Culture

In the September 1999, issue of National Geographic Magazine, there is quite an interesting article that has been written by Carol Beckworth and Angela Fisher. It deals with the Masai Warriors of Kenya, and how their culture recognizes an adolescent male that is becoming a man, or entering manhood. The Masai warriors are a group of semi- nomadic people who live on the border of Kenya and Tanzania. They are a relatively small group, with only about 300,000 people in their culture.

They hunt for their food with spears, they live in small homes made out of cow dung, and their most advanced form of technology seems to be the bark shoes that they wear on their feet. They are fairly quiet, subdued people, and they seem to ignore the changing world around them. Their customs greatly differ from the outside world, and many of them would nowadays be called very inhumane and primitive. But these ways are the only ways that they know. But, unfortunately, it may not always be that way. The Masai culture finds the changing of boy to man to be a very important event in life. It is not something that will just happen on it’s own.

It is not something that takes place over the course of a decade, either. It is a very spiritual ritual that occurs over a four-day period. This event is known as Eunoto. It is a very rigorous, very challenging, and almost an inhumane ceremony. Eunoto involves the slaying of a lion, the skinning of a buffalo, sexual intercourse with prepuburtal and uncircumcised young girls, the erection of a new building for each young man involved, and very often, the hysterical trance of a young man, during which he may attempt to slay himself with a spear. The young man being initiated finally ends the ritual by having his hair cut off by his mother.

This very important event symbolizes the end of the maternal bond between the two. The morals of this culture seem to leave a little something to be desired, however. Marriage, for instance, doesn’t mean quite what it means here (although in some cases, they are more loyal to their spouses there than people are here). A man may be married to more than one wife there, and sex out of wedlock doesn’t appear to be frowned upon there. Many times before the Eunoto is carried out, the young men (18 – 19 years of age) sleep with 9- 11 year old girls. That would be very frowned upon here. But there it’s custom.

And there, the males aren’t circumcised at birth. They do that at the end of the Eunoto. This all sounds very inhumane and I disagree with it all, but I guess it’s tradition, and I can’t change that. Even this age- old ceremony is dying out, however. More and more mothers are sending their children to schools to learn a trade, which they then go and use in another world. The future of the Masai warriors is greatly in danger of becoming extinct. All there hunting is done simply with spears, and new technology will soon wipe away all of these customs and traits. Soon the Masai will no longer be such a unique culture.

This essay aims to examine the importance of the Hip-Hop culture in 21st century society. It will begin with consideration of the history of Hip-Hop, discussing its stylistic adaptations, cultural preferences and concerns, referring to the studies of black culture by Ellis Cashmore and Mark Neal. Within this I will explore the ethnicity and authenticity of the culture, with reference to last years Popular Music and its Cultural Context unit.

The essay will then move on to evaluate the culture’s relationship with the media, concentrating on the well documented moral panics associated with the culture; I will make particular reference to the theories of Stan Cohen. By studying the political and historical patterns of the culture, I endeavour to discover the overall meaning which the culture has for its members and for society. It is primarily important to coin what Hip-Hop is, the dictionary definition describes Hip-Hop as: hip-hop (h p h p ) or hip hop noun. 1.

A popular urban youth culture, closely associated with rap music and with the style and fashions of African-American inner-city residents. 2. Rap music. As a culture Hip-Hop includes four main categories of expression; Mixing, Dancing, Graffiti Art and Rapping, known as MC’ing. Hip-Hop was first recognised in New York around the mid 1970s, considered as a reaction to social movements of the time. In America the 70s and 80s were subject to negative behaviour towards black communities which consisted of Jamaican and Puerto Ricans as well as African-Americans, it was argued that the ruling of Reagan led to this behaviour.

Hip-Hop culture was seen as an escape from the explosion of gang violence throughout the 1970s and 80s, providing black American youths with a space for expression, this freedom of speech led to the spreading of Hip-Hop to other cities where black communities suffered. As Tricia Rose states, It satisfies poor young black people’s profound need to have their territories acknowledged, recognised and celebrated. ‘ (Rose, 1994: p. 11, cited in Neal, 1997: p. 136) The first UK top ten Hip-Hop hit was recorded in 1979 by the Sugar Hill Gang, called Rappers Delight’.

The recognition of this song noted the continuous exchange of musical ideas between black and white. The atmosphere created between black and white musicians from Britain and America was perfect for the sounds of black British musicians to prosper. Even though the spirit of the movement within the 1970s and 80s had waned, early 1990s Hip-Hop continued to undergo negative criticism from governments who believed it was necessary to destroy the progression of the movement. Their core tactic was to incorporate Hip-Hop into the mainstream, believing that it was the authenticity of Hip-Hop which made it popular.

This commercialisation of Hip-Hop lies at the root of many changes to the culture from the early 1990s, primarily the uplifting of Hip-Hop from its communities and artistic agenda to be used as an apparatus for capitalism. Commercial hip-hop has deteriorated what so many MC’s in the 80’s tried to create; a culture of music, dance, creativity, and artistry that would give people not only something to listen to, but also liberty to express themselves and deliver a positive message to their audiences.

The majority of famous Hip-Hop artists adhere to the commercialisation of the culture by creating music that caters for mainstream consumers, they rap about sex, drugs, violence and racism, calling themselves Gangsta Rappers’, they sell an image of toughness but their lyrics lack authenticity and meaning. The sudden sensation of white rappers is solid evidence that Hip-Hop continues to be a rapidly exploding culture, integrating people of all races. Since releasing his debut album Infinite in 1996, Martial Mathers, aka.

Eminem has flooded the Hip-Hop scene with respect from his listeners and music contemporaries, but an amazing amount of negative response from society and the mass media. For Eminem, his controversial and offensive songs strike a chord with a multitude of Hip-Hop loyalists who believe they have little to lose and everything to gain. The global success of Hip-Hop is a tribute to the central role of African-American sounds and styles in the development of 20th Century popular culture, but it is also dependant upon the crossover to a diverse range of audiences worldwide.

Rap has demonstrated its ability to surpass racialised categories of the popular culture industry. Even with the move into the mainstream, Hip-Hop has maintained a distinctive set of cultural priorities. In the majority, Hip-Hop continues to emphasise its blackness’. The connection of ethnicity with authenticity is a matter of cultural pride; Hip-Hop helps to defend against the failing of black culture. Early Hip-Hop was characterised by cross-cultural approval, which is a reflection of the multi-ethnic mix of Ghettos’ and Barrios’.

The politicisation of Hip-Hop during the 1980s put emphasis on Black Nationalism, which reduced the evidence of non-black members. Hip-Hop was increasingly established as a medium for individuals of minority groups in society, it acted as an instrument for social commentary which is well suited to Hip-Hop’s foregrounding of first-person narratives based on personal experiences. The use of race as a political rather than a natural category meant that blackness’ was represented as a metaphorical condition with which other minority groups could identify.

There are many stereotypes and generalisations connected with Hip-Hop culture; the core criticism is that Hip-Hop promotes violence and negativity. Antagonists claim that Hip-Hop is offensive to many groups of people, an analysis which is based on rappers preaching about racial tension and the harsh conditions of living in black communities as the subject of most Hip-Hop songs. Since the commercialisation of Hip-Hop it is the Gangsta Rappers’ who have thrived within popular culture, rapping about sex, drugs, violence and racism.

The stylistic adaptations and cultural preferences of Gangsta Rappers’ never present a complete picture of the traditional Hip-Hop culture, lending to the limitations placed on exposure and explaining stereotypes of rap, leaving violence and sexism as seemingly promoted. Spectacular youth cultures have long occupied an important position in mass media; there is a notion that the media re-interpret sub-cultural fears and desires to emphasise the conflict between forms of youthful representation and the operations of culture industries for the purpose of mainstream society.

Central to the analysis of youth cultures, is an insistence that the mass media are not neutral critics of cultural phenomena, but have the ability to shape and exaggerate the behavioural patterns of the cultures on which they report. Moral Panic is a term first coined by sociologist Stan Cohen, he used it to describe occasions of sensationalised media alarm and he argued that:

A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media, the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnosis and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and becomes more visible. ‘ (Cohen, 1973: p. 9)

So, in these terms distorted media coverage plays an active role in shaping events. An initially trivial event can be amplified, generating phenomena of greater significance and magnitude. The mass media are full of stories of social deviancy, from violence and murder through to a music star getting caught in possession of a gun. These stories are focused on because we like to be reassured that the way we are is normal’. Since the notion of youth cultures first came about in the post-war years, various sections of society’s youth have been singled out by the media as the personification of this deviance.

Organised crime is on the increase in the UK and many argue that much of the so called gang crime’ is inspired by the Hip-Hop culture. Artists such as Snoop Dogg, Niggas With Attitude (NWA) and the late Notorious B. I. G are frequently condemned for advocating the values of violence, intolerance and the idealisation of guns in their music, with some rap stars gaining greater prestige for their personal gun convictions. In the UK, Ashley Wallace, aka.

Asher D of So Solid Crew, was jailed for 18 months in 2002 for the possession of a revolver and live ammunition. The case study of Charlene Ellis and Letisha Shakespeare is a primary example of a media formed moral panic, relating to accusations of Hip-Hop promoting gun crime. Following a dispute at a New Years party in a hairdresser’s salon in Birmingham in the early hours of January 2nd 2003, two teenage girls were shot dead and another two were injured. 18 year old Charlene Ellis and 17 year old Latisha Shakespeare, both died in the attack.

Charlene’s twin sister Sophie, and another 17 year old, Cheryl Shaw were wounded. The four black teenagers were hit by a barrage of bullets when they left the salon. They were considered to be innocent victims of a turf war’ between local gangs. The UK Home Secretary David Blunkett, adopted a familiar line of reasoning in response to the Birmingham events. Blunkett announced that he was appalled by the lyrics in many rap and hip-hop songs and called on the record industry to stop glamourising murder and black-on-black violence.

In a similar vein, Culture Secretary Kim Howells suggested that rap groups, were at least partly to blame for glorifying gun culture and violence. In a logical twist, the argument that the two teenagers killed in Birmingham had been avid fans of rap music was also frequently quoted in the media debates about their killing. The above story is symptomatic of the moral panics involving crime and race. The policing of groups such as Niggas With Attitude and So Solid Crew reflected this increasing tendency to criminalize hip-hop artists, their music and their audiences.

Incidental and minor acts of violence were characterised by the mass media and by society as being socially insupportable; however, this did not impede the interest in Hip-Hop of youths worldwide, in fact the increasing otherness’ of Hip-Hop tempted larger audiences. As Todd Boyd correctly argues: In the past, this popularity would have been a sure sign of accommodation, as the music would have to be compromised in some major way in order to be made mainstream.

Gangsta Rap has come to prominence because of its unwillingness to do so. The music and culture industries have found ways to sell this extreme nonconformity, while many rappers have successfully packaged their mediated range for a mass audience. ‘ (Boyd, 1997: p. 63, cited in Neal, 1999: p. 162) The social and political policing of Hip-Hop incidentally corresponded with the period of abrupt commodification. The increase in popularity of music and radio programs dedicated to Hip-Hop helped the success in mainstreaming the culture.

Through Hip-Hop music videos and airplay of singles, the anti-social behaviour was embraced by youths as a way of resisting society; however, this influence was marked in stylistic adaptations rather than political movement. What made the Hip-Hop industry multi-million dollar was the youth’s consumer spirit, which influenced financial gain through style developments. The mid 1990s noted a huge increase in clothing designers and companies using Hip-Hop artists to market their products, it also saw artists such as Sean Combs (P.

Diddy) and the Wu Tang Clan creating their own clothing lines. The important point that this essay makes is that not only do youth audiences consume the products; they also procure the social status and lifestyle that these products represent. In less than thirty years, the traditions of the Hip-Hop culture have been transformed from a culture influenced by the sufferings of black communities into a multi billion dollar industry which crosses racial and class boundaries. Hip-Hop has transformed racism into a style.

In the future, I believe that the growing popularity of the Hip-Hop culture will continue. The policing of artists and their music are likely to become stricter, with parental advisory placed on increasingly offensive lyrics and with the boost in crime rates associated with Hip-Hop policing will be more specific. However, I do not believe that increased awareness and policing of Hip-Hop will lead to the waning of its popularity, if anything; I think it will continue to add to the novelty of the culture.

Witch doctors, psychics, mediums, spiritualists are but just a few of the many names associated with Shamans. Many of us have heard these names echoed since childhood, but do we really know who these people are? In the United States these people are viewed as outcast; there hasn’t been a need for them in a very long time. Science, and modern technology have exiled the Shaman into the fringe of society. They remain a mystery to most, but beckon the open-minded. The Shaman is a spiritual wayfarer, that hasn’t thrived in the United States since the arrival of the white man, and his conquest of nature.

There are many definitions for shamanism, but few reveal the true nature of the Shaman. In simple terms, the Shaman is a person called upon to serve as a herald for the realm of the dead, but a Shaman is much more. A Shaman is someone who has explored, and gained a great understanding of their inner being. They can tap into the force that flows throughout the world, and manipulate it. A Shaman can alter his conscience so that he may travel to other worlds filled with objects, and various kinds of spirits.

In the spirit realm, a Shaman can gain knowledge in order to help in healing, and other matters at hand. He is a spiritual advisor, and a healer of both physical and mental ailments. A destined Shaman is typically clued in to their destiny by various forms of suffering. The most common clue is an extended illness for which there is no apparent cure. During this time of suffering, the chosen person has dreams, visions, and journeys to the spirit realms, and are usually accompanied by a guild spirit. This spiritual guild commonly informs the ill person of their fate to become a Shaman.

There is usually hesitation on the part of the chosen one, but the suffering breaks down the will of that person. In the end, the destined assumes the role as Shaman, and his suffering diminishes. With the guidance of an elder Shaman, or sometimes just their spirit guild, the new shaman is initiated into their new existence. It is a existence between this earthy realm, and that of the dead. An initiate of Shamanism goes through an significant transformation. As a result of the suffering, and rigorous training, the initiate experiences the death of his ego.

In western psychology, the ego is the part of the psyche which experiences the external world, or reality, through the senses, organizes the thought processes rationally, and governs actions (Webster’s 434). This death is a way of cleansing the Shaman’s psyche, and allowing the id to take over. According to the Webster’s definition, the id is the part of the psyche that is regarded as the reservoir for instinctual drives, the source of psychic energy, and irrational wishing (Webster’s 669). This would make sense because the Shaman taps into the instinctual knowledge, and the psychic energy.

This death is also significant because with this death of the ego all the societal norms that inhibit the powers of the Shaman are gone as well. The Shaman does dwell on the fringes of society because society tends to diminish a shaman’s connection to the life force which is so vital to their power. To be a Shaman requires an awareness of nature that is rarely found in our modern society today. Nature is where a Shaman’s power comes from. A Shaman is immersed in the natural world; avoiding the more “civilized” aspect of society. To be disconnected from nature, is to be disconnected from their source of power.

Modern civilizations have moved away from nature, and have replaced it with science and technology. One of the shortcomings of our society today is that we are so seized by our daily routines that we have lost touch with the simple joys of living on this planet. Instead of sitting outside, and enjoying nature most people in the United States simply watch television. Therefore modern society contradicts the earthly realm of the Shaman. Modern science and technology has an objective; which is to improve, and ultimately defeat nature. Nature is viewed as the enemy.

This is where the contradiction between civilized society, and the Shaman resides. Modern society fears death, and tries to defy it with the help of medical technology. Modern science has created an artificial world which relies little on nature, and more on materialistic vices. In the eyes of a Shaman, modern societies are sick with false harmony. A Shaman turns away from materialism for it seems trite, and inappropriate to them (Kalweit 242). A Shaman is knows death, and is comfortable with it. They would be horrified to walk into a typical hospital in the United States, and see a person being kept alive by machines.

I think it would seem most cruel to a Shaman. Other interesting contradiction is modern society’s fixation on time. Here in the United States we all follow schedules based on time of day, and have obsessions with past, present, and future events. A Shaman, on the other hand, transcends both time, and space; their world is without the concept of continuous time. So it would seems that the Shaman’s world, and that of modern society have very little in common. Although a Shaman could not flourish in modern societies like the United States, there would be lost spirits that could use some guidance.

I believe there are many people living in the United States that have a growing feeling of emptiness. With all the modern conveniences, they still are unhappy, even depressed. I think a Shaman could help some of these people. A Shaman could prescribe the simple, but necessary medicine to heal their sick souls. These people need to feel the connection with nature, and all things. To feel apart of something that they had lost, and to take their place in this unity of life. In the United States today, life can be so overwhelming, and chaotic.

In order to survive in this modern society, we must conform to it’s standards. These standards restrict, and deprive us in many ways. We must work in order to be self sustained, and our reward is money. Most people seem content with this because their goal in life is to be wealthy, and to be wealthy is to have a collection of material possessions. They exist solely in an external world disconnected from a Shaman’s reality, and the unity of all things. The most tragic realities of modern society is the disregard for wildlife. A Shaman shares their world with animals, and their spirits; gains much power from them.

Animal spirits seem to take a very important role in the Shaman’s journeys. Here in the United States, I can’t drive anywhere without seeing a dead animal on the side of the road. They have decreasing refuge because of modern development, and soon they will be driven out of existence just like the Shaman appears to be. After all animals are needed to maintain a balance within the life force. They are apart of us all, and would most likely affect our human psyche in a very negative way if they were to ceased to exist. The Shaman seems to be a relic of past times in most modern societies today.

Representing the primitive past from which modern science, and technology has saved us from. Has it really saved us? I think that science, and technology will most likely be the down fall of humanity. I think we’re all fools if we look at the Shaman, and see just a relic of the past. I look at what a Shaman is, and see a wiseman. Someone who might just be hope for an ailing world. It would be very beneficial for most everyone to experience a little of the Shaman’s world, and to be exposed to a sense of belonging in the life force of nature. Maybe then we could experience true harmony.

For the twelfth grade English curriculum, we had to read and learn about the Arts of the Contact Zone by Mary Louise Pratt. This essay opened up a whole new concept for us. The new term “contact zone” appeared and Pratt defined it as “social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today.

The idea of the contact zone is intended in part to contrast with ideas of community that trigger much of the thinking about language, communication, and culture. According to Pratt, the two distinctive phenomenon of the contact zone are autoethnographic text and transculturation. One of the characteristics of autoethnographic text is that it usually involves some extensive collaborating process by people of different social and intellectual classes.

Writing classes might have some significance with the contact zone because of this group effort process. During this process every marginalized and hidden voice can be heard, not to mention every individual member can learn how to form and negotiate an opinion in the outbreak of all the conflicting opinions of group members of different cultural background. In addition, transculturation is defined as “processes whereby members of subordinated or marginal groups select and invent from materials transmitted by a dominated culture”.

An example would be that they adopt some characteristics of the dominant culture as their own. In order to teach people of subordinated groups to write academic communication, we need to understand their histories and particularly their history of language. It would not be fair or effective to simply teach students from diverse backgrounds how to write in the language of power while ignoring their culture and the fact that there is a language of power.

It is important for writing instructors to teach students from the dominant community why their language is considered “legitimate” and why the dialects or languages of other communities are not. In doing this, the instructor can break down the barrier of the “imagined community. ” If the instructor does not address the issue of power in language, they run the risk of silencing their students who are not from the dominant culture and be responsible for the students that are from the dominant culture.

First of all, the contact zone class can be applied mainly to the extent of developing one’s thoughts and ideas because of its focus on conversation’ or speech. A writing process is much more than just to put what a writer intends to say into words. In addition, Pratt pointed out the utopian quality and abstract idea of the speech community. However, it is also true that in some contexts like academic setting that kind of uniform idea of speech community has functioned well to give necessary order and stability for the development of the community.

In a contact zone classroom, we are encouraged to turn ourselves to the outside world that is full of glitches and conflicts and expand ourselves by confronting all the different cultural perspectives. This is how it relates to the twelfth English curriculum because this is our last year in high school and when we go out to the real world, we need to know how it is. This essay was very educational and basically Pratt was trying to say we need to not go beyond politeness but maintain mutual respect; a systernatic approach to the all-important concept of cultural mediation.

Multiculturalism is a part of any country. There are Jews in Germany, Poles in Ireland, Asians in Canada and so on. I believe multiculturalism is a good idea. It provides a wealth of cultural activities, foods, and different views of life. No one is really a true Canadian besides the native people. We are all part of a vast society we call Canada. In Canada we pride ourselves in being a mosaic, so to speak,unlike the United States where they are a so called melting pot so that if it doesn’t fit they make it fit where as we change to dapt.

The many cultures existing in Canada have created a rich cultural experience. An example is our Heritage Day celebrations where we celebrate our various diversities. Did you know that the most commonly spoken language in Vancouver is Mandarin Chinese and other dialects of Chinese? People may be shocked but it’s true because we are a free country and allow lots of immigrants in. The fact is that we may have to close our doors to immigrants because sooner or later the social system will break down. We will not be egarded as the great free country that accepts so many immigrants.

Although I hope we do not come to this point,I fear it will happen. Language is a part of multiculturalism. Evidence of this can be found in some many cities and towns. You will see signs in English or French and under them, you will see German , Japanese ,Arabic etc.. Other examples of this are newspapers and media productions in varying languages. People that have a choice as to where they want to immigrate to , usually choose Canada because Canada is a great place to live according to U. N. tatistics.

Some people don’t like multiculturalism and form cults, an example of which is the KKK. They are dead set against black people and believe in white supremacy. Such people are injust and completely wrong because everyone is equal in the eyes of the law. I think that we as a world community have to go through some drastic changes in order to cope with the problems of racism, prejudice and stereotyping. We all must learn to be more tolerant and accepting of different peoples and their beliefs. In my corollary I think multiculturalism is a great thing.

