not practically used and maybe that is one of reasons of its decline but I believe it should be conserved because of the traditional values it possesses and because of its richness in culture. Take for instance Arthashastra, it is an Indian treatise written in Sanskrit which deals with statecraft, economic policy and military strategy it was written all the way back in 4th century BC. These concepts are not new and modern, they have been around for a long time now, if we do not conserve Sanskrit we will loose all of this valuable knowledge and also lose a piece of history. Another such language dying out is Palenquero. Palenquero is thought to the one and only Spanish-based Creole language in Latin America. Fewer than half of the community speaks it. It is spoken in the village of San Basilio De Palenque. Many children and young adults understand the language and pronounce a few phrases, which is a great sign as the village of San Basilio De Palenque is trying to preserve its language and spread it, the villages resilience is commendable. Looking at the village of San Basilio De Palenque other communities whose languages are endangered, should take inspiration and not loose hope in their endeavor to save their language. Why do languages die out though? Throughout history, the languages of powerful groups and imperial countries have spread while the languages of the smaller cultures and groups have become extinct. This happens due to official language policies and also the allure of speaking a highly prestigious global language such as English. These trends explain why a small country like Bolivia would have more of language diversity rather than a big country like the USA. As big languages spread, children whose parents speak a comparatively smaller language tend to grow up learning the more dominant language. Those children may never learn the smaller language, or they may just fail to recall it as it falls out of use. These trends have occurred throughout history, but what is alarming and worrying is the rate at which languages are disappearing, it has significantly accelerated over the recent years. Associations and initiatives such as Enduring voices, Living tongue, and the endangered languages project by Google are trying to preserve language and that is a sign of hope. The organizations that are involved and that have come up with these ideas are national geographic and Google. The death of a language is an indication of a human crisis: the loss of a store of wisdom, the sense of a community being thrown away. As we try to stop global warming and save the environment, we should also try and save our languages, as they are an integral part of our heritage.

Matthew Hopkins - An English Witchfinder :: essays research papers

Matthew Hopkins - An English Witchfinder "Thou must not suffer a witch to live." This single phrase justified the death of thousands of victims throughout Europe and North America. Matthew Hopkins was an English witchfinder who was responsible for the ruthless persecution of scores of alleged witches during the witchcraft mania that swept parts of England under the Puritans. Born in c.1621 Hopkins was a son of a minister and raised in Essex, which had a long tradition persecuting witches. Hopkins studied law and had a variety of careers before he hit upon the idea of establishing his career as a witchfinder in the Essex parish of Manningtree and Mistley around 1644. It must be noted that his timing was brilliant. The Civil War was wreaking havoc on England and creating tension throughout Puritan society. Anyone who suggested a reason for the nation's trouble was going to get a hearing. Hopkins at the age of 24 made his first charge against a one-legged crone called Elizabeth Clarke, claiming she was a member of a coven in the Manningtree area. Clarke was arrested and questioned in Chelmsford. As a result of her "confessions" roughly 31 other women were brought before the Assizes, nineteen of whom were hanged. This was the beginning of Hopkins' "reign of terror." After adopting the self-styled title of Witchfinder-General Hopkins acquired two assistants, John Stearne and Mary Phillips, who searched for the "Devil's Mark" on the accused. Apparently obsessed by his mission to obtain confessions of witchcraft, the three began a tour of the eastern counties of England. To those who questioned his qualifications for such work, pointing out that he had never studied the subject, he replied that his expertise issued "from experience, which though it be meanly esteemed of, yet surest and safest way to judge by." Such was the demand of his services that he made an extraordinary profit from his work considering that the average daily wages of the time was as little as 2.5 pence. Hopkins charged 40 shillings for each investigation that he was asked to undertake and 9 pence for each witch he found. When the proceeding from a single town was over, the bill was usually between  £15 and  £23. In the space of little more than a year Hopkins brought over a hundred women, typically old, poor and unattractive, to the gallows in Essex alone. He extracted his confessions by various means such as `pricking', `swimming', and `watching and waking'.

