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Cultural conflict

Cultural conflict is a type of conflict that occurs when different cultural values and beliefs clash. Broad and narrow definitions exist for the concept, both of which have been used to explain violence (including war) and crime, on either a micro or macro scale. Conflicting values Jonathan H. Turner defines cultural conflict as a conflict caused by "differences in cultural values and beliefs that place people at odds with one another." On a micro level, Alexander Grewe discusses a cultural conflict between guests of different culture and nationality as seen in a British 1970 sitcom, Fawlty Towers. He defines this conflict as one that occurs when people's expectations of a certain behavior coming from their cultural backgrounds are not met, as others have different cultural backgrounds and different expectations. Cultural conflicts are difficult to resolve as parties to the conflict have different beliefs. Cultural conflicts intensify when those differences become reflected in politics, particularly on a macro level. An example of cultural conflict is the debate over abortion. Ethnic cleansing is another extreme example of cultural conflict. Wars can also be a result of a cultural conflict; for example the differing views on slavery were one of the reasons for the American Civil War. Crime and deviance A more narrow definition of a cultural conflict dates to Daniel Bell's 1962 essay, "Crime as an American Way of Life", and focuses on criminal-enabling consequences of a clash in cultural values. William Kornblum defines it as a conflict that occurs when conflicting norms create "opportunities for deviance and criminal gain in deviant subcultures." Kornblum notes that, whenever laws impose cultural values on a group that does not share those views (often, this is the case of the majority imposing their laws on a minority), illegal markets supplied by criminals are created to circumvent those laws. He discusses the example of prohibition in the interbellum United States, and notes how the cultural conflict between pro- and anti-alcohol groups created opportunities for illegal activity; another similar example he lists is that of the war on drugs. Kornblum also classifies the cultural conflict as one of the major types of conflict theory. In The Clash of Civilizations Samuel P. Huntington proposes that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. Influence and understanding Michelle LeBaron describes different cultures as "underground rivers that run through our lives and relationships, giving us messages that shape our perceptions, attributions, judgments, and ideas of self and other." She states that cultural messages "shape our understandings" when two or more people are present in regards to relationships, conflict, and peace. LeBaron discusses the influence of culture as being powerful and "unconscious, influencing conflict and attempts to resolve conflict in imperceptible ways." She states that the impact of culture is huge, affecting "name, frame, blame, and attempt to tame conflicts." Due to the huge impact that culture has on us, LeBaron finds it important to explain the "complications of conflict:" First, "culture is multi-layered," meaning that "what you see on the surface may mask differences below the surface." Second, "culture is constantly in flux," meaning that "cultural groups adapt in dynamic and sometimes unpredictable ways." Third, "culture is elastic," meaning that one member of a cultural group may not participate in the norms of the culture. Lastly, "culture is largely below the surface," meaning that it isn't easy to reach the deeper levels of culture and its meanings. See also Cultural diversity Cultural divide Cultural genocide Cultural hegemony Cultural imperialism Cultural tourism Culture shock Culture war Ethnic conflict Identity politics Language policy Linguistic imperialism Linguistic rights Multiculturalism Regionalism (politics) Religious war Social cohesion War against Islam War against Judaism Kulturkampf Clash of civilizations References Further reading Croissant, Aurel, Uwe Wagschal, Nicolas Schwank, and Christoph Trinn. 2009. Culture and Conflict in Global Perspective: The Cultural Dimensions of Conflicts from 1945 to 2007. . Markus, Hazel Rose, and Alana Conner. 2014). Clash!: How to Thrive in a Multicultural World. . Cultural politics Conflict (process)

Style (sociolinguistics)

In sociolinguistics, a style is a set of linguistic variants with specific social meanings. In this context, social meanings can include group membership, personal attributes, or beliefs. Linguistic variation is at the heart of the concept of linguistic style—without variation, there is no basis for distinguishing social meanings. Variation can occur syntactically, lexically, and phonologically. Many approaches to interpreting and defining style incorporate the concepts of indexicality, indexical order, stance-taking, and linguistic ideology. A style is not a fixed attribute of a speaker. Rather, a speaker may use different styles depending on context. Additionally, speakers often incorporate elements of multiple styles into their speech, either consciously or subconsciously, thereby creating a new style. Origins William Labov first introduced the concept of style in the context of sociolinguistics in the 1960s, though he did not explicitly define the term. Labov primarily studied individual linguistic variables, and how they were associated with various social groups (e.g. social classes). He summed up his ideas about style in five principles: "There are no single style speakers." Style-shifting occurs in all speakers to a different degree; interlocutors regularly and consistently change their linguistic forms according to context. "Styles can be ranged along a single dimension, measured by the amount of attention paid to speech." Style-shifting correlates strongly with the amount of attention paid to speech. According to studies conducted by Labov, this was one of the single most important factors that determined whether or not an interlocutor would make a style-shift. "The vernacular, in which the minimum attention is paid to speech, provides the most systematic data for linguistic analysis." Labov characterized the vernacular as the original base mode of speech, learned at a very young age, on which more complex styles build later in life. This "basic" style has the least variation, and provides the most general account of the style of a given group. "Any systematic observation of a speaker defines a formal context where more than the minimum attention is paid to speech." In other words, even formal face-to-face interviews severely limit a speaker's use of their vernacular style. An interlocutor's vernacular style is most likely displayed if they do not perceive outside observers, and are not paying immediate attention to their own speech. "Face-to-face interviews are the only means of obtaining the volume and quality of recorded speech that is needed for quantitative analysis." Quantitative analysis requires the kind of data that must be obtained in a very obvious, formal way. Labov's work primarily attempted to linked linguistic variants as a function of formality (a proxy for attention to speech) to specific social groups. In his study of /r/-variation in New York Department stores, he observed that those with a lower social class are less likely to pronounce postvocalic [r] in words like fourth and floor, while those with a higher social class are more likely to pronounce postvocalic [r] in their less careful speech. However, once forced to pay attention to language, they style-shift in a way indicative of their social aspirations. That is, those with a middle social class often alter their pronunciation of /r/ in a way that is generally indicative of a higher social standing, while those with a lower or higher social class more or less maintain their original pronunciation (presumably because they were either happy with their current position in the social hierarchy or resigned to it). Modern approaches Indexical order Penny Eckert's characterization of style as related to indexicality marked the beginning of a new approach to linguistic style. She builds on Michael Silverstein's notion of indexical order: the notion that linguistic variables index a social group, which by association leads to the indexing of certain traits stereotypically associated with members of that group. For example, in New York in the 1960s, a study by Labov showed that the clear articulation of postvocalic [r] in words like "fourth" and "floor" indexed a higher class (in New York), whereas the absence of postvocalic [r] indexed a lower class. However, the presence of lack of postvocalic [r] can also function as a higher order indexical that points indirectly to traits stereotypically associated with members of the upper or lower class. In this way, not articulating the [r] in the word "fourth" could index, for example, a lack of education (the trait) in addition to a lower social class (the group). According to this theory, any linguistic variable has its own indexical field spanning any number of potential meanings; the meanings actually associated with the variable are determined by social context and the style in which the variable is being used. These indexical fields are fluid and often change depending on their usage in different contexts or in combination with other variables. This view of style revolves around variation, and interpretation of variation as a purely indexical system built from ideological connections. Ideology In Judith Irvine's conception of style she emphasizes the fact that a style is defined only within a social framework. A variant and the social meanings it indexes are not inherently linked, rather, the social meanings exist as ideologically mediated interpretations made by members of the social framework. She highlights the fact that social meanings such as group membership mean nothing without an ideology to interpret them. Mary Bucholtz's approach to style also relies heavily on ideology. She defines style as "a unidimensional continuum between vernacular and standard that varies based on the degree of speaker self-monitoring in a given speech context". This continuum depends on the ideology of the speaker, for they self-monitor depending on their ideologies concerning particular words. Bucholtz explains the ideology of gendered slang, in particular, the Mexican slang for "dude", guey. Guey indexes a stance of cool solidarity, and indirectly, [masculinity]. Ochs's framework for stance dictates that stances are ideologically connected with social groups. Bucholtz argues that ideology connects the stylistic feature of using guey with particular groups of people based on age, gender (male), and race. She also defines the concept of stylization as a set of deviations from the style one would expect from a situation according to the ideology of the style and how it matches up to the situation at hand. This leads to the indexing of groups with which the style is associated, and thus simplifies the indexical field at hand. Stance-taking Other theories on style often incorporate the role of stance-taking. These theories maintain that style is best viewed as consisting of smaller, more variable units known as stances. In this view, a stance is essentially a form of contextualization; it indicates the position of an interlocutor with respect to a particular utterance, conversation or other interlocutors. An interlocutor's use of language could imply, for instance, that they feel a certain way about an issue at hand, or that they do not care for the subject, or the people around them; these positions with respect to the context are different stances. According to stance theory, a given interlocutor uses certain variations among linguistic variables to take a stance or stances in an interaction. The set of stances interlocutors tend to repeat or use the most often in certain contexts (or in general) comprise their style. This approach focuses more on interaction and reaction in a linguistic context, rather than a static identity or social group. Linguistic variables do not index specific social groups by themselves, but instead combine with other linguistic variables to index various stances and styles, which are in turn associated with social groups. Kiesling writes: In this model of linguistic variation, stances are an important middle step between linguistic variables and a style or characteristic social group. Emergence of new styles Performative creation of new styles The performative creation of style is the result of a desire to project a certain social image or stance. Interlocutors who wish to present in a certain manner may consciously alter their linguistic style to affect how they appear to others. An example of this performative style is exemplified by non-linguistic situations. In one study, Eckert interviewed several female students at Palo Alto High School in California. "New-wave" teens who wished to be distinctive adapted a more rebellious fashion style, wearing mostly dark clothes and pegged jeans, whereas popular, "preppy" girls tended towards light pastel colors and straight designer jeans. However, a couple girls wished to portray themselves as unique without losing their popular conformist social identity. The table below compares resulting styles: As Eckert demonstrates, the "preppy" girls who wished to maintain a slightly distinctive style combined certain aspects of the "preppy" style with the "new-wave" style. They maintained their color choices and shied away from dark eye-makeup—but wore blue pegged jeans instead of the standard designer jeans of their group. This is because they perceive that the eye makeup indexes an "adult" or "slutty" characteristic, while the all-black color scheme is "scary". In the same way, interlocutors often choose to performatively create their own linguistic style to suit the self-image they desire. In a case study conducted by Podesva, he studies the style of a gay lawyer, who combines certain aspects of common professional and gay linguistic features to create his own style, indexing both a "professional lawyer" characteristic and a unique "gay" characteristic with his speech. Nonperformative emergence of new styles Styles are not necessarily consciously created; there are a number of processes that contribute to the construction of meaning for both individual speech variants and styles. Individual variants can be adopted by multiple styles. When a variant is newly adopted by a style, it changes both the perception of the variant and the perception of the style. In the Eckertian view, a person's linguistic style identifies their position in an indexical field of social meanings. These social meanings are created by a continual analysis and interpretation of the linguistic variants that are observed based on who uses them. Style-shifting Style shifting refers to a single speaker changing style in response to context. As noted by Eckert and Rickford, in sociolinguistic literature terms style and register sometimes have been used interchangeably. Also, various connotations of style are a subject of study in stylistics. Style-shifting is a manifestation of intraspeaker (within-speaker) variation, in contrast with interspeaker (between-speakers) variation. It is a voluntary act which an individual effects in order to respond to or initiate changes in sociolinguistic situation (e.g., interlocutor-related, setting-related, topic-related). William Labov, while conducting sociolinguistic interviews, designated two types of spoken style, casual and formal, and three types of reading style (a reading passage, a word list, and a minimal pair list). Analysing style-shifting Labov postulated that "styles can be arranged along a single dimension, measured by the amount of attention paid to speech" (1972, as quoted in), casual style requiring the least amount of conscious self-monitoring. Such style-shifting is often referred to as responsive (produced in response to normative pressures). In recent developments of stylistic variation analysis, scholars such as Allan Bell, Barbara Johnstone, and Natalie Schilling-Estes have been focusing on the initiative dimension of style-shifting, which occurs when speakers proactively choose between various linguistic resources (e.g. dialectal, archaic or vernacular forms) in order to present themselves in a specific way. In initiative style-shifting, speakers actively engage in social practices to construct social meaning. There have been a large number of suggested motivations for this phenomenon: Attention to speech model In the attention to speech model it is proposed that the style a speaker uses is dependent on how much attention the speaker is paying to their own speech, which in turn is dependent on the formality of the situation. Additionally, each speaker has one most natural style, which is defined as the style the speaker uses when paying the least attention (i.e. in the most casual situations). Criticisms of this model include that it is difficult to quantify attention paid to speech and the model suggests that a speaker has only one style for a given level of formality. Communication accommodation theory Communication accommodation theory (CAT) seeks to explain style-shifting in terms of two processes: convergence, in which the speaker attempts to shift their speech to match that of the interlocuter to gain social approval, and divergence, in which the speaker attempts to distance themselves from the interlocuter by shifting their speech away from that of the interlocuter. Two specific shortcomings of this basic form of CAT include its inability to explain situations in which convergence occurs when the motivation is clearly not social approval (e.g. in arguments) and the fact that non-convergent speech is often used to maintain social distance in asymmetric relationships (e.g. employer-employee). Audience design model The audience design model is very similar to communication accommodation theory with an added component: the audience design model proposes the existence of nonpresent reference groups, with which a speaker may converge or diverge. In this theory, speakers constantly negotiating their relationship, not only with the audience, but also with other nonpresent people or groups that come up in the discourse. Style-shifting as an act of identity This theory proposes that speakers shape their speech to associate or disassociate themselves with specific social groups. It further proposes that a speaker does not have an underlying fundamental style which they use in casual speech, but rather all styles are equally fundamental. Footing and framing model A footing is a role that a speaker occupies and may be described as follows: By style shifting speakers are able to cast themselves in different footings. Also central to this model is the frame of the discourse, which is the feeling of the interactants about what kind of interaction is occurring (e.g. formal interview, casual conversation, political discussion). Different frames are being continuously foregrounded and backgrounded relative to one another throughout the discourse. The footings that speakers adopt through style-shifting are dependent on which frames are most prominent at any given time. Style matching Style matching is defined as the matching of behaviors between a speaker and an interlocutor. The premise of the theory is that individuals have the ability to strategically negotiate the social distance between themselves and their interaction partners. This can be done linguistically, paralinguistically, and non-verbally, for example, by varying speech style, rate, pitch, and gaze. One theory behind linguistic style matching suggests that the words one speaker uses prime the listener to respond in a specific way. In this fashion, an interlocutor is influenced by her partner's language at the word level in natural conversation in the same way that one's non-verbal behavior can be influenced by another's movement. Additionally, Kate G. Niederhoffer proposes a coordination-engagement hypothesis, which suggests that the degree of engagement should be predictive of both linguistic and nonverbal coordination. There exists an interactional complexity whereby people can converge on some communicative features to meet social needs but diverge on others for identity management. For example, one can diverge in accent but converge in lexical diversity. Individuals in two-person interactions exhibit linguistic style matching on both the conversational level and on a turn-by-turn level. This coordinated use of language occurs at a remarkably basic level (e.g., classes of words) and appears to occur independently of the perceived quality of an interaction, the length of the interaction, whether the interaction is face-to-face or on an Internet-like chat, etc. Socially, two people appear to fall into this coordinated way of interacting almost immediately even if they have never spoken to one another before. The listener is influenced by many linguistic primes set up by the speaker. All of this occurs on an unconscious level and is sensitive to the power differential between the participants, with less dominant participants generally being more attentive to more dominant participants’ words. Case studies Urban styles An opposition between urban and suburban linguistic variables is common to all metropolitan regions of the United States. Although the particular variables distinguishing urban and suburban styles may differ from place to place, the trend is for urban styles to lead in the use of nonstandard forms and negative concord. In Penny Eckert's study of Belten High in the Detroit suburbs, she noted a stylistic difference between two groups that she identified: school-oriented jocks and urban-oriented, school-alienated burnouts. The variables she analyzed were the usage of negative concord and the mid and low vowels involved in the Northern Cities Shift, which consists of the following changes: æ > ea, a > æ, ə > a, ʌ > ə, ay > oy, and ɛ > ʌ ([y] here is equivalent to the IPA symbol [j]). All of these changes are urban-led, as is the use of negative concord. The older, mostly stabilized changes, æ > ea, a > æ, and ə > a, were used the most by women, while the newer changes, ʌ > ə, ay > oy, and ɛ > ʌ were used the most by burnouts. Eckert theorizes that by using an urban variant such as [foyt], they were not associating themselves with urban youth. Rather, they were trying to index traits that were associated with urban youth, such as "tough" and "street-smart". This theory is further supported by evidence from a subgroup within the burnout girls, which Eckert refers to as ‘burned-out’ burnout girls. She characterizes this group as being even more anti-establishment than the ‘regular’ burnout girls. This subgroup led overall in the use of negative concord as well as in female-led changes. This is unusual because negative concord is generally used the most by males. ‘Burned-out’ burnout girls were not indexing masculinity — this is shown by their use of female-led variants and the fact that they were found to express femininity in non-linguistic ways. This shows that linguistic variables may have different meanings in the context of different styles. Gay styles There is some debate about what makes a style "gay." In stereotypically flamboyant gay speech, the phonemes /s/ and /l/ have a greater duration. People are also more likely to identify those with higher frequency ranges as gay. On the other hand, there are many different styles represented within the gay community. There is much linguistic variation in the gay community, and each subculture appears to have its own distinct features. According to Podesva et al., "gay culture encompasses reified categories such as leather daddies, clones, drag queens, circuit boys, guppies (gay yuppies), gay prostitutes, and activists both mainstream and radical, as well as more local communities of practice which may not even have names." Thus, each of these sub-cultures speaks with a different style than all the other sub-cultures. There are also many features that are fairly prevalent in all of society but can index homosexuality in particular contexts. "Cooperative discourse" is often considered a feature of gay linguistic style, but is also used by some straight men, as well as by women. This is in line with an approach to style that emphasizes stance. Podesva et al. performed a study describing a sub-style within gay culture that some gay activists, lawyers, or other professionals use. The gay lawyer in their study does not want to appear "too gay," lest he also convey frivolity or other characteristics that he deemed unprofessional. It was important to him that he appear rational, educated, and competent as a lawyer. This is in line with the audience approach to style in which styles receive their meaning as a result of their opposition to other styles in their social sphere (in this case other gay styles). The lawyer's high release of word final stops, a variable also often found in the language of geek-girls and Orthodox Jews, indexes a desire to appear educated and not "too gay." This actually indexes his gay identity because he is tailoring his gay style (or lack thereof). See also Allan Bell Audience design Code-switching Indexicality Register (sociolinguistics) Sociolinguistics Sociolinguistic interview Style (manner of address) Stylistics Variation (linguistics) William Labov Writing style References Further reading Sociolinguistics Style