Massive black rebellions, constant strikes, gigantic anti-war demonstrations, draft resistance, Cuba, Vietnam, Algeria, a cultural revolution of seven hundred million Chinese, occupations, red power, the rising of women, disobedience and sabotage, communes & marijuana: amongst this chaos, there was a generation of youths looking to set their own standard – to fight against the establishment, which was oppressing them, and leave their mark on history. These kids were known as the hippies.

There were many stereotypes concerning hippies; they were thought of as being pot smoking, freeloading vagabonds, who were trying to save he world. As this small pocket of teenage rebellion rose out of the suburbs, inner cities, and countryside’s, there was a general feeling that the hippies were a product of drugs, and rock music; this generalization could have never been more wrong. The hippie counterculture was more than just a product of drugs and music, but a result of the change that was sweeping the entire western world.

These changes were brought about by various events in both the fifties and the sixties, such as: the end of the “Golden Years” of the fifties, the changing economical state from the fifties to the sixties, the Black Panther Party, women oving into the work force, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy Jr. , the war in Vietnam, the Kent State protest, and finally the Woodstock festival. The electric subcurrent of the fifties was, above all, rock’n’roll, the live wire that linked bedazzled teenagers around the nation, and quickly around the world, into the common enterprise of being young.

Rock was rough, raw, insistent, especially by comparison with the music it replaced; it whooped and groaned, shook, rattled, and rolled. Rock was clamor, the noise of youth submerged by order and prosperity, now frantically clawing their way out. The winds of change began to sweep across America in the late fifties. The political unrest came with fear of thermo-nuclear war and the shadow that had been cast by Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. The civil rights leaders were unhappy with President Eisenhower’s reluctance to use his powers for their cause, in spite of the fact that the nation was becoming more receptive to civil rights reforms.

With black organizations becoming more militant, Eisenhower needed to acknowledge the growing movement, and govern accordingly. World politics were still dominated by the conflict between the capitalist ations, led by the USA, and the Communist countries, led by the USSR. The bonds that were keeping people loyal to their leaders were breaking down. In 1960 there was a major split between Russia and China. The Chinese decided that the Russians were betraying Communism and set off on what they hoped would be the world revolution against capitalism.

During the fifties, the economic situation was in a constant state of growth. The United States were prospering and the government was clinging to the “golden years. ” The rise of the giant corporations had a profound effect on American life. A few hundred corporations controlled much of the nation’s industrial and commercial assets and enjoyed a near monopoly in some areas. The mega corporations dominated the seats of economic and political power. They employed millions of workers, a large percentage of whom populated the suburbs that were growing across the country.

The changing American economy also experienced dramatic shifts in the composition of the work force. Fewer workers went into traditional fields such as manufacturing, agriculture, and mining, and more went into clerical, managerial, professional, and service fields. In 1956, for the first time in the ation’s history, white collar workers outnumbered blue collar ones, “and by the end of the decade blue collar workers constituted only 45 percent of the work force. ” The sexual composition of the work force also changed as more and more women entered the labor market.

The influx of women into the work world that had been accelerated by the Second World War continued in the postwar period. The political groups, and the negative feelings that they harbored towards the present administration, only kindled the flames of revolution. The previous generation was clinging to the “good times” of the fifties, and the youth were ooking for a niche to call their own. With the drastic change in child population after the Second World War, divorce became less taboo. As a result, single mothers were forced into the labor market, and with these jobs came independence.

The 50’s and all its political, and social change, was only the breeding ground for the free thinking generation that was to follow. In America, a group of militant blacks called the “Black Panther Party” had been dubbed “American’s Vietcong. ” They were tired with the roadblocks and discrimination that were plaguing the civil rights leaders, like Dr. Martin Luther King. They decided to get equality by whatever means necessary. Their members had been involved in shoot-outs with the police, which were, by the radical community, dress rehearsals for the coming Armageddon.

The hippie movement was new in the early 60’s, the men only beginning to grow their hair long and some of them still wearing suits, the women as yet uncertain about fitting in. The introduction of the television in the 50’s brought a new information medium to the general public. With television, people became more informed, and developed individual opinions, instead of the bias opinions that ere “spoon fed” to them by newspapers, radio etc.. The youth began to break free of the shackles that were the fifties. They considered their parents conformists , and they wanted a way to break free of the molds cast for them.

As a reaction to the growing violence of the 1960’s, many people turned to the ideals of peace and love. Ironically, many of those who were seen to be in favor of peace – including President John Kennedy, his brother Bobby, the black civil rights leader Martin Luther King, and many unarmed civil rights workers – were themselves murdered. The horrors of the war in Vietnam dramatized what many saw s drift towards destruction, and their reaction was to seek a genuinely peaceful way of life. Across the world, youth took up the slogan “Make Love not War”, and the Love Generation emerged.

Many of these were hippies – people who dropped out of conventional society to take up a lifestyle based on peace, loving relationships and often mystical religions. Many more who were not fully hippies were influenced by their ideas and fashions, especially using the soft drug cannabis and the hallucinogenic drug LSD. “The New Era” referred to Kennedy promising vigorous attempt to manage a world hose old stabilities had broken down. Kennedy received credit for recognizing that international and domestic crises required an active response, even if that response was “mediating, rationalizing, and managerial,” a policy of “aggressive tokenism.

Abroad, the new frontier had the virtue of working towards “political stabilization” with the Russians; it was deeply committed to avoiding nuclear war – although Kennedy showed no interested in general disarmament. Meanwhile Black Americans took President Kennedy at his word and pressed for civil rights against racial discrimination. On 20 May, 1963 , “400 federal arshals (government policemen) had to be sent to Montgomery, Alabama, after a peaceful demonstration by black people had been attacked by a mob of 1500 whites. Local police had refused to act, even though this was the third attack on blacks in a week. “On 21 May, 1963, 100 whites attacked the church where the black leader, Martin Luther King, was preaching.

The demonstrators continued despite this when black Freedom Riders, calling for civil rights for blacks, marched through Alabama and Mississippi to New Orleans. 27 Black freedom Riders were arrested when they arrived in Jackson Mississippi. ” On 12 June 1964, the President Kennedy sent a Civil Rights Bill to Congress, which, if passed, would make equality a legal right. On 28 August, 1964, between 100,000 and 200,000 black people, led by Martin Luther King,” marched in Washington in support of the Civil Rights Bill. But the violence still did not stop.

In September, 1964, a black man was shot dead in Alabama, four blacks were killed when a church in Birmingham, Alabama, was bombed, Medger Evers of the Advancement of Colored People was murdered, and six black children were killed when a house was burnt down. Kennedy had been a controversial President. Many Americans opposed his support for black people, while others were angry at his failure to kick the Communists out of Cuba.

The extreme right wing had threatened to kill him, but no one took these threats seriously. Kennedy had been warned it was a dangerous to drive through the streets of Dallas in an open car. The President felt that he should be able to drive openly anywhere in the country, and few people expected trouble. On 22 November, 1963 as Kennedy drove slowly through crowd-lined streets of Dallas in an open car, together with his wife, Jackie, and Governor Connally of Texas, three or more shots were fired at the car. Kennedy was shot through the throat and head, and Governor Connally was also hit.

The President’s driver immediately raced for the Parkland Hospital, with Jackie Kennedy covered in her husbands blood cradling her husband’s head. With those fatal shots, came the end of “Camelot” as his administration was referred to as. On April 4 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. That night, eighty riots broke out. Federal troops were dispatched into Baltimore, Chicago, Washington, and Wilmington. “Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley, ordered police to hoot to kill arsonists and the main looters. ” The actions by Richard J. Daley, were a sign of respect of King.

Ironically, a year before, Daley was against having King speak in the city of Chicago. King’s following had fallen off in the years leading up to his death. His moment had passed. Since the triumph of his Slema campaign, which climaxed in the 1965 Voting Rights Act, he had turned to the urban poor, but his strategy of nonviolence, national publicity, and coalition-building seemed unavailing. Just a week before his death, his hopes for a non violence march in Memphis, in upport of striking garbage workers, had been dashed by the window-smashing of a few dozen black teenagers.

King had become a hero without a strategy, but a hero he undeniably was at a moment when the larger movement craved heroes and disowned them with equal passion. For liberals, even for many black militants and radicals, he was the last black hope. When he was murdered, it seemed that nonviolence went to the grave with him, and the movement was “free at last” from restraint. There are times when an entire culture takes the shape of a single event, like rows of iron fillings lined up by the force of a magnet. What is assassination, after all, if not the ultimate reminder of the citizen’s helplessness – or even repressed murderousness?

Instantly the killing creates an abrupt contest between Good and Evil, albeit with a wrong ending. With the enlightened establishment’s great men gunned down, a self-proclaimed black revolutionary gunned down, there was an eerie feeling among the common people, a democracy of sudden death. The southern civil rights movement had been deeply bloodied, of course. Dozens of blacks were killed in the urban riots of the North from 1964 on, and, as we have lready seen, the riots of the North inspired the white radicals to start a movement of their own.

These radicals would take the form of the “Hippy. ” In 1954 Vietnam had been divided into the Communist North, under Ho Chi Minh, and capitalist South, under Ngo Dinh Diem, after the Communists had forced the French to abandon Vietnam. Since 1954 a guerrilla force, the National Liberation Front (know as the Vietcong), backed by the North, had been gradually gaining strength. The United States had been sending arms to Diem since 1954, and in 1960 President Kennedy decided to send American military advisors to South Vietnam to train Diem’s army.

Just as the black movement was fighting for equality and civil rights, the hippie movement took on the fight against the drafting of young men to Vietnam. Many protests were staged throughout the 60’s to end the war, especially the “March to End the War in Vietnam” held at the Independence memorial in Washington, 1965. During 1965, the Vietnam War intensified. The USA put more and more effort into it, and the South Vietnamese government’s lack of control became apparent. In August it was estimated that the Vietcong controlled a quarter of the country, he government about half and the rest was not controlled by anyone.

In the Vietcong area, the Communists had taken land from the few rich landowners and given it to the many poor peasants. This obviously made them more popular with the peasants. The south Vietnamese army was now too weak to fight the Communists, and the US decided it would take over the fighting leaving the Vietnamese to defend the land they controlled. The war in Vietnam increased trouble in America. Blacks pointed out that black soldiers in Vietnam suffered unfairly: “10% of the population of the United States was Black, 12. % of the American army was black, 14. 6% of the battle dead was black.

On 23 April 1967, Muhammad Ali called the war “a race war. Black men are being cut up by white men. ” On 28 April 1967, Muhammad refused the call-up to the US army. The World Boxing Association stripped him of his world title, and on 21 June 1967, he was found guilty of avoiding the draft. Muhammad Ali was given a five year jail sentence, and appealed. By the first of August 1967, so many black uprisings had taken place during the Long Hot Summer’ that a map had to be produced to show where they had taken place. 967 had been the year of the hippies, peace and love. 1968 was a year dominated by violence and ideas of revolution and change.

It was the year of New Left – socialists who rejected both capitalism and communism – whose ideas inspired students revolt throughout the world. The New Left argued that violence was caused by capitalism, and the continuing, escalating war in Vietnam, where the most powerful capitalist force was waging war on a small Asian country. As the Students moved to the Left, and the youth movement grew, so did the idea of fighting back against the State. The idea of a single world revolution, grew. On April 30, 1970, President Nixon ordered the “incursion” of Cambodia, with this announcement the students went into action.

By May 4, 1970, a hundred student strikes were in progress across the country. At Kent State University in Ohio, students burned down the ROTC building. On the same day, National Guardsman at Kent State responded to taunts and a few rocks by firing their M-1 rifles into a crowd of students, killing four, wounding nine others. Kent State was a heartland school, far from elite, the very type of campus where Nixons “silent majority” was supposed to be training. After these and many other violent incidents at protests, the intensity of the movement began to dwindle. The great changes that they were fighting for were not coming about.

The protests were not getting any sympathy or support, and greater numbers of hippies left the protests and adopted a “peace and love” side of things. The climax of the hippie movement was in Woodstock, 1969. It was where all of the violence and aggression of protesting was laid aside and the true ambiance of the 60’s was expressed. Woodstock, in June, had been the long-deferred Festival of Life. So said not nly Time and Newsweek but world-weary friends who had navigated the traffic- blocked thruway and felt the new society emerging, half a million strong, stoned and happy on that muddy farm north of New York City.

Both critics and fans concede that Woodstock has become part of the mythology of the 1960s, even if the actual event did not necessarily represent the musical or political taste of most young Americans at the time. Some say it symbolized the freedom and idealism of the 1960s. Critics argue that Woodstock represented much of what was wrong with the 60’s: a glorification of drugs, a loosening of sexual orality and a socially corrosive disrespect for authority.

Whether one is a supporter or a critic, it is undeniable that Woodstock was one of the major climaxes of the hippie movement: a culmination of all of the peace and love ideals in one place. After Woodstock, the movement was on the downswing. One could argue that Woodstock was the grand finale, with the seventies arriving soon after it and there was a general “been there, done that”(interview) mentality which created the seventies, a decade of disco, and doom, never quite living up to the intensity of the sixties. The 1960’s, then, did more than just “swing”.

Many of the values and conventions of the immediate post- war world were called into question, and although many of the questions had not been satisfactorily answered by the end of the decade, society would never be the same again. In conclusion, the hippy culture arose as a result of vast political changes occurring in North America and beyond and not as a result of drugs and music. The drugs and music were a by-product of the hippy culture, but by no means a reason for it’s occurrence. The previous pages cite the more relevant political and social milestones, which, I believe were directly responsible for he evolution of the hippy culture.

These milestones affected everyone, one way or another, either directly or indirectly. They changed the way people thought. You would be hard pressed to find someone over the age of about forty-five who, to this day, cannot remember what they were doing the day Kennedy was shot, and how they were affected by it. The sixties simply evolved; a microcosm of numerous political and social change that swept the then current generation. The hippies were simply reacting to changes in society and, in reacting to these changes, left an indelible mark on the history books of our time.

The definition of culture can defined as, the behaviour patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought especially as expressed in a particular community or period. Culture in anthropology (the scientific study of the origin, culture and development of humans) defines the meaning of culture as the patterns of behavior and thinking that people living in social groups learn, create, and share. Culture distinguishes one human group from others.

A persons culture includes their beliefs, rules of behavior, language, rituals, art, technology, styles of dress, ways of producing and cooking food, religion, and political and economic systems. Culture is the most important concept in anthropology. Anthropologists commonly use the term culture to refer to a society or group in which many or all people live and think in the same ways. Likewise, any group of people who share a common cultureand in particular, common rules of behavior and a basic form of social organizationconstitutes a society.

The characteristics of culture, People are not born with culture; they have to learn it. For instance, people must learn to speak and understand a language and to abide by the rules of a society. In many societies, all people must learn to produce and prepare food and to construct shelters. In other societies, people must learn a skill to earn money, which they then use to provide for themselves. In all human societies, children learn culture from adults.

Anthropologists call this process enculturation, or cultural transmission. People living together in a society share culture. For example, almost all people living in the United States share the English language, dress in similar styles, eat many of the same foods, and celebrate many of the same holidays. Members of a society who share culture often also share some feelings of ethnocentrism, the notion that ones culture is more sensible than or superior to that of other societies.

Ethnocentrism contributes to the integrity of culture because it affirms peoples shared beliefs and values in the face of other, often contradictory, beliefs and values held by people of other cultural backgrounds. At its worst, ethnocentrism has led people to commit ethnocide, the destruction of cultures, and genocide, and the destruction of entire populations. This happened, for example, to Jews living in Nazi Germany in the 1940s.

High culture is a term referring to the “best of breed” (from some elitist viewpoints) cultural products. What falls in this category is defined by the most powerful sections of society, i. e. its social, political, economic and intellectual elite. The opposite of high cultural art forms, such as the opera, historic art, classical music, traditional theatre or literature; popular culture includes many forms of cultural communication including newspapers, television, advertising, comics, pop music, radio, cheap novels, movies, jazz, etc.

In the beginning of the 20th Century, “high art” was the realm of the wealthy and educated classes while popular culture or “low art” was considered commercial entertainment for the lower classes. In the 1950s and 60s the gap between high and low art closed with the rise of Pop Art. Post colonialism This term describes the situation in existence since a majority of countries have achieved their political independence from Britain and other Western European powers such as Spain, France, Portugal, Holland, Belgium and Germany.

Post colonialism describes the cultural, intellectual, political, and literary movement of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries characterized by the representation and analysis of the historical experiences of the victims, individuals and nations, of colonial power. A recent site of postcolonial change in the English-speaking world is the formal overthrowing of the “apartheid” system in South Africa. Post colonialism has transformed our sense of what we are about; and such impressive changes will naturally have important implications on English studies. Multiculturalism

Similar to Post colonialism, multiculturalism has transformed our sense of what society and culture is about. Multiculturalism describes the status of several different ethnic, racial, religious or cultural groups co-existing in harmony in the same society. The existence of multiculturalism in the Western World today has expanded the English literary world, displacing the narrow notions of literature and increasing recognition of non-Western-European genres of writing, oral performance and cultural production for example legends, histories, laws, fables, anecdotes, oratory, song, chant, and song and dance.

Culture itself is a broad term, therefore there are various views on what multicultural can mean. It can describe the existence of a multiracial society, in which case emphasis is placed on people’s physical attributes i. e. Hair texture and skin colour. It can also describe the existence of multiethnic society, where the emphasis is placed more on people’s social organisation or culture rather than physical make-up. Cultural differences of all kinds that exist in society can also describe the term multiculturalism, including differences of class, rank, caste, sexuality, gender, occupation, region, age etc.

Feminist Criticism An approach to literature that seeks to correct what may be regarded as a predominantly male-dominated critical perspective with a feminist perception. Feminist criticism places literature in a social context and uses a broad range of disciplines, including history, sociology, psychology, and linguistics, to provide a perspective sensitive to feminist issues. Feminist criticism is especially concerned with the way gender assumptions, especially about women; operate in the reading and writing of literary texts.

Feminist theories also attempt to understand representation from a woman’s point of view and to explain women’s writing strategies as specific to their social conditions. The feminist literary criticism of today is a direct product of the “women’s movement” in the 1960s. This movement was, in important ways, literary from the start, in the sense that it realised the significance of the images of women spread by literature; and saw it vital to combat them. Postmodernism Postmodernism has influenced theology, art, culture, architecture, society, film, technology, and economics.

Traditional social, art and cultural constructs are discarded and have been reinterpreted in relativistic terms. An example of post-modern thought would be the validation of homosexuality as an equally legitimate sexual expression over and against the Judeo-Christian ethic of heterosexual monogamy. In other words, previously taboo practices and beliefs are given equal validity to traditional values and norms often to the point of displacing the latter. Literary postmodernism has obvious stylistic characteristics. Features include a tendency to be non-traditional and anti-authoritarian, and to oppose the conventional process of meaning.

Post-modern experimental techniques are displayed in such literary forms as the anti novel, concrete poetry, magic realism and Theatre of the Absurd (for example Ibsen’s The Chairs). Post-modern stylistic techniques include the following: self reference, pastiche, intertextuality, eclectic approaches to matter and styles and parody. Modernism Term referring to art, literature, and music of the late 19th and the 20th century, it was a form of protest against the industrialized, militaristic, business-oriented, mechanical and bureaucratic nature of the modern world.

The period of high modernism literary modernism was the 20 years from 1910 to 1930 and some of the literary “high priests” of the movement were T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis, Virginia Woolf, Wallace Stevens and Gertrude Stein. Literary modernism focused on breaking away from rules and conventions, searching for new perspectives and points of view and experimenting in form and style. Some modernists placed emphasis on art for its own sake. The overall results of these shifts were to produce a literature that did seem dedicated to experimentation and innovation.

After its high point, modernism seemed to retreat considerably in the 1930s partly because of the tension generated in the decade of political and economical crisis (eg. the depression). Marxist Criticism The basic Marxist assumption is that those who control a social’s economy also control, or at least influence heavily, its cultural and intellectual products. The Marxist theory of social history initially emerged in the nineteenth century. It was the product of a period of particularly turbulent social change fuelled by new sciences, new technologies and new political institutions.

As Marxist theory has been applied to the understanding of literature, it has provided an often-potent means of assessing the social significance of the literary text. Marxist criticism interprets a literary work as both a reflection and a product of economic conflict between the social classes. Some particular Marxist assumptions about social relations include: * Individuals do not have an existence independent of society. Individuals are creatures of social history. * Society is dynamic, constantly in flux.

Social change results from a dialectic of opposing forces out of which a new synthesis of society is constantly emerging–a new set of social relationships, standards and ideals. History is a record of this dialectic of social forces. * The forces fuelling this social dialectic are essentially economic in nature, and they are dramatized in tensions within and between social classes. These forces set the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in opposition to one another. * All literature is ideological.

That is, all literature reflects the social dialectic of history and directly or indirectly declares an allegiance or hostility to these forces. All literature, then, is polemical. * Good literature is consciously polemical. It is itself a force of change, fostering a dialectical consciousness in readers. The good writer is conscious of the dialectic of social forces reflected in the literary subject and seeks to make the reader aware of the dialectical predicament of society and its member-individuals. Source Dr. Tom Fish with Jennifer Perkins at http://cc. mberlandcollege.