How to Encourage More People to Donate Their Organs

1) Many of the people who receive organs have self-damaged their own organs such as by drug use or other irresponsible behaviors (eating patterns, sexual activity patterns, etc. ). There are measures taken by the medical community to ensure that they're not engaged in these behaviors while they're waiting for an organ but that doesn't change the history of the behaviors or how the damage was done. 2) Most of the people will have shortened lifespans anyway even if they receive the organ. ) Most of the people who receive organs will experience an array of complications which will reduce their quality of life and impose ongoing, often lifelong, financial costs. 4) The immediate and ongoing costs of transplanting organs is very high and that cost can often be spent better in other ways such as by improving health education and prevention, drug addiction treatment, neonatal care, nutrition, genetic research, artificial tissue research, etc. 5) Because of the high costs involved, organ tra nsplants are sometimes received via a black market in which you have the very rich benefiting and the very poor selling their organs. This discrepancy in access would, to some extent, remain even if everyone were an organ donor. 6) Some people are afraid that less than full efforts might be made to resuscitate them if they are a known organ donor. For example, they're involved in an accident and then after brief efforts are made to resuscitate them they are left to die and their organs harvested even though if someone had tried a little harder they'd be alive. Although this fear is basically unfounded at least in the majority of the developed world, it is not entirely an unreasonable fear and it would have some legitimacy in some parts of the world. ) Many people regard the body as sacred in such a way that we can never be morally obligated to part with any part of it or to receive any part of anothers. In fact some people strengthen this view from â€Å"not obligated† to â€Å"obligated to not†, and there are a range of views in between. This sense of the â€Å"sacredness† of the body need not manifest in any specifically religious way but simply as a visceral repugnance at the thought of disrupting ones ordinary bodily organization even after death. However it may manifest in religious ways as well and is why so many cultures have engaged in ritual entombment, mummification and embalming, and frown upon things like grave-robbing, cremation, etc. The intuition is, more or less, that when you violate the body, even in death, you show a disrespect both for the life of the person whose body it was and for life in general by making us all merely potential commodities for one another. This ties in with point 5. The converse of this comes at the beginning rather than the end of life and involves not the action of selling organs but of selling children and of conceiving children specifically for the purpose of harvesting their organs. These things actually do and have happened and, quite reasonably, they repulse many people. 8) The donater is usually unable to exercise any discretion as to who receives the organ or judge their merit to receive it. 9) The donater is usually totally unaware of the recipient and feels no obligation to them. This lack of felt obligation is, of course, reciprocated. 0) Although, just as with vaccination programs, the costs of donation could be lowered by making it mandatory, this is very unlikely to happen (see 7) and, if it did happen, would be very likely to be abused (see 5). Together these all provide formidable reasons to not donate. Although there may remain some cases to which some of the arguments don't equally apply, such as cornea transplants and skin grafts and transplants for the young and otherwise healthy and donations to those you know, the arguments against many forms of donation and many cases thereof are still weightier than you might think.

Educating Slum Children

There are colours and vibrancies in the world of children. Their activities are full of energies and attract attention of others. The mischiefs, dream world, away from worries are very dear memories of childhood that have lasting impact on one’s life. Such happiness doesn’t play its part for some children. Slum children have to face the life’s hardships during early age. These children are compelled to work and have to struggle for their existence. They are easily manipulated because of their docile nature. The plight of slum children is they are forced to do work i. e. to act as slaves, picked up for domestic help, involved in hazardous work, trafficked and even compelled to be part of illegal transactions. For survival they are put into shameless act such as pornography and prostitution. These tortures at an early age not only affect their mental and physical health but they are even exposed to harmful disease such as HIV AIDS. Slum children appearances are deformed, and are enforced to beg to earn for their survival. Cruelties faced during tender years affect their natural growth and they become indifferent towards life. Government and local bodies are running many programmes to raise the status of such children but its outcomes are very less. There is need to do lot of work. To educate slum children many educational institutions and NGOs have shown interest. These institutes face lot of problems in educating slum children and also to cut down the dropout rates. Present requirement is to not only to make the education interesting but also to give basic skills training required for earning. Right to education is now the basic right, according to Article 29 of Indian Constitution. An education cannot be denied to child on caste or creed basis or due to lack of funds. Studies are done by government organisations and NGOs to know the cause of unwillingness towards education and high dropouts from schools by slum children. The studies show that parent’s ignorance and discouragement towards education, fight to meet their basic ends meet and children helping hand in running the household of lower socio income group act as a catalyst in not joining educational process. These people face discrimination of the society which discourages them to be a part of growth factor of society. Various innovative ideas and creative approach developed by government, NGOs, and educational institutions are streamlined to bring about these slum children as an enterprising people. The meaning of education is not only to make them accustomed to 3 R’s but also to give training in basic skills needed for earning a living. Computer education is also provided to prepare them to stand high with the fierce competition of the world. NGO’s and educational institutions assist the slum children in getting enrolled with nearby government schools and help in giving tuitions to cope up with school work. Schools are even run on wheels i. e. mobile schools to educate slum children in various states â€Å"Education for all† is the movement which is spreading with the help of media to educate deprived children. This has inspired lot of citizens to work for the good cause. Right direction is required to trace the slum children potentials.