Critical lens

A critical lens is a way of looking at a particular work of literature by focusing on style choices, plot devices, and character interactions and how they show a certain theme (the lens in question). It is a common literary analysis technique. Types There are many types of critical lenses but there are several that are the most common. Marxist The Marxist critical lens came into vogue with the advent of the Marxist school of thought. Sometimes also called the socioeconomic lens, this focuses on how characters' wealth and social connections affects the work. Leon Trotsky's Literature and Revolution claims that "old literature and 'culture' were the expressions of the nobleman and the bureaucrat" and that "the proletariat has also to create its own culture and its own art". This viewpoint is common for the Marxist critical lens. Psychoanalytic Also called the Freudian or Jungian critical lens, this school of thought analyzes the psychological motives of the characters. Jungian literary criticism in particular focuses on archetypes. Feminist Gender/Queer Studies The gender/queer lens, while influenced by the feminist lens, treats gender as more of a spectrum, and also considers human sexuality. David Richter notes in The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends that "XXY syndromes, natural sexual bimorphisms, as well as surgical transsexuals [...] defy attempts at binary classification". This thinking, along with the advent of a more prominent LGBT community, has heavily influenced this lens. Semiotics The semiotic literary lens grew out of the structuralist literary lens, which was influenced by structuralism. It came about with the advent of semiotics. Moral The moral lens was the earliest critical lens to come about, beginning in Book X of Plato's Republic. In it, he notes "will any one be profited if under the influence of [...] poetry, man neglect[s] justice and virtue?" This lens was common through the end of the 19th century. For example, in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Gulliver notes in one of his letters that he had written "for [people's] amendment, and not their approbation", reflecting the belief at the time that the novel was primarily a method for instruction of the populace, and entertainment was only a secondary goal. This is especially true in books for children from the time - see for example the book that a young Jane Eyre is given by Mr. Brocklehurst, which "'is a book entitled the 'Child's Guide,' read it with prayer, especially that part containing 'An account of the awfully sudden death of Martha G -, a naughty child addicted to falsehood and deceit'" - this is meant to instruct Jane in the consequences of lying, and was common in children's literature of the time. This lens is common in analysis of religious works. Ecocriticism Ecocriticism addresses the work from an environmental and ecological perspective. Development The earliest critical lens was the moral lens, which came about in 360 B.C. in the writings of Plato's Republic. See also Literary criticism Critical theory References Literary criticism Literature Literary theory

Process art

Process art is an artistic movement where the end product of art and craft, the objet d’art (work of art/found object), is not the principal focus; the process of its making is one of the most relevant aspects if not the most important one: the gathering, sorting, collating, associating, patterning, and moreover the initiation of actions and proceedings. Process artists saw art as pure human expression. Process art defends the idea that the process of creating the work of art can be an art piece itself. Artist Robert Morris predicated “anti-form”, process and time over an objectual finished product. Movement Process art has been entitled as a creative movement in the US and Europe in the mid-1960s. It has roots in performance art, the Dada movement and, more traditionally, the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock, and in its employment of serendipity. Change and transience are marked themes in the process art movement. The Guggenheim Museum states that Robert Morris in 1968 had a groundbreaking exhibition and essay defining the movement and the Museum website states:Process Artists were involved in issues attendant to the body, random occurrences, improvisation, and the liberating qualities of nontraditional materials such as wax, felt, and latex. Using these, they created eccentric forms in erratic or irregular arrangements produced by actions such as cutting, hanging, and dropping, or organic processes such as growth, condensation, freezing, or decomposition. The process art movement and the environmental art movement are directly related: Process Artists engage the primacy of organic systems, using perishable, insubstantial, and transitory materials such as dead rabbits, steam, fat, ice, cereal, sawdust, and grass. The materials are often left exposed to natural forces: gravity, time, weather, temperature, etc. In process art, as in the Arte Povera movement, nature itself is lauded as art; the symbolization and representation of nature, often rejected. Relationship to other disciplines and movements Process art shares fundamental features with a number of other fields, including the expressive therapies and transformative arts, both of which pivot around how the creative process of engaging in artistic activities can precipitate personal insight, individual healing, and social change, independent of the perceived value attributed to the object of creation. Additionally, process art is integral to arts-based research, which uses creative process and artistic expression to investigate subjects that resist description or representation through other modes of inquiry. Artists Prominent artists related to process art include Abel Azcona, Lynda Benglis, Joseph Beuys, Chris Drury, Eva Hesse, Gary Kuehn, Barry Le Va, Bruce Nauman, Robert Morris, Richard Serra, Keith Sonnier, Aida Tomescu, and Richard Van Buren. References Further reading Wheeler, D. (1991). Art Since the Midcentury: 1945 to the Present. Modern art Contemporary art movements

Democracy and Education

Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education is a 1916 book by John Dewey. Synopsis In Democracy and Education, Dewey argues that the primary ineluctable facts of the birth and death of each one of the constituent members in a social group determine the necessity of education. On one hand, there is the contrast between the immaturity of the new-born members of the group (its future sole representatives) and the maturity of the adult members who possess the knowledge and customs of the group. On the other hand, there is the necessity that these immature members be not merely physically preserved in adequate numbers, but that they be initiated into the interests, purposes, information, skill, and practices of the mature members: otherwise the group will cease its characteristic life. Dewey observes that even in a "savage" tribe, the achievements of adults are far beyond what the immature members would be capable of if left to themselves. With the growth of civilization, the gap between the original capacities of the immature and the standards and customs of the elders increases. Mere physical growing up and mastery of the bare necessities of subsistence will not suffice to reproduce the life of the group. Deliberate effort and the taking of thoughtful pains are required. Beings who are born not only unaware of, but quite indifferent to, the aims and habits of the social group have to be rendered cognizant of them and actively interested. According to Dewey, education, and education alone, spans the gap. Reception Dewey's ideas were never broadly and deeply integrated into the practices of American public schools, though some of his values and terms were widespread. In the post-Cold War period, however, progressive education had reemerged in many school reform and education theory circles as a thriving field of inquiry learning and inquiry-based science. Some find it cumbersome that Dewey's philosophical anthropology, unlike Egan, Vico, Ernst Cassirer, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Nietzsche, does not account for the origin of thought of the modern mind in the aesthetic, more precisely the myth, but instead in the original occupations and industries of ancient people, and eventually in the history of science. A criticism of this approach is that it does not account for the origin of cultural institutions, which can be accounted for by the aesthetic. Language and its development, in Dewey's philosophical anthropology, have not a central role but are instead a consequence of the cognitive capacity. Legacy While Dewey's educational theories have enjoyed a broad popularity during his lifetime and after, they have a troubled history of implementation. Dewey's writings can also be difficult to read, and his tendency to reuse commonplace words and phrases to express extremely complex reinterpretations of them makes him susceptible to misunderstanding. So while he held the role of a leading public intellectual, he was often misinterpreted, even by fellow academics. Many enthusiastically embraced what they mistook for Dewey's philosophy, but which in fact bore little or a distorted resemblance to it. Simultaneously, other progressive educational theories, often influenced by Dewey but not directly derived from him, were also becoming popular, such as Educational perennialism which is teacher-centered as opposed to student-centered. The term 'progressive education' grew to encompass numerous contradictory theories and practices, as documented by historians like Herbert Kliebard. Several versions of progressive education succeeded in transforming the educational landscape: the utter ubiquity of guidance counseling, to name but one example, springs from the progressive period. Radical variations of educational progressivism were troubled and short-lived, a fact that supports some understandings of the notion of failure. But they were perhaps too rare and ill-funded to constitute a thorough test. See also List of publications by John Dewey References External links Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education public domain book at Wikisource 1916 non-fiction books Works by John Dewey Books about the philosophy of education

Context analysis

Context analysis is a method to analyze the environment in which a business operates. Environmental scanning mainly focuses on the macro environment of a business. But context analysis considers the entire environment of a business, its internal and external environment. This is an important aspect of business planning. One kind of context analysis, called SWOT analysis, allows the business to gain an insight into their strengths and weaknesses and also the opportunities and threats posed by the market within which they operate. The main goal of a context analysis, SWOT or otherwise, is to analyze the environment in order to develop a strategic plan of action for the business. Context analysis also refers to a method of sociological analysis associated with Scheflen (1963) which believes that 'a given act, be it a glance at [another] person, a shift in posture, or a remark about the weather, has no intrinsic meaning. Such acts can only be understood when taken in relation to one another.' (Kendon, 1990: 16). This is not discussed here; only Context Analysis in the business sense is. Define market or subject The first step of the method is to define a particular market (or subject) one wishes to analyze and focus all analysis techniques on what was defined. A subject, for example, can be a newly proposed product idea. Trend Analysis The next step of the method is to conduct a trend analysis. Trend analysis is an analysis of macro environmental factors in the external environment of a business, also called PEST analysis. It consists of analyzing political, economical, social, technological and demographic trends. This can be done by first determining which factors, on each level, are relevant for the chosen subject and to score each item as to specify its importance. This allows the business to identify those factors that can influence them. They can’t control these factors but they can try to cope with them by adapting themselves. The trends (factors) that are addressed in PEST analysis are Political, Economical, Social and Technological; but for context analysis Demographic trends are also of importance. Demographic trends are those factors that have to do with the population, like for example average age, religion, education etc. Demographic information is of importance if, for example during market research, a business wants to determine a particular market segment to target. The other trends are described in environmental scanning and PEST analysis. Trend analysis only covers part of the external environment. Another important aspect of the external environment that a business should consider is its competition. This is the next step of the method, competitor analysis. Competitor Analysis As one can imagine, it is important for a business to know who its competition is, how they do their business and how powerful they are so that they can be on the defense and offense. In Competitor analysis a couple of techniques are introduced how to conduct such an analysis. Here I will introduce another technique which involves conducting four sub analyses, namely: determination of competition levels, competitive forces, competitor behavior and competitor strategy. Competition levels Businesses compete on several levels and it is important for them to analyze these levels so that they can understand the demand. Competition is identified on four levels: Consumer needs: level of competition that refers to the needs and desires of consumers. A business should ask: What are the desires of the consumers? General competition: The kind of consumer demand. For example: do consumers prefer shaving with electric razor or a razor blade? Brand: This level refers to brand competition. Which brands are preferable to a consumer? Product: This level refers to the type of demand. Thus what types of products do consumers prefer? Another important aspect of a competition analysis is to increase the consumer insight. For example: [Ducati] has, by interviewing a lot of their customers, concluded that their main competitor is not another bicycle, but sport-cars like [Porsche] or [GM]. This will of course influence the competition level within this business. Competitive forces These are forces that determine the level of competition within a particular market. There are six forces that have to be taken into consideration, power of the competition, threat of new entrants, bargaining power of buyers and suppliers, threat of substitute products and the importance of complementary products. This analysis is described in Porter 5 forces analysis. Competitor behavior Competitor behaviors are the defensive and offensive actions of the competition. Competitor strategy These strategies refer to how an organization competes with other organizations. And these are: low price strategy and product differentiation strategy. Opportunities and Threats The next step, after the trend analysis and competitor analysis are conducted, is to determine threats and opportunities posed by the market. The trends analysis revealed a set of trends that can influence the business in either a positive or a negative manner. These can thus be classified as either opportunities or threats. Likewise, the competitor analysis revealed positive and negative competition issues that can be classified as opportunities or threats. Organization Analysis The last phase of the method is an analysis of the internal environment of the organization, thus the organization itself. The aim is to determine which skills, knowledge and technological fortes the business possesses. This entails conducting an internal analysis and a competence analysis. Internal analysis The internal analysis, also called SWOT analysis, involves identifying the organizations strengths and weaknesses. The strengths refer to factors that can result in a market advantage and weaknesses to factors that give a disadvantage because the business is unable to comply with the market needs. Competence analysis Competences are the combination of a business’ knowledge, skills and technology that can give them the edge versus the competition. Conducting such an analysis involves identifying market related competences, integrity related competences and functional related competences. SWOT-i matrix The previous sections described the major steps involved in context analysis. All these steps resulted in data that can be used for developing a strategy. These are summarized in a SWOT-i matrix. The trend and competitor analysis revealed the opportunities and threats posed by the market. The organization analysis revealed the competences of the organization and also its strengths and weaknesses. These strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats summarize the entire context analysis. A SWOT-i matrix, depicted in the table below, is used to depict these and to help visualize the strategies that are to be devised. SWOT- i stand for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats and Issues. The Issues refer to strategic issues that will be used to devise a strategic plan. This matrix combines the strengths with the opportunities and threats, and the weaknesses with the opportunities and threats that were identified during the analysis. Thus the matrix reveals four clusters: Cluster strengths and opportunities: use strengths to take advantage of opportunities. Cluster strengths and threats: use strengths to overcome the threats Cluster weaknesses and opportunities: certain weaknesses hamper the organization from taking advantage of opportunities therefore they have to look for a way to turn those weaknesses around. Cluster weaknesses and threats: there is no way that the organization can overcome the threats without having to make major changes. Strategic Plan The ultimate goal of context analysis is to develop a strategic plan. The previous sections described all the steps that form the stepping stones to developing a strategic plan of action for the organization. The trend and competitor analysis gives insight to the opportunities and threats in the market and the internal analysis gives insight to the competences of the organization. And these were combined in the SWOT-i matrix. The SWOT-i matrix helps identify issues that need to be dealt with. These issues need to be resolved by formulating an objective and a plan to reach that objective, a strategy. Example Joe Arden is in the process of writing a business plan for his business idea, Arden Systems. Arden Systems will be a software business that focuses on the development of software for small businesses. Joe realizes that this is a tough market because there are many software companies that develop business software. Therefore, he conducts context analysis to gain insight into the environment of the business in order to develop a strategic plan of action to achieve competitive advantage within the market. Define market First step is to define a market for analysis. Joe decides that he wants to focus on small businesses consisting of at most 20 employees. Trend Analysis Next step is to conduct trend analysis. The macro environmental factors that Joe should take into consideration are as follows: Political trend: Intellectual property rights Economical trend: Economic growth Social trend: Reduce operational costs; Ease for conducting business administration Technological trend: Software suites; Web applications Demographic trend: Increase in the graduates of IT related studies Competitor Analysis Following trend analysis is competitor analysis. Joe analyzes the competition on four levels to gain insight into how they operate and where advantages lie. Competition level: Consumer need: Arden Systems will be competing on the fact that consumers want efficient and effective conducting of a business Brand: There are software businesses that have been making business software for a while and thus have become very popular in the market. Competing based on brand will be difficult. Product: They will be packaged software like the major competition. Competitive forces: Forces that can affect Arden Systems are in particular: The bargaining power of buyers: the extent to which they can switch from one product to the other. Threat of new entrants: it is very easy for someone to develop a new software product that can be better than Arden's. Power of competition: the market leaders have most of the cash and customers; they have to power to mold the market. Competitor behavior: The focus of the competition is to take over the position of the market leader. Competitor strategy: Joe intends to compete based on product differentiation. Opportunities and Threats Now that Joe has analyzed the competition and the trends in the market he can define opportunities and threats. Opportunities: Because the competitors focus on taking over the leadership position, Arden can focus on those segments of the market that the market leader ignores. This allows them to take over where the market leader shows weakness. The fact that there are new IT graduates, Arden can employ or partner with someone that may have a brilliant idea. Threats: IT graduates with fresh idea's can start their own software businesses and form a major competition for Arden Systems. Organization analysis After Joe has identified the opportunities and threats of the market he can try to figure out what Arden System's strengths and weaknesses are by doing an organization analysis. Internal analysis: Strength: Product differentiation Weakness: Lacks innovative people within the organization Competence analysis: Functional related competence: Arden Systems provides system functionalities that fit small businesses. Market-related competence: Arden Systems has the opportunity to focus on a part of the market which is ignored. SWOT-i matrix After the previous analyses, Joe can create a SWOT-i matrix to perform SWOT analysis. Strategic Plan After creating the SWOT-i matrix, Joe is now able to devise a strategic plan. Focus all software development efforts to that part of the market which is ignored by market leaders, small businesses. Employ recent innovative It graduates to stimulate the innovation within Arden Systems. See also Organization design Segmenting and positioning Environmental scanning Market research SWOT analysis Six Forces Model PESTLE analysis Gap analysis References Van der Meer, P.O. (2005). Omgevings analyse. In Ondernemerschap in hoofdlijnen. (pp 74–85). Houten: Wolters-Noordhoff. Ward, J. & Peppard, J. (2002). The Strategic Framework. In Strategic Planning for information systems. (pp. 70–81).England: John Wiley & Sons. Ward, J. & Peppard, J. (2002). Situation Analysis. In Strategic Planning for information systems. (pp. 82–83).England: John Wiley & Sons. Porter, M. (1980). Competitive strategy: techniques for analyzing industries and competitors. New York: Free Press Kendon, A. (1990). Conducting Interaction: Patterns of Behavior in Focused Encounters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Competition (economics) Business intelligence terms Market research Strategic management