Context refers to the multitude of factors, which shape the meanings of a text within the social framework of its reading. This framework may include particular ideas about the text’s history, but is also powerfully shaped by competing beliefs and practices in the present. Like a yo-yo craze or a catchphrase, texts can last for a long time and then disappear from circulation, perhaps to reappear later in a different form. For any text to be recognisable and readable it must draw upon already established and shared sets of meanings.

As, literate members of a culture, we employ our knowledge of other texts to make sense of what we are reading or hearing. Being aware of the context of a literary piece can help us do this. Discourse This term describes a coherent piece of spoken and/or written language in a specific context. A discourse may be a whole text (for example, a personal letter or an entire conversation), or it may be part of a text that conveys related meanings (for example, several exchanges, within a dialogue, that relate to a single theme). Discourses do not offer neutral descriptions of the world.

They actively shape the world in favour of certain viewpoints. They also compete with each other for control in certain aspects of life. Hence a discourse is a body of knowledge that regulates our understanding of a given aspect of the world. Discourses such as patriarchal, capitalist and colonial invite us to understand the world in a certain way. Ideology Literally, ideology refers to the study of ideas, the collective knowledge, understandings, opinions, values, preconceptions, experiences and/or memories that informs a culture and its individual people.

Ideology is often aligned with political beliefs, but is much broader than that, relating to any social or cultural beliefs, and these beliefs are revealed in literary or other texts. In a text, certain ideas or values will be dominant, while others will be necessarily marginalized. For instance, The Three Little Pigs reveals an ideology that values a strong home and good work ethic that lead to a stable existence. Intertextuality Intertextuality refers to the idea that texts exist in cultural and visual contexts alongside other texts.

They influence one another and often refer to one another overtly, this being a particular characteristic of postmodernist writing. In fact, all language is itself intertextual, since language always pre-exists the speaker, meaning that words and meanings are always second-hand in some sense. Individuals make sense of texts in reference to their relations with other texts, by circulating and exchanging meanings, not as small portions (eg. words) but as packages of meaning. A package of meaning could be a narrative, myth, moral or genre for example.

Self-deception is a particularly destructive characteristic of West Culture. Life is The Will To Power; our natural desire is to dominate and reshape the world to fit our own preferences and assert our personal strength to the fullest degree possible. Struggle, through which individuals achieve a degree of power commensurate with their abilities, is the basic fact of human existence. Ideals of human equality perpetuate mediocrity — a truth that has been distorted and concealed by modern value systems.

Christian morality, which identifies goodness with meekness and servility is the prime culprit in creating a cultural climate that thwarts the drive for excellence and self realization. God is dead; a new era of human creativity and achievement is at hand. PREFACE Much information is available on Mr. Friedrich Nietzsche, including many books that he wrote himself, during his philosophical career. I took this as a good sign I would find a fountain of enlightened material produced by the man.

I’ve had to go through a bit of my own philosophical thoughts to put my own value judgements aside, and truly look for the contributions Nietzsche gave to philosophy. Much of my understanding came only after I had a grasp of Neitzsche’s history; therefore, I encourage you to read-up on his history before diving into his philosophy . The modern Westerner might disagree with every aspect of his philosophy, but there are many things one must unfortunately admit are true (only if you put your morality aside).

So, from here, I will present his contributions to philosophy, and do my best to delete my own opinions, other than to say that he was not the chosen topic of this paper out of any admiration. Sometimes philosophy is called “timeless,” implying that its lessons are of value to any generation. This may be hard to see in Nietzsche’s work, but we are assured that it was appropriate thought for his time. However, even Nietzsche’s critics admit that his words hold an undeniable truth, as hard as it is to accept. Perhaps this is why his work is timeless, and has survived 150 years in print.

Christianity “God is Dead! ” announced Zarathustra (better known as Zoroaster), in Neitzsche’s proudest book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-1885). Unlike many philosophers, Nietzsche never tried to prove or disprove the existence of God, just that belief in God can create sickness; and to convince that highest achievements in human life depend on elimination of God. Whether God existed had no relevance in his goal. Proclamation of the death of God was a fundamental ingredient in the revaluation of values Nietzsche advocated.

Nothing has done more than Christianity to entrench the morality of mediocrity in human consciousness. Christian love extols qualities of weakness; it causes guilt. Charity is just teaching hatred and revenge directed toward nobility. Belief in God is a tool to bring submission to the individual of noble character. ” — F. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Hero, Morality, Nietzsche had an ideal world in mind, with an ideal government and an ideal God: the “Overman” or “Superman. ” These Gods were a product of natural selection, or Social Darwinism.

He felt, very strongly, that any kind of moral limitations upon man would only stand in the way of The Overman. “The Will To Power,” his strongest teaching, meant that The Overman should and would do anything possible to gain power, control and strength. If one showed the smallest bit of weakness or morality, he would be killed by the stronger Overman, and taken over. Thus, the advancement of The Master Race (Nietzsche’s “Master Race” will be discussed later). “Not mankind, but superman is the goal.

The very last thing a sensible man would undertake would be to improve mankind: mankind does not improve, it doesn’t even exist – it is an abstraction. “… his superman as the individual rising precariously out of the mire of mass mediocrity, and owing his existence more to deliberate breeding and careful nurture than to the hazards of natural selection. ” Master Race Nietzsche is often referred to as a pre-Nazi thinker, by his idealism of The Master Race. He was, in fact, a prime influence on the writing of Hitler’s highest men, and quoted in Hitler’s speeches.

But, his writings were mostly taken out of context, because he was very open about his distaste for “those anti- semites. ” If one is able to come from a more intelligent place, regarding the breeding of best-fit humans, Nietzsche was far beyond Hitler. Nietzsche understood the necessity for variation in a population, and especially was able to appreciate the contributions of other races and cultures. His ideal society would be a race that included select bits from many races/cultures. The only culture that he seemed to have a special appreciation for were the Polish.

He wrote, “The Poles, I consider the most gifted and gallant among Slavic people… ” Still, he wrote about his value for the Jews, as response to the growing anti-semite culture in Germany during his time: “The whole problem of the Jews exists only in nation states, for here their energy and higher intelligence, their accumulated capital of spirit and will, gathered from generation to generation though a long schooling in suffering, must become so preponderant as to arouse mass envy and hatred.

In almost all contemporary nations, therefore — in direct proportion to the degree which they act up nationalistically — the literary obscenity of leading the Jews to slaughter as scapegoats of every conceivable public and internal misfortune is spreading. As soon as it is no longer a matter of preserving nations, but of producing the strongest possible Euro-Mixed race, the Jew is just as useful and desirable as ingredient as any other national remnant. “

American society and culture experienced an awakening during the 1960s as a result of the diverse civil rights, economic, and political issues it was faced with. At the center of this revolution was the American hippie, the most peculiar and highly influential figure of the time period. Hippies were vital to the American counterculture, fueling a movement to expand awareness and stretch accepted values. The hippies solutions to the problems of institutionalized American society were to either participate in mass protests or drop out of society completely.

The government and the older generations could not understand their way of life. Hippies were often portrayed as criminals, subversive to the morals and best interest of the public. Although misunderstood, the hippie had a great impact throughout the country, still surviving today in American culture. The term hippie itself became a universal term in the late sixties. It originated in a 1967 article in Ramparts, entitled The Social History of the Hippies. Afterward, the name was captured by the mass media as a label for the people of the new movement.

Yablonsky 28) Even before this, the word hip described someone who was in and down, wise to what was going on around him. By the 1960s, some of Americas youth created a gap between themselves and their parents. They grew their hair long because it was natural and therefore considered beautiful. At first, the idea of men with long hair was absurd and society considered it a sign of homosexuality. When it became clear that the establishment felt so strongly about hair, the attitudes of young rebels changed. One young man responded after being questioned about his unkempt appearance:

Growing hair does not mean that I am or am not a homosexual. It does mean that I am willing to stand up for my rights as a human being an that includes my right to be harmless to all people. It also indicates my unwillingness to get on the treadmill of killing for a vast machine-like government. If I am scorned and called dirty because I allow hair to grow on my face and my head, then so much the better, for by this I indicate the seriousness of my belief. I scorn the society that has created this monstrous robot-like conformity that feeds the war machine as Hitler found robots to feed his war machine.

In contrast to the short crew-cut style that every young man adhered to during the fifties, the hippie popularized a diversity of hairstyles with no single ideal image to fit. The clothes worn by hippies were also chosen to express anti-establishment sentiments to the public. They tried to stay away from store-bought, expensive clothes. Their pants, shirts and dresses were made of comfortable, natural fibers like cotton and denim. Many articles of clothing were hand-crafted, such as belts, shoes, necklaces, and headbands. As poverty spread, the hippie wardrobe grew increasingly shabby.

They shopped at thrift shops and places like the Diggers Free Store. Gray, dingy, torn clothes and broken shoes became the characteristic style of the hippies. (Wolf 18) Spawned out of necessity rather than style, these clothes were another symbol of their retaliation against the system. The hippies approach toward life was much more relaxed and open-minded than the rest of society. They all agreed on the importance of brotherhood among people of all races and ethnicity. Preaching a motto of love and kindness, hippies tried to spread their beliefs into society.

By handing out flowers, singing songs, and making orations, these young people tried to make America hear its message of love. (Kornbluth 250-253) People would share resources amongst each other, making sure everyone got a portion of the food, drink, clothes that the group managed to get. This was completely opposite to the government policies favoring sharp economic inequality, allowing starvation and poverty to continue. The Diggers of San Francisco attempted to do their part, organizing free meals and handouts. (Wolf 11) This charitable display demonstrated the kindness and gentleness of the hippies to the American public.

They hoped that the rest of the population would follow in their example and help the indigent, unfortunately, they did not. The hippies, did however, gain respect in the eyes of the public as champions of the poor. Sex was a major issue associated with the hippie culture of the sixties. Society had built up barriers against intimate contact between the sexes for decades. Throughout American history, pre-marital sex was offensive and unacceptable to society. The hippies challenged these limits by practicing sexual activities spontaneously an openly.

Their promiscuity left the nation in disbelief: having multiple partners and engaging in casual sex with little emotional engagement. (Mills 112-113) The females sensuality was actually realized and flaunted. These girls did not dress in conservative, concealing clothes to hide themselves. Hippies realized the beauty of the human body, as a result they found no need to hide it. One hippies remark about the women he associated with was quite noteworthy, See the girls in the miniskirts? See the beautiful legs. Yes they lead to the ! & these girls do not tease they *censored*.

Can you take it? (Kornbluth 206). Of course, society strongly disagreed with this behavior. The deviation from the nuclear family ideal imposed upon them was a vital step for the hippies. Through this gesture, they abolished the possessiveness and materialism associated with marriage. (Westhues 41-42) Illegitimate children and unrestricted sex created a negative stigma, but it brought the hippies even more attention from the American public. Although many people did not approve of the hippie lifestyle and some turned their heads, they made a lasting impression on social boundaries.

The possibilities of sexual freedom they presented to the straights took root and eventually widened their boundaries as well. The hippies openly advocated the use of drugs to enhance the monotony of daily life and to raise awareness. Marijuana and LSD were their most prevalent drugs of choice because of their psychedelic properties. Grass had been illegal since 1937, so dealing with it was a criminal offense. The hippies used marijuana for numerous purposes, unable to find the negative effects that the government had been spreading for decades.

David Solomon, editor of The Marijuana Papers stated comically in regard to weed: Like Spearmint, it aids concentration and helps you do almost anything a little bit better. It grows hair on the palm of your hands, introduces you to a nice type of black man, overcomes impotence, improves appetite, banishes excess bat, constipation, and headaches, relieves rheumatism. In short, its a miracle drug. A pot nation is a powerful nation. Possible side effects: a feeling of dreamy nonchalance, heightened sense of awareness, bursts of introspection, mellowing attitude towards ones fellow man, especially if hes stoned beside you.

The continued use of marijuana, despite legislation and parental guidelines was another powerful means of rebellion. Many people were turned on to the hip scene by marijuana. (Yablonsky 242) Smoking grass soon spread into the suburbs and the rest of sheltered America. The popularization of LSD can easily be attributed to the hippies and the self-proclaimed leaders of the acid movement. Remaining legal until 1966, LSD gained great publicity from them and drew notoriety after it was criminalized. Timothy Learys studies were published and widely read, almost like bibles.

His book The Psychedelic Experience, and a translated version of The Tibetan Book of the Dead soon became the guidebooks for passage through a successful trip. (Westhues 40-41) Through his writing, he spread the hippie motto of Turn on, Tune in, Drop Out. Ken Keseys acid tests and his adventures with the Pranksters drew further attention to the acid movement, as it came to be known. In The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, an account of his adventures, he metaphorically states, There are going to be times, when we cant wait for somebody. Now, youre either on the bus or off the bus.

If youre on the bus, and you get left behind, then youll find it again. If youre off the bus in the first place- then it wont make a damn. Youre either on the busor off the bus (Wolfe 74). The hippies believed that LSD had the power to raise them to a higher consciousness, it helped you get on the bus. Hippies used acid limitlessly, tightening the bonds with each other and widening the gap between themselves and society. Americans could reluctantly tolerate marijuana usage, but after seeing the creative and frightening effects of LSD, would not accept the chemical in society.

Individuality and identity are two very important ideals to the hippies. They feel that the establishment tries to control people through routine methods like organized work and leisure. The idea of anything organized would instantly evoke boredom and restraint in the mind of the hippie. (Cavan 162-163) Many of these young people devoted tremendous amounts of time to doing their own thing. This could have been anything, ranging from creative endeavors like painting and poetry to merely sitting on the grass meditating. Doing ones own thing brought the person a unique sense of identity.

This gave them a different approach to finding careers than their parents tried to teach them If you get a job or something, youre even more conforming to the system, and if you dont agree with it, where do you turn? So you see you kind of invent your own lifestyle (Mills 79). The dehumanizing effect of joining the American workforce was met with the hippies decision to exclude themselves from it, avoiding its negative effects. This placed them outside of the economy, separating them from the rest of society. Of course, they were further misunderstood and even despised for their refusal to work.

Some hippies looked for solutions to the social problems plaguing the U. S. during the sixties. They staged massive demonstrations to draw attention and try to bring about change. Student activism reached a peak during the 1960s as bright, affluent college students fought against unfair legislation, abuse of human rights, racial discrimination, and U. S. involvement in Vietnam. These protestors were more than just hippies, they were the children of the upper middle class. The social status of these students ensured that their message was heard by the public and captured by the media.

Images of angry hippies burning draft cards and giving speeches to huge audiences spread across the country. During the mid 1960s, anti-war demonstrations flooded the nations capital. Led by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), some protests drew massive crowds of twenty-five thousand protestors or more. (Young 150-151) The commitment to a common was a unifying force among the hippies, surpassing any individual differences. The protests were very important because they were nationally televised, placing the hippie at the center of the American home, in the living room.

Another group of hippies thought the answer was merely to drop out of society completely. They chose to live together communally, generally in rural areas, and attempted to become self-sufficient. On these communes, they participated in food and clothing production, child rearing as well as devoting plenty of time to do their own thing. (Cavan 155) These hippies quickly learned that survival was very difficult without the aid of civilization. A commune could not function without a great deal of effort on behalf of the members. As they soon found out, organization was necessary to keep these communities running smoothly.

Because most hippies came to the communes escaping the establishment, organization was not easy to impose upon them. (Westhues 194-195) The most famous hippie community was not a farm, it was the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco. People flocked from around the country to experience the phenomenon of merely being there, of being in (Perry 29-30). The brotherhood and kindness present in the community was hidden from the American public by the appearance and lifestyle of the inhabitants. Tour buses carried visitors through the neighborhood providing them with a superficial and confused view of the community:

We are now entering the largest hippie colony in the world and the very heart and fountainhead of the hippie subculture. We are now passing through the Bearded Curtain and will journey down Haight Street, the very nerve center of a city within a cityMarijuana, of course is a household staple here, enjoyed by the natives to stimulate their senses Among the favorite pastimes of the hippies, besides taking drugs, are parading and demonstrating, seminars, malingering, and the ever-present preoccupation with the soul, reality, and self-expression such as strumming guitars, piping flutes and banging on bongos. (Yablonsky 200).

The creation of hippie communities gave them a foundation in American society. Whether the public liked it or not, the hippies became a permanent part of our culture. The controversial messages of the hippies and their socially unacceptable lifestyle made them targets of very much negative publicity. They were all portrayed as drug pushers, prostitutes, and thieves by the media. (Mills 76-77) The belief that their subversive ideas could destroy societys structure and values caused people to fear them. Perhaps the most damaging publicity that the hippies received during the sixties was their association with the Manson family.

In a Newsweek article entitled Case of the Hypnotic Hippie, brutal murders and cultism are linked to a hippie world that prides itself on peace and love. In describing how normal teenagers became savage killers the author of the article states: One by one, these vulnerable yet dangerous misfits made their way to California in the late 1960s, most of them to the Haight Ashbury in San Francisco, where the hippie culture was already showing signs of strata. The trouble was that these misfits were just as vulnerable to the follies, cruelties and excesses of the hippie world as they were to those of the straight world they had abandoned.

Along with reports such as these, the public grew more cautious about the hippies. They were further ostracized, despite their acts of public kindness and gentleness. Following the 1960s, as many of these hippies grew older, the returned to normal society. They eventually bought into the establishment they once fought against, by getting married, moving into suburban homes and buying family cars. Some stubborn individuals never lost their hippie appearance and lifestyle. Many of these interesting individuals can still be seen in San Francisco and the East Village in New York.

A large number of these hippies are even conveniently located in beautiful Ithaca. Their appearance is still the same, but now hippie gear is mass-produced for the department stores. Regardless of how their lives had changed, the impression that hippies left will last forever. They demonstrated the power of Americas youth as they fought to bring about change. The hippies taught people to appreciate nature and the beauty of the human body. Most importantly, hippies broke social boundaries, setting an example that others would follow.

This paper is intended to contain the analysis of the human cultural identity, as seen in the following five historical cultural periods: Enlightenment Culture; Greco-Roman Culture; Judeo-Christian Culture; Renaissance-Reformation Culture; and Industrialization-Modernism Culture. It also embodies examples of each era that are clearly stated, and how they relate The cultural identity of the Enlightenment can be described as emphasizing the possibilities of human reason.

This idea can be illustrated with such examples as Thomas Jefferson, Denis Diderot, and Protestantism. Thomas Jefferson was considered among one of the most brilliant American exponents of the Enlightenment culture. He had the time and the resources to educate himself in many topics including history, literature, law, architecture, science, and philosophy. He had the motivation and the connections to apply Enlightenment political philosophy to nation-building. Denis Diderot was a French encyclopedist and philosopher, who also composed plays, novels, essays, and art.

He greatly influenced other Enlightenment thinkers with his translations of Encyclopedie ou dictionnaire raisonne des sciences, des arts et des metiers, sually known as Encyclopedie. He used this translation as a powerful propaganda weapon against Ecclesiastical authority, and the semifeudal social reforms of the time. Protestantism is a good example also. It is one of the three major divisions of Christianity. It displays the release of traditional religion and the movement to worldly learning and the rise of protests against the controlled way of expressing one’s self.

It allows the human himself to reason out the way that he thinks, instead of an authority telling him how to do The Industrialism-Modernism culture is a culture that represents social, conomical, and scientific advancement, as well as self-doubt, uncertainty, and alienation. These traits can be characterized with such examples as Werner Heisenberg, Epicureanism, and Eli Whitney. Werner Heisenberg was a German physicist known especially for his development in quantum mechanics and his principle of indeterminacy, or theory of uncertainty.

This theory explained how it is impossible to know specifically the position and momentum of a particle, an electron for example, with accuracy. This demonstrates the distinctive uncertainty of the culture. It created a strong trend of mysticism among cientists who perceive it as a violation to cause and effect laws. Epicureanism is a philosophy based on the teachings of the Greek philosopher Epicuris. His views coincide with those of Heisenberg in the way that they display the incertitude of how it is impossible to know exactly what things will do or go.

In example, he suggested that even atoms are free to move around spontaneously, without order. Any invention or its inventor would fit nicely into this cultural topic. Eli Whitney, for instance, and the cotton gin. This invention was one of the most important, it created a very substantial movement n history. Whitney used scientific knowledge to produce a machine that produced economic progress along with the advancement of less manual labor, and The Greco-Roman culture is one of a male dominant society, and conflicting obedience views.

The idea was that men were controlled by reason, and women were controlled by passion, and that if women were not controlled by the practical reasoning men, that disastrous consequences would occur. The male prevalence in this civilization was evident in all perspectives of life including the arts that were created during this time period. For instance, the omen were portrayed as clothed, mysterious, and deviant looking and the men as nude, perfected, and authoritative. This philosophical belief, was taken to the absolute extreme.

Men were in a sense, afraid, of the disastrous situations that women might create if given the chance to do so. Hellenism and Hebraism are other Greek philosophies that deal with the ideas of how to think and act. Hellenism is the stressing to see things as they really are, right thinking, reasoning for oneself, and Hebraism is the stressing of conduct and obedience, right acting, and obeying God’s commandments. These two conflicting views were struggled with by every individual.

The Judeo-Christian culture is one of holy relics, gothic and Romanesque styles, and architectural advances. The holy relics were used to establish a higher status among churches. Such tokens as John the Baptist’s head could be found in the cathedrals across the civilizations. Another way to achieve status for a church was to build the tallest facility that was possible. The idea was that the bigger the church, the better. This led to styles such as Gothic and Romanesque. The best example of the gothic form is Chartres.