Advanced capitalism

In political philosophy, particularly Frankfurt School critical theory, advanced capitalism is the situation that pertains to a harmonious and self-regulating economic system, a society in which individual freedom defines wider economic freedom or a capitalist model has been integrated and developed deeply and extensively and for a prolonged period in a freedom-based culture. The expression advanced capitalism distinguishes such societies from the historical previous forms of capitalism, mercantilism and industrial capitalism, and partially overlaps with the concepts of a developed country; of the post-industrial age; of finance capitalism; of post-Fordism; of the spectacular society; of media culture; and of "developed", "modern", and "complex" capitalism, all variants of economic freedom. Various writers identify Antonio Gramsci as an influential early theorist of advanced capitalism, even if he did not use the term himself. In his writings Gramsci sought to explain how capitalism had adapted to avoid the revolutionary overthrow that had seemed inevitable in the 19th century. At the heart of his explanation was the decline of raw coercion as a tool of class power, replaced by use of civil society institutions to manipulate public ideology in the capitalists' favor. Jürgen Habermas has been a major contributor to the analysis of advanced-capitalistic societies. Habermas observed four general features that characterize advanced capitalism: Concentration of industrial activity in a few large firms Constant reliance on the state to stabilize the economic system A formally democratic government that legitimizes the activities of the state and dissipates opposition to the system The use of nominal wage increases to pacify the most restless segments of the work force Bibliography Jürgen Habermas. Legitimation Crisis. Trans. by T. McCarthy. Boston: Beacon, 1973. from google books; excerpt Sombart, Werner (1916) Der moderne Kapitalismus. Historisch-systematische Darstellung des gesamteuropäischen Wirtschaftslebens von seinen Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. Final edn. 1916, repr. 1969, paperback edn. (3 vols. in 6): 1987 Munich: dtv. (Also in Spanish; no English translation yet.) Ian Gough State Expenditure in Advanced Capitalism New Left Review Fredric Jameson (1991) Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism Ernest Mandel Late Capitalism See also Capitalist mode of production Late capitalism Post-Fordism State capitalism State monopoly capitalism White Collar: The American Middle Classes References Capitalist systems

Evolutionary mismatch

Evolutionary mismatch (also "mismatch theory" or "evolutionary trap") is the evolutionary biology concept that a previously advantageous trait may become maladaptive due to change in the environment, especially when change is rapid. It is said this can take place in humans as well as other animals. Environmental change leading to evolutionary mismatch can be broken down into two major categories: temporal (change of the existing environment over time, e.g. a climate change) or spatial (placing organisms into a new environment, e.g. a population migrating). Since environmental change occurs naturally and constantly, there will certainly be examples of evolutionary mismatch over time. However, because large-scale natural environmental change – like a natural disaster – is often rare, it is less often observed. Another more prevalent kind of environmental change is anthropogenic (human-caused). In recent times, humans have had a large, rapid, and trackable impact on the environment, thus creating scenarios where it is easier to observe evolutionary mismatch. Because of the mechanism of evolution by natural selection, the environment ("nature") determines ("selects") which traits will persist in a population. Therefore, there will be a gradual weeding out of disadvantageous traits over several generations as the population becomes more adapted to its environment. Any significant change in a population's traits that cannot be attributed to other factors (such as genetic drift and mutation) will be responsive to a change in that population's environment; in other words, natural selection is inherently reactive. Shortly following an environmental change, traits that evolved in the previous environment, whether they were advantageous or neutral, are persistent for several generations in the new environment. Because evolution is gradual and environmental changes often occur very quickly on a geological scale, there is always a period of "catching-up" as the population evolves to become adapted to the environment. It is this temporary period of "disequilibrium" that is referred to as mismatch. Mismatched traits are ultimately addressed in one of several possible ways: the organism may evolve such that the maladaptive trait is no longer expressed, the organism may decline and/or become extinct as a result of the disadvantageous trait, or the environment may change such that the trait is no longer selected against. History As evolutionary thought became more prevalent, scientists studied and attempted to explain the existence of disadvantageous traits, known as maladaptations, that are the basis of evolutionary mismatch. The theory of evolutionary mismatch began under the term evolutionary trap as early as the 1940s. In his 1942 book, evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr described evolutionary traps as the phenomenon that occurs when a genetically uniform population suited for a single set of environmental conditions is susceptible to extinction from sudden environment changes. Since then, key scientists such as Warren J. Gross and Edward O. Wilson have studied and identified numerous examples of evolutionary traps. The first occurrence of the term "evolutionary mismatch" may have been in a paper by Jack E. Riggs published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology in 1993. In the years to follow, the term evolutionary mismatch has become widely used to describe biological maladaptations in a wide range of disciplines. A coalition of modern scientists and community organizers assembled to found the Evolution Institute in 2008, and in 2011 published a more recent culmination of information on evolutionary mismatch theory in an article by Elisabeth Lloyd, David Sloan Wilson, and Elliott Sober. In 2018 a popular science book appeared by evolutionary psychologists on evolutionary mismatch and the implications for humans Mismatch in human evolution Neolithic Revolution: transitional context The Neolithic Revolution brought about significant evolutionary changes in humans; namely the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, in which humans foraged for food, to an agricultural lifestyle. This change occurred approximately 10,000–12,000 years ago. Humans began to domesticate both plants and animals, allowing for the maintenance of constant food resources. This transition quickly and dramatically changed the way that humans interact with the environment, with societies taking up practices of farming and animal husbandry. However, human bodies had evolved to be adapted to their previous foraging lifestyle. The slow pace of evolution in comparison with the very fast pace of human advancement allowed for the persistence of these adaptations in an environment where they are no longer necessary. In some human societies that now function in a vastly different way from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, these outdated adaptations now lead to the presence of maladaptive, or mismatched, traits. Obesity and diabetes Human bodies are predisposed to maintain homeostasis, especially when storing energy as fat. This trait serves as the main basis for the "thrifty gene hypothesis", the idea that "feast-or-famine conditions during human evolutionary development naturally selected for people whose bodies were efficient in their use of food calories". Hunter-gatherers, who used to live under environmental stress, benefit from this trait; there was an uncertainty of when the next meal would be, and they would spend most of their time performing high levels of physical activity. Therefore, those that consumed many calories would store the extra energy as fat, which they could draw upon in times of hunger. However, modern humans have evolved to a world of more sedentary lifestyles and convenience foods. People are sitting more throughout their days, whether it be in their cars during rush hour or in their cubicles during their full-time jobs. Less physical activity in general means fewer calories burned throughout the day. Human diets have changed considerably over the 10,000 years since the advent of agriculture, with more processed foods in their diets that lack nutritional value and lead them to consume more sodium, sugar, and fat. These high calorie, nutrient-deficient foods cause people to consume more calories than they burn. Fast food combined with decreased physical activity means that the "thrifty gene" that once benefit human predecessors now works against them, causing their bodies to store more fat and leading to higher levels of obesity in the population. Obesity is one consequence of mismatched genes. Known as "metabolic syndrome", this condition is also associated with other health concerns, including insulin resistance, where the body no longer responds to insulin secretion, so blood glucose levels are unable to be lowered, which can lead to type 2 diabetes. Osteoporosis Another human disorder that can be explained by mismatch theory is the rise in osteoporosis in modern humans. In advanced societies, many people, especially women, are remarkably susceptible to osteoporosis during aging. Fossil evidence has suggested that this was not always the case, with bones from elderly hunter-gatherer women often showing no evidence of osteoporosis. Evolutionary biologists have posited that the increase in osteoporosis in modern Western populations is likely due to our considerably sedentary lifestyles. Women in hunter-gatherer societies were physically active both from a young age and well into their late-adult lives. This constant physical activity likely lead to peak bone mass being considerably higher in hunter-gatherer humans than in modern-day humans. While the pattern of bone mass degradation during aging is purportedly the same for both hunter-gatherers and modern humans, the higher peak bone mass associated with more physical activity may have led hunter-gatherers to be able to develop a propensity to avoid osteoporosis during aging. Hygiene hypothesis The hygiene hypothesis, a concept initially theorized by immunologists and epidemiologists, has been proved to have a strong connection with evolutionary mismatch through recent studies. The hygiene hypothesis states that the profound increase in allergies, autoimmune diseases, and some other chronic inflammatory diseases is related to the reduced exposure of the immune system to antigens. Such reduced exposure is more common in industrialized countries and especially urban areas, where the inflammatory chronic diseases are also more frequently seen. Recent analysis and studies have tied the hygiene hypothesis and evolutionary mismatch together. Some researchers suggest that the overly sterilized urban environment changes or depletes the microbiota composition and diversity. Such environmental conditions favor the development of the inflammatory chronic diseases because human bodies have been selected to adapt to a pathogen-rich environment in the history of evolution. For example, studies have shown that change in our symbiont community can lead to the disorder of immune homeostasis, which can be used to explain why antibiotic use in early childhood can result in higher asthma risk. Because the change or depletion of the microbiome is often associated with hygiene hypothesis, the hypothesis is sometimes also called "biome depletion theory". Human behavior Behavioral examples of evolutionary mismatch theory include the abuse of dopaminergic pathways and the reward system. An action or behavior that stimulates the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter known for generating a sense of pleasure, will likely be repeated since the brain is programmed to continually seek such pleasure. In hunter-gatherer societies, this reward system was beneficial for survival and reproductive success. But now, when there are fewer challenges to survival and reproducing, certain activities in the present environment (gambling, drug use, eating) exploit this system, leading to addictive behaviors. Anxiety Anxiety is another example of a modern manifestation of evolutionary mismatch in humans. An immediate return environment is when decisions made in the present create immediate results. Prehistoric human brains have evolved to assimilate to this particular environment; creating reactions such as anxiety to solve short-term problems. For example, the fear of a predator stalking a human, causes the human to run away consequently immediately ensuring the safety of the human as the distance increases from the predator. However, humans currently live in a different environment called the delayed reaction environment. In this environment, current decisions do not create immediate results. The advancement of society has reduced the threat of external factors such as predators, lack of food, shelter, etc. therefore human problems that once circulated around current survival have changed into how the present will affect the quality of future survival. In summation, traits like anxiety have become outdated as the advancement of society has allowed humans to no longer be under constant threat and instead worry about the future. Work stress Examples of evolutionary mismatch also occur in the modern workplace. Unlike our hunter-gatherer ancestors who lived in small egalitarian societies, the modern work place is large, complex, and hierarchical. Humans spend significant amounts of time interacting with strangers in conditions that are very different from those of our ancestral past. Hunter-gatherers do not separate work from their private lives, they have no bosses to be accountable to, or no deadlines to adhere to. Our stress system reacts to immediate threats and opportunities. The modern workplace exploits evolved psychological mechanisms that are aimed at immediate survival or longer-term reproduction. These basic instincts misfire in the modern workplace, causing conflicts at work, burnout, job alienation and poor management practices. Gambling There are two aspects of gambling that make it an addictive activity: chance and risk. Chance gives gambling its novelty. Back when humans had to forage and hunt for food, novelty-seeking was advantageous for them, particularly for their diet. However, with the development of casinos, this trait of pursuing novelties has become disadvantageous. Risk assessment, the other behavioral trait applicable to gambling, was also beneficial to hunter-gatherers in the face of danger. However, the types of risks hunter-gatherers had to assess are significantly different and more life-threatening than the risks people now face. The attraction to gambling stems from the attraction to risk and reward related activity. Drug addiction Herbivores have created selective pressure for plants to possess specific molecules that deter plant consumption, such as nicotine, morphine, and cocaine. Plant-based drugs, however, have reinforcing and rewarding effects on the human neurological system, suggesting a "paradox of drug reward" in humans. Human behavioral evolutionary mismatch explains the contradiction between plant evolution and human drug use. In the last 10,000 years, humans found the dopaminergic system, or reward system, particularly useful in optimizing Darwinian fitness. While drug use has been a common characteristic of past human populations, drug use involving potent substances and diverse intake methods is a relatively contemporary feature of society. Human ancestors lived in an environment that lacked drug use of this nature, so the reward system was primarily used in maximizing survival and reproductive success. In contrast, present-day humans live in a world where the current nature of drugs render the reward system maladaptive. This class of drugs falsely triggers a fitness benefit in the reward system, leaving people susceptible to drug addiction. The modern-day dopaminergic system presents vulnerabilities to the difference in accessibility and social perception of drugs. Eating In the era of foraging for food, hunter-gatherers rarely knew where their next meal would come from. This food scarcity rewarded consumption of high energy meals in order to save excess energy as fat. Now that food is readily available, the neurological system that once helped people recognize the survival advantages of essential eating has now become disadvantageous as it promotes overeating. This has become especially dangerous after the rise of processed foods, as the popularity of foods that have unnaturally high levels of sugar and fat has significantly increased. Non-human examples Evolutionary mismatch can occur any time an organism is exposed to an environment that does not resemble the typical environment the organism adapted in. Due to human influences, such as global warming and habitat destruction, the environment is changing very rapidly for many organisms, leading to numerous cases of evolutionary mismatch. Examples with human influence Sea turtles and light pollution Female sea turtles create nests to lay their eggs by digging a pit on the beach, typically between the high tide line and dune, using their rear flippers. Consequently, within the first seven days of hatching, hatchling sea turtles must make the journey from the nest back into the ocean. This trip occurs predominantly at night in order to avoid predators and overheating. In order to orient themselves towards the ocean, the hatchlings depend on their eyes to turn towards the brightest direction. This is because the open horizon of the ocean, illuminated by celestial light, tends to be much brighter in a natural undeveloped beach than the dunes and vegetation. Studies propose two mechanisms of the eye for this phenomenon. Referred to as the "raster system", the theory is that sea turtles' eyes contain numerous light sensors which take in the overall brightness information of a general area and make a "measurement" of where the light is most intense. If the light sensors detect the most intense light on a hatchling's left side, the sea turtle would turn left. A similar proposal called the complex phototropotaxis system theorizes that the eyes contain light intensity comparators that take in detailed information of the intensity of light from all directions. Sea turtles are able to "know" that they are facing the brightest direction when the light intensity is balanced between both eyes. This method of finding the ocean is successful in natural beaches, but in developed beaches, the intense artificial lights from buildings, light houses, and even abandoned fires overwhelm the sea turtles and cause them to head towards the artificial light instead of the ocean. Scientists call this misorientation. Sea turtles can also become disoriented and circle around in the same place. Numerous cases show that misoriented hatchling sea turtles either die from dehydration, get consumed by a predator, or even burn to death in an abandoned fire. The direct impact of light pollution on the number of sea turtles has been too difficult to measure. However, this problem is exacerbated because all species of sea turtles are endangered. Other animals, including migratory birds and insects, are also victims to light pollution because they also depend on light intensity at night to properly orient themselves. Dodo bird and hunting The Dodo bird lived on a remote Island, Mauritius, in the absence of predators. Here, the Dodo evolved to lose its instinct for fear and the ability to fly. This allowed them to be easily hunted by Dutch sailors who arrived on the island in the late 16th century. The Dutch sailors also brought foreign animals to the island such as monkeys and pigs that ate the Dodo bird's eggs, which was detrimental to the population growth of the slow breeding bird. Their fearlessness made them easy targets and their inability to fly gave them no opportunity to evade danger. Thus, they were easily driven to extinction within a century of their discovery. The Dodo's inability to fly was once beneficial for the bird because it conserved energy. The Dodo conserved more energy relative to birds with the ability to fly, due to the Dodo's smaller pectoral muscles. Smaller muscle sizes are linked to lower rates of maintenance metabolism, which in turn conserves energy for the Dodo. Lacking an instinct for fear was another mechanism through which the Dodo conserved energy because it never had to expend any energy for a stress response. Both mechanisms of conservation of energy was once advantageous because it enabled the Dodo to execute activities with minimal energy expenditure. However, these proved disadvantageous when their island was invaded, rendering them defenseless to the new dangers that humans brought. Peppered moths during the English Industrial Revolution Before the English Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries the most common phenotypic color of the peppered moth was white with black speckles. When higher air pollution in urban regions killed the lichens adhering to trees and exposed their darker bark, the light-colored moths stood out more to predators. Natural selection began favoring a previously rare darker variety of the peppered moth referred to as "carbonaria" because the lighter phenotype had become mismatched to its environment. Carbonaria frequencies rose above 90% in some areas of England until efforts in the late 1900s to reduce air pollution caused a resurgence of epiphytes, including lichens, to again lighten the color of trees. Under these conditions the coloring of the carbonaria reverted from an advantage to a disadvantage and that phenotype became mismatched to its environment. Giant jewel beetle and beer bottles Evolutionary mismatch can also be seen among insects. One such example is in the case of the giant jewel beetle (Julodimorpha bakewelli). The male jewel beetle has evolved to be attracted to features of the female jewel beetle that allow the male to identify a female jewel beetle as it flies across the desert. These features include size, color, and texture. However, these physical traits are seen manifested in some beer bottles as well. As a result, males often consider beer bottles more attractive than female jewel beetles due to the beer bottle's large size and attractive coloring. Beer bottles are often discarded by humans in the Australian desert that the jewel beetle thrives in, creating an environment where male jewel beetles prefer to mate with beer bottles instead of females. This is a situation that is extremely disadvantageous as it reduces the reproductive output of the jewel beetle as fewer beetles are mating. This condition can be considered an evolutionary mismatch, as a habit that evolved to aid in reproduction has become disadvantageous due to the littering of beer bottles, an anthropogenic cause. Examples without human influence Information cascades between birds Normally, gaining information from watching other organisms allows the observer to make good decisions without spending effort. More specifically, birds often observe the behavior of other organisms to gain valuable information, such as the presence of predators, good breeding sites, and optimal feeding spots. Although this allows the observer to spend less effort gathering information, it can also lead to bad decisions if the information gained from observing is unreliable. In the case of the nutmeg mannikins, the observer can minimize the time spent looking for an optimal feeder and maximize its feeding time by watching where other nutmeg mannikins feed. However, this relies on the assumption that the observed mannikins also had reliable information that indicated the feeding spot was an ideal one. This behavior can become maladaptive when prioritizing information gained from watching others leads to information cascades, where birds follow the rest of the crowd even though prior experience may have suggested that the decision of the crowd is a poor one. For instance, if a nutmeg mannikin sees enough mannikins feeding at a feeder, nutmeg mannikins have been shown to choose that feeder even if their personal experience indicates that the feeder is a poor one. House finches and the introduction of the MG disease Evolutionary mismatch occurs in house finches when they are exposed to infectious individuals. Male house finches tend to feed in close proximity to other finches that are sick or diseased, because sick individuals are less competitive than usual, in turn making the healthy male more likely to win an aggressive interaction if it happens. To make it less likely to lose a social confrontation, healthy finches are inclined to forage near individuals that are lethargic or listless due to disease. However, this disposition has created an evolutionary trap for the finches after the introduction of the MG disease in 1994. Since this disease is infectious, healthy finches will be in danger of contraction if they are in the vicinity of individuals that have previously developed the disease. The relatively short duration of the disease's introduction has caused an inability for the finches to adapt quickly enough to avoid nearing sick individuals, which ultimately results in the mismatch between their behavior and the changing environment. Exploitation of earthworm's reaction to vibrations Worm charming is a practice used by people to attract earthworms out of the ground by driving in a wooden stake to vibrate the soil. This activity is commonly performed to collect fishing bait and as a competitive sport. Worms that sense the vibrations rise to the surface. Research shows that humans are actually taking advantage of a trait that worms adapted to avoid hungry burrowing moles which prey on the worms. This type of evolutionary trap, where an originally beneficial trait is exploited in order to catch prey, was coined the "rare enemy effect" by Richard Dawkins, an English evolutionary biologist. This trait of worms has been exploited not only by humans, but by other animals. Herring gulls and wood turtles have been observed to also stamp on the ground to drive the worms up to the surface and consume them. See also Evolution Evolutionary biology Evolutionary trap Fisher's geometric model Human impact on the environment Natural environment Person–environment fit Rate of evolution Evolutionary anachronism References Evolutionary biology