The cathedral used advances like the pointed arch and ribbed vault. The Romanesque form was characterized by flying buttresses and stained glass. The flying buttresses not only enabled the churches to be built higher, but also gave them a majestic look. The Renaissance-Reformation culture is that of a revolution of changes in western civilization. Humanism, the revival of classical learning and speculative inquiry beginning in the fifteenth century in Italy during the early Renaissance, disabled the monopolies of the church’s learning, and spread the ability to gain knowledge.

The invention of the printing press with moveable type, enabled the supply of books circulating to expand, leading to increased ideas throughout Europe. The Reformation took many forms in society, but all of them mainly deal with the idea that knowledge is power, and power was obtained easier because of the creation of the printing blocks, therefore, enabling people to change society because they were more educated. In conclusion, the preceding information illustrates the cultural periods of Enlightenment; Greco-Roman; Judeo-Christian; Renaissance-Reformation; and Industrialization-Modernism.

For many tribes of Plains Indians whose bison-hunting culture flourished during the 18th and 19th centuries, the sun dance was the major communal religious ceremony . . . the rite celebrates renewal – the spiritual rebirth of participants and their relatives as well as the regeneration of the living earth with all its components . . . The ritual, involving sacrifice and supplication to insure harmony between all living beings, continues to be practiced by many contemporary native Americans.

Elizabeth Atwood LawrenceAs the most important ritual of the nomadic Plains Indians, the Sun Dance in itself presents many ideas, beliefs, and values of these cultures. Through its rich symbolism and complicated rituals we are able to catch a glimpse into these peoples’ view of the world. A Sun Dance is held when a man feels the need to be a dancer to fulfill certain wishes, primarily “for his deliverance from his troubles, for supernatural aid, and for beneficent blessings upon all of his people. ” (Welker) It is this dancer who usually bears the expenses of the Sun Dance (Atwood), including a feast for all that comes to the celebration.

Welker) Motivations behind the Sun Dance varies slightly between tribes. The Crow held the ceremony to seek aid for revenge for family members killed in warfare. The entire event surrounding the Sun Dance generally lasts from four to seven days, though longer events exist. On the first day a tree is selected to serve as the sun-pole, the center pole for the Sun Dance Lodge, or New-Life-Lodge, as called by the Cheyenne. (Atwood) The selection of the tree is usually done by the eldest woman of the camp, who leads a group of elaborately dressed maidens to the tree to strip off its branches.

On the next morning, right as the sun is seen over the eastern horizon, armed warriors charge the sun-pole. They attack the tree in effort to symbolically kill it with gunshots and arrows. Once it is dead it is cut down and taken to where the Sun Dance Lodge will be erected. (Schwatka) “Before raising the sun-pole, a fresh buffalo head with a broad centre strip of the back of the hide and tail (is) fastened with strong throngs to the top crotch of the sun-pole. Then the pole (is) raised and set firmly in the ground, with the buffalo head facing ! toward the setting-sun.

The tree represents the center of the world, connecting the heavens to the earth. (Smart p. 527) The lodge is then built by the main dancer and his clansmen. The fork of the lodge represents the eagle’s nest. The eagle plays a large part in the Sun Dance for it is one of the Plains Indians’ most sacred animal. The eagle flies high, being the closest creature to the Sun. Therefore it is the link between man and spirit, being the messenger that delivers prayers to the Wakan-Tanka (god). (Atwood) In addition to being a messenger, the eagle also represents many human traits.

We can see what values and traits these cultures saw as being important in a person by those traits imposed upon such a sacred animal. The eagle is seen as courageous, swift, and strong. He has great foresight and knows everything. “In an eagle there is all the wisdom of the world. ” (Atwood) During the Sun Dance the eagle is the facilitator of communication between man and spirit. The Crow may be accompanied by a dancing eagle in his visions, the eagle “instructing him about the medicine acquired through the vision. ” (Atwood) The eagle’s feathers can cure illnesses.

During the Sun Dance a medicine man may use his eagle feather for healing, first touching the feather to the sun-pole then to the patient, transferring the energy from the pole to the ill. It is the buffalo, however, that makes up the main theme of the Sun Dance. In various stories it was the buffalo that began the ritual. The Shoshone believe that the buffalo taught someone the proper way to carry out the dance and the benefits in doing it. Buffalo songs, dances, and feast commonly accompany the Sun Dance. You can see from the symbolic influences of the buffalo in the Sun Dance how important the animal was to Plains Indians’ day-to-day life.

It was the buffalo that symbolized life for it was the buffalo that gave them quality of life. Plains Indians relied on buffalo for their food, clothing, shelter, and most all utensils from fly swatters to children’s toys. These peoples’ lives were intertwined with the buffalo’s. And this relationship was praised and blessed with the Sun Dance. The buffalo was incorporated in many ways in the Sun Dance. The Cheyenne held a principle that “all essential sacred items in the sun dance (be) related to the buffalo. ” (Atwood) The Lakota would place a dried buffalo penis against the sun-pole to give virility to the dancers.

This “reinforces the symbolic meaning of the ceremony as a celebration of the generative power of the sun. ” (Atwood) The buffalo skull is used as an alter during the Sun Dance. Offerings are presented to the skull, the Cheyenne stuffing the eye and nose sockets with grass, representing bountiful vegetation for the buffalo, which in turn meant healthy buffalo for the people. For others the grass represents bringing the buffalo back to life for grass is what gives the animal life. The Dakota believe that the bones of bison they have killed will rise again with new flesh.

The soul was seen to reside in the bones of people and animals, “to reduce a living being to a skeleton is equivalent to re-entering the womb of this primordial life . . . a mystical rebirth. ” (Eliade p. 159) When a Crow sliced the tip of his finger off on the buffalo skull, he was offering a piece of himself to give life to the buffalo who died to give life to him and his people. During the dance the buffalo also has a great role in the visions. The buffalo may knock down a dancer, or the dancer may challenge the buffalo by charging at it.

Passing out for too long means one was too afraid to face the buffalo. One must show courage and stand up to the buffalo before the buffalo finds him worthy to give him what he desires. At a certain point the Crow will notice he is seeing through the buffalo’s eyes, that he has become one with the buffalo. (Atwood) The Sun Dance symbolizes a resolution with the conflict between being a people that view the buffalo as wise and powerful, even closer to the creator than humans, and having to kill and eat them to survive.

Making the buffalo sacred, symbolically giving new life to it, and treating it with respect and reverence acts a s a sort of reconciliation. Without the buffalo there would be death, and the Plains Indians saw that the buffalo not only provided them with physical well-being, but kept their souls alive, too. They also believed that the buffaloes gave themselves to them for food, so the natural course to them would be to offer a part of themselves in return out of gratitude. “Thus the sacrifice of the dancers through fasting, thirst, and self-inflicted pain reflects the desire to return something of themselves to nature. Atwood)

Depending on the tribe, the dancers may go through self-inflicted torture. The gift of one’s own body is seen as the highest form of sacrifice. Dancers would have pieces of bone or wood skewered into their skin tied to the sun-pole. They would then tug and pull until the skin broke free.

This self-inflicted torture has also come to symbolize rebirth. The torture represents death, then the person is symbolically resurrected. (Eliade p. 208) “The sun dancer is reborn, mentally and spiritually as well as physically, along with the renewal of the buffalo and the entire universe. ” (Atwood) After the dancers all tear free, or after four days, the Sun Dance ends. The dancers are laid down on beds of sage to continue fasting and to recite their visions to the priest. These visions may hold new songs, new dance steps, or even prophecies of the future.

Whatever the outcome, the overall feeling for everyone present is of renewal and balance, the relationships between people and nature once again reaffirmed. (Atwood) When the camp is ready to leave all sacred items is left in a pile by the sun-pole for they are too sacred to keep for personal use. The Sun Dance Lodge is then left standing for nature to do with it as it wills. (Kehoe p. 318) >From looking at all the symbolism and ritual involved with the Sun Dance we can more fully understand the character of the Plains Indian cultures.

The Sun Dance shows a continuity between life. It shows that there is no true end to life, but a cycle of symbolic and true deaths and rebirths. All of nature is intertwined and dependent on one another. This gives an equal ground to everything on the earth. “Powerful animals exhibit both physical and spiritual powers, just as the medicine man and shaman do, and as do the grains of tobacco in the sacred pipe. ” (Smart p. 527) However, just like the rest of nature, humans must give of themselves to help keep the cycles of regeneration going.

The thesis of meta-ethical cultural relativism is the philosophical viewpoint that there are no absolute moral truths, only truths relative to the cultural context in which they exist. From this it is therefore presumed that what one society considers to be morally right, another society may consider to be morally wrong, therefore, moral right’s and wrongs are only relative to a particular society. Thus cultural relativism implies that what is ‘good’ is what is ‘socially approved’ in a given culture.

Two arguments in favour of cultural relativism are the ‘Cultural Differences argument’ and the ‘Argument from the virtue of tolerance’, the following essay will look at and evaluate both of these arguments. The cultural differences argument goes like this; ‘Different cultures have different moral codes, thus there is no one correct set of moral claims, only those that conform to the major set of beliefs within the given culture’. Firstly I am going to look at James Rachel’s (in ‘The Elements of Moral Philosophy’, Ch. 2) analysis of this argument, and secondly I would lie to give my assessment of the argument.

Rachel’s argues that this argument is not logical, as the conclusion does not follow from the factual premise. The premise makes an assertion about differences in moral beliefs. The conclusion makes an assertion about the nature of moral facts or truths. In general, he argues, one cannot assume anything about what is or is not true about the world, from premises about beliefs about the world. A culture may believe that the earth is flat, but believing so doesn’t make it so (nor does belief that the earth is round make it so). Nor does disagreement over the shape of the earth imply that there is no definite shape.

This criticism is not presuming that the premise on which the cultural differences argument is based on is false, rather that the truth of the premise cannot guarantee the truth of the conclusion. Rachel’s claim that physical facts are independent of beliefs about those facts is not justified. We never have access to the physical world apart from, or independent of, some scientific or conceptual framework. There is no “view from nowhere” which we can use to determine whether our judgements about the world are true or not. Moral facts are similar.

In both cases the truth or falsity of a claim can only be evaluated against the background of some conceptual framework or another. It is in this respect I believe that Rachel’s argument can be criticised. I would like to add a personal criticism to the cultural differences argument. The argument presumes that a moral action within a given society is correct as long as the society condones the act. I believe that this presumption is faulted given that, as history has often shown us, certain societies have been forced, or manipulated into, condoning and carrying out certain acts on behalf of the authorities within the society.

The most common example of this would be Hitler’s powerful influence over Germany during World War two that led the country to brutal monstrosities such as the Holocaust. A possible solution to this problem, I believe, would be to add a simple remark to the argument; ‘Different cultures have different moral codes, thus there is no one set of correct moral codes, only those that conform to the major set of beliefs within the given culture, given that the beliefs are not forced upon the given culture’. The argument from the virtue of tolerance is the next argument in favour of cultural relativism that I am going to look at.

The argument states that: ‘meta-ethical cultural relativism promotes tolerance of different cultural moral beliefs, thus we should accept this viewpoint, as it is the only meta-ethical position that promotes tolerance of cultural differences in moral beliefs. ‘ This argument lies on the assumption that because it is the only meta-ethical position that promotes tolerance one should thus follow it. I believe that this assumption is flawed in that a person should not follow something just because it has one favourable aspect that is not offered elsewhere.

Take for example if a scientific theory offered a solution to an unsolved problem that had not been attempted before, but lay on a scientifically impossible assumption, one would obviously not accept this theory in explaining the phenomenon. I believe this is the same for the argument from the virtue of tolerance, as one should not accept the argument just on the merit that it is the only in its field to promote tolerance. The thesis of meta-ethical cultural relativism, in my view, is neither right nor wrong, just flawed. I believe that certain moral beliefs within different cultures are justified due to the context in which they are in.

I also believe though, that absolute moral truths do exist, and cannot be judged right or wrong because of the context in which they are in. In general I believe that a society should exist in such a way that promotes the existence of that society, and exists in such a way that is beneficial for the well being of its members. I believe that certain cultures can be judged right or wrong if they act in such a way that does not uphold its existence, but on the other hand I believe that we must respect the cultures of others even where some beliefs do not live up to our standards of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.

Cultural relativism is a concept for much debate, my essay has looked at two arguments on the affirmative, namely the argument from the virtue of tolerance and the cultural differences argument. Although the arguments are insufficient to prove cultural relativism as a fundamental philosophical truth, they do provide reasons for many people to consider themselves ‘cultural relativists’, and thus give the concept a great deal of merit in meta-ethical philosophical studies.

Two seemingly small digits may turn January 1, 2000 from a worldwide celebration into a universal nightmare. Affecting companies worldwide, many pay millions upon millions of dollars in order for computers to recognize the difference between the years 2000 and 1900. One of the worlds most detrimental dilemmas, the year 2000 computer bug is an extensive and interesting problem that everyone must face. The definition and implications of the Year 2000 crisis are as unique as the steps taken by modern human culture to prevent them.

Like all other tasks, computers process dates as numbers. To the outside world, date values can have numerous formats and meanings but to the internal workings of a computer, a date is just another set of numbers (Kendall 63). When expressing the year part of a date, using two digits such as “4/5/96”, the possible values for this year part range between 00 and 99. Obviously, if the year part were expressed using four digits, the values could range between 0000 and 9999 (The History and the Hype).

In real life, if one adds 1 to 99, the answer is 100. However, if one tells a computer to add 1 to 99 and also specifies that the result must be no more than two digits, the answer is 0 or 00. Now consider the effect of this numeric example on a date which expresses year values with two digits. If one takes the date “4/5/99” and tells the computer to add 1 to the year part, the result would look like “4/5/00” (Kendall 68). To most humans, this date will suggest that the year part represents the year 2000.

But, to a computer (and this is basically the problem), because the numeric representation of the year is effectively zero, the year is interpreted as 1900. According to the logical thinking of a computer, adding 1 year to 1999 results in the year 1900 (Johnson Interview). The whole question is one of interpretation. Humans can usually distinguish the intended value of a two digit year because of the context of a date within its subject matter. For instance, if one writes “I will graduate 6/1/01”, most people will automatically assume that the year they hope to graduate in is 2001.

If the person said the same thing to a computer, the chances are that the computer would interpret the same year as 1901 (Marcus 34). Basically, the definition of the Year 2000 problem is the inability of computer programs to correctly interpret the century from a date which only has two year digits (Johnson Interview). On the face of it, the specification of the problem appears to be fairly simple, and so many may think so is the solution. After all, how much of a problem can two digits cause?

As the reader will discover, those two digits will be the reason for the largest and most costly task ever undertaken by any industry, world wide. Almost all the time, the first question asked when somebody learns about the Year 2000 problem is, “How was this allowed to happen? ” (Johnson Interview). To most people, the thought that so much damage could be done; by so many people over such a long period of time and completely undetected; is absolutely beyond belief (Y2K: So Many Bugs… So Little Time). The fact of the matter is that the Year 2000 issue is there.

Programmers are aware of this problem for years. Unfortunately for us, because of the “I won’t be around in 15 years, so it doesn’t concern me” attitude the programmers display, the problem goes unchecked (Johnson Interview). It’s only because the likely implications of the Y2K crisis being almost on top of us and because companies now stand to lose large amounts of money that the issue is now finally receiving the attention it deserves (Y2K: So Many Bugs… So Little Time). When examining the underlying reason for the cause of the problem, two culprits arise.

The first, and certainly the most instrumental reason, is the issue of storage space in the 1960’s & 70’s (Blair Interview). During this era, the cost of storing data was far from insignificant. In an effort to minimize storage costs, most projects will make a drive to cut down the amount of stored data required by an application (Johnson Interview). In this conservation, there is no stone left unturned. Draining numeric storage space to the smallest possible data type often occurs. Programmers cut character storage space, and before long, dates begin to feel the cut too (Y2K: So Many Bugs… So Little Time).

At the time when only needing the two-digit year part, it is uneconomical to store the full four digits of a year, including the century (Y2K: So Many Bugs… So Little Time). Programs are able to continue processing dates as normal without ever understanding the concept of a century, so why not take out the century part altogether and save all that storage space (Marcus 35)? So, instead of storing a date as “4/5/1968,” programmers begin to store dates as “4/5/68” (The History and the Hype). Before long, the industry adopts storing dates with only two digits for the year, because of saving space (Kendall 89).

No doubt, at the time, some people will raise doubts about the long-term effect of this solution, but they are probably told that their systems will not be in place for more than a few years (Blair Interview). In fact, it’s not uncommon for corporate companies to have 20-year old applications in place now, which are core components of their major systems (Y2K: So Many Bugs… So Little Time). Apart from the obvious problems with systems which are still around today, by adopting the two-digit year as an industry standard, the industry is laying the foundations for a future problem.

Even as the cost of storage space became less of an overhead and there is no longer any need to store dates with two digit years, programmers continued to write applications which did so, partly out of habit and partly because of the need for new applications to share data in a common format with existing systems (Y2K: So Many Bugs… So Little Time). In addition to the cost of storage, the second probable reason for using dates formatted with two digit years is the question of user acceptance (Kendall 92).

In every day life, it’s usually quite rare to complete any kind of date using four digits for the year. Consider things like checks, application forms, passports etc. None of these require that the date contain a four-digit year (Blair Interview). So it’s only natural for users to expect the same level of freedom from computer software. In fact, in many departments it has become common place for new application designs to be rejected by users on the grounds that it is unreasonable to expect a user to enter dates with four digit years (Y2K: So Many Bugs… So Little Time).

From the users point of view, why should they be forced into entering a full four digit year when the software is perfectly capable of accepting and processing a short two digit year (Blair Interview)? It’s only now that the consequences of processing two-digit years are really being thought through that the flaws in this argument are beginning to show (The History and the Hype). From the technical perspective, there are two effects that could happen to a rogue application in the Year 2000.

The first sign that something may be wrong would be when the whole system crashes! In some cases, a computer program will simply not be able handle calculations using the number zero. Without going into too much technical jargon, from a programming point of view, this would be the equivalent of putting square pegs into round holes (Johnson Interview). In many ways, a complete melt down would probably be the better of the two Year 2000 consequences. This is because a system crash is possible. It is something that can be seen and hopefully corrected.

Given a system failure, a maintenance programmer should be able to identify the problem and go about fixing it (Johnson Interview). The second possible consequence of the Year 2000 problem is far more difficult to locate. In this situation, the system will continue to work without falling over, this will give the impression that nothing is wrong. However, while the program is running, errors will fill the results of date calculations (Johnson Interview). This second scenario is far more dangerous than the first because errors will creep into the data long before anybody notices that something is wrong.

If the system provides data to other systems or the data calculated by the system is used over and over again, the effects of miscalculated dates could be far reaching. Because there is no possible crash or system failure, it could be weeks before the errors are picked up, corrupting systems, sub-systems and all kinds of external data by that time (Johnson Interview). Let’s look at few examples of how incorrectly calculated dates affect ordinary business systems: Suppose one function of an accounting system is to provide a list of all invoices which have been outstanding longer than a month for the purposes of the debt collection office.

Brand new orders may be given an invoice date of 2/2/00. In this case, the accounting system would flag up these brand new invoices because they have been outstanding for over 100 years (Blair Interview)! This scenario is mild compared to some possibilities. Suppose a finance company lends money to Mrs. Jones. The loan was created on February 2, 1996 and is set to run for a period of 5 years. The finance company’s system, therefore, calculates that the expiration date is February 2, 2001 and sets a flag to stop taking payments from her account after that date.

The following day, the system calculates that the expiration date of 02/02/01 has passed and therefore decides not to take any money from Mrs. Jones’ account (Kendall, 67). There are countless possible disaster scenarios just waiting to happen to systems when the century changes, and in some cases, these problems will start to happen before the change of the century. The bottom line is, if your system calculates, processes or stores any type of date related data, it is definitely at risk from the Year 2000 issue (Blair Interview).

Everything in our world, from phone companies to the grocery store, is computerized (The History and the Hype). If Y2K takes effect, problems accessing food, money, and getting in touch with family and friends will occur. Fixing the worldwide problem requires an estimated $600 Billion (US) and analyzing millions of code (Y2K: So Many Bugs… So Little Time). This spares only a few systems from Y2K. Estimation suggests that there are 500 billion lines of application code worldwide, of which some 85 percent needing corrected (The Millennium 2000 Bug Total Y2K Repair Kit).

Various reports stated that by the turn of the millennium, as much as 50 percent of all businesses which failed to address the Year 2000 challenge will break down (Y2K: So Many Bugs… So Little Time). Managers become heavy-hearted thinking about their future as December 31, 1999 rolls in (Kendall 67). Knowing that there is going to be a disaster does not help much especially when there are few resources to handle the problem. Fearing the effects of the crisis, companies worldwide need an additional 200,000 COBOL programmers (The History and the Hype).

Because the cause of the problem stems back some twenty or thirty years, the programming languages most affected by the Year 2000 problem are older languages such as COBOL. In fact, it’s probably fair to say that COBOL accounts for most of the worlds business applications (Blair Interview). Because the Year 2000 problem is so easily identifiable with COBOL and because there are new languages, many people are under the impression that any system written using the new programming languages is completely Year 2000 ready (Gates 72). In reality, nothing could be further from the truth (The History and the Hype).

Visual Basic includes various date handling functions and procedures which are totally unaware of the Year 2000. In fact, because of the implication that these functions will work into the Year 2000, and because of over confidence in the language, applications built using Visual Basic are probably more likely to cause problems than many other languages (Gates 72). Microsoft has taken steps to correct these problems by introducing fixes to these date functions in each of the major new releases. Visual Basic 5. 0 introduces an industry accepted technique known as windowing.

This technique makes assumptions about the intended century of a two-digit year. However, the window is a fixed window that only interprets dates up until 2030, which flaws the solution. For instance, given the date “01/01/32”, Visual Basic will assume that the intended year is 1932 (Gates 72-73). The role that dates play in a business is critical to whether or not the problem will exist. Going to the problem of electrical companies, date-coding plays only a minor part in the production of electricity, but it plays a major part in the metering of electricity usage (Y2K: So Many Bugs…

So Little Time). The Senate concluded that local power blackouts will be likely, but national power breakdown is not. If they do happen it will only be for about a week, but in major metropolitan areas they shouldnt be more than 48 hours. (The Millennium 2000 Bug Total Y2K Repair Kit). The government is working laboriously to get prepared for the new millennium, but are they ready? One of the lagging branches is Social Security which keeps track of everyone in the country (Y2K: So Many Bugs… So Little Time). Next is the military, nuclear reactors, and air transport systems.

The Department of Defense reported that only 72 percent of its mission-critical systems are ready (The Millennium 2000 Bug Total Y2K Repair Kit). Also, what about the nations linked up to us? Being so far behind, they jeopardize the rest of us. Another lagging industry is hospitals and health care. Health care is one of the worst-prepared for Y2K and carries a significant potential for harm. For patient treatment, insurance claims, and pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution, the industry relies on computers (The History and the Hype).

Fearful organizations are not the only ones suffering the millennium bug. Anyone, even a personal computer user, can be. Surfing the net would prove that the Y2K’s awareness level is growing with more sites dedicated to this problem (Blair Interview). Pessimists say that we will fall into global recession and have another depression as in the 30s era. Stock markets might fall because of companies that are not exactly ready for Y2K. ATMs and banks may not be able to transact money because of this.

Grocery stores relying on computers to deliver goods, take inventory, and even scan pricing will go down. There will be riots, looting, and world wide power outages. Home appliances will go crazy and telephones will be unusable. Planes and trains will collide into each other, gas pumps wont work, or the cars computer will malfunction so we cant go anywhere. They think that it is the end for civilization as we know it. Could they be right? Could we be going back to the Stone Age (The Millennium 2000 Bug Total Y2K Repair Kit)?

There is no magic solution, silver bullet or quick fix to the Year 2000 problem (Johnson Interview). Yes, it’s true that we can put a man on the moon, or speak to people on the other side of the planet. If we want, we can even blow the world up a thousand times over. However, we can’t fix the Year 2000 problem with one swoop of a magic wand (Blair Interview). Because of the complexity and number of different business applications, platforms, languages, technologies, programming styles and business scenarios, it is impossible to come up with a one-time, fix all solution.

Instead, the problem needs to be addressed by each company individually (The History and the Hype). Unfortunately, the only way of being 100% certain that a given application will function as expected into and beyond the next century is to physically address every single line of code and thoroughly test each function in the given application. Regardless of the size and complexity of an application, it only takes one single line of programming code to bring a system to its knees (The History and the Hype)!

Ignoring the Year 2000 computer crisisone of the most serious and potentially devastating events this world has ever encountered was of no use. Postponing it was out of the question. It set a date for us. A considerable number of people believed the end of the world was near, implicating that we would be back to stones and sticks. Be prepared for the worst and hope for the best is one way to describe the Year 2000 crisis. Even though we didnt know what exactly would happen when the double zeros struck, Y2K will definitely be a milestone in history.

The 1950’s in America were considered a true awakening of youth culture. If this is true then the 1960’s was a decade of discovery. It was a decade marred by social unrest, civil rights injustice, and violence abroad. These were some of the factors that lead to a revolution that attempted to bifurcate the fabric of American society. Teenagers were breaking away from the ideals that their parents held, and were attempting to create their own society. If they were to accomplish this they would turn the current system upside down.

In 1962, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said his most famous words: “I have a dream. ” (Constable, 144) He was not the only one who felt this way. For many, the 1960s was a decade in which their dreams about America might be fulfilled. For Martin Luther King Jr. , this was a dream of a truly equal America; for John F. Kennedy, it was a dream of a young vigorous nation that would put a man on the moon; and for the hippie movement, it was one of love, peace, and freedom. (Constable, 34) The 1960s was a tumultuous decade of social and political upheaval.

We are still confronting many social issues that were addressed in the 1960s today. In spite of the turmoil, there were some positive results, such as the civil rights revolution. However, many outcomes were negative: student antiwar protest movements, political assassinations, and ghetto riots excited American people and resulted in a lack of respect for authority and the law. However, with all the talk and the tension that this movement created it turned out to be an empty rebellion. While it did voice important concerns about civil rights, the Vietnam War, and the injustices of society.

It is important to first examine the change in music that was the fuel of the counterculture revolution. Rock n Roll was born in the 1950’s. It was this birth that allowed the counterculture to be born. Without the innovation of the Rock n’ Roll of the 1950’s the rock of the 1960’s would have never evolved. It became an outlet for the teenagers of the 1960’s to express themselves and voice their concerns about society. Rock n’ Roll emerged from rhythm and blues, a music similar to jazz played by blacks.

This kind of music started to attract white teenagers. Disc jockey Alan Freed was the one who introduced this music and later gave it the name of Rock n Roll. (Groliers, 1) Record companies distributed records played by whites but composed by blacks. Whites were frustrated because there werent any white artists and they didnt want the blacks to be the stars until Bill Haley appeared with his “Rock Around the Clock”. This typifies the racial attitudes of the decade. It showed the segregated view of society that existed among the races.

By teenagers acknowledging black music it was a move that started to separate the culture of the teenagers from their parents. Constable, 71-72) In this decade, Elvis Presley introduced a music that was sexual suggestive and outraged dull adults. In time he changed the style of the music by adopting a country and western style and became a national hero. By the end of this decade and the start of the next, Rock n Roll started to decline because it was formula ridden and it was too sentimental. Teenage audiences transferred their allegiance to Folk music.

In 1963 the renewal of Rock n Roll came when The Beatles started to play. (Frank, 13)The Beatles, for some the best rock group ever, were from Liverpool, England. Through the 60s, The Beatles dominated the record industries and with their dominant instrumentation, which included: electric leads, rhythm, and bass guitar, drums and sometimes an electric organ, changed the name of Rock n Roll to just Rock. During the 1960s, many other styles of music arose from Rock like, Motown, Soul music, Jazz-rock , Folk-rock and others. Folk-Rock the most appreciated of this derivations and was first suggested by Bob Dylan. Groliers, 1-2)

This kind of music brought to folk music a hard beat and amplification; and to Rock, a new poetic style. California was one of the major centers of rock activity and experimentation during the decade. First it was characterize for its surfing music, a very joyful music that reflected the fun people had while surfing. The Beach Boys were the ones who introduced this kind of music. At the end of the century this happy kind of music changed to a more rebellious style that was designated the name of “hippie music”. Groups that played this music were Country Joe and The Mamas and The Papas.

Along with this hippie ideas popularity of hallucinogenic drugs produced a psychedelic style of music called Acid Rock. By the end of the 60s the distinctions between Rock n Roll and Rock were evident. (Groliers, 2) The early instruments- saxophone, piano, amplified guitar, and drums had been changed to electric guitar and bass, amplified drums and other electronic devices. Not only did the instruments change but so did the ideas behind the music. For example, “to the lyrics of teenage love and adolescent concerns were added social commentary, glorification of drugs and free-association poetry”(Groliers, p. ).

Groups like The Beach Boys, Crew Cuts and The Everly Brothers were replaced by ore imaginative, non-descriptive names groups like The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and Holding Company. The Who, the most famous of these groups, were originally from England and were renowned because of their bizarre stage performances, they would destroy their instruments after their performance finished. The Who was one of the first rock groups. Another important aspect of the 1960’s that influenced the evolution of the counterculture was that of the civil rights movement.

In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, and in 1965 they passed the Voting Rights act. Constable, 153-55) The Civil Rights Movement did not just affect American minorities, but everyone who lived in the United States at the time. The momentum of the previous decade’s civil rights gains led by Reverend Martin Luther King carried over into the 1960s. But for most blacks, the tangible results were minimal. Only a small percentage of black children actual attended integrated schools, and in the South, “Jim Crow” practices barred blacks from jobs and public places.

New groups and goals were formed to push for full equality. As often as not, white resistance resulted in violence. (Constable, 148-150)In 1962, during the first large-scale public protest against racial discrimination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a dramatic and inspirational speech in Washington, D. C. during a march on the capital. “The Negro,” King said in his speech, “lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity and finds himself an exile in his own land” (Gitlin 77).

Under leaders like Martin Luther King, blacks were trying attain all the rights a white man would have. In 1965, King and other black leaders wanted to push beyond social integration, now guaranteed under the previous year’s Civil Rights Act, to political rights. Reverend King announced that as a “matter of conscience and in an attempt to arouse the deepest concern of the nation,” (Gitlin 84) he was compelled to lead another march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. When the marchers reached the capitol, they were to have presented a petition to Governor George Wallace protesting voting discrimination.

However, when they arrived, the Governor’s aides came out and said, “the capitol is closed today” (Gitlin 85). Unfortunately, the event that moved the Civil Rights Movement most significantly was the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1965. Moments after the assassination, terrible cruelty replaced the harmony. Rioting mobs in Watts, California pillaged, killed, and burned, leading to the death or injury of hundreds and millions of dollars in damage. The civil rights movement was a very important factoring in molding the counterculture.

Besides the Civil Rights movement, there was another important movement during the 1960s: the Student Movement. Youthful Americans were outraged by the intolerance of their universities, racial inequality, social injustice, and the Vietnam War. The Student Movement led to the hippie culture. This movement marked another response to the decade as the young experimented with music, clothes, and drugs. These young people became known as hippies. Hippies preached mysticism, honesty, joy, and nonviolence. Time 7 July 1967, 4-5)

In 1969, they held the famous Woodstock Festival for peace in New York, a three day concert that emphasized their beliefs. One of the chief movements that came from the Student Movement were the antiwar protests during the Vietnam War. (Time 6 Jan. 1967, 22) The United States first became directly involved in Vietnam when Harry Truman started to underwrite the costs of France’s war against Viet Minh. Later, the presidencies of Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy increased America’s political, economic, and military commitments in the Indochina region. Constable, 71-73)

Starting with teach-ins in 1965, the massive antiwar efforts centered on the colleges, with the students playing the lead roles. The teach-in approach was at first a gentle approach to the antiwar activity. But soon other types of protest grew to replace it. These demonstrations were one form of attempting to go beyond mere words and to “put direct pressure on those who were conducting policy in an apparent disdain for the will expressed by the voters” (Gitlin 30). In 1965, the United States started strategic bombings of North Vietnam, catalyzing the public opinion of what was happening in the region.

These bombings helped sustain the antiwar protests and spawned new ones, “and the growing cost of American lives coming home in body bags only intensified public opposition to the war” (Rubin 54). The antiwar movement spread directly among the combat troops in Vietnam, who began to wear peace symbols and flash peace signs in movement salutes. Some units even organized their own demonstrations to link with the activity at home. The war in Southeast Asia and the war at home dominated newspaper headlines and the attention of the White House. Only a quarter of Americans approved of his handling of the war in 1968.

The antiwar movement that began small became giant. Americans were soon shocked to learn about the communists’ massive Tet Offensive on January 31, 1968. The offensive demonstrated that Johnson had been making the progress in the war seem greater than it really was; it appeared to have no end. Johnson withdrew from the election in 1968, and the communists planned to do battle with their new enemy, Richard Nixon. Besides the unsuccessful Vietnam campaign, the United States was also involved in another unsuccessful battle: the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of 1963.

Now that we have examined the aspects of the counterculture, we must look at the key to the counterculture: the hippies. The culture of the hippie was meant to occur because of the tumultuous events that surrounded the decade of the 1960’s. With the development of new technology, a war against Communism, and an internal war against racial injustice, a change in America was sure to happen. As the children of the baby boom became young adults, they found far more discontent with the world around them. This lead to a subculture labeled as hippies, that as time went one merged into a mass society all its own.

These people were upset about a war in Vietnam, skeptical of the present government and its associated authority, and searching for a place to free themselves from societys current norms, bringing the style they are known for today. Eve of destruction; no satisfactionand a third motif went rippling through the baby-boom culture: adhesive love (Gitlin,200). The freedom they found came with the help of drugs. Marijuana evolved from its black and Hispanic, jazz-minded enclaves to the outlying zones of the white middle class young (Gitlin 200).

This new drug allowed a person to open their mind to new understandings and philosophies. But it wasnt just marijuana that opened the minds of the youth; a new drug known as LSD came into existence: Depending on who was doing the talking, [LSD] is an intellectual tool to explore psychic inner space, a new source of kicks for thrill seekers, the sacramental substance of a far-out mystical movement- or the latest and most frightening addiction to the list of mind drugs now available in the pill society being fashioned by pharmacology (Clark 59).

With politicians and law enforcement officers looking on the drug as a danger to society, many expert hemists set up underground laboratories and fabricated potent and pure LSDkept their prices down, gave out plenty of free samples, and fancied themselves dispensers of miracles at the service of a new age (Gitlin 214). It wasnt just the youth in America who was using these drugs. A statistic from 1967 states that more American troops in Vietnam were arrested for smoking marijuana than for any other major crime (Steinbeck 97).

The amazing statistic wasnt the amount of soldiers smoking marijuana; it was the amount of soldiers America was sending over to fight a war that nobody understood. Between 1965 and 1967, troops doubled and redoubled and redoubled twice more (Gitlin 261). In a letter to President Johnson sent by student leaders from 100 American colleges and universities and published in Time, this problem was addressed: Significant and growing numbers of our contemporaries are deeply troubled about the posture of their Government in Viet Nam.

Even more are torn-by reluctance to participate in a war whose toll keeps escalating, but about whose purpose and value to the U. S. they remain unclear. With the fear of being sent to Vietnam, many potential draftees looked for a place to run. Some went to Mexico, some went to Europe, some went to Canada, and some just burnt their draft-cards to resist the draft. For those who went to Canada, they received assistance from the Committee to Aid American War Objectors. The committee helped the young immigrants with advice and aid on the Canadian immigration laws.

For those who didnt flee, life was full of harassment from the Government. Popular music and literature help display this message of repression. Jimi Hendrix released a song titled If 6 was 9 that described his oppression: White collared conservative flashing down the street/Pointing their plastic finger at me/Theyre hoping soon my kind will drop and die… Go on Mr. business man/You cant dress like me. During Woodstock, the music festival in 69, Country Joe and the Fish sang lyrics that were both comical and intense: What are we fighting for? Dont ask me,I dont give a damn/Next stop is Vietnam… Whoopee were all gonna die.

Jerry Rubin illustrated his anger in the government, in the book he wrote while spending time in jail. We Are Everywhere describes Rubins hatred towards all authority admitting, heroin is the governments most powerful counter-revolutionary agent, a form of germ warfare. Since they cant get us back into their system, they try to destroy us through heroin (Gitlin 118). This repression of the elder generation sent the youth to accepting communities, particularly out west.

Most of the people leaving their homes came from working-class families whose parents and communities had driven them out for simply for supporting the civil rights movement. Being alienated from their towns and considered communists, they found it easy to side with the anti-war movement. It was also easy for them to discover drugs and the free-love idea that was already being spread. The new culture identified themselves with the Native Americans and their unquestionable oppression, sacramental drugs, and true ties to America.

The style that they developed was true to this philosophy. Described by Gitlin: Dope, hair, beads, easy sex, all that might have started as symbols of teenage difference or deviance, were fast transformed into signs of cultural dissidence… Boys with long and unkempt hair, pony tails, beards, old-timey mustaches and sideburns; girls unpermed, without rollers, without curlers, stringy-haired, underarms and legs unshaven, free of makeup and bras… A beard could be understood as an attempt to leap into manhood… Clothes were a riot of costumes…

Indias beads, Indians headbands ,cowboy-style boots and hides, granny glasses, long dresses, working-class jeans and flannels; most tantalizingly, army jackets. (Gitlin,215) There was a tour bus that ran through the Haight-Ashbury area n San Francisco called the Gray Line. The tours promotional brochure contained the statement: The only foreign tour within the continental limits of the United States (Sutton, 36). The significant people in the city didnt like the idea of a large hippie community growing in their city. The city didnt contain any photographs on file, nor did they dig the idea of journalists doing reports on the hippies.

Ronald Reagan thought of the hippies as someone who dresses like Tarzan, has hair like Jane, and smells like Cheetah (Gitlin, 217). But with or without such outside influences, the hippies continued to pursue their make love not war and free love attitudes. No movement in our history defines a cultural change more accurately than the hippie movement in the 60s. They had their own laws, music, clothes, and writings. The view of what a society should be was a common one to all hippies. Their ideas were important all throughout the late Sixties and early Seventies, and there is still a hippie population in America today.

The counterculture was a movement that occurred because of the environment of the 1960’s. It was created from the racial inequality, social unrest, and the growing need for the baby boomer generation to distinguish themselves from their parents. These so called hippies created a culture of their own that grew from the heavy use of drugs, a new style of rock that evolved from the rock of the 1950’s, and a sexual revolution that changed the values of society. The 1960’s had a pronounced effect on future generations. It brought about a change in civil rights, and the publics’ voicing of concerns about governmental decisions.

There are many types of cults in the world, cults are everywhere but you just do not see them. Every person in the world has been in contact with them in one way or another in many cases you cannot see them. The closest cult we know of is on Rice Lake called the Moonies led by Reverend Myung, where I have currently visited. Cults can be involved in churches and even are earliest religions are called cults. Cults are not the strongest groups’ sects are the strongest group. When you join a sect you cannot get out of them but a cult you can leave without having any problem or commitment.

Sects ill not let you out because many times it’s illegal and they are afraid that you will say something to the public. Cults sometimes are illegal to. Religious cults are in every town and village there is no definition of a cult that is accepted by sociologists and psychologist or religion many types of activities will take cult like structures, an example would be any popular trend like physical exercise this is called the physical fitness cult. Famous athletes are a big figure when it comes to cults, many times Movie stars, professional athletes will endorse a product and a trend will start, making it turn into a ult.

Also people who generate beliefs of something like flying saucer, aliens or any unknown figures can be cult. In religion when people call a church they are referring to a sacred organization having a highly structured or formalized dogma and hierarchy, but also allowing a bit of flexibility about membership requirements allowing you to go to a church and leave church when you want to. Although sects are against church attempts to accommodate to secular society. Sects believe that they are protecting a true faith or belief.

Sects tend to stay away from world events , and also they believe in a trong strict behavioral code and demand a commitment out of their people. The differences between cults and sects are sometimes the same. Many scholars do not make distinctions between the two. Cults are different because they do not expect as much commitment. Many times’ cults do not expect couples to become apart. Cults do not last as long as sects. Many times’ cults survive through a decade, and also cults allow you to come and go as you want.

Leaders of cults build around a charismatic leader who has a lifestyle dedicated to a specific spirituality group that they know other people will follow. The word Mormonism began as a small cult then grew bigger until it became a sect and eventually into a church. All the new religions followed the same thing by beginning small and getting bigger than becoming a church. Cults go back as far as we know of life, cults began to get bigger and be known throughout the world in the late 1960s and early 70s as people were better educated and better understood how they were formed and how they were run and people began to join.

During this time Youths and middle class people began to join cults because of the in thing to do and they felt more secure about themselves. Cults really started to fascinate people when Jimmy Jones cult began in November of 1978 when all attention was focused on the mass suicide in Jonestown, a similar event happened in 1993 when federal agents engaged in a shoot out with cult leader David Koresh. Modern cults have many different practices and many different ways of leadership.

Some cults have a flexible functional leadership, like the groups in the charismatic movement coming from the mainland Christian religion, other cults have people who run and orchestrate cult events, like Reverend Myung Moon leader of the unification church. The reason people are attracted to modern cults because it puts emphasis on community and on direct experience with the divine. In cults’ participants often find a level of social support and acceptance that they do not find in a nuclear family.

This makes and generates a sense of belonging to something profound and a feel of being somebody. People who often join cults such as this, join because they think they are getting something the world did not give them. Several factors have been looked at to figure why people like are modern youths join cults. Factors that were looked at were drug’s ar assignation of many unpopular presidents. Cults have been questioned about brainwashing people, and found it to be true. Cargo cults are usually neutralist and are in it for money.

The word cargo refers to foreign goods possessed by Europeans. Cult members believe that goods belong to themselves and that , with the help of ancestral spirits, the goods can be returned to them through magic religious means. Brainwashing is the process of deliberately subjecting people to physical and psychological hardship in order to alter their thoughts and attitudes, and actions. It also is a process of totally cleaning a mind of one set idea and replacing them by another thought or belief.

This is called to indoctrinate cleaning a thought and putting a completely new thought in mind. Indoctrinating can take place without brainwashing. There are 2 aspects of brainwashing they are confessions of past crimes or errors of the past and re-education to new beliefs. Prisoners sometimes are made to confess by lack of sleep and food and other forms of intense physical discomfort, also isolation from victims’ families and from familiar surroundings. Cult leaders show obedience, and humility and make other members give social pressure to the new member to make them join.

And the last thing they do is make mutual criticism and self criticism sessions, which make them have a generalized guilt feeling that all people have acceptance of new ideas is again fostered by group pressure and the anticipated reward of freedom. People who have a better understanding of psychology and neuophysiology have made larger groups create extremely effective brainwashing programs. Their techniques however have been used or centuries as inquisition making people give excited confessions from alleged heretics.