Media pluralism

Media pluralism defines the state of having a plurality of voices, opinions, and analyses in media systems (internal pluralism) or the coexistence of different and diverse types of medias and media support (external pluralism). Media pluralism is often recognized by international organizations and non-governmental organizations as being an essential part of a democratic state, Reporters Without Borders considers "access to a plurality of editorial lines and analyses [as] essential for citizens to be able to confront ideas, to make their own informed choices and to conduct their life freely". Expanded access to the Internet and the digital switch-over has enabled an increased availability of media content, largely through sharing and user-generated content on social media, in addition to the digital channels to which individuals have access across television and radio. The diversity of content is however accompanied by what Hallin and Mancini call "polarized pluralism" in a media system, in Comparing Media Systems. According to the UNESCO report on world trends in freedom of expression and media development, a sharper division in the way we use news is coming up due to the interaction between consumption habits, changing economic models and technical systems. This signifies that even if multiple kinds of information and programming are available, each segmented group may only ingest one branch of the whole. The increase of Internet penetration and reliance on online sources for news is thought of to producing siloed debates. At the infrastructural level, ‘zero rating’— in which Internet or mobile service providers allow users to access specific content or applications without counting towards the user's data ‘cap’— expands in parallel to mobile uptakes, particularly in emerging countries. Traditional business models for the news media continue to be disrupted, leading to vertical and horizontal concentration and introduction of new types of ownership. Challenges to media funding introduce new types of economic models such as pay-walls and crowd-funding initiatives. Gender is a part of media pluralism and is characterized by the under-representation of women in the media workforce, in decision-making and in media content. People with disabilities are also under-represented in the media system. Understanding media pluralism Pluralism involves sensitivity to a variety of economic ownership models and a technical architecture of delivery in which multichannel and multi-platform distribution is available. Pluralism often resonates with strong commitments on behalf of governments to public service and community media to provide for diversity. Jakubowicz focuses on "provisions" or "supply" of media content and the impact of available information in a society. Evaluations of media pluralism have commonly explored the number of media outlets available; how comprehensively media outlets represent different groups and interests in society; and who owns or is able to influence the media. The explosion of access to media through the Internet, the increasingly common practice for users to consume information across a variety of platforms, and the rise of algorithmic profiling bring to the fore questions about users and how they access—or are shielded from accessing—a plurality of sources. Access Access to information, as the ability for an individual to seek, receive and impart information effectively, is an aspect of media pluralism. It can include or allow "scientific, indigenous, and traditional knowledge; freedom of information, building of open knowledge resources, including open Internet and open standards, and open access and availability of data; preservation of digital heritage; respect for cultural and linguistic diversity, such as fostering access to local content in accessible languages; quality education for all, including lifelong and e-learning; diffusion of new media and information literacy and skills, and social inclusion online, including addressing inequalities based on skills, education, gender, age, race, ethnicity, and accessibility by those with disabilities; and the development of connectivity and affordable ICTs, including mobile, the Internet, and broadband infrastructures". Michael Buckland defines six types of barriers that have to be overcome for access to information to be achieved: identification of the source, availability of the source, price of the user, cost to the provider, cognitive access, acceptability. While "access to information", "right to information", "right to know" and "freedom of information" are sometimes used as synonyms, the diverse terminology does highlight particular (albeit related) dimensions of the issue. Internet and mobile According to the UNESCO report on world trends in freedom of expression and media development, access to all types of media increased from 2.3 billion in 2016 to 4.2 billion in 2021. This allowed for greater access to content in general but not necessarily to journalistically curated one. International commitments such as the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the work of the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development and the Internet Governance Forum’s intersessional work on ‘Connecting the Next Billion’ testify of this. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), by the end of 2017, an estimated 48 per cent of individuals regularly connect to the internet, up from 34 per cent in 2012. Despite the significant increase in absolute numbers, however, in the same period the annual growth rate of Internet users has slowed down, with five per cent annual growth in 2017, dropping from a 10 per cent growth rate in 2012. Limitations Mobile Internet connectivity has an impact in expanding access. The number of unique mobile cellular subscriptions increased from 3.89 billion in 2012 to 4.83 billion in 2016, and to 5.2 billion in 2020, two-thirds of the world's population. There are, however, noticeable inequalities in the access to internet. For instance, there is a "mobile gender gap", since women are 7% less likely than men to own a mobile phone. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the figure goes up to 13%. In terms of connectivity, women in Africa are 37% less likely to use mobile internet. Unlike the open web affords explorations beyond a user’s immediate range of interests, Mobile Internet has the singularity of creating siloed information spaces predisposing mobile users to access only a limited portion of the available information. Censorship and surveillance are also factors of media pluralism as they cause different experiences for users accessing the Internet in different States. Zero-rating The limits that users face on accessing information via mobile applications coincide with a broader process of fragmentation of the Internet. Zero-rating, the practice of internet providers allowing users free connectivity to access specific content or applications for free, has offered some opportunities for individuals to surmount economic hurdles, but has also been accused by its critics as creating a ‘two-tiered’ internet. To address the issues with zero-rating, an alternative model has emerged in the concept of ‘equal rating’ and is being tested in experiments by Mozilla and Orange in Africa. Equal rating prevents prioritization of one type of content and zero-rates all content up to a specified data cap. Some countries in the region had a handful of plans to choose from (across all mobile network operators) while others, such as Colombia, offered as many as 30 pre-paid and 34 post-paid plans. A study led by the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) of eight countries in the Global South found that zero-rated data plans exist in every country, although there is a great range in the frequency with which they are offered and actually used in each. Across the 181 plans examined, 13 per cent were offering zero-rated services. Another study, covering Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, found Facebook's Free Basics and Wikipedia Zero to be the most commonly zero-rated content. Broadcast media In Western Europe and North America, the primacy of television as a main source of information is being challenged by the internet, while in other regions, such as Africa, television is gaining greater audience share than radio, which has historically been the most widely accessed media platform. In the Arab region, geopolitical interests has contributed to the growing reach of state-owned global news broadcasters and has determined the launching of Arabic-language channels. Generational trends Age plays a profound role in determining the balance between radio, television and the Internet as the leading source of news. According to the 2017 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, in 36 countries and territories surveyed, 51 per cent of adults 55 years and older consider television as their main news source, compared to only 24 per cent of respondents between 18 and 24. The pattern is reversed when it comes to online media, chosen by 64 per cent of users between 18 and 24 as their primary source, but only by 28 per cent of users 55 and older. According to the Arab Youth Survey, in 2016, 45 per cent of the young people interviewed considered social media as a major source of news. Digital transition Digital transition is the process in which older analog television broadcasting is converted to and replaced by digital television. The International Telecommunication Union has been mapping the progress in digital switchovers across the globe. According to them, the switch from analogue television to digital television has been completed in 56 countries in 2017, and was ongoing in 68, steadily increasing the range of channels to which individuals have access. Expansion strategies Satellite television has continued to add global or transnational alternatives to national viewing options for many audiences. Global news providers such as the BBC, Al Jazeera, Agence France-Presse, RT (formerly Russia Today) and the Spanish-language Agencia EFE, have used the internet and satellite television to better reach audiences across borders and have added specialist broadcasts to target specific foreign audiences. Reflecting a more outward looking orientation, China Global Television Network, the multi-language and multi-channel grouping owned and operated by China Central Television, changed its name from CCTV-NEWS in January 2017. After years of budget cuts and shrinking global operations, in 2016 BBC announced the launch of 12 new language services (in Afaan Oromo, Amharic, Gujarati, Igbo, Korean, Marathi, Pidgin, Punjabi, Telugu, Tigrinya, and Yoruba), branded as a component of its biggest expansion ‘since the 1940s’. Also expanding access to content are changes in usage patterns with non-linear viewing, as online streaming is becoming an important component of users’ experience. Since expanding its global service to 130 new countries in January 2016, Netflix experienced a surge in subscribers, surpassing 100 million subscribers in the second quarter of 2017, up from 40 million in 2012. The audience has also become more diverse with 47 per cent of users based outside of the United States, where the company began in 1997. Newspaper industry The Internet has challenged the press as an alternative source of information and opinion but has also provided a new platform for newspaper organizations to reach new audiences. Between 2012 and 2016, print newspaper circulation continued to fall in almost all regions, with the exception of Asia and the Pacific, where the dramatic increase in sales in a few select countries has offset falls in historically strong Asian markets such as Japan and the Republic of Korea. Between 2012 and 2016, India’s print circulation grew by 89 per cent. As many newspapers make the transition to online platforms, revenues from digital subscriptions and digital advertising have been growing significantly. How to capture more of this growth remains a pressing challenge for newspapers. Advertising issues Print media is continuously affected by changing trends in advertising: in 2012 its share of total news media revenues globally dropped below 50 per cent and continued falling to 38 per cent in 2016. Newspapers transition to online platforms increase the volume of revenues from digital subscriptions and digital advertising. The main challenge that newspapers face, according to Cecilia Campbell, is how to capture more of the digital subscriptions and advertising growth. European Union The Media Pluralism Monitor developed by the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF) and co-funded by the European Union was first implemented in 2014 and 2015 with subsequent pilot projects. In 2016, 2017 and 2020 the CMPF measured media pluralism within the EU, including some candidate countries with a methodology based on 4 areas, including: Basic Protection, Market Plurality, Political Independence and Social Inclusiveness. Economic models Media systems are built from a variety of economic models including mixes of market, public service, community and state entities. A plurality of media owners and economic models serves as an essential element of external pluralism, guaranteed by competition in the market. Nonprofit public service and community media can help achieve internal pluralism by incorporating social and cultural diversity in the content they produce. Community media, drawing especially on volunteers, can be a unique source of local dialogue and information exchange. The lack of adaption and of efficient economic strategies from traditional media has led to proliferation of privately owned media. This involves a diversification of newspapers but may also affects quality journalism and media independence, especially with the financial contributions from "backers". Pluralism in media ownership State-owned media In 2012, the Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU) counted 1,230 television stations broadcasting via Arab and international satellites, of which 133 were state-owned and 1,097 private. The reduction of government owned channels in the media sector is paralleled by a growth in outlets with a sectarian agenda. In some countries, private media outlets often maintain close ties to governments or individual politicians, while media houses owned by politically non-aligned individuals have struggled to survive, often in the face of advertising boycotts by state agencies. According to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), public service broadcasting tend to struggle with funding and to decline since 2012. Controlled liberalization Media privatization and the lessening of the State dominance over media content is a global trend, according to the UNESCO report on world trends in freedom of expression and media development. Establishing profitable models of state-owned but relatively independent papers is part of the controlled liberalization process and is a common practice in the Asia Pacific region. State owned papers are top selling in Africa and the Arab region but often lack in reflecting society's plurality. Vertical integration and concentration in mature markets are found in Central and Eastern Europe, but they tend to lack transparency on ownership and of institutional safeguards with regard to pluralism (e.g. monitoring of concentration and regulatory intervention). Limits to concentration are clearly set out in Western Europe but they face lobbies from media actors who are able to loosen norms and the enforcement of the law. New types of cross-ownership Cross-ownership is a method of reinforcing business relationships by owning stock in the companies with which a given company does business. Drawing the line between the media and other industries is a challenge for new types of cross-ownership. The acquisition of the Washington Post by the founder of online retailer Amazon raised concerns about the newspaper independence, the newspaper has significantly increased its standing in the online media—and print—and introduced significant innovations. Community-centered media ownership model Most common in isolated, rural or disadvantaged areas community-centered media ownership is also mostly pertaining to radio. Through this model, not-for-profit media outlets are run and managed by the communities. They are also characterized as "independent and governed by and in the service of the communities they serve" and represent what UNESCO calls the "third pillar" of the media with commercial and public broadcasters. Advertising, between old and new models One of the challenges to traditional media is advertisement, which has evolved since 2010. According to the UNESCO report on world trends in freedom of expression and media development, between 2012 and 2016, revenues from advertisement in print have decreased by 27 percent in 2012, print advertising's share of total news advertising revenue was 48 per cent, falling to 38 per cent by 2016. Circulation of digital versions of traditional newspapers and digital advertisements have grown significantly, but have not been sufficient to offset losses in print. Once the transitioning phase from old media to digital media is over, revenues from digital advertisement tend to increase. This phenomenon pushed advertisers to pay premium prices to quality publications. Tauel Harper considers that with the rise of big data, media have been seen to lose the "advertising subsidy" for journalistic content, through which "private" advertising paid for "public journalism". Big data analytics place their ads in front of individual media consumers regardless of the particular content they are consuming. This includes political advertising, which sometimes serves to bypass the significance of news in election contexts. New platforms and business models The New York Times in the United States, or the Mail & Guardian in South Africa use extensions or variations of existing schemes such as pay-walls created by publications considered to be of particularly high quality or addressing a particular niche. The Guardian uses Wikipedia's borrowed strategy of frequently asking readers for donations in support to quality journalism or free content. In various sectors, the number of crowdfunded journalism projects has increased significantly. While in 2012, 88 projects received funding through the platform, in 2015, the number of projects rose to 173, scattered across 60 countries (even if North America continues to register the majority of funded projects). The funds collected grew from $1.1 million in 2012 to $1.9 million in 2015. Economic models also depend on larger structural reconfiguration of the market. While in 2012 advertising revenues from mobile represented a tiny portion of the market in the United States, in 2016 they surpassed revenues from all other platforms. Media actors have also started testing new formats and technologies of journalism, experimenting with how virtual reality or gaming can facilitate immersive experiences of relatively distant events. In 2015 for example, the New York Times opened its Virtual Reality Lab, seeking to provide original perspectives on issues ranging from the war in Iraq, to the conflict in South Sudan, to the thinning of the ice cap in Antarctica. The Virtual reality app proved the most downloaded in the history of interactive applications launched by the paper. Awareness raising video games have also been developed such as Games for Social Change, which involve students. Content According to Cisco Systems, in 2016 an average of 96,000 petabytes was transferred monthly over the Internet, more than twice as many as in 2012. In 2016, the number of active websites surpassed 1 billion, up from approximately 700 million in 2012. User-generated content Reaching two billion daily active users in June 2017, Facebook has emerged as the most popular social media platform globally. Other social media platforms are also dominant at the regional level such as: Twitter in Japan, Naver in the Republic of Korea, Instagram (owned by Facebook) and LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft) in Africa, VKontakte (VK) and Odnoklassniki in Russia and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe, WeChat and QQ in China. However, a concentration phenomenon is occurring globally giving the dominance to a few online platforms that become popular for some unique features they provide, most commonly for the added privacy they offer users through disappearing messages or end-to-end encryption (e.g. WhatsApp, Snapchat, Signal, and Telegram), but they have tended to occupy niches and to facilitate the exchanges of information that remain rather invisible to larger audiences. Production of freely accessible information has been increasing since 2012. In January 2017, Wikipedia had more than 43 million articles, almost twice as many as in January 2012. This corresponded to a progressive diversification of content and increase in contributions in languages other than English. In 2017, less than 12 per cent of Wikipedia content was in English, down from 18 per cent in 2012. Graham, Straumann, and Hogan say that increase in the availability and diversity of content has not radically changed the structures and processes for the production of knowledge. For example, while content on Africa has dramatically increased, a significant portion of this content has continued to be produced by contributors operating from North America and Europe, rather than from Africa itself. Algorithms, echo chambers and polarization The proliferation of online sources represents a vector leading to an increase in pluralism but algorithms used by social networking platforms and search engines to provide users with a personalized experience based on their individual preferences represent a challenge to pluralism, restricting exposure to differing viewpoints and news feed. This is commonly referred to as "eco-chambers" and "filter-bubbles". With the help of algorithms, filter bubbles influence users choices and perception of reality by giving the impression that a particular point of view or representation is widely shared. Following the 2016 referendum of membership of the European Union in the United Kingdom and the United States presidential elections, this gained attention as many individuals confessed their surprise at results that seemed very distant from their expectations. The range of pluralism is influenced by the personalized individualization of the services and the way it diminishes choice. Research on echo chambers from Flaxman, Goel, and Rao, Pariser, and Grömping suggest that use of social media and search engines tends to increase ideological distance among individuals. Comparisons between online and off-line segregation have indicated how segregation tends to be higher in face-to-face interactions with neighbors, co-workers, or family members, and reviews of existing research have indicated how available empirical evidence does not support the most pessimistic views about polarization. A study conducted by researchers from Facebook and the University of Michigan, for example, has suggested that individuals’ own choices drive algorithmic filtering, limiting exposure to a range of content. While algorithms may not be causing polarization, they could amplify it, representing a significant component of the new information landscape. Fake news The term "fake news" gained importance with the electoral context in Western Europe and North America. It is determined by fraudulent content in news format and its velocity. According to Bounegru, Gray, Venturini and Mauri, fake news is when a deliberate lie "is picked up by dozens of other blogs, retransmitted by hundreds of websites, cross-posted over thousands of social media accounts and read by hundreds of thousands" that it then effectively becomes "fake news". The evolving nature of online business models encourages the production of information that is "click-worthy" independently of its accuracy. The nature of trust depends on the assumptions that non-institutional forms of communication are freer from power and more able to report information that mainstream media are perceived as unable or unwilling to reveal. Declines in confidence in much traditional media and expert knowledge have created fertile grounds for alternative, and often obscure sources of information to appear as authoritative and credible. This ultimately leaves users confused about basic facts. Internet companies with threatened credibility tend to develop new responses to limit fake news and reduce financial incentives for its proliferation. Marginalized groups The media covering of marginalized groups such as refugees tend to be influenced by and influence the political and social perceptions. While a large proportion of the European press initially articulated a sympathetic and empathetic response towards the humanitarian crisis caused by the conflict in Syria, according to Georgiou and Zaborowski, this sentiment was gradually replaced by suspicion and, in some cases, hostility towards refugees and migrants. Both the quality and tabloid press tended to employ ‘established, stereotyped narratives’ of security threats and economic costs. Gábor and Messing consider that a portion of the press, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, turned to systematic hostility towards migrants and refugees. News players Gate-keeping mechanisms continue to influence not only what is being communicated, but also who is given the opportunity to frame events. Citizens’ voices have indeed increased in new stories, individuals included in these stories tend to be treated, not as agents capable of asserting their world views and their interpretation of events, but rather as vox-pol, employed to add color to a narrative. Harlow and Johnson consider that in the case of protests, demonstrations or conflicts, established institutions and elites tend to prevail as news sources. Although novel media operations and actors have had a smaller impact on mainstream reporting, they have been instrumental in animating intermediate spaces, which aggregate content in ways that can reach broader audiences. As users increasingly move from broadcast to online media to access information, the same large media institutions tend to predominate online spaces, even if filtered and mediated in much of their social media presence. A decade later, the majority of the most visited and viewed news websites remain traditional media outlets (CNN, New York Times, the Guardian, Washington Post, BBC), although news aggregation websites such as Reddit and Google News have emerged among the top five sites with the highest web traffic. Media and information literacy Authors Frau-Meigs, Velez, and Michel (2017) and Frau-Meigs and Torrent (2009) consider diversity in media can also be enhanced by media and information literacy (MIL). They argue that it can be useful in understanding the consequences of algorithms on modes of diffusion. Many types of MIL exist from information literacy, media literacy, news literacy, advertising literacy, digital literacy, media education, to digital and media literacy. A few initiatives already exist in the field: UNESCO launched in 2013 the Global Alliance for Partnerships on Media and Information Literacy (GAPMIL), as an "effort to promote international cooperation to ensure that all citizens have access to media and information competencies". The recent annual yearbook by the International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media focuses on trends and opportunities for MIL in the Arab region. There have also been efforts to embed media and information literacy initiatives and requirements into legislation in countries such as Serbia, Finland, Morocco, the Philippines, Argentina, Australia and several states in the US have passed laws that address MIL. Education initiatives have been proliferating online reflecting a growth of MOOCs or massive online courses. Available on platforms such as Coursera and edX, as well as by public service broadcasters, these courses target both students and consumers of media, as well as teachers. There have also been a growing number of initiatives launched by internet companies to combat online hate speech or the proliferation of ‘fake news’, largely built on users’ inputs and support in flagging content that appears to not comply with a platform's terms of service. Gender equality Tuchman, Daniels, and Benoit (1978) use the term "symbolic annihilation" (originally credited to George Gerbner) to describe women's relationship to and visibility in mass media. According to the Global Media Monitoring Project, women's visibility in newspaper, television and radio increased by only seven percentage points between 1995 (17 per cent) and 2015 (24 per cent). Regional and international organizations also recognize gender and media pluralism as often being problematic: In 2010, UNESCO developed a comprehensive set of Gender-Sensitive Indicators for Media, aimed at encouraging media organizations to benchmark themselves against equality criteria. In 2013, the Council of the European Parliament adopted the recommendation made by the European Institute for Gender Equality, that the media industry should adopt and implement gender equality indicators relating to women in decision-making, gender equality policies and women on boards. In 2016, UN Women launched a new partnership with major media organizations to draw attention to and act on eradicating all forms of inequalities. The Step it Up for Gender Equality Media Compact comprises a coalition of media outlets from around the globe. The media workforce According to Byerly, in many countries, as many women as men are graduating from media, journalism and communication degree programmes and entering the industry. In 1995, when the first substantial analysis of women media professionals across 43 nations was produced, women constituted around 40 per cent of the media workforce. A Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) 2015 report found that 31 per cent of stories on politics and 39 per cent of stories about the economy have female by-lines. Researchers from the US, Harp, Bachmann, and Loke, show that while women journalists are writing on a wider range of topics, they are still a minority of columnist at the major dailies. In terms of presenting on broadcast news, the 2015 GMMP found that the global proportion of women was 49 per cent, the same as in 2000 and two percentage points below the 1995 finding. Since 2005, the number of women working as reporters in broadcast news has dropped by four percentage points in television and radio. Closer analysis shows that women were more numerous on television (57 per cent), for example, and less numerous on radio (41 per cent), where ‘looks’ are obviously far less important. The majority of younger presenters were women, but that trend reversed for older presenters, nearly all of whom were men. There were almost no women reporters recorded as older than 65. Part of this is likely due to recent improvements that have allowed more young women to enter the field, but it could also relate to the differences in how aging is perceived between men and women, as well as limitations in career advancement. The Women's Media Center (WMC) 2017 report on women and the media in the USA shows that at 20 of the nation's top news outlets, women produced 37.7 per cent of news reports, an increase of 0.4 percentage points compared to 2016. In broadcast news, women’s presence as anchors, reporters and field journalists actually declined by nearly seven percentage points between 2015 and 2016. Women and decision-making The Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media found that women in media occupied just over a quarter of the jobs in top management (27 per cent) and governance (26 per cent) positions. The regions that fared best for women representation were Central (33 per cent) and Eastern Europe (43 per cent) and the Nordic countries (36 per cent). Elsewhere, women comprised only about a fifth of governance positions and held less than 10 per cent of top management jobs in Asia and the Pacific region. A major European project funded by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) found very similar findings: men held most of the senior management positions and board membership in 99 media houses across the European Union. In the Asia and Pacific region, a joint report by the UNESCO Office in Bangkok, UN Women and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Asia Pacific found women were significantly under-represented in decision-making roles. In Southern Africa, a Gender Links study found that women constitute 40 per cent of media employees and 34 per cent of media managers. The study also revealed that sexual harassment remains a key issue for women: just under 20 per cent of women media professionals said that they had personal experience of sexual harassment and the majority of those women said that the perpetrator was a senior colleague. Representation The 2015 GMMP made a comparison across 20 years of women's representation in the media and assessed that between 1995 (17 percent) and 2015 (24 percent), female appearances in television, radio and print rose by only seven percentage points. Sarah Macharia highlights the fact that where women most often appear in media, it is when they speak from personal experience (representing 38 per cent), while only 20 per cent of spokespersons and 19 per cent of experts featured in stories are women. Women featured in stories as 32 per cent of experts interviewed in North America, followed by the Caribbean (29 per cent) and Latin America (27 per cent). In the southern African region, Gender Links’ 2016 Gender and Media Progress Study covered 14 countries and found that women's views and voices accounted for a mere 20 per cent of news sources across Southern Africa media. The picture of women in media Women have won only a quarter of Pulitzer Prizes for foreign reporting and only 17 per cent of awards of the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. In 2015 the African Development Bank began sponsoring a category for Women's rights in Africa, designed to promote gender equality through the media, as one of the prizes awarded annually by One World Media. Created in 1997, the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize is an annual award that honors a person, organization or institution that has made a notable contribution to the defense and/or promotion of press freedom anywhere in the world. Nine out of 20 winners have been women. The Poynter Institute since 2014 has been running a Leadership Academy for Women in Digital Media, expressly focused on the skills and knowledge needed to achieve success in the digital media environment. The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), which represents more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and more than 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries, leads the Women in the News (WIN) campaign together with UNESCO as part of their Gender and Media Freedom Strategy. In their 2016 handbook, WINing Strategies: Creating Stronger Media Organizations by Increasing Gender Diversity, they highlight a range of positive action strategies undertaken by a number of their member organizations from (Germany) to Jordan to Colombia, with the intention of providing blueprints for others to follow. Sources References Freedom of expression User-generated content