Religions sometimes use these methods like scourging, rhythmic dancing and drumming and sometimes inducing a trance like state in which the individual is open to conversion. In the 20th centuries, most noticeably by the people’s temple of Guyana, whose membership committed mass suicide. Mystery Cults are usually in the ancient times whose members believed that by means of the performance of particular secret rituals they would gain knowledge that people in the normal world would not ave and that would make a mystical union with the divine.

Mystery cults make their members feel they are god and give them a feel of immortality that they cannot be destroyed. Many times in mystery cults, cult leaders feel they died and were brought back to be god or Jesus. In todays society, cults are one of the many unfortunate aspects endure in life. Leaders of Cults should be dealt with in a more serious matter. Cult leaders are con-artists and are people that like to control others. Cults should be controlled to protect innocent citizens from being taken advantage of.

Imagine yourself in a cemetery, commemorating your great-grandpa. Dia De Los Muertos (The Day of the Dead) is celebrated in Mexico on November 2nd. The Day of the Dead is one of Mexico’s traditional holidays reuniting and honoring beloved ancestors, family, and friends. To begin, the historical roots of this celebration date back to the pre-Hispanic cultures of Meso-America of the indigenous people, especially the Nahua (Aztecs, Mayans, Toltecas, Tlaxcaltec, Chichimec, Tecpanec) and others native to Mexico more than 3,000 years ago. Life was seen as a dream.

It was believed that only in dying, a human being was truly awake. Death was not a mysterious and fearful presence but a realistic recognizable character as much a part of life as life itself. When Christianity was introduced in the 16th century, religion and its symbols became part of the altars we now find in Mexico today. November 1st, All Saints Day, is when the spirits of the children, called “los angelitos” (little angels), are expected to return. Traditionally, it is a time when family members share memorable stories that would commemorate their lives together.

Secondly, there are many items that people do to celebrate the Day of the Dead. On November 2, family members clean and perhaps paint the headstones, arrange flowers, and lighting candles. Mexican families construct special home altars dedicated to the spirits of their deceased loved ones. The altars range from simple to the very elaborate and are usually filled with objects that provided pleasure to the departed person in life, including favorite food and drink. Altars dedicated to the spirits of deceased children often include toys, candy and other sweets.

I hink that building alters for the dead is a good concept. They teach the younger generations about the past, as well as commemorate the dead. No matter what kind of a person was, everyone leaves behind a legend. Some books, for example, are biographies, praising and telling about a person in the past or present. Like a book, the alters tell the history of a person. The alters tell a story of the dead individual. Alters tell the age, their likes, and many other interesting facts about the dead individuals life.

I think that these alters compensate the work of an earlier generation. The altars or “ofrendas” as they are called, also usually contain objects made from sugar or sugar sculpture known as “alfenique. ” These objects may be small animals, such as lambs, miniature plates of food (enchiladas with mole), small coffins, often with pop-up skeletons, and of course, the sugar skull or “calavera. ” The skulls are made by pouring a mixture of boiling water, confectioner’s sugar and lime into clay molds, which have been previously soaked in water.

The calaveras are decorated with paper foil for eyes and a kind of colored icing for air. Names can be added to the skull and Mexican children often exchange named skulls with their friends. I think that the skeleton represents the spirit still living after it has left it’s flesh on this earth. The spirit of an individual lives on forever. Ofrendas often include “papel picado” or Mexican cut-paper. Papel picado has a long folk tradition in Mexico and the little town of San Salvador Huixcolotla, in the state of Puebla, is known for its fine cut paper.

Although papel picado is used as a decoration for many festive occasions uch as weddings and baptisms, papel picado with themes relating to Day of the Dead is also very popular. The Mexican papel picado is similar to origami. Although origami is folded, it too has spiritual meaning. In conclusion, I think that Dias De Los Muertos is important for the family to maintain good relationships with the dead for it is they who intercede and bring food fortune to the living. It is a time to come to terms with our mortality and become aware of cycle of life and death. The Day of the Dead is a day for honoring are beloved ones.

For many centuries people have been fascinated by ancient cultures and treasures. During the last two centuries the science of archeology and modern inventions allowed people to get inside of the Egyptian and Mayan pyramids and discover the treasures of Egyptian pharaohs and Mayan rulers. Most of what we know about Egypt we owe to the pyramids. Thanks to Egyptian belief in the afterlife we can now find out about the civilization that existed nearly five thousand years ago. Egyptian culture is not the only culture that left us its heritage in pyramids.

In America we find pyramids build by civilizations of Olmec and Maya about 7th entury CE. These pyramids had different purposes and usage then the ones in Egypt but they stand as memorials to ancient civilizations as well. Egyptian people believed in life after death. One of the way pharaohs prepared themselves for the afterlife journey was by building a pyramid and putting there all their belongings and riches. Egyptian people believed that pharaoh is the closest person to the God and treated him accordingly. That is the reason for Egyptian tombs being full with the golden jewelry, precious stones and art objects.

Most of the time art objects were not considered a treasury but they played their articular role in religious rituals. Jars were holding food and drinks for pharaohs journey, so he would not get hungry and would have food and drinks to offer to the Gods. The figurative sculptures were suppose to accompany Ka ( spiritual entity) in its lonely stay or serve as a twin for the mummy. If something happens to the mummy the ka could use the sculpture of the pharaoh for the revelation. As well as for Egyptians religion was an everyday concern for many of the Maya, whether the dynastic ruler, the zealous priest, or the humble believer.

Maya has an extensive religion structure which we can not know in details. Chac and Itzamna are the most famous gods of Mayan culture. Hunahpu and Xbalanque are among the most interesting mythical characters. One of the most crucial gods was Tlaloc, who was worshiped in various guises by the culture of Teotihuacan, the Toltec of Tula, and later Aztecs. The Maya received the cult of Tlaloc during the 4th century more or less. The Cauac Monster, also known as the Witz monster, is a dominant supernatural concept in Maya religion, as are caves, cenotes, and other holy places (Maya Civilization pars. ).

The Maya built shrines, temples, and pyramids in honor of their gods, as well as to their ings, who ruled by all-encompassing concept of Divine power. Most of Mayan pyramids are temples to the gods, not the burial tombs as in Egypt. Even though Maya sometimes buried there their rulers they always put the temple on the top of the pyramid. Egyptians had temples near the pyramid or right next to it for the ceremonial services, but it never was placed on top of the structure. Also buildings in both cultures have a lot in common in their visual characteristics they are different structures.

Egyptian pyramids originally had smooth equal sides meeting on the top in the perfect apex. Mayan pyramids look like one huge tairway towards the sky. It reminds of earliest Egyptian structures-mastabas, where one layer of stones was put onto another creating the effect of pyramid. Also The Tikal Temple on Great Plaza was originally plastered white. Then the roof comb was painted with reds, blues, and other colors to accent the different areas of sculptural decoration. These roof combs were like giant billboards, with immense portrayals of the enthroned king, larger then life size (Cities pars. ).

Egyptians never colored their religious structures. As well as in Egyptian pyramids, the stone used to construct Mayan pyramids is local imestone, obtained from nearby quarries. The ancient Maya had no stone tools but limestone is soft enough that the Maya could utilize chert tools to work the stone in to neat rectangular building blocks. Egyptian pyramids served as huge tombs and they were constructed in such a way so they would stand for thousand years. Egyptians did not know when the spirit would return into the dead body.

Pyramids were constructed of rough stone blocks laid in horizontal rows, in a polygonal shape, with triangular sides rising to meet in the apex. Some were originally as high as 750 feet. The pyramids were built by taking blocks of ranite to the workshops, measuring the blocks down the size, shaping the block and placing it into the body of the pyramid. Then on top of the built structure workers put the limestone going from the top to bottom. Egyptians left two empty rooms to place the pharaohs mummy and his belongings in. They sealed pyramids so well that it took four hundred years for robbers to get in.

It is believed that the pyramids would be standing intact today if it were not for later destruction by robbers and invaders and for use as a building material. As it is, the massive stone buildings are rising right now outside of Cairo. The interiors of these huge stone structures contain a series of a narrow passages, ending in several large chambers. The central chamber was the burial room, always reached by a passage from the north, and containing a false stone door on the west side, representing an exit for the deceased soul.

The roofs of these chambers were formed of layers of stone beams, lying on top of another, each layer weighing more then 30 tons. The passages into burial chamber was often hewn out of the rock directly from the outer edge. As well as Egyptian pharaoh Mayan rulers like Giant Jaguar was buried in his tomb with hundreds of fferings-vases, jade, jewels and so on. Mayan temple-pyramids usually contained one or more rooms, however, the rooms were so narrow that they could only have been used on ceremonial occasions and were not meant for public consumption.

Most of the Egyptian pyramids were built by six pharaohs of the Old Kingdom, and were considered sacred shrines. On the contrary to general beliefs pyramids were built by free citizens, drafted to public work, not by slaves. Thousand experts worked on the design of pyramids all year round. An extra work group about ninety-five thousand men worked on the construction site during the four month eriod of the inundation ( the time of enforced idleness for farmers, since the fields were covered with the water of Nile) (Payne 24).

The most famous Egyptian pyramids are the three pyramids five miles southwest of Giza, which is three miles southwest of Cairo. The largest pyramid, 481 feet high and 786 feet along east side of base, was built for Khufu, who reigned between 2900 and 2877 B. C. The pyramid of Khafre, who reigned about 2859 B. C. is slightly smaller, but it is on a higher ground so that the apex is higher. The smallest pyramid (yet not small at all) was built by Menkure about 2800 B. C. (Casson 5). One of the most famous sites of Mayan culture is Tikal in Guatemala.

Numerous buildings stayed almost intact at the Great Plaza: the Temple of the Giant Jaguar (700 A. D. ), the Temple of the Masks (699 A. D), and the North Acropolis. At the heart of the Temple of the Giant jaguar is the tomb of high priest. The sanctuary for worship at the top of the structure sits on a nine-tiered pyramid. In each cultures each pyramid was built for the body of only one man. Usually, caskets full of jewels, furniture in laid with ivory and gold, silver and alabaster bowls and vessels, hests filled with clothing and precious ornaments, jars filled with food and wine were put in the room next to the room with the mummy.

Among the objects found in the Egyptian pyramids were the shabtis. Shabtis are small statues in the form of nude humans, often wrapped in linen and placed in model coffins. They were inscribed with a prayer for food offerings, although they probably also functioned as alternative abode for the ka. By the Middle Kingdom (2025 B. C) the figures had become mummiform in shape, and their inscriptions clearly join the deceased with Osiris, the god of the underworld, who rose to prominence uring this period. By late Dynasty XII (1850 B. C. ) The statuettes original function as residence for the ka has expanded greatly.

Although the original identification with the tomb owner was never lost, the figures were seen primarily as workers who performed a service for the deceased, and they became known by the ancient Egyptians as shabits. Rapidly shabit-figures came to represent the deceaseds servants in the afterlife and were so popular that they replaced the model servant statues previously deposited in upper-class graves of the Old and Middle Kingdoms (Life sect. 1). One of the most important raditions in the Egyptian culture was the mummification of the dead body. According to Egyptian religion the body had to be intact in order for Ka to return.

Mummification of the dead body was a complicated and long process. The famous Greek historian Herodotus reported on the Egyptian practice of mummification: They take first a crooked piece of iron, and with it draw out brain through the nostrils, thus getting rid of a portion, while the skull is cleared of the rest by rinsing with drugs; next they make a cut along the flank with a sharp Ethiopian stone, and take out the whole contents of the abdomen, hich they then cleanse, washing it throughly with palm wine, and again frequently with an infusion of pounded aromatics.

After this they fill the cavity with the purest bruised myrrh, with cassia, and every other sort of spicery except frankincense, and sew up the opening. (Herodotus sect. 1) After these procedures were done the body was placed in natrum for saventy days. They put the body into the wooden coffin which was shaped into the man figure. Sometimes the wooden coffin was placed into the golden one decorated by precious stones and paint.

In Mayan culture we find no evidences that any techniques of ummification were used. In the humid climate of Central America it is very hard to preserve a dead body for such a long time that is needed for the mummification process. As we can see Mayan and Egyptian cultures have a lot in common. However, some major differences can be found. Mayan religion was not obsessed with an afterlife beliefs as Egyptians were.

Their pyramids were built either for Gods or as a memorial to the dead ruler or priest. Egyptians built their pyramids for the dead. Their buildings were meant to be used in the other life by the great spirits buried in them. Some visual differences also occur. Most of the Mayan pyramids are shorter then the ones at Giza site. They are not sealed forever but has an access for the priests and authorized people. The major difference is that Maya put the shrine right on top of the pyramid.

The stairs led from the ground to the top of the pyramid. This way people thought they would be closer to God. In Egypt only pharaoh was considered to be closer to God therefore an enormous buildings reaching the sky was meant to be the stairway to the heaven only for the pharaoh. Nowadays these both ancient cultures still hold many mysteries for us. Most of the things we know are based n the speculations of the scientists, not on the certain facts.

Archeologists working on discovering more and more about the ancient civilizations that existed thousand years ago but appeared much more advanced then we used to think about it. However, many of the documents, scripts and art evidences disappeared during such a long time. Robbers, invaders and weather were the reason for the huge loss of historical items that were kept in ancient Maya cities and along the Nile. I am sure that in the future many of the mysteries will be unfolded, but as for now, ancient people keep fascinate us with their enigmas.

For about a century, Western Culture has really been divided into two cultures, the traditional type of ‘high culture’ and a ‘mass culture’ manufactured wholesale for the market. High culture is the arts that require some form of intellect to comprehend, so therefore can only reach a tiny segment of the population, whilst levelling accusations of elitism. High culture includes ballet; the forms of operas, operettas and symphonies; types of film; certain novels; theatre and plays.

Mass or popular culture is derived from high culture, so for every item in high culture, there is a corresponding item of lesser importance in popular culture. Forms of popular culture include television, comics and magazines, pop music and the cinema. It is acknowledged that mass culture is to some extent a continuation of the old Folk Art that grew through the Industrial Revolution as the culture of the common people. The notifiable dissimilarity is its own spontaneity and ability to satisfy the needs of the people, without the benefit of high culture.

To satisfy the popular taste, as Robert Burns’s poetry did, and to exploit tastes, in the manner of massive industries like Hollywood does, are very different indeed; folk art was a separate institution, created by and for the people; wheras businessmen’s only interest in the cultural field is to produce profit- and even to maintain their class rule fabricate Mass culture. It is accepted that mass culture began as, and to some extent still is, a cancerous growth on high culture, as shown when Clement Greenburg stated, ‘Kitsch (German term for mass culture) takes advantage of.

Fully matured cultural tradition, extracting its riches and putting nothing back’. Constantly evolving, kitsch reduces so far away from high culture as to appear quite disconnected from it. Mass culture is imposed from above, as Karl Marx recognised, onto the passive susceptibility of the ignorant masses, to which decisions lie between consumption or no consumption. It is therefore, the ‘Lords of kitsch’ that are the sole beneficiaries; mass culture integrates the masses in a form of debased high culture.

This lack of control proves the power of the mass culture businessman, shown when during the 1929 depression, when capitalism was in chaos, focus was turned from the ‘idols of production’ to the ‘idols of consumption’ such as Hollywood movie stars, creating a ‘dreamlikeworld’, a marketing heaven, for the masses to aspire to. Mass culture can therefore never be worthwhile. Commodities are imposed upon the masses, taking away freedom of choice and individuality. Instead of being related to one another as members of a community, the relation is formed with a system of industrial production, something abstract and untouchable.

The great culture-bearing elites have communities with members having an individual role and sharing similar interests. In contrast, mass society sinks to the lowest level, to that of its most primitive members, its taste complies with that of the least sensitive and most ignorant member. Members accept any idiocy if it is wholly agreed as knowledge in the capitalist superstructure. Homogenized mass culture is so rigidly democratic, refusing distinction or discrimination that it succeeds in destroying all values and dissolving any form of barriers.

The homogenizing effects of kitsch also denote a blur in age segregation. The easy access to all mass culture means that all forms of mass culture means that children are subjected to the worst kind of capitalism; that which encourages infantile regression and escape via consumption of commodities or ‘over stimulation’ resulting in growing up to quickly, and a barrage of associated problems. Without further detail, mass culture could reveal capitalism to be an exploitative class society; rather than the harmonious commonwealth openly alleged.

This makes mass culture a form of political domination, as Soviet Communism and its own kind of mass culture have shown. The conservative proposal to rescue Avant-gardeesque values of old class lines from the domination of the two great mass nations, USA and USSR, seems increasingly infallible, due to internal causes and the increasing suffocation of the Avant-garde movement by mass culture. Where class lines ever-blur, the cultural tradition is absent, the greater kitsch manufacturing abilities become, dragging any form of cultural elitism further downwards.

The result is the weakening of the intelligentsia, where work is limited to specialist fields and whose isolation keeps greatening. This is an alarming prospect to confront, considering the intelligentsia hold the key to our future development, and most importantly, understanding of us. Mass culture continually brings down the standards of the people and degrades high culture, meaning it can never attempt to be equal to, or superior to, high culture. Only a type of culture that was derived entirely from, not imposed upon, the people, such as the Folk Art movement, could ever be comparable to high culture.

The immediate reaction of many non-Spanish people to bull fighting is that it is sick, animal killing, unmoral entertainment. To many others around the world, though, bull fighting is a sport which involves courage, skill, and power, in a struggle between man and beast. This purpose of this paper is not to discuss the moralities of bullfighting though, it is to give some information on a sport which is loved by many throughout the world.

A bull fight, or corrida de toros, consists of three matadors, and six matches, which each take about 20 minutes to complete. These fights take place n a bull fighting arena, or plaza de toros. The least experienced matador will take the first and fourh matches, and the best matador will fight in the third and last matches. The matadors are not alone. They are accompanied by three banderilleros and two picadores. The matador wears a brightly colored costume known as the suit of lights. His assistants wear less flashy costumes.

The movement from act to act in the bull-fight is divided by a trumpet blast. The first trumpet signals the paseo, or march of the bull-fighters. The second trumpet proclaims the entrance of the bull. The matador first watches his hief assistant perform some passes with the yellow and magenta cape, in order to determine the bull’s qualities and mood, before taking over himself. During this period the matador is testing the bull’s speed, power and tendencies to hook one way or the other.

Information learned now is crucial for a successful fight The third trumpet signals the entrance of the picadores, mounted on horse back, who carry long pikes with a steel tip which is prevented from going more than four inches into the bull’s flesh by a metal guard. The bull carries its head and horns high, so the aim of the picador is to weaken the massive ossing muscle (the morrillo) between the shoulder blades. When the bull charges, the picador leans out and thrusts the pike into the bull’s shoulders.

The brave bull disregards the pain and charges harder into the pike. The cowardly bull backs away and is reluctant to charge again and may be booed by the crowd. The trial of the picks is over at the bull-ring president’s descretion, but usually after 2 or 3 picks, which are spearated by a quite, or rescue, in which the bull is lured away from the horse by the banderilleros. Following the fourth trumpet the banderilleros attempt to place their anderillas in the bull’s withers, again trying to weaken the bull so that the matador is able to work more closely with it.

The banderillas are wooden sticks decorated with colored paper and with a steel harpoon on the end. The banderilleros usually run in a quarter circle leaning over the bull’s horns to place the banderillas. On the fifth trumpet blast, the matador removes his black winged hat and dedicates the death of the bull to the president or the crowd before beginning his faena. The faena is the most beautiful and skillful part of the fight. This is where the matador must prove his courage and artistry. The faena consists of a series of passes made with a muleta.

This is a piece of thick cloth draped over a short stick, which is held in the left hand. The matador also uses a killing sword, which is always held in the right hand. The classic pass is called the natural, in which the muleta is first held in front of the matador to site the bull and is then swung across and away from the matador’s body hopefully leading the bull toward it. The matador will continue to perform a number of different passes varying in skill until he has demonstrated his complete control over the charging bull. The bull is now ready to be killed.

The matador stands about ten feet from the bull, keeping the bull fixated on the muleta held low in the left hand, and aiming the sword between the shoulder blades. The matador attacks pushing the sword over the horns and deep between the shoulder blades. If the sword goes in to the hilt it is an estocada but if it hits bone it is a pinchazo. An estocada usually results in the bull dropping immediately to its knees and dying. If the bull fails to die, the matador may bring out a descabello (a sword with a short cross piece at the end) which he stabs into the bull’s neck severing the pinal cord.

Finally, the fight is over. According to the bravery and skill of the matador, they can be awarded trophies by the president. These “trophies” are actually the ears, tail, and hoof of the bull. The crowd shows their respect by waving white handkerchiefs. If the mantador feels that the were a worthy audience, he throws the trophies into the stands. In return, the people throw hundreds of flowers, which are collected by the mantador’s assistants. To me, bull fighting sounds like very interesting and exiting entertainment. I hope that some day, I have the oportunity to attend a corrida de torros.

This paper outlines the differences in the cultures of the United States versus Asian Indian and Vietnamese cultures. I will look at these countries and make not only a comparison based on cultures, but also comparisons from a business perspective. Although there are many differences in general societies, some issues such as women in the workplace, and images in the media, stand across many borders. Using the United States as my comparison culture I will first discuss the customs, beliefs, and values of Americans as a society. Americans value making something of their lives in terms of family, and work from an early age.

As children we are told that we can do and be anything we want. We believe that everyone has equal opportunity to go to school, find a good job, marry and live happily every after. These ideas are actually far fetched compared with reality, but still some of the beliefs we hold true. Americans value achievement, personal success, and independence. We feel it is important to climb the ladder of success in the workforce and focus on constant improvement. Indian Culture The following are a few of the values, and beliefs of those of Asian Indian decent.