Synesthesia in art

The phrase synesthesia in art has historically referred to a wide variety of artists' experiments that have explored the co-operation of the senses (e.g. seeing and hearing; the word synesthesia is from the Ancient Greek σύν (syn), "together," and αἴσθησις (aisthēsis), "sensation") in the genres of visual music, music visualization, audiovisual art, abstract film, and intermedia (Campen 2007, Jewanski & Sidler 2006, Moritz 2003, 1999, Berman 1999, Maur 1999, Gage 1994, 1999). The age-old artistic views on synesthesia have some overlap with the current neuroscientific view on neurological synesthesia, but also some major differences, e.g. in the contexts of investigations, types of synesthesia selected, and definitions. While in neuroscientific studies synesthesia is defined as the elicitation of perceptual experiences in the absence of the normal sensory stimulation, in the arts the concept of synaesthesia is more often defined as the simultaneous perception of two or more stimuli as one gestalt experience (Campen 2009). The usage of the term synesthesia in art should, therefore, be differentiated from neurological synesthesia in scientific research. Synesthesia is by no means unique to artists or musicians. Only in the last decades have scientific methods become available to assess synesthesia in persons. For synesthesia in artists before that time one has to interpret (auto)biographical information. For instance, there has been debate on the neurological synesthesia of historical artists like Kandinsky and Scriabin (cf. Jewanski & Sidler 2006, Ione 2004, Dann 1999, Galeyev 2001). Additionally, Synesthetic art may refer to either art created by synesthetes or art created to elicit synesthetic experience in the general audience. Distinctions When discussing synesthesia in art, a distinction needs to be made between two possible meanings: Art by synesthetes, in which they draw on their personal synesthetic perceptions to create works of art. Art that is meant to evoke synesthetic associations in a general (mainly non-synesthetic) audience. These distinctions are not mutually exclusive, as, for example, art by a synesthete might also evoke synesthesia-like experiences in the viewer. However, it should not be assumed that all "synesthetic" art accurately reflects the synesthetic experience. For more on artists who either were synesthetes themselves, or who attempted to create synesthesia-like mappings in their art, see the list of people with synesthesia. Art by synesthetes Several contemporary visual artists have discussed their artistic process, and how synesthesia helps them in this, at length. Linda Anderson, according to NPR considered "one of the foremost living memory painters", creates with oil crayons on fine-grain sandpaper representations of the auditory-visual synaesthesia she experiences during severe migraine attacks. Carol Steen experiences multiple forms of synesthesia, including grapheme → color synesthesia, music → color synesthesia, and touch → color synesthesia. She most often uses her music → color synesthesia and touch → color synesthesia in creating her works of art, which often involves attempting to capture, select, and transmit her synesthetic experiences into her paintings. Steen describes how her synesthetic experience during an acupuncture session led to the creation of the painting Vision. Rather than trying to create depictions of what she experiences, "Reflectionist" Marcia Smilack uses her synesthetic experience in guiding her towards creating images that are aesthetically pleasing and appealing to her. Smilack takes pictures of reflected objects, mostly using the surface of the water, and says of her photography style: Anne Salz, a Dutch musician and visual artist, perceives music in colored patterns. She describes her painting inspired by Vivaldi's Concerto for Four Violins: She explains that the painting is not a copy of what she hears; rather, when she listens to music, she perceives more colorful textures than she normally perceives and she is able to depict them in the painting. She also expresses the movement of the music, as its energy influences the pictorial composition. She explains how she perceives the painting: Anne Patterson, a New York-based artist with a background in theatrical set design, describes the genesis of her installation of 20 miles of silk ribbons suspended from the vaulted ceiling arches of San Francisco's Grace Cathedral, which was inspired by a cello performance of Bach: Brandy Gale, a Santa Cruz, California-based Canadian painter and photographer "experiences an involuntary joining or crossing of any of her senses – hearing, vision, taste, touch, smell and movement. Gale paints from life rather than from photographs and by exploring the sensory panorama of each locale attempts to capture, select, and transmit these personal experiences." In addition to her field work, Gale also paints live, sometimes performing her painting experience live before an audience with musical accompaniment, as she did at the 2013 EG Conference in Monterey, CA. with cellist Philip Sheppard, at the Oakland Garden of Memory in June 2014 with her husband, guitarist and composer Henry Kaiser, and with Kaiser and guitarist Ava Mendoza at The Stone in NYC. Gale's 2014 solo exhibition Coastal Synaesthesia:Paintings and Photographs of Hawaii, Fiji and California was held at Gualala Arts Gallery, Gualala, CA. Art meant to evoke synesthetic associations Perhaps the most famous work which might be thought to evoke synesthesia-like experiences in a non-synesthete audience is the 1940 Disney film Fantasia, although it is unknown if this was intentional or not. Another classical example is the use of the color organ which would project colored lights along with the musical notes, to create a synesthetic experience in the audience (Campen 2007, Jewanski & Sidler 2006). Wassily Kandinsky working in the 1920s, may not have been a synesthete, despite his fame for his synesthetic artwork. Many of his paintings and stage pieces were based upon a set and established system of correspondences between colors and the timbres of specific musical instruments. Kandinsky himself, however, stated that his correspondences between colors and musical timbres have no "scientific" basis, but were founded upon a combination of his own personal feelings, current prevailing cultural biases, and mysticism (; ; Jewanski & Sidler 2006, Campen 2007). History The interest in synesthesia is at least as old as Greek philosophy. One of the questions that the classic philosophers asked was if color (chroia, what we now call timbre) of music was a physical quality that could be quantified (Campen 2007, Gage 1994, Ferwerda & Struycken 2001, Jewanski 1999). The first known experiment to test correspondences between sound and color was conducted by the Milanese artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo at the end of the sixteenth century. He consulted with a musician at the court of Rudolph II in Prague to create a new experiment that sought to show the colors that accompany music. He decided to place different colored strips of painted paper on the gravicembalo, a keyboard instrument (Gage, 1994). He was also an artist who created strange portraits from unusual objects, such as Four Seasons in One Head. The problem of finding a mathematical system to explain the connection between music and color has both inspired and frustrated artists and scientists throughout the ages. The seventeenth-century physicist Isaac Newton tried to solve the problem by assuming that musical tones and color tones have frequencies in common. He attempted to link sound oscillations to respective light waves. According to Newton, the distribution of white light in a spectrum of colors is analogous to the musical distribution of tones in an octave. So, he identified seven discrete light entities, that he then matched to the seven discrete notes of an octave (Campen 2007, Peacock 1988). Color organs Inspired by Newton’s theory of music-color correspondences, the French Jesuit Louis-Bertrand Castel designed a color harpsichord (clavecin oculaire) with colored strips of paper which rose above the cover of the harpsichord whenever a particular key was hit (Campen 2007, Franssen 1991). Renowned masters like Telemann and Rameau were actively engaged in the development of a clavecins oculaire. The invention of the gas light in the nineteenth century created new technical possibilities for the color organ. In England between 1869 and 1873, the inventor Frederick Kastner developed an organ that he named a Pyrophone. The British inventor Alexander Rimington, a professor in fine arts in London, documented the phrase ‘Colour-Organ’ for the first time in a patent application in 1893. Inspired by Newton’s idea that music and color are both grounded in vibrations, he divided the color spectrum into intervals analogous to musical octaves and attributed colors to notes. The same notes in a higher octave produced the same color tone but then in a lighter value (Peacock 1988). Around the turn of the century, concerts with light and musical instruments were given quite regularly. As most technical problems had been conquered, the psychological questions concerning the effects of these performances came to the fore. The Russian composer Alexander Scriabin was particularly interested in the psychological effects on the audience when they experienced sound and color simultaneously. His theory was that when the correct color was perceived with the correct sound, ‘a powerful psychological resonator for the listener’ would be created. His most famous synesthetic work, which is still performed today, is Prometheus, Poem of Fire. On the score of Prometheus, he wrote next to the instruments separate parts for the tastiere per luce, the color organ (Campen 2007, Galeyev 2001, Gleich 1963). Musical paintings In the second half the nineteenth century, a tradition of musical paintings began to appear that influenced symbolist painters (Campen 2007, Van Uitert 1978). In the first decades of the twentieth century, a German artist group called The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter) executed synesthetic experiments that involved a composite group of painters, composers, dancers and theater producers. The group focused on the unification of the arts by means of "Total Works of Art" (Gesamtkunstwerk) (Von Maur 2001, Hahl-Koch 1985, Ione 2004). Kandinsky's theory of synesthesia, as formulated in the booklet "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" (1910), helped to shape the ground for these experiments. Kandinsky was not the only artist at this time with an interest in synesthetic perception. A study of the art at the turn of the century reveals in the work of almost every progressive or avant-garde artist an interest in the correspondences of music and visual art. Modern artists experimented with multi-sensory perception like the simultaneous perception of movement in music and film (Von Maur 2001, Heyrman 2003). Visual music Starting in the late 1950s, electronic music and electronic visual art have co-existed in the same digital medium (Campen 2007, Collopy 2000, Jewanski & Sidler 2006, Moritz 2003). Since that time, the interaction of these fields of art has increased tremendously. Nowadays, students of art and music have digital software at their disposal that uses both musical and visual imagery. Given the capability of the Internet to publish and share digital productions, this has led to an enormous avalanche of synesthesia-inspired art on the Internet (Campen 2007) (cf. website RhythmicLight.com on the history of visual music). For instance, Stephen Malinowski and Lisa Turetsky from Berkeley, California wrote a software program, entitled the Music Animation Machine, that translates and shows music pieces in colored measures. Synesthetic artists With today’s knowledge and testing apparatus, it can be determined with more certainty if contemporary artists are synesthetic. The scientific evidence in artists is often insufficient to support the claims of synesthesia, and caution is warranted in evaluating artwork predicated on such claims. By interviewing these artists, one may get some insight into the process of painting music (cf. Steen, Smilack, Salz). Some contemporary artists are active members of synesthesia associations in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium and other countries (cf. Arte Citta) . In and outside these associations that house scientists and artists, the exchange of ideas and collaborations between artists and scientists has grown rapidly in the last decades (cf. the Leonardo online bibliography Synesthesia in Art and Science) , and this is only a small selection of synesthetic work in the arts. New artistic projects on synesthesia are appearing every year. For instance they capture their synesthetic perceptions in painting, photographs, textile work, and sculptures. Beside these ‘classical’ materials of making art, an even larger production of synesthesia-inspired works is noticed in the field of digital art (Campen 2007). Notes References Berman, Greta. "Synesthesia and the Arts," Leonardo 32, no. 1 (1999) 15-22. Campen, Cretien van. Visual Music and Musical Paintings. The Quest for Synesthesia in the Arts. In: F. Bacci & D. Melcher. Making Sense of Art, making Art of Sense. Oxford: Oxford University Press (forthcoming in 2009). Campen, Cretien van. The Hidden Sense. Synesthesia in Art and Science Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007. Campen, Cretien van "Artistic and psychological experiments with synesthesia." Leonardo vol. 32, no. 1 (1999) 9-14. Collopy, F. "Color, Form, and Motion. Dimensions of a Musical Art of Light." Leonardo 33, no. 5 (2000): 355-360. Düchting, H. Farbe am Bauhaus. Synthese und Synästhesie. Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1996. Evers, F. "Muziek en de eenheid der kunsten." In Muziekpsychologie, edited by F. Evers, M. Jansma and B. de Vries, 313-338. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1995. Ferwerda, R. and P. Struycken. ‘Aristoteles’ Over kleuren. Budel: Damon, 2001. Franssen, M. "The Ocular Harpsichord of Louis-Bertrand Castel. The Science and Aesthetics of an Eighteenth-Century Cause Célèbre." Tractrix 3 (1991): 15-77. Gage, J. "Making Sense of Colour. The Synaesthetic Dimension." In Colour and meaning. Art, science and symbolism, 261-268. Oxford: Thames & Hudson, 1999. Gage, J. Colour and Culture. Practice and Meaning from Antiquity to Abstraction. London: Thames & Hudson, 1993. Galeyev, B. and I.L. Vanechkina. "Was Scriabin a Synesthete?" Leonardo 34, no. 4 (2001): 357-361. Hahl-Koch, J. "Kandinsky, Schönberg und der ‘Blaue Reiter" In Vom Klang der Bilder, edited by K. von Maur. München: Prestel, 1985. Heyrman, H. Art and Synesthesia: In Search of the Synesthetic Experience paper presented at the First International Conference on Art and Synesthesia in Europe, University of Almería, Spain, 25–28 July 2005. Ione, A. and C.W. Tyler. "Neuroscience, History and the Arts. Synesthesia: Is F-sharp Colored Violet?" Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 13 (2004): 58-65. Ione A. and C.W. Tyler. " Was Kandinsky a Synesthete?" Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 12 (2003): 223–226. Ione, A. "Kandinsky and Klee: Chromatic Chords, Polyphonic Painting and Synesthesia." Journal of Consciousness Studies 11, no. 3-4 (2004): 148-58. Jewanski, J. and N. Sidler (Eds.). Farbe - Licht - Musik. Synaesthesie und Farblichtmusik. Bern: Peter Lang, 2006. Jewanski, J. "What is the Color of the Tone?" Leonardo 32, no. 3 (1999): 227-228. Kandinsky, W. "Der gelbe Klang: Eine Bühnenkomposition von Kandinsky." In Der blaue Reiter, edited by W. Kandinsky and F. Marc. München: Piper, 1912. Klein, A.B. Colour Music'. The Art of Light." London, 1926. Maur, K. von. The Sound of Painting. München: Prestel, 1999. Moritz, W. Optical Poetry. The Life and Work of Oskar Fischinger. Indiana University Press, 2003. Peacock, K. "Instruments to Perform Color-Music: Two Centuries of Technological Experimentation." Leonardo 21, no. 4 (1988): 397-406. Uitert, E. van. "Beeldende kunst en muziek: de muziek van het schilderij." In Kunstenaren der idee: symbolistische tendenzen in Nederland, edited by C. Blotkamp. Den Haag: Haags Gemeentemuseum, 1978. Peacock, K. "Instruments to Perform Color-Music: Two Centuries of Technological Experimentation," Leonardo 21, no. 4 (1988) 397-406. Further reading Campen, Cretien van, The Hidden Sense. Synesthesia in Art and Science, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007. Jewanski, J. and N. Sidler (Eds.). Farbe - Licht - Musik. Synaesthesie und Farblichtmusik.'' Bern: Peter Lang, 2006. Leonardo Online Bibliography Synesthesia in Science and Art - contains references to general web portals, websites of artists and hundreds of scientific articles and books on the subject of the last decades. Steen, Carol & Berman, Greta. Synesthesia: Art and the Mind. Hamilton: McMaster Museum of Art, 2008. Nikolić D. (2016) Ideasthesia and art. In: Gsöllpointner, Katharina, et al. (eds.). 2016. Digital Synesthesia. A Model for the Aesthetics of Digital Art. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter (http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/print/11666) External links The Phänomenon of Synaesthesia How does the taste of marzipan or the feeling of sun on the lower arms look like? The sensory impressions of a synaesthete caught in paintings. Famous synesthetes - List maintained by Sean A. Day, President of the American Synesthesia Association Leonardo Online Bibliography Synesthesia in Science and Art - contains references to general web portals, websites of artists and hundreds of scientific articles and books on the subject of the last decades. The Most Beautiful Painting You've Ever Heard From Seed magazine. Rhythmic Light - Website on the history of visual music, edited by Fred Collopy. Synesthesia - Survey of documents on synesthesia in art, compiled by Dr. Hugo Heyrman. Synesthetics - Resources, articles and weblinks on synesthesia in art and science, compiled by Cretien van Campen. Synesthesia Music - Music generated from any pictures in 5 seconds Arte Citta - European organization of art and synesthesia Synaesthesiewerkstatt Workshops in synesthesia and art by Christine Söffing Art and Emotion® Synesthesia in art by Christina Seibold Synesthesia Visual arts Visual music

Art intervention

Art intervention is an interaction with a previously existing artwork, audience, venue/space or situation. It is in the category of conceptual art and is commonly a form of performance art. It is associated with Letterist International, Situationist International, Viennese Actionists, the Dada movement and Neo-Dadaists. More latterly, intervention art has delivered Guerrilla art, street art plus the Stuckists have made extensive use of it to affect perceptions of artworks they oppose and as a protest against existing interventions. Intervention can also refer to art and actions which enter a situation outside the art world in an attempt to change the existing conditions there. For example, intervention art may attempt to change economic or political situations, or may attempt to make people aware of a condition that they previously had no knowledge of. Since these goals mean that intervention art necessarily addresses and engages with the public, some artists call their work "public interventions". Although intervention by its nature carries an implication of subversion, it is now accepted as a legitimate form of art and is often executed with the endorsement of those in positions of authority over the artwork, audience, or venue/space to be intervened in. However, unendorsed (i.e. illicit) interventions are common and lead to debate as to the distinction between art and vandalism. By definition it is a challenge, or at the very least a comment, related to the earlier work or the theme of that work, or to the expectations of a particular audience, and more likely to fulfil that function to its full potential when it is unilateral, although in these instances, it is almost certain that it will be viewed by authorities as unwelcome, if not vandalism, and not art. Origins Intervention art exists where an individual or group has strong enough beliefs to take perceived ethical action around social issues from materialism to war. Its origins within the history of art are evidenced by such work as Leonardo Da Vinci's "A cloudburst of material possessions" which depicts the artist taking a stand against the materialist status quo. Goya's Black etchings 1812–15 depict almost documentary evidence of actual war depravities. Both examples display the art of conscience. These examples were made by artists who relied for their livelihoods on ruling class patronage so both were only posthumously made public. A potted history of intervention artworks Intervention art also contests the boundaries between the art world and the real world. Such interaction surfaced when artists started using found objects which they incorporated into painting. This began with Cubism around 1912 and the use of collage such as Kurt Schwitters' Merz. For the remainder of the 20th century and into the early 21st century Intervention artists gravitated away from the market driven art back into the real world; "artists must be activists"... framing elephants in rooms." Significant Intervention works of art 1915 – Dada publications and performances 1917 – Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" 1937 – Picasso's Guernica 1952 – Letterist international, Situationists international, Vienese Actionists 1960s – Land art – Robert Smithson's "Spiral Jetty" and Walter De Maria, Jan Dibbets, Hans Haacke, Michael Heizer, Neil Jenney, Richard Long, David Medalla, Robert Morris, Dennis Oppenheim, Gunther Uecker. 1970 – Bonnie Sherk's "Sitting still" (1970), "Public Lunch" (1971), "The Park" (1974) 1974 – Christo's "Valley curtain" 1975 – Adam Purple's NYC guerrilla garden 1978 – Alan Sonfist's Time Landscape 1978 – Barry Thomas's "Vacant Lot of Cabbages", (1978) "Street Stringing" (1978, '79, 2017), rADz (1997-2001) 1982 – Joseph Beuys' "7000 Oaks" 1982 – Agnes Denes' "Wheatfield" 1984 - Don Joyce's Culture Jamming 1986 – Burning man 1989 – Kalle Lasn's Ad busters anti advertising 1999 – Stuckists 2003 – Bill Wasik's Flashmobs 2005 – Magda Sayeg's Yarn bombing 2011 – Pussy Riot 2015 – Banksy's "Dismaland" and "Walled off" (2017) 2023 – Ai Weiwei's "Middle finger" 2023 – Boris Eldagsen Wins photography prize using Artificial Intelligence Authorised There are many art interventions which are carried out in contexts where relevant invitation and approval has been given. Detroit MONA goes kaBOOM!, 2002 The extreme to which an authorised intervention can go and yet still meet with institutional approval was shown in 2002, when the Museum of New Art in Detroit staged a show kaBoom!, with the announcement, "Over the course of the exhibition, museum visitors will be invited to smash, drop, throw and slash artworks..." The show was scheduled for two months, but by the end of the first night had been totally destroyed by visitors: "They even destroyed the pedestals and wall shelves," one museum staffer shrugged in disbelief. Fires were set in isolated galleries and a wrecking ball for one display had been removed from its chain and used instead as a bowling ball, taking out an installation as well as the corner of one wall. "In a twisted way, it was a wild success," MONA’s director Jef Bourgeau says the morning after, on a surprisingly bright note as he wades through the carnage and debris. This follows the precedent of the Dadaists. At one of their shows, visitors were invited to smash the exhibits with an axe. Hanging Old Masters backwards, 2004 A more usual authorised art intervention in an institution is done with great care to make sure that no harm comes to the existing collection. In 2004, the Old Town House in Cape Town, South Africa, hung its Michaelis Collection of 17th century Dutch Old Master paintings facing the wall. The curator Andrew Lamprecht said this exhibition, titled Flip, "would force gallery goers to reconsider their preconceptions about the art and its legacy." Knowledge of intent is integral to such a process, as it would be perceived differently if it were announced in a conservation context, rather than as an art piece. However, in this instance there was some ambiguity about the purpose of the exercise as Lamprecht, although stating, "I'm asking questions about the history," also added a more standard "educative" comment, "the reverse of the paintings revealed a wealth of detail not normally on view to the public, ranging from old attempts to preserve the canvas to notes from different collectors over the years," thus lessening the confrontational impact of his actions. Lord Napier in red tape, 2004 An authorised art intervention that required considerable effort to gain the requisite permission was the wrapping in red duct tape of the equestrian statue of Lord Napier of Magdala, situated on Queen's Gate in West London. This was done by Eleonora Aguiari, a Royal College of Art (RCA) student for her final show. When questioned as to whether she had considered a clandestine act, she replied, "No, not my style, I like to challenge the institutions." In order to do this she needed clearance letters from the RCA Rector, a professor, the Victoria and Albert Museum conservation department and the RCA conservation department, bronze tests, a scaffolding license, indemnity insurance, and permission from English Heritage (who own the statue), the City of Westminster, two Boroughs (Chelsea and Kensington, as their boundary bisects the length of the horse) and the present Lord Napier. Then a layer of cling wrap and almost 80 rolls of red duct tape were applied by 4 people working for 4 days. Aguiari described it as "a Zen action up there in the middle of traffic, but alone with a beautiful statue. Every detail on the statue is perfect and slightly larger than normal," and said that "statuary that symbolizes military past, or imperialism should be covered to make the topics of the past visible." Aguiari then received a phone call: "Saatchi wants to talk to you," but, on keeping the appointment, she found herself talking not to Charles Saatchi but to Michael Moszynski of the advertising firm, Saatchi & Saatchi, who thought her idea would be suitable for "a Tory advertising campaign," and wanted her to wrap an ambulance in red tape. She declined the offer. Despite her official clearance, the action caused controversy through press coverage, including a Reuters press agency photo reproduced in the Daily Times of Pakistan. Paul Kuniholm at Nordic Heritage Museum, 2013 Paul Kuniholm intervened his steel and textile sculptures worn on the body, with wicker art of his great-grandfather John Emil Kuniholm, posed by The Nordic Heritage Museum in 2013. The action was repeated several more times at locations such as Seattle Art Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, New York City's Central Park, and in Sweden for the Jönköping Municipality. Illicit Some artists challenge the orthodoxy by not seeking, or perhaps not being able to obtain, permission, but carry out their intention anyway, contravening regulations—with official reactions of differing degrees of severity. Concomitant, 1983 Since 1983 Eberhard Bosslet has performed site-specific outdoor intervention, so-called "Re/formations and side effects", in the Canary Islands. Black Sheep, 1994 In 1994, Damien Hirst curated the show Some Went Mad, Some Ran Away at the Serpentine Gallery in London, including his artwork Away from the Flock a disembowelled sheep in a tank of formaldehyde. In an interview, Hirst said that he did not mind what people thought of his work "so long as they get involved". The next day artist Mark Bridger removed the top of the artwork's tank and poured black ink into it, changed the title to Black Sheep and handed his business card to gallery staff. Bridger was subsequently prosecuted, at Hirst's wish. The artist's defence was that he thought Hirst would benefit from the publicity and critic Tony Parsons said the artist's action proved that what Damien Hirst does is art. The exhibit was restored at a cost of £1000. Two men jump naked into Tracey's bed, 1999 A notable case of an unauthorised intervention—which did no damage, yet was still liable for prosecution—occurred at 12.58 p.m. on 25 October 1999, when two artists, Yuan Chai and Jian Jun Xi, jumped on Tracey Emin's installation My Bed, in the Turner Prize at Tate Britain, wearing only underwear. They called their performance Two Naked Men Jump Into Tracey's Bed. They were arrested for their action, but no charges were pressed. Chai had written, among other things, the words "ANTI STUCKISM" on his bare back. They said they were "improving" Emin's work, because they thought it had not gone far enough, and opposed the Stuckists, who are anti-performance art. Banksy, c.2000 – 2023 "Banksy" is the operating name of one of the best-known interventionists in the UK. He has carried out many graffiti stencillings, usually with a specific message or comment. He has also infiltrated his own artwork into museums, where they have remained for varying amounts of time before being removed. In May 2005, for example, he hung his own version of a primitive cave painting, showing a human hunting with a shopping trolley, in the British Museum. He is now one of the most sought-after artists. His work now commands millions of dollars in the auction houses of Britain and America. In 2015 Banksy and 58 other artists created Dismaland using a disused theme park to portray the antithesis of Disneyland. In 2017 Bansky worked with local people in the West bank to establish a working Hotel the Walled Off Hotel that literally looks out onto the Israeli-constructed Israeli West Bank Barrier separating Palestinian and Israeli communities. Bansky "exhibits a strong sense of inclusivity and humanity" "It takes a lot of guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy for things no one else believes in – like peace, justice and freedom" Lennie Lee, 2005 In February 2005 Jewish artist, Lennie Lee, was censored for exhibiting a piece called "Judensau" (Jew pig) in Treptow Town Hall gallery, Berlin. The intervention was organized by the other artists working in the show who claimed (incorrectly) Lee was one of them. Lee's work was designed to put the institution in a difficult position. If they left it on the wall they would be accused of anti-semitism by their opponents. On the other hand, if they took the work down, they would be censoring the work of a Jewish artist dealing with antisemitic stereotypes. The authorities were forced to take the piece down. The piece attracted considerable attention from the media. Lee had previously "offered" to remove his "Judensau" on condition that a 14th-century sculpture of a "Judensau" was removed from the side of Martin Luther's church in Wittenberg. Taking a hammer to a urinal, 2006 On 4 January 2006, while on display in the Dada show in the Pompidou Centre in Paris, Marcel Duchamp's Fountain was attacked with a hammer by Pierre Pinoncelli, a 77-year-old French performance artist, causing a slight chip. Pinoncelli, who was arrested, said the attack was a work of performance art that Marcel Duchamp himself would have appreciated. This may be true, as on one occasion visitors to a Dada show were invited to smash up the exhibits with an axe. Previously in 1993, Pinoncelli urinated into the piece while it was on display in Nîmes, in southern France. Both of Pinoncelli's performances derive from neo-Dadaists' and Viennese Actionists' intervention or manoeuvre. The Fountain attacked by Pinoncelli was actually number 5 of 8 recreated by Duchamp at a much later date, after the original one was lost. Another is on display in the Indiana University Art Museum, and there is one also in Tate Modern, where in 2000 it too was the target of a urination performance (unsuccessful according to the gallery) by Yuan Chai and Jian Jun Xi. Pencils removed from Damien Hirst's Pharmacy, 2009 Artist Cartrain removed a packet of Faber Castell 1990 Mongol 482 series pencils from Damien Hirst's installation at his restaurant Pharmacy. This followed Hirst's action against Cartrain for using copies of Hirst's work. Cartrain stated: For the safe return of Damien Hirsts pencils I would like my artworks back that Dacs and Hirst took off me in November. Its not a large demand he can have his pencils back when I get my artwork back. Dacs are now not taking any notice of my emails and I have asked nicely more than five times to try and resolve this matter. Hirst has until the end of this month to resolve this or on 31 July the pencils will be sharpened. He has been warned. Illicit confronts the approved Although the legal technicalities are straightforward, when an unauthorised intervention intervenes in an officially sanctioned one, the moral issues may be far less straightforward, especially when the legal act meets with widespread public disapproval (even to the point of considering it vandalism), while the illicit reaction to it satisfies a public sense of justice. String up the perpetrator, 2003 In spring 2003, artist Cornelia Parker intervened in Auguste Rodin’s sculpture The Kiss (1886) in Tate Britain by wrapping it in a mile of string. This was a historical reference to Marcel Duchamp's use of the same length of string to create a web inside a gallery. Although the intervention had been endorsed by the gallery, many people felt it offensive to the original artwork and an act of vandalism rather than art. This reaction then prompted a further, unauthorised, intervention, in which Parker's string was cut by Stuckist Piers Butler, while couples stood around engaging in live kissing. Sticking it to Goya, 2003 In 2003, Jake and Dinos Chapman montaged clown and other "funny" faces onto a set of etchings of Goya's The Disasters of War (which they had purchased), thereby intervening in the original work. Aside from complaints on the grounds of bad taste, this act was described by some as "defacement", although the set was a late 1930s printing. Ostensibly as a protest against this piece, Aaron Barschak (who later became famous for gate-crashing Prince William's 21st birthday party dressed as Osama bin Laden in a frock) threw a pot of red paint over Jake Chapman during a talk he was giving in May 2003. The Chapmans then added monster heads to Goya's Los Caprichos etchings and exhibited them at the White Cube in 2005 under the title Like a dog returns to its vomit. Like other interventionists they asserted this was an improvement on the original: "You can't vandalise something by making it more expensive." However, Dinos pointed out one problem: "sometimes it is difficult to make the original Goya etchings any nastier; in one I found a witch sexually molesting a baby.". Throwing something at boxes, 2006 Another example at the Tate was an intervention in Rachel Whiteread’s Embankment installation in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern on 25 February 2006. Whiteread's site-specific installation consisted of large piles of white plastic cubes, made by using a mould from cardboard boxes. Jonathan Meese, a German performance artist had staged a scheduled event in this environment, erecting props, and giving a wild monologue. During this, an object was thrown, or fell, from the walkway over the hall, landing with a bang. This was seen as intentional and considered by some people an art intervention, while others thought it was simply vandalism. A month later, the Tate pronounced on this incident, "works get interfered with all the time and people often are unsure of the boundaries or social etiquette of Art and react accordingly, sometimes going beyond the pale." Art addressing social and environmental issues via self funded and local media String works In 1978 Barry Thomas strung up a suburban street in Wellington, New Zealand and with friends delivered the Claremont Grove street directory so the neighbours could get to know each other. It was the first of many string works, the latest being in Dunedin in 2017 where he tied up 13 kilometres of flood prone lower Dunedin with the safe, wealthier areas – ending in a circle tied in a knot at the opening of the Art and Revolution symposium. Fearless Girl and Charging Bull, 2017 A rare inversion of this was the placement of Fearless Girl, part of a marketing campaign for State Street Global Advisors, in opposition to Charging Bull in New York City. Charging Bull was originally placed illicitly by sculptor Arturo Di Modica on Broad Street, opposite the New York Stock Exchange, in 1989. The city moved the statue to the Bowling Green, where it has remained on an expired temporary permit. While the placement of Fearless Girl was endorsed by New York City, it was opposed by Di Modica. In 2018, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio announced that both statues would be moved to face the New York Stock Exchange, no longer in opposition. Contesting the rules redefines art A non-authorised and yet not illicit ploy is sometimes adopted, by carrying out purportedly "normal" behaviour, while finding loopholes in the regulations, pushing them to the limit, using them against the regulators and in 1917 heralding the future of art itself. Duchamp, 1917 and influences A seminal example of this approach took place in 1917 when Marcel Duchamp submitted a urinal (laid on its back, signed by him "R.Mutt 1917", and titled Fountain) to the Society of Independent Artists exhibition. The Society had proclaimed their open-mindedness by stating they would accept all work submitted, only anticipating that conventional media (paintings) would be. Duchamp was a member of the Society's board, and interpreted the regulations at face-value. His entry was immediately rejected as "not being art", and he resigned from the board shortly after. The original Fountain was lost. Fifty years later, Duchamp commissioned reproductions, which were then highly sought by museums. In 1961, fellow Dadaist, Hans Richter, wrote to Duchamp: You threw a bottle rack and urinal in their faces as a challenge and now they admire them for their aesthetic beauty. Duchamp wrote "Ok, ça va très bien" ("that's fine") in the margin beside it, and the quote is often erroneously attributed to him. Legacy Duchamp's collective name for this and his other "readymades" tested the boundaries between the real and the art worlds. Joseph Kosuth said “... With the unassisted Readymade, art changed its focus from the form of the language to what was being said…This change – one from ‘appearance’ to ‘conception’ – was the beginning of ‘modern’ art and the beginning of conceptual art. All art (after Duchamp) is conceptual (in nature) because art only exists conceptually.” His key advance here was to rail against what he termed "retinal thinking" especially around the visual aspects of art making versus what he called the "gray matter" "Fountain" was named in 2004 as the world's most influential work of art that opened the door to modern art. Duchamp also foresaw several trends in art and society with revolutionary concepts such as "I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste” and that he "preferred breathing rather than working" He chose indifference to good or bad taste selection criteria for his readymades. As the head of the hanging committee Duchamp displayed an egalitarian propensity in his alphabetical hanging criteria at the 1917 Society of Independents exhibition. Because his deliberate testing of the segregation between artist created objects and the readymade object with his "Fountain" the board voted to reject it so Duchamp and his patron Walter Arensberg resigned their board seats. Along with these concepts and his notion that the artist does not act in isolation and it takes the viewer to complete the work of art he profoundly foresaw the boundary breaking art movements such as Conceptual Art, Happenings, Land Art, Relational Aesthetics, Intervention art and much more. The 1960s heralded many such boundary shattering social movements such as the Sexual revolution, The environmental movement, followed by the Occupy and the MeToo movement along with an "aesthetic revolution". Duchamp developed an almost allergic reaction to polemic thinking preferring the third way of "indifference" to "even" out "good" and "bad" taste. His chess book was called "Opposition and sister squares reconciled". In 1966 summarizing his own legacy (and perhaps pointing to the direction of art returning to the real world, not unlike his "reciprocal readymade") Duchamp said his life's work amounted to "Using painting, using art, to create a modus vivendi, a way of understanding life; that is, for the time being, of trying to make my life into a work of art itself, instead of spending my life creating works of art in the form of paintings or sculptures." In 2023 Boris Eldagsen won the Sony World Photography Awards admitting he used Artificial Intelligence to create his image. Stuckist clowns at the Tate, 2000–05 The Stuckists have followed Duchamp's lead in exploiting regulations to their own advantage in yearly demonstrations outside the Turner Prize (2000–05) at Tate Britain. Prior to their first demonstration (dressed as clowns), they obtained written permission from the gallery that this form of dress was acceptable, and then walked round the Turner Prize wearing it. In 2002, when Martin Creed won with lights going on and off in an empty room, they flicked flashlights on and off outside, and in 2003 displayed a blow-up sex doll to parody Jake and Dinos Chapman's bronze (painted) sculpture modelled on one, by claiming they had the original. Although barred from the prize ceremony, they have succeeded in infiltrating it psychologically to the extent that twice they have been mentioned by the guest of honour on live TV, just before the announcement of the winner. They have also handed out manifestos to arriving guests at the Tate (and the Saatchi Gallery), thus getting their message carried into the events from which they were excluded. As the Stuckists condemn performance art as not real art, it raises the question as to whether their activities—which are carried out by artists and would therefore normally be classified as "art"—are still classified as "art", if they do not classify it that way themselves. On one occasion they were given an award for conceptual art by the proto-MU group nevertheless. Art or vandalism? It is claimed that the legitimacy and artistic value of an art intervention may vary, depending on the perception and standpoint of the viewer. The following statement, entitled Stuckism Handy Guide to the Artworld, first appeared on the Stuckist website with specific reference to the Meese incident at Tate Modern, and was then posted by Jennifer Maddock on the Artforum board with the comment, "I found a pretty cynical attempt to differentiate between vandalism and intervention while I was reading about the event in Tate Modern, for example the Stuckists' cynical definition": Sometimes art vandalism is used to make a political protest. Whether this is or isn't regarded as a legitimate political act, it is not normally seen as art, nor until recently would the question have even arisen. However, with the increasing dissolution of boundaries between art and life, and the broadening of art's scope, there has been an increasing tendency to view unusual or spectacular actions as art, even though the actions were never intended as art. Damien Hirst and 9/11, 2002 Public outrage followed one attempt to reclassify an event in art terms on 10 September 2002, the eve of the first anniversary of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, when Damien Hirst said in an interview with BBC News Online: The thing about 9/11 is that it's kind of like an artwork in its own right ... David Hockney said that it was the 'most wicked piece of artwork'—a lot of people have compared it to a work of art. Of course, it's visually stunning and you've got to hand it to them on some level because they've achieved something which nobody would have ever have thought possible—especially to a country as big as America. So on one level they kind of need congratulating, which a lot of people shy away from, which is a very dangerous thing. The following week, he issued a statement through his company, Science Ltd: I apologise unreservedly for any upset I have caused, particularly to the families of the victims of the events on that terrible day. Other meanings Corporate art intervention The book Privatising Culture: Corporate Art Intervention Since the 1980s by Chin-Tao Wu was published in 2001 in New York. One aim of the book is to counter the effect of skinflint policies instituted by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan that slashed government funding of art, to encourage increased private funding of the arts, and how, for example, the consequent change in membership of trustee boards from academics to corporate executives has inevitably lead to potential conflicts of interest. Art therapy The National Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children uses the term "art intervention" in the sense of art therapy., as does the University of Hong Kong, which states: Therapeutic art intervention for older adult. The use of artistic intervention to improve the quality of life of the elderly persons has gained attention from health care professionals quite recently. The course will introduce the theoretical perspectives and applications of art orientations in service delivery. Advanced skills of using different artistic and non-verbal communication means to enhance expression of those with dementia and neurological impairment will be taught by progressive and experiential methods. Art installation There is also a widespread use of the term "art intervention" to refer not to a particular intended or achieved act, but generically to any presence of art or artists in an environment, where this may not have previously been the case. The extensive use of this is shown in instances from the London Borough of Bexley ("This Strategy aims to put 'culture at the heart of regeneration', and will build on the success of the first major Public Art intervention in the borough—The Erith Arts Project"), to Neal Civic Center in Florida ("Plans include video documentation of this project so it can be used as a prototype for rural art intervention programs nationwide"), and Mayor Howard W. Peak, City of San Antonio, Texas (with the wish to "disseminate 'best practices' models of national art intervention programs"). Another example is Wochenklausur, where the issue of homelessness was dealt with by intervening artists. Tactical urbanism and beyond Intervention by artists and especially western, democratic citizens has become widespread including yarn bombing, flash mobs, guerrilla art, street art, graffiti, performance art, Adbusters, ephemeral art, environmental art to the occupy movement, guerrilla cycling, guerrilla gardening, urban agriculture, Extinction Rebellion and anthropocene activism, climate change activism, and even de-growth advocates. Governments along with regional and local councils have adopted tactical urbanism processes and boundary setting to keep a lid on and embrace these widespread interventionist movements. A growing number of people want to have their say in shaping their local and global environments. The UK town of Todmorden developed guerrilla gardening as its tourist brand, even growing corn at the police station. This has benefitted the local economy. "Culture jamming" is an intervention and was popularized by Naomi Klein in her No Logo book but was a much earlier invention by Don Joyce. In 2023 Ai Weiwei's Middle finger app 'The bird' allows users to disapprove of any place on earth using a picture of Ai's middle finger superimposed on images from Google Maps. See also Contemporary art Environmental art Ephemeral art Appropriation (art) Art and dementia Classificatory disputes about art Conceptual art Guerrilla art Guerrilla gardening Yarn bombing Graffiti Street Art Found object Installation art Performance art Stuckist demonstrations Yuan Chai and Jian Jun Xi Further reading Cabbage Patch as art Occupation and event specific art see https://web.archive.org/web/20150507143550/http://muir.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/3041 http://bat-bean-beam.blogspot.co.nz/2011/10/occupy-wellington.html https://www.buzzworthy.com/food-is-free-movement/ https://louderthanwar.com/situationism-explained-affect-punk-pop-culture/ https://www.academia.edu/resource/work/7582676 up https://dailyutahchronicle.com/2023/05/22/jarvis-og-woi-guerilla-community-gardens/ https://www.academia.edu/resource/work/39740997 References Contemporary art movements Performance art 21st century in art