There is a heavy emphasis on family, religion and social issues. Under one roof it is not uncommon for a husband, wife and also the mother and father of the husband or wife to all be living together. When a woman is married it is custom for the mans family to take the woman into their home. Even after having children, or becoming able to support their family on their own, the couple will continue living as an extended family. Elders are seen as having wisdom, and dignity, very unlike the American culture where elderly are shunned and thought to be worthless. Religion is an important part of many people in India.

Indian people integrate religion to every aspect of their lives- from daily chores, to education and politics. Hinduism is the dominant faith; however Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism are also practiced in India. Each religion has its own dance, music, heroes, legends, pilgrimage sites, and even culinary specialties, which are all celebrated by various festivals though out communities in India. Some of the social issues that concern Indians are the promotion of democracy, freedom from discrimination, independence of thought, and rights of women and children.

The government and voluntary agencies have joined in order for the society to find ways to solve these issues and strive for equal opportunities for people from all income levels, and gender. Vietnamese Culture In Vietnam the some of the values, beliefs and customs deal with nature, scholastic achievement and family. Many businesses in Vietnam strive to make products that are environmentally safe and also produce goods with equipment that have green (eco/ozone friendly) trademarks. People will have more respect of those companies who place value in how their products are made and what goes into them.

Scholastic achievement is important to many Vietnamese and many are very strong and determined in achieving their goals. Their scholastic goals may be to finish a secondary education, or to attend a university and start their own business. Although not as focused solely on achievement as Euro-Americans, Vietnamese do have high hopes in scholastic and business arenas. Family is also a strong value in Vietnamese culture. Large families are traditional and the elderly/grandparents are taken care of buy their children, or grandchildren until they die.

Children are to live at home until they are married, at that point the woman will move in with the mans family. Polygamy was legal in Vietnam until 1959; at that point only the first wife a man took was then considered his wife, all others were dissolved. As in India, family also plays a large role in Vietnamese culture. In America it is often questioned why someone would chose to live close to his or her parents rather than break away from their family. Extended family simply is not a valued by Americans. Starting ones own family may be a big importance, however remaining close to parents, aunts, grandparents, is not as valued.

Business Perspective Mary Kay-Dallas, Texas- beauty products Companys mission- Mary Kays mission is to enrich womens lives. We will do this in tangible ways, by offering quality products to consumers, financial opportunities to our independent sales force, and fulfilling career to our employees. We also will reach out to the heart and spirit of women, enabling personal growth and fulfillment for the women whose lives we touch. We will carry out our mission in a spirit of caring, living the positive values on which our company was built. – taken from www. marykay. m Mary Kay, being one of the leading cosmetic industries aims to give women not only a quality product, but to make them become active in the company.

Following the American Dream, Mary Kay gives women the opportunity to not only buy products but also to become their own independent seller. Women are told they can achieve a multitude of success ranging from financial security to the pink Cadillac. Mary Kay values achievement in women and the idea that anyone can go from mere independent beauty rep to head of her own team of representatives in a matter of moments.

Unlike the research I found from other countries there is no emphasis on eco- friendly or environmental practices. The website for Mary Kay showed pictures of women whom belong to many different racial backgrounds, unlike the other companies. Ayurveda- New Delhi, India- beauty, skin products Companys Vision- Combii Organochems (companys creator) philosophy of activating the body to help itself, so that healing and correction can take place from within, continues to spearhead the company, to attain with its Herbline range of products, a greater level of product improvement, quality enhancement and customer satisfaction. ken from www. herbline. com Ayurveda is a product line made by Herbline, which creates beauty, skin and hair products.

This company values herbal remedies, creating products that are not tested on animals, and packaging their products in recyclable materials. With these strong values I also find it interesting that Ayurveda markets a skin lightener, which brings in more than $100 million dollar a year, but has also been a huge controversy recently in India. The advertisements seen and major celebrities in India all are more highly praised and are given better roles based on how light their skin is.

Although the company has strong environmental views, it is also contributing to a market that is causing many young girls to believe, the fairer your skin, the more beautiful you will be. That is very much the American culture, and I am sure our media influence on India has caused some of the insecurities of darker skinned women. Ayurveda does have a diversity and opportunity statement that reads- We value diversity and have clear policies and procedures to promote equal opportunities in diverse cultures. We value employees from varied backgrounds as they enrich our culture and support our commercial success.

Our group-wide Equal Employment Opportunities & Diversity Policy emphasizes that we recruit and promote employees on the basis of their suitability for the job without discriminating on grounds of race, color, ethnic or national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, marital status, or disability. We have clear procedures to promote and monitor diversity and the Board receives regular reports on progress and how best practice is shared across the group. Im not sure how recent this statement was written but it strongly relates the Affirmative Action laws in the U. S. Whether or not these are actually followed is another question.

Companies may have these in place but still may not practice them. Sai Gon Cosmetics-Ho Chi Mihn City, Vietnam-cosmetics Companys Vision- The company promises to deliver products that meet customers demand about quality, prices, and timely delivery. The company will continuously improve products quality to satisfy the customers requirements. We pledge that all of our employees are properly trained to implement and maintain policy. This company has strong values on making customers happy, and also to keep up with environmental issues in order to continually improve and deliver to customers a safe non damaging product.

This concept seems surreal as an American. I rarely look to see how the products Im using are made, if they are tested on animals, or even if they are damaging to the earth. It really makes me feel ignorant and says a lot about society as a whole that we are more concerned with the actual product than with what goes into it. I could not find any diversity statements within the Sai Gon Cosmetics website, although it does state that their products are exported to U. S, Australia, New Zealand, among other countries. I did find out that Vietnam celebrates an International Womens Day, which I thought to be unique.

Personal Interviews- Priya Mani I interviewed Priya Mani, whose family is from India. Her father came to the United States to get his doctorate and he later flew back to India to be married. Priya lived there first fourteen years of her live before moving to the U. S. I asked her about life in India, and some of the major differences in the cultures. Priya told me that the culture in India, despite what Americans may think, is very diverse. There are so many languages and dialects, holidays and religions and it is almost impossible to detect where someone is from based on appearance.

I know this is Americans favorite game, look at someone and guess, Where is she from? Shes dressed a certain way and talks a certain way so she must be this is not something you can do in India, spot someone out and guess his/her whole background. When I asked Priya about religion and family I was shocked about how open she was to telling me her fears and thoughts. She went right into talking about her familys own religious practices and a few secrets she holds. My family all go to temple, and I go because I cannot fight with them. But really, I have a boyfriend, he is white and sometimes he reads me the Bible.

I had never heard things before like what I read in the Bible. I want to be a Christian, but know I cannot say anything to my family. My family thinks he is my friend; weve been together for two years. My oldest sister is engaged and she hasnt told our parents. I dont want to hide everything but I have to. My grandmother, mothers side, came to America shortly after my parents arrived. She speaks little English but I taught her enough to take the exam and become an American citizen. She is amazing; our family would be nothing with my grandmother. Living in America there is so much more freedom.

My grandmother and mother take painting and sculpting classes, my mother takes music lesson- a new instrument every week it seems! My sister and I both went to college. None of the opportunities would be open to us if we were still in India. Janine Phan Janines family came from Vietnam when she was only six, but she spends summers in Vietnam visiting family and is fluent in Vietnamese. Much like Priya, Janine talked about strong family ties and the closeness she feels to her extended family. I never really identified with my culture I guess until recently.

Someone was looking at pictures in my room of my family and me and said, Whats this, you were in the Peace Corps? Volunteered with a Chinese family? That is my family. Thats when I decided to talk to my Ba Noi, grandmother, about my culture. Im still learning a lot, but now I feel better connected to the rest of my family. When I go to Vietnam my family who are still there all ask many questions about America, most of my family came in the early 1990s but I still have some in Vietnam. And sometimes at my house I feel like I am in Vietnam. I will go home and all of my uncles, aunts, cousins, and my grandparents will all be there.

I was recently in New York and a friend of mine said, Lets go to China town! Are you kidding, I live in China town, just come to my house. I know it sounds stereotypical, and this is my own family Im talking about, but most of my aunts in American have opened nail shops, one in San Francisco and two in Tennessee. They all say to me, Graduate college and come work in nail shop if you need a job. I know they are just being nice but Im not working in the nail shop after graduation. In Vietnam the most a woman can do is sell fruits, and vegetables is seems.

Now, everyone comes to American because you can do anything, be anything you want. Sure there will be some people who tell you no, but really there are so many options. Conclusion Writing this paper has opened my eyes to many things. I have always talked about white privilege in other classes and I knew it existed, but after do the interviews and researching the countries I realized how privileged I really am. To be able to work, date and marry where or whom I want is such a blessing. I also realized that many of the stereotypes of Americans might actually be valid.

We consume so much and rarely think about our actions or what we are doing to the environment. Each of the companies abroad had environmental issues as being very important, in the American company there was nothing like that stated. This paper was a very good project, leaving our comfort zones to speak to unknown, diverse people is important. Everyone has such interesting backgrounds, stories all one has to do is sit down and ask. People arent mean, they arent rude, we are only scared to make the first move and start something. Now I know not to have that fear because maybe these people want to talk, but no one has asked them to speak.

Ancient Egyptian and Greco-Roman practices of preparing the dead for the next cradle of humanity are very intriguing. These two cultures differ in a multitude of ways yet similarities can be noted in the domain of funerary services. In the realm of Egyptian afterlife, The Book of the Dead can provide one with vital information concerning ritual entombment practices and myths of the afterlife. The additional handouts I received from Timothy Stoker also proved to be useful in trying uncover vital information regarding the transition into another life.

Regarding the burial practices f Greece and Rome, parts of Homer’s Odyssey are useful in the analysis of proper interment methods. One particular method used by the Egyptians was an intricate process known as mummification. It was undoubtedly a very involved process spanning seventy days in some cases. First, all the internal organs were removed with one exception, the heart. If the body was not already West of the Nile it was transported across it, but not before the drying process was initiated.

Natron (a special salt) was extracted from the banks of the Nile and was placed under the corpse, on the sides, on top, and bags of the ubstance were placed inside the body cavity to facilitate the process of dehydration. After thirty-five days the ancient embalmers would anoint the body with oil and wrap it in fine linen. If the deceased was wealthy enough a priest donning a mask of Anubis would preside over the ceremonies to ensure proper passage into the next realm. One of the practices overseen by the priest was the placing of a special funerary amulet over the heart.

This was done in behest to secure a successful union with Osiris and their kas. The amulet made sure the heart did not speak out against the individual at the scale of the goddess of ustice and divine order, Maat. The priest also made use of a “peculiar ritual instrument, a sort of chisel, with which he literally opened the mouth of the deceased. ” This was done to ensure that the deceased was able to speak during their journeys in Duat. Another practice used by the Egyptians to aid the departed soul involved mass human sacrifice.

Many times if a prominent person passed away the family and servants would willfully ingest poison to continue their servitude in the next world. The family members and religious figureheads of the community did just about everything in their power to id the deceased in the transition to a new life. The community made sure the chamber was furnished with “everything necessary for the comfort and well-being of the occupants. ” It was believed that the individual would be able of accessing these items in the next world.

Some of the most important things that the deceased would need to have at his side were certain spells and incantations. A conglomeration of reading material ensured a successful passage; The Pyramid Texts, The Book of the Dead, and the Coffin Texts all aided the lost soul in their journey through Duat into the Fields of the Blessed. Besides all these spells, charms, and magical tomb texts, the ancient practice of depositing in the tomb small wooden figures of servants was employed. ” These “Ushabi statuettes” as they are called, were essentially slaves of the deceased.

If the deceased was called to work in the Elysian fields he would call upon one of the statues to take his place and perform the task for him. It was not unheard of for an individual to have a figure for every day of the year to ensure an afterlife devoid of physical exertion. Just about every thing the embalmers and burial practitioners did during the process was done for articular reasons. Many of the funerary practices of the ancient Greco-Romans were also done with a specific purpose in mind. Unlike the Egyptian’s the Greco-Roman cultures did not employ elaborate tombs but focused on the use of a simple pit in the ground.

Right after death, not too dissimilar from the practices of the Egyptians, it was necessary for the persons to carefully wash and prepare the corpse for his journey. It was vital for all persons to receive a proper burial and if they did not they were dammed to hover in a quasi-world, somewhat of a “limbo” between life and death. One Greco-Roman myth that illustrates this point is The Odyssey by Homer. There is a part in Book eleven of the work in which Homer specifically addresses proper burial rites. When Odysseus wishes to contact Tiresias, he comes across Elpenor, one of his soldiers.

This particular man fell (in a haphazard fashion) to his death on the island of the Kimmerians, but did not receive a proper burial and was stuck in limbo. Elpenor begged Odysseus and his men to return to the island and care for his body. Consequently, they did return and Elpenor passed into the next world. Most likely he was buried in the same fashion other members of his society were; a pyre was probably constructed and the body placed upon it. Also placed on the pyre were items that the deceased held dear in life with the hope that they would follow him into the next world.

In order to survive in the afterlife, the deceased “is also presented with a small coin which came to be known as the ferrying fee for Charon. ” This can be likened to the Egyptian practice of introducing coinage into the tomb in some cases. Homer also speaks of the psyche, which slips out of man “at the oment of death and enters the house of Ais, also known as Aides, Aidoneus, and in Attic as Hades. ” This idea can be compared to the concept of an individual’s ba in ancient Egypt.

When someone died, an eternal part of them (their ba) would also slip out and seek out the individuals spiritual twin (their ka) in order to unite with it and facilitate a successful passage. Many times in myth, the living desired to speak with the departed. When Odysseus wishes to speak with the Nekyia in Book eleven, goats must be sacrificed and their blood was recognized as inspiring the deceased to speak. The Egyptians also were concerned with the ability of the deceased to speak in the next realm; this is exemplified in one of the most important spells in The Book of the Dead, the opening of the mouth.

When all the funerary rites had been done, the next step was to mark the spot of the deceased. “The grave is marked with a stone, the sign, sema. ” This grave stone would have the name of the soul, and often some type of epigram in verse form. Invariably near the grave, some type of guardian of the soul would be located. Lion and sphinx were found as grave markers and this idea is paralleled in the practices of the natives of Egypt. A certain “cult image” was buried with the deceased in Egypt in order to look after and more importantly protect one’s ba from being disturbed.

It also acted as a type of “purge valve” for any ba which may have been unjustly disturbed in the tomb. Burial practices aside one can note an interesting difference between these two ancient civilizations. Differences can be observed concerning how amicable the afterlife was. The Egyptians had a positive outlook. They believed that after one became Osirus, They would move into a new world, which was nice, no one had to work, and everything was very lean. One could compare their lives in the next world with the children’s classic board game, Candyland.

In this game all was fine and dandy, the “don’t worry be happy” attitude flourished, not distant from the life in the Fields of the Blessed. On the other hand, Greco-Roman afterlife was a rather dismal place. The dead Achilles summed everything up by saying to Odysseus, “Do not try to make light of death to me, I would sooner be bound to the soil in the hire of another man, a man without lot and without much to live on, than rule over all the perished dead. Needless to say, the Homeric afterlife was no Candyland.

Candyland or not, both cultures went to extremes in order to guarantee a successful voyage into the next world. The two ancient civilizations hoped that through their intricate actions the individual would be protected and prepared for their many experiences on “the other side. ” By looking at selections of Homer’s Odyssey and The Book of the Dead, one can draw many similarities between the two cultures; however, differences are also apparent due to cultural differences concerning what would happen to the departed soul.

The cultural context for the Armenian person is the result of upholding and defending a way of life and values that have been maintained for centuries, for perhaps two thousand years. For that reason, although Armenians living in the United States today come from a variety of countries of origin, and may to some extent speak different dialects or even different languages, yet they have many cultural similarities due to centuries of commonality. The cultural similarities among the Armenians can be seen mainly in three different areas: Spirituality, historicity, and family.

Spirituality refers to the perspective of that which is valued in life, and that which must to be upheld and defended under any and all circumstances, regardless of the social environment and surrounding conditions. Historicity refers to that which has been traditionally done, the Armenian way of life,’ – both that which is important and perhaps not as important. Whereas spirituality may refer more to content,’ the important values in life, historicity refers more to the living process,’ how the important values in life are attained.

Family on the other hand is the everyday living environment within which spirituality and historicity are applied and lived out. Family’ in the Armenian community refers to more than the family of origin or the nuclear family. Instead, it includes both of these along with all of the extended family and even the small surrounding community. These family ties are much more important and influential in the decision making process than would initially appear, therefore, they must be acknowledged and understood.

All Armenians may not uphold the same spirituality, historicity, and family values, however, they would still approach life’s decisions based on these cultural categories. The Armenians living in the United States, especially those who live in large communities tend to discover opposing trends between the culture in which they were brought up, and those of the dominant culture in which they have to live, work, interface, and survive. Working at the Berjikian Law Firm Vicken Berjikian established the Berjikian law firm in 1983, as a criminal defense and personal injury firm.

In the past 17 years the Berjikian Law firm has grown to become established and well known in the Armenian community. The Berjikian law firm is a culturally diverse place to work, Mr. Berjikian, the owner has employed not only family members but also in the past, he has employed attorneys who have came in every shape and culture. At Berjikian law firm the atmosphere is homely, and the employees are made to feel that they are family. In the Armenian community family’ refers to more than the biological family.

Instead, it includes the people in the workplace. An example of this is when the Armenian community, voted The Berjikian Law firm as the number one attorney office in Glendale when the Glendale Newspress published the best of 2000 readers’ choice on April 26 of this year. Jack a member of our group, has been employed as a paralegal at the firm since December 96. Jack’s younger sister is the receptionist. The other paralegal is the owner’s sister-in-law who has been with the firm for over 13 years.

Orly Talmor a Jewish civil attorney, has been with the firm for over eight years. Orly met her present husband Marc Goldberg while both working at the law firm. Erik Rutkowski a Polish criminal workers comp and personal injury attorney, joined the family team last year. Employee cross-cultural communication Some employees at the law firm, understand that cross-cultural communication includes the ability to successfully form, foster, and improve relationships with members of a culture different from their own.

It is based on knowledge of many factors, such as the other culture’s values, perceptions, manners, social structure, and decision-making practices, and an understanding of how members of the group communicate–verbally, non-verbally, in person, in writing, and in various business and social contexts. For instance, It is human nature to carry stereotypes and prejudices–it is in the air we breathe. We can challenge and control our prejudices and biases to some extent (at least the expression of them–i. e. discriminatory behavior).

What we can’t easily change is the system we are part of, the fact that our identity gives us a relative advantage or disadvantage whether we seek to have it or not. Therefore, some miscommunication is expected due to cultural behavior. Communication among the firms’ employees is mainly done in the English language, however, there has been some tension among the different cultures in the workplace. The Armenian employees feel comfortable speaking the Armenian language without trying to insult others in their presence, but the non -Armenian employees sometimes feel that they are being talked about.

The Armenian language must be spoken because it is the primary language among the clients. Language is not the only cultural difference at the law firm. For example, Armenians tend to be non-confrontational. Instead, they communicate in the most indirect manner hoping not to hurt the other’s feelings or dignity. This makes even some of the most basic conversations difficult to decipher for other cultures. On the other hand, the Jewish culture tends to be more covert and the Polish culture is more direct and outspoken.

For example, when the Polish attorney used profanity towards the boss’s sister-in-law the Armenians at the firm were shocked and frustrated by this behavior . Most humans do not intend to be narrow-minded or biased; experience has led us to think our viewpoint is “natural” or “obvious. ” Cross-cultural communication challenges our ethnocentric attitudes over and over again. This is why inter-cultural communication is important, and why people may respond with anger, frustration, or denial. Client cross-cultural Communication

For centuries Armenians have lived under foreign domination. Although people had become law abiding citizens, but generally the attitude under those oppressors had been: “Don’t trust them! What do they know about us?! ” This can be very problematic for the relationship between the Armenian client and the helping professional because the latter represents authority’ to the Armenian. This includes not trusting written communication, because to an Armenian a handshake and the words that come out of someone’s mouth mean more than something as impersonal as written communication.

However it is part of the California State Bar Rules and Conduct, that whatever affects the clients in a good way or in a bad way they have to know the status of their file and the status must be communicated in writing. This makes it hard to be productive because legally communication must be done in writing, but the clients insist on meeting face to face. This means that the firm is expected to communicate eighty percent of the time with its clients face to face, because they do not trust or understand the legal jargon.

The clients believe writing is not trustworthy. They want to hear you explain their situation face to face, this they view as a more honorable system and Armenians trust what you said more than the written documents. Sometimes clients who have a case with the firm will show up without an appointment and expect to be accommodated right away. This is very time consuming because we have to stop what we were doing to go up front and see what they want. Most of the time they were passing by and wanted to get the status of their file.

This we understand and it will take us about five minutes to explain to them what is happening with their case and they will be on their way home. Then our office has individuals who have no case with us whatsoever, they will come up to our office with a question that they want us to answer. Now, this is one thing that can be very frustrating, because not only do we have to stop what we are doing because these individuals forgot to call and make an appointment to see us.

These individuals are also aware that we do not handle the kind of case that they want us to help them with. Just by seeing these kinds of individuals, it takes anywhere from twenty five to thirty minutes easily to answer their question and tell them that we do not handle these kinds of cases and to refer them to an Attorney who specializes in that particular field. The other ten percent of the firm’s clients are very busy individuals and they prefer not to meet face to face but are more interested in verbal communication than written or in person.

Upon receiving a status letter or any other letters regarding their case and without opening the letter not knowing if there is a check inside or a paper which needs to be signed, they will call us and ask us what is it that we have sent them in the envelope. These clients prefer to do the communication via the telephone, because they know that it is a waste of their precious time to come in if they can find out the answer to their question in less than five minutes by telephone.

Some of the clients will call us and demand to get an appointment to come in and see us and we try to accommodate our busy time for these clients and the firm tries to fit the appointments between others and these clients have the nerve not to even show up and stand the firm up. Some who have an appointment will call about five to ten minutes before their appointments and try to conduct the meeting over the telephone. The other ten percent are satisfied with the written communication.

They will actually read the letter and will not call us and make us explain the documents we have mailed to them. The Armenian client expectations are very high. They expect you to do what ever you tell them that you will do. For example, if you promise or even mention that the case will take from four to five months from beginning-to-settlement, they expect this to be true because you have told them it will and they literally believe you and take your word honestly because of your experience with other cases that you had during your career.

These clients are impatient and they worry if the case takes longer and they will call and question your expertise. Sometimes we may say that we will call back in five minutes, then forget that we promised to call back in five minutes. It is a human mistake, and the clients will take that literally, they expect a telephone call within five minutes, if they do not receive a call within those five minutes they will feel insulted and will not trust what you tell them next time.

The law firm had many clients, even to this day that when they get into an accident they have already calculated how much they will receive from the settlement and they will go out and borrow money from other individuals, like a relative, or even neighbors, thinking that when the case settles they can repay their loans. Most of the cases are false, even with my experience I can not be sure of how much a case will settle for. I could give an approximate guess, but that is not good enough.

Some clients take your guess as the exact amount and if the case does not settle for that amount, they get upset. Conclusion As a professional gains an insight into the Armenian personality, and develops insights into their way of valuing and communicating to others, he or she is capable to more effectively reach out and help persons and families. All these lead to better and higher quality, as well as more timely services to clients, and a sense of satisfaction for both the client and the professional.

The relationship between the Armenian client and the legal professional is a complex one. It is full of issues that go beyond giving them legal advice or filing a law suit on their behalf, it includes issues relating to a person’s cultural context. In fact, generally the actual legal issues sometimes become secondary, or at least not as central in the person’s priorities. At the beginning, such a relationship can cause great frustration and waste of time in the legal professional’s attempt to provide the appropriate service.

Eventually, these communication issues can cause delays in providing professional service, and lead to extra unnecessary legal expenses. The correct understanding of a client’s cultural situation by the legal professional can lead to a higher quality of service, and lower costs. As difficult and complicated as this situation may sound, it is still not impossible. In fact, most experienced professionals learn over the years to relate to the Armenian culture.

I spent some time online trying to answer my question and time after time I was led to the same direction: pop culture is what we see, hear, speak, and are otherwise exposed to on a daily basis. The infomercials we see late on television, the billboards we see on the side of the road, the junk mail we receive, the links on the web pages we visit, and the radio commercials we hear all tie together to form this idea of pop culture. These, plus many other aspects, form our minds and teach us how to be culturally smart.

To be culturally smart is to understand and know pop culture. For example, if someone were to say “BUD! ” it is automatically assumed that they would get a “WIES” in reply. If a person were to say “Just Do It! ” Nike would be directly thought of. What elements define “Pop Culture? ” Television stars, such as Drew Carey; musicians, such as Santana; public figures, such as Monica Lewinski; politicians, such as Bill Clinton; athletes, such as Michael Jordan; large corporations with their slogans; and movies are all, but not limited to, pop culture.

In a Journal I found online of a study of pop culture, it compared the link of religion and a pop culture icon, Star Wars. The study was conducted with people and it read: “The comparisons and shared philosophies behind earthly religion and Luke Skywalker’s adventures, compound into many different avenues. It is easy to see that the intertextuality working between holy scriptures and the astral script of Star Wars produces an icon that just as readily accepts believers and disciples into its signification, as it does those moviegoers who seek a more temporal escape from reality.

Why do many suspend belief while watching Star Wars and not while reading the bible? If Luke doesn’t seem to sway you in the direction of the force, play with the transcendence of Skywalker like the Vatican plays with the text of the bible, and soon you’ll have a new icon of salvation. ” This section from the journal explains that people are not looking at the full picture of the Bible (Christianity in this case) and believing it, yet they believe in something called “the force. ” This is a good example of how pop culture can be intertwined into our lives.

Showing how people will believe movies, maybe because they see it, but yet not believe in a possible salvation. Not all pop culture is like that. Look at the Jerry Springer Show. It is a cultural icon for college students everywhere. It’s the allure of crazy people and wild stories that attract people to watch it. He has become forever an American figure and will always be associated when some one brings up a story about a fight and they then say “hey you remember that Springer Show?

This show represents the corrupt side of society, which we do not see on a normal daily basis, except for on the show. It is typical American culture just as Wrestling is now becoming. They both offer a wild show for entertainment and also shows a darker side of the society. As a society and culture, we decide what pop culture is. Our actions and reactions are read by the media and the rest of society to build around what we want, ultimately creating “Pop Culture. ” There is not a bias for these ideas considering that everything that surrounds us, including history is pop culture in a way.

People decided what the times were then, as in pop culture, and it also plays a part in “official” history. Today people like Bittney Spears, Christina Aguilara, Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and other teen bands are landing the label “pop icon” easily. All they had to do was appeal to the public. These young musicians are at the top of their game and we put them there. They drove their way into our current pop culture whether it was their outstanding sounds or their outstanding sex appeal.

This sex appeal, another part of current pop culture, binds itself to the human hormones and takes advantage of it as a marketing scheme. In the culture this song was created in, it is perfect because most people who were listening to Billy Joel’s music were of age where they knew of these events as recent happenings or recent “cultural” history. His message, showing the importance of history, could be applied to pop culture forever by reflection of the past for answers for the future.

What is a rave? Raving is a highly subjective experience. One person’s best rave is another person’s worst. Any attempt to analyze rave culture must recognize the highly personal factor of the experience. Author Daniel Martin defines a rave as a long period of constant energetic and stylistic dancing exhibited by a large group of people in a hot, crowded facility providing continuous loud House music and an accompanying strobe lit psychedelic light show (78). But what effect does the rave scene really have on popular culture? Since the beginning of this culture there has been much controversy on the legality of what goes on in the scene.

Through the history, music, people, spirituality we are introduced to one of the newest things affecting pop culture today. Rave culture can be traced back to Native American religious ceremonies. It can be traced back to the sixties Be-Ins and Love Ins and Acid Tests. It can be traced back to anarchist revolutions in Italy and France. It pulls energy from many different directions. It had its origins in Chicago and Detroit disco clubs and gay dance clubs, and also in progressive music from England such as Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode.

England and America traded musical influences back and forth during the late seventies-early eighties until techno finally started to be formed. The actual rave movement, however, combining this new music with dancing, occurred in England. At almost the exact same time, raves started popping up in Manchester and Ibiza, a noted English vacation spot, in late 1987 and early 1988. At this same time, the rave phenomenon was taking hold in Germany, most notably in Berlin (Jordan 30). The popularity of raves grew in both countries, and soon the intimate all-night dance parties were drawing thousands of kids.

They were also drawing DJs from the United States. Author Joel Jordan talks about the beginning of this movement when he states, In the early nineties, the rave scene began moving across the Atlantic to America, fueled by American DJs eager to take this incredible thing back home, and English DJs eager to expand their horizons (34). The first U. S. raves were held in San Francisco, long noted for its liberal and psychedelic culture. From here, they moved to Los Angeles and the rave scene was born in California. (Jordan 40). The rave scene that was born in America was one of complete illegality.

It began when Frankie Bones, a New York native and one of the U. S. DJs that was spinning in England, saw that the scene was moving into America, and wanted to bring it to his hometown of Brooklyn. He started a series of parties called Stormrave in early 1992. The parties started out small, 50-100 kids, and Frankie resorted to projecting videos of the massive raves in England to show kids what it was all about. It was during this period of Stormraves that many DJs made their debuts. Now household names among ravers, Sven Vath, Doc Martin, Keoki, Josh Wink and many others began their careers at Frankie’s Stormraves.

It was in December of 1992 that the rave scene started growing. Frankie held a party at an abandoned loading dock in Queens that drew over 5000 kids from New York and neighboring states (Redhead 60). According to rave myth, this was when Frankie made his speech about peace, love, unity, and respect, which were to become PLUR, the foundation of the American rave scene. It was also during this rave that three guys from Milwaukee decided to come check it out. These guys later were to form Drop Bass Network, based in Milwaukee, and now one of the bigger promoter groups in the country.

Joel Jordan explains, They also introduced the scene to the Mid-West. The rave scene grew in America in 1993 and 1994 (56). While the rave scenes in England and Germany were becoming commercial empires, the American rave scene still had its fresh idealism. There were now raves happening across the country, in all of the states. The music at a rave is techno, primarily electronically created music that generally has a high level of bass. It tends to be fast-paced, running from between about 115 Beats Per Minute (BPM) to 300 BPM, with the most common being about 120 BPM to 140 BPM (Jordan 78).

Barnard describes techno by its slavish devotion to the beat, the use of rhythm as a hypnotic tool. It is also distinguished by being primarily, and in most cases entirely, created by electronic means\” (44). Normally at a rave, a DJ \”spins\” to create the music that the ravers hear. The act of spinning is the art of mixing songs together using different pitches, different speeds, and an equalizer to create an ever-flowing, ever-changing wall of sound. In effect, artists record techno songs, which are then reinterpreted and mixed with other techno songs, creating a spontaneous new song. Techno has its origins in gay dance clubs and hip-hop.

Chicago DJs began mixing their dance music with a drum synthesizer and house was born: The classic House is simple: a four quarter beat: 1 2 3 4 in a not too fast tempo(120 beats per minute) at about the speed of the heart of the dancer. On the 2 and 4, there is a snare drum or hand clap; in between 1 2 3 4 of the bass drum, you hear hi hats. The tracks are finished with some happy/swinging sounds and a simple melody. (Swertz) From house, came acid house, which involved adding the Roland 303, a synthesizer that was able to produce different layers and pitches. It contains a deeper psychedelic sound of trippy waves.

Then the music continued to evolve, into techno, both \”Detroit\” style and Hardcore. Experts New Order and Kraftwerk describe it as a fusion of American P-funk and European synthesizer music (qtd. in Swertz 1). Hardcore is basically a really hard and really fast version of Detroit techno. From here, we get further permutations. Breakbeat uses hip-hop samples and reggae tunes. Jungle uses a lot of percussive bongo and drumming sounds, as well as bringing in chants. Darkside utilizes minor chordal progressions to create an \”evil\” feeling. Trance was developed, very melodic and hypnotizing music that tends to be on the slow side.

Author Swertz states The basic beat is 1 2 3 4, hence techno, and 140+ BPM. The hi hats between the four beats are louder than in other genres. The bass can go higher and lower. The tracks are finished with dreamy and spacey sound scapes (2). Dancing is, to an extent, yet another reiteration of the music. The music that the DJ creates spontaneously is a text. Author Roberts explains, \”The dancer then in turn re-interprets this text through movements of the body… the \”reader\” therefore, whether in the role of dancer, DJ, or user of sampling technology contributes a mindset that is culturally specific and productive in itself\” (87).

Rave dancing can be highly stylistic, or extremely vulgar. The beat is the driving force. Whether one is doing highly choreographed dance moves or simply thrusting their body back and forth ceases to matter. It is losing oneself to the beat, becoming one with the music by letting the music control your movements. Ravers are a unique crowd. While rave culture espouses individualism, a come-as-you-are mentality, there are definitely many similarities among ravers in general. A unique aspect of rave culture is the fashion.

There is a definite sense of individualism within the rave fashion scene; you are likely to see someone in jeans, someone in black vinyl pants, or someone in costume. However, many people fit into a definite \”typical raver\” mold. For males, baggy pants are the norm. A very tight shirt, no shirt, or a sweatshirt is also common for males. For females, it gets more interesting. The typical rave girl has short hair; it is often in barrettes. She wears a baby doll dress, or pants and a cut off tee shirt. She is often sucking on a pacifier. Infantilism in general is very predominant among ravers.

Pacifiers, stuffed animals, lollipops, and shirts emblazoned with cartoon characters are common. In a sense, this embodies the culture. It is a regaining of innocence and a chance to forget about problems for a while. Drugs have been a part of the rave scene since the beginning. In England, the rave scene originated with MDMA or Ecstasy. In America, it was LSD or acid. At first, acid and occasional marijuana use were the only drugs seen at raves in America. Then, Ecstasy and other drugs moved in. Drugs are a frequent topic of debate among ravers.

Some think that drugs should be done away with entirely. Others think that only drugs that increase the vibe should be allowed, namely marijuana, LSD, and ecstasy. Ecstasy or MDMA was created in 1912 and patented by the pharmaceutical company E (Robson 138). MDMA causes a massive release of sarotonin, which is thought to play and important role in regulating mood, sleep, hunger, sexual activity, and it is also known to increase ones senses. The drug is almost always swallowed, but can also be snorted or injected into a vein and the effect usually lasts around 5 hours or so.

Some short-term effects from ecstasy use are clumsiness, drowsiness, fear or anxiety, depression, racing heart, dizziness, nausea, and vomiting. The most numerous users are young, energetic ravers who consume this drug for several reasons. Music becomes physically pleasurable and strangers become people to be loved. Ecstasy broke down egos. It was a perfect fit with the happy family that the rave scene was trying to create. However, as greed has taken hold within the scene, Ecstasy is no longer pure. (Robson 141). It is usually cut with baking powder, or worse, various pesticides and poisons.

There are many other drugs, though not as popular as ecstasy, present at a rave. Cannabis, or Marijuana is usually smoked and is said to be relaxing and stimulating. LSD or Acid is a hallucinogenic or psychedelic drug usually absorbed into little pieces of paper called blotter. Speed is a stimulant drug, which produces alertness, confidence and raises levels of energy and stamina. GHB, sometimes referred to as the date rape drug, usually comes as an odorless liquid and is classified as a sedative-hypnotic and usually causes a user to feel dizzy and sleepy, often causing loss of consciousness.

Magic mushrooms contain psilocybin and are classified as a psychedelic drug with effects similar to those of LSD. Ketamine or Special K belongs to the class of drugs called \”dissociative anesthetics,\” and produces a hallucinogenic effect. Another dissociative anesthetic, nitrous oxide, is inhaled and results in temporary loss of motor control. The use of alcohol is also commonly used before or during a rave (Robson ch. 9). There is a tangible energy that goes along with dancing to extremely loud beats with hundreds of other people.

Raves are a shared experience. A sense of unity often develops among ravers, in which, personal creeds, race, gender, age, sexual preference and everything else that our society places so much emphasis on simply fades into the background. \”There is a magic moment that can happen at a rave, explains Steve Redhandwhen everyone is dancing you experience a feeling of collective organism, and I think people that have had this experience view the world differently afterwardsthe world is not made up of individuals vying for power, but ratherone throbbing thing\” (45).

Another phrase commonly thrown around in circles of ravers is that of PLUR, which stands for Peace, Love, Unity and Respect. In many senses, PLUR is the dogma that ravers believe in. The rave scene has always existed as separate from mainstream society, an underground movement, a movement labeled as deviant by those in the mainstream. When the scene started, everything was done on an illegal basis. After a year or so of straight illegality, promoters made a conscious effort to secure spaces where their parties would not be busted.

Promoters must receive permits to use buildings for parties, and for sound, and many times the cops must be involved and present at a rave to assure that things are under control. There is definitely a beauty to the rave scene but at the same time it has been corrupted by commercialization, and the fears society has from this growing culture. The rave scene has become swamped in commercialism. When it started to grow in popularity, it was inevitable that some kind official would notice. The first officials to notice were police, and then city governments.

Then, it naturally moved to the boardrooms of major companies. (Martin 79) They have attempted to portray the rave scene in movies such as Groove, and Go which comes up way short in doing anything beyond simply enlightening the uninformed as to what a rave is composed of. The rave scene is being appropriated into mainstream culture. In a way, this is the best defense that society could have ever used against the rave scene. As the rave scene becomes more popular, fewer people are going to create a temporary loving space, and more people are going to be on drugs.

It is now common to see kids sitting against the wall snorting crystal meth or shooting heroin, drugs that have never been a part of the scene. American society is fickle. Fads do not last long. Electronica is the next big thing and is covered in Time and Newsweek. American consumers are gobbling it up. Punk music, grunge/alternative music, rap, all of these were once the next big thing. The rave scene will be appropriated, for a while. Then, a new big thing will come along that society latches onto. What remains to be seen however, is whether the rave scene is strong enough to survive.

Cults There are many types of cults in the world, cults are everywhere but you just do not see them. Every person in the world has been in contact with them in one way or another in many cases you cannot see them. The closest cult we know of is on Rice Lake called the Moonies led by Reverend Myung, where I have currently visited. Cults can be involved in churches and even are earliest religions are called cults. Cults are not the strongest groups’ sects are the strongest group.

When you join a sect you cannot get out of them but a cult you can leave without having any problem or commitment. Sects will not let you out because many times it’s illegal and they are afraid that you will say something to the public. Cults sometimes are illegal to. Religious cults are in every town and village there is no definition of a cult that is accepted by sociologists and psychologist or religion many types of activities will take cult like structures, an example would be any popular trend like physical exercise this is called the physical fitness cult.

Famous athletes are a big figure when it comes to cults, many times Movie stars, professional athletes will endorse a product and a trend will start, making it turn into a cult. Also people who generate beliefs of something like flying saucer, aliens or any unknown figures can be cult. In religion when people call a church they are referring to a sacred organization having a highly structured or formalized dogma and hierarchy, but also allowing a bit of flexibility about membership requirements allowing you to go to a church and leave church when you want to.

Although sects are against church attempts to accommodate to secular society. Sects believe that they are protecting a true faith or belief. Sects tend to stay away from world events , and also they believe in a strong strict behavioral code and demand a commitment out of their people. The differences between cults and sects are sometimes the same. Many scholars do not make distinctions between the two.

Cults are different because they do not expect as much commitment. Many times’ cults do not expect couples to become apart. Cults do not last as long as sects. Many times’ cults survive through a decade, and also cults allow you to come and go as you want. Leaders of cults build around a charismatic leader who has a lifestyle dedicated to a specific spirituality group that they know other people will follow.

The word Mormonism began as a small cult then grew bigger until it became a sect and eventually into a church. All the new religions followed the same thing by beginning small and getting bigger than becoming a church. Contemporary Cults Cults go back as far as we know of life, cults began to get bigger and be known throughout the world in the late 1960s and early 70s as people were better educated and better understood how they were formed and how they were run and people began to join.

During this time Youths and middle class people began to join cults because of the in thing to do and they felt more secure about themselves. Cults really started to fascinate people when Jimmy Jones cult began in November of 1978 when all attention was focused on the mass suicide in Jonestown, a similar event happened in 1993 when federal agents engaged in a shoot out with cult leader David Koresh. Modern cults have many different practices and many different ways of leadership.

Some cults have a flexible functional leadership, like the groups in the charismatic movement coming from the mainland Christian religion, other cults have people who run and orchestrate cult events, like Reverend Myung Moon leader of the unification church. The reason people are attracted to modern cults because it puts emphasis on community and on direct experience with the divine. In cults’ participants often find a level of social support and acceptance that they do not find in a nuclear family.

This makes and generates a sense of belonging to something profound and a feel of being somebody. People who often join cults such as this, join because they think they are getting something the world did not give them. Several factors have been looked at to figure why people like are modern youths join cults. Factors that were looked at were drug’s war assignation of many unpopular presidents. Cults have been questioned about brainwashing people, and found it to be true. Cargo Cults Cargo cults are usually neutralist and are in it for money.

The word cargo refers to foreign goods possessed by Europeans. Cult members believe that goods belong to themselves and that , with the help of ancestral spirits, the goods can be returned to them through magic religious means. Brainwashing Brainwashing is the process of deliberately subjecting people to physical and psychological hardship in order to alter their thoughts and attitudes, and actions. It also is a process of totally cleaning a mind of one set idea and replacing them by another thought or belief.

This is called to indoctrinate cleaning a thought and putting a completely new thought in mind. Indoctrinating can take place without brainwashing. There are 2 aspects of brainwashing they are confessions of past crimes or errors of the past and re-education to new beliefs. Prisoners sometimes are made to confess by lack of sleep and food and other forms of intense physical discomfort, also isolation from victims’ families and from familiar surroundings. Cult leaders show obedience, and humility and make other members give social pressure to the new member to make them join.

And the last thing they do is make mutual criticism and self criticism sessions, which make them have a generalized guilt feeling that all people have acceptance of new ideas is again fostered by group pressure and the anticipated reward of freedom. People who have a better understanding of psychology and neuophysiology have made larger groups create extremely effective brainwashing programs. Their techniques however have been used for centuries as inquisition making people give excited confessions from alleged heretics.

Religions sometimes use these methods like scourging, rhythmic dancing and drumming and sometimes inducing a trance like state in which the individual is open to conversion. In the 20th centuries, most noticeably by the people’s temple of Guyana, whose membership committed mass suicide. Mystery Cults Mystery Cults are usually in the ancient times whose members believed that by means of the performance of particular secret rituals they would gain knowledge that people in the normal world would not have and that would make a mystical union with the divine.

Mystery cults make their members feel they are god and give them a feel of immortality that they cannot be destroyed. Many times in mystery cults, cult leaders feel they died and were brought back to be god or Jesus. Conclusion In todays society, cults are one of the many unfortunate aspects endure in life. Leaders of Cults should be dealt with in a more serious matter. Cult leaders are con-artists and are people that like to control others. Cults should be controlled to protect innocent citizens from being taken advantage of.