Parallelism (rhetoric)

Parallelism (or thought rhyme) is a rhetorical device that compounds words or phrases that have equivalent meanings so as to create a definite pattern. This structure is particularly effective when "specifying or enumerating pairs or series of like things". A scheme of balance, parallelism represents "one of the basic principles of grammar and rhetoric". Parallelism as a rhetorical device is used in many languages and cultures around the world in poetry, epics, songs, written prose and speech, from the folk level to the professional. An entire issue of the journal Oral Tradition has been devoted to articles on parallelism in languages from all over. It is very often found in Biblical poetry and in proverbs in general. Examples The following sentences and verses possess "similarity in structure" in words and phrases: In the quote above, the compounded adjectives serve as parallel elements and support the noun "law". In the above quote, three infinitive verb phrases produce the parallel structure supporting the noun "purpose". Note that this rhetorical device requires that the coordinate elements agree with one another grammatically: "nouns with nouns, infinitive verb phrases with infinitive verb phrases and adverb clauses with adverb clauses." When the coordinate elements possess the same number of words (or in the example below, the same number of syllables) the scheme is termed isocolon: Synonymous parallelism in which one couplet expresses similar concepts can also be combined with antithetical parallelism in which a second couplet contrasts with the first. For example, synonymous and antithetical parallelism occur in Revelation 22:11: A Let the evildoer still do evil, A' and the filthy still be filthy, B and the righteous still do right. B' and the holy still be holy. Forms Parallelisms of various sorts are the chief rhetorical device of Biblical poetry in the tristich and in multiples of distich parallels and also in the poetry of many other cultures around the world, particularly in their oral traditions. Robert Lowth coined the term parallelismus membrorum (parallelism of members, i.e. poetic lines) in his 1788 book, Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrew Nation. Roman Jakobson pioneered the secular study of parallelism in poetic-linguistic traditions around the world, including his own Russian tradition. Chinese and Vietnamese classical poetry and prose have frequently made use of parallelism. Conversations between learned men in many cases involved exchanging single parallel couplets as a form of playing with words, as well as a kind of mental duel. In a parallel couplet, not only must the content, the parts of speech, the mythological and historico-geographical allusions, be all separately matched and balanced, but most of the tones must also be paired reciprocally. Even tones are conjoined with inflected ones, and vice versa. Parallelisms in artistic speech are common in some languages of Mesoamerica, such as Nahuatl (Aztec) and some Mayan languages. It has also been observed in a language of Indonesia (that Fox imprecisely referred to as "Rotinese") and Navajo. Other research has found parallelisms in the languages of the Ural-Altaic area (including Finnish-Karelian folk poetry and the epics and songs of the Turkic and Mongolian peoples) and Toda, suggesting wider distribution among Dravidian languages. In the Limba language community of Sierra Leone and Guinea, some prayers are formed with parallelisms. Proverbs Parallelisms in proverbs are very common in languages around the world. Parallel structures in short passages such as proverbs help direct the listener or reader to compare the parallel elements and thus more easily deduce the point. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. (English proverb) Wounds caused by knives will heal, wounds caused by words will not heal. (Tamil proverb) The truth has legs and ran away; the lie has no legs and must stay. (Yiddish proverb) When there is food in the house, what matter if a guest arrives? When there is faith, what is death? (Pashto proverb) The cow which leaves first will be broken at the horn; the cow which remains in the back will be broken at the tail. (Alaaba proverb from Ethiopia) See also Anaphora Antithetic parallelism Chiasmus Exergasia Horror aequi Footnotes Sources Baldrick, Chris. 2008. Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford University Press. New York. Corbett, Edward P. J. and Connors, Robert J. 1999. Style and Statement. Oxford University Press. New York, Oxford. Forsyth, Mark. 2014. The Elements of Eloquence. Berkley Publishing Group/Penguin Publishing. New York. Special issue of the journal Oral Tradition from 2017, Volume 31, Issue 2: "Parallelism in Verbal Art and Performance". External links Parallelism lists types of parallelism. Grammar Rhetoric

Banal nationalism

Banal nationalism refers to everyday representations of a nation, which build a sense of shared national identity. The term is derived from English academic, Michael Billig's 1995 book of the same name and is intended to be understood critically. Billig's book has been described as 'the fourth most cited work on nationalism ever published'. Billig devised the concept of 'banal nationalism' to highlight the routine and often unnoticed ways that established nation-states are reproduced from day to day. The concept has been highly influential, particularly within the discipline of political geography, with continued academic interest since the book's publication in 1995. Today the term is used primarily in academic discussion of identity formation, geopolitics, and the nature of nationalism in contemporary political culture. Examples of banal nationalism include the use of flags in everyday contexts, sporting events, national songs, symbols on money, popular expressions and turns of phrase, patriotic clubs, the use of implied togetherness in the national press, for example, the use of terms such as prime minister, weather, team, and divisions into "domestic" and "international" news. Many of these symbols are most effective because of their constant repetition, and almost subliminal nature. Banal nationalism is often created via state institutions such as schools. It can contribute to bottom-up processes of nation-building. Michael Billig's primary purpose in coining the term was to clearly differentiate everyday, regular nationalism from extremist variants. He argued that the academic and journalistic focus on extreme nationalists, independence movements, and xenophobes in the 1980s and 1990s obscured the strength of contemporary nationalism, by implying that nationalism was a fringe ideology rather than a dominant theme in contemporary political culture. Billig noted the almost unspoken assumption of the utmost importance of the nation in political discourse of the time, for example in the calls to protect Kuwait during the Gulf War, or to take action in the U.S. after the September 11 attacks. He argues that the "hidden" nature of modern nationalism makes it a very powerful ideology, partially because it remains largely unexamined and unchallenged, yet remains the basis for powerful political movements, and most political violence in the world today. Banal nationalism should not be thought of as a weak form of nationalism, but the basis for "dangerous nationalisms". However, in earlier times, calls to the "nation" were not as important, when religion, monarchy or family might have been invoked more successfully to mobilize action. He also uses the concept to dispute post-modernist claims that the nation-state is in decline, noting particularly the continued hegemonic power of American nationalism. Further reading References Nationalism

International education

International education refers to a dynamic concept that involves a journey or movement of people, minds, or ideas across political and cultural frontiers. It is facilitated by the globalization phenomenon, which increasingly erases the constraints of geography on economic, social, and cultural arrangements. The concept involves a broad range of learning, for example, formal education and informal learning (e.g. training, exchange programs, and cross-cultural communication). It could also involve a reorientation of academic outlook such as the pursuit of "worldmindedness" as a goal so that a school or its academic focus is considered international. For example, the National Association of State Universities prescribes the adoption of "proper education" that reflects the full range of international, social, political, cultural, and economic dialogue. International educators are responsible for "designing, managing, and facilitating programs and activities that help participants to appropriately, effectively, and ethically engage in interactions with culturally diverse people and ideas." Background The emergence of international education as a discipline may be attributed to the international and intercontinental initiatives of the past, which aimed to achieve education, learning, and intellectual exchange. This is demonstrated in the formalized academic relations between countries in the form of bilateral and scientific agreements. Here, international education is considered a mechanism of international cooperation and, in some cases, it stems from the recognition that different cultures offer different outlooks and styles of learning and teaching in addition to the transfer of knowledge. There are scholars who associate the development of international education with comparative education, which is concerned with the evaluation and scrutiny of different educational systems in various countries for the purpose of developing an education and educational structures that are global in scope and application. This concept is considered ancient, having been used in classical Greece, while the actual term was first used by William Russell in 1826. International education diverged from it as it assumed the form of more organized programs that bring together learners and teachers from different countries to learn from each other. Definitions International education can be seen as developing 'international-mindedness', or enhancing international attitude and awareness. From an ideological perspective, international education has a focus on moral development, by influencing the creation of "positive attitudes towards peace, international understanding and responsible world citizenship". From a pragmatic approach, international education can relate to economic and cultural globalization. For instance, there are increasing demands for education qualifications to be transferable between schools and education systems. Furthermore, there is a "spread of global quality standards through quality assurances procedures such as accreditation". Overall, international education can be viewed as the following: Promoting international understanding/international-mindedness and/or global awareness/understanding Being active in global engagement/global or world citizenship Increasing intercultural understanding and respect for difference Encouraging tolerance and commitment to peace Direct examples of international education include facilitating students' entry into universities outside of their home countries. Also, temporarily studying abroad is another illustration of international education, as is the internationally influenced research and design of curriculum used by schools around the world, such as the International Primary Curriculum. The International Baccalaureate (IB) Program is seen as an influence in the development of international education. The IB Diploma Program encourages students to learn and understand different cultures, languages, and points of view. This idea is incorporated into elements of the program e.g. Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS). CAS requires students to participate in activities promoting each of these three components. Through such activities, the intention is that global issues will affect students' understanding of the world in a meaningful way. Specifically, these non-formal, non-academic experiences should enhance students' comprehension of world issues in a manner that, for instance, reading books or participating in lessons may not. Based on student engagement and involvement, two general meanings emerge. The first refers to education that transcends national borders through the exchange of people. A good example would be students traveling to study at an international branch campus, as part of a study abroad program or as part of a student exchange program. The second is a comprehensive approach to education that intentionally prepares students to be active and engaged participants in an interconnected world. The International Baccalaureate however, defines the term according to certain criteria. These criteria include the development of citizens of the world in accordance with culture, language, and social cohesion, building a sense of identity and cultural awareness, encrypting recognition and development of universal human values, encouraging discovery and enjoyment of learning, equipping students with collectivist or individualistic skills and knowledge that can be applied broadly, fostering global thinking when responding to local situations, encouraging diversity and flexibility in teaching pedagogic methodologies, and supplying appropriate forms of assessment and international benchmarking. While definitions vary, international education is generally taken to include: Knowledge of other world regions & cultures; Familiarity with international and global issues; Skills in working effectively within global or cross-cultural environments and using information from different sources around the world; Ability to communicate in multiple languages; and Dispositions towards respect and concern for other cultures and peoples. Millennium Development Goals One of the eight millennium development goals ratified in the United Nations in the year 2000, focuses on achieving universal primary education. International education is also a major part of international development. Professionals and students wishing to be a part of international education development are able to learn through organizations and university and college programs. Organizations around the world use education as a means to development. Previous research demonstrates a positive correlation between the educational level and economic growth, especially in the poorest regions. The United Nations Millennium Development Goals include some objectives pertaining to education: Achieve universal primary education in all countries by 2015 Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2015 Other mentions of education in regard to international development: Education For All (EFA): An international strategy to operationalise the Dakar Framework for Action; The World Education Forum (Dakar 2000) agreed to reach 6 goals by 2015: expand early childhood care and education improve access to complete, free schooling of good quality for all primary school-age children greatly increase learning opportunities for youth and adults improve adult literacy rates by 50% eliminate gender disparities in schooling improve all aspects of education quality. Sustainable Development Goals At the end of 2015, the United Nations led another initiative to continue on the work of development goals. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) contains 17 global goals, which are more extensive than the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Compared to the 2015 MDGs, the SDGs tries to ensure that no one is left behind. In this regard, not only state actors, but also major private "non-state" actors and multinational companies are involved and active in global education. Education is stated under Goal 4 of the SDGs: "Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all." Furthermore, SDGs promote international education through some of the following targets: "By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity, and of culture's contribution to sustainable development" (Target 4.7) "By 2020, substantially expand globally the number of scholarships available to developing countries, in particular least developed countries, small island developing States and African countries, for enrollment in higher education, including vocational training and information and communications technology, technical, engineering, and scientific programs, in developed countries and other developing countries" (Target 4.B) "Volume of official development assistance flows for scholarships by sector and type of study" (Indicator 4.B.1) "By 2030, substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing States" (Target 4.C) "Proportion of teachers in: (a) pre-primary; (b) primary; (c) lower secondary; and (d) upper secondary education who have received at least the minimum organized teacher training (e.g. pedagogical training) pre-service or in-service required for teaching at the relevant level in a given country" (Indicator 4.C.1) According to a report from the U.N. Secretary-General on "Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals" in 2018, official development assistance (ODA) for scholarships amounted to $1.2 billion in 2016. The largest contributors were Australia, France, the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and European Union. Education is a core aspect of the SDGs, and considered essential to their success. Hence, an international strategy has been established through the Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action. This strategy emphasizes  mobilizing national, regional, and global efforts and collaborations that aim at: "Achieving effective and inclusive partnership" "Improving education policies and the way they work together" "Ensuring highly equitable, inclusive, and quality education systems for all" "Mobilizing resources for adequate financing for education" "Ensuring monitoring, follow-up and review of all targets" Dakar Framework for Action The UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) (2005–2014) highlighted the central role of education in the pursuit of sustainable development internationally. See also Comparative education; and Liberalism, Realism, Power Transition Theory, International Development, as focus areas that provide insight into international phenomena relevant to "International Education." There are different lenses international education can be viewed as. For example, thinking of international education in terms of a study abroad program that can help prepare students when looking for international occupations. Another example can be that international development is a focal point that is taught in colleges and universities under the umbrella of international education. Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Although successful programs such as Engineers Without Borders enable students in one country to obtain an international education while working on open source appropriate technology projects abroad, the cost of this approach can be prohibitive for large scale replication. Recent, work has shown that using a virtual educational exchange, can have many of the positive benefits associated with international education and cross cultural experiences, without the prohibitive costs of overseas programs. International Education Week International Education Week is an initiative of the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Education that was first observed in 2000. The choice of week for celebration is determined at each institution, but generally precedes the week that includes U.S. Thanksgiving: –; –; –; –. The aims of this event are to provide an opportunity to celebrate the benefits of international education and global exchange. This joint initiative promotes programs that prepare Americans for a global milieu and attract future leaders from abroad to study, learn and exchange experiences in the U.S. This shows how International education is not just about physically crossing borders, but is also about thinking globally in local situations. Schools throughout the US celebrate this week through on-campus and off-campus events. Challenges facing international education International education has a somewhat unusual position in higher education. While recognized as an important sphere of activity, it tends to be handled by administrative offices at the top of departments of languages and literature and international affairs. The scholars involved in international education usually have their primary involvement in other teaching and research. This leads to four distinctive characteristics particular to the field of international education: There is little consensus concerning the guiding theme of the field as well as its scope. Should the field stress internationalization, trans nationalization, or globalization? International education is not a prominent feature of the contemporary higher education experience. Using enrollment in foreign languages as an indicator, 16 percent of all U.S. college students were enrolled in foreign languages in the peak period of the 1960s; the proportion is currently down to 8 percent (Hayward, 2000, p. 6). There is imbalance in regional coverage. The regions and languages covered at a particular institution are a function of idiosyncratic patterns of faculty recruitment. Nationally, there is reasonable coverage of Western Europe and Latin America and most European languages compared to limited coverage of Africa and the Middle East. For students enrolled in foreign languages, Spanish is the most popular followed by the other major languages of Western Europe; 6 percent enroll in Asian languages. Languages of the Middle East make up only 2 percent (1.3 being Hebrew and .5 percent Arabic). The languages of Africa constitute only 0.15 percent of enrollments. Because international education is not a primary concern of most scholars in the field, research is somewhat sporadic, non-cumulative, and tends to be carried out by national organizations as part of advocacy projects (e.g. Lambert, 1989; Brecht and Rivers, 2000). The most recent example is the American Council of Education's (ACE's) Internationalization of Higher Education: A Status Report. (Hayward, 2000). However, programs through various institutions, such as the Fulbright Program offer research opportunities for those wishing to study abroad. Additionally, one of the challenges of international students is that increasingly higher education institutions are treating them as cash cows for meeting their budget challenges. Institutions must do more to support international students in their academic and career success by providing advising, training and coaching that is culturally attuned. See also Global education Global citizenship education International student References Further reading Scanlon, D. G. (ed.). (1960). International Education: A Documentary History. New York: Bureau of Publications: Teachers College, Columbia University. Vestal, T. M. (1994). International Education: Its History and Promise for Today. London: Praeger. Valeau, E. J., Raby, R. L, (eds.), et al. (2007). International Reform Efforts and Challenges in Community Colleges. New Direction for Community Colleges, No. 138. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. External links Examples of International Education Organizations: IIE – https://www.iie.org/ NAFSA – https://www.nafsa.org/ CIEE – https://www.ciee.org/ IREX – https://www.irex.org/ AMPEI – https://www.ampei.org.mx/ JAFSA – http://www.jafsa.org/en/ CBIE – https://cbie.ca/ AFS – https://afs.org/ EAIE – https://www.eaie.org/ EducationLink https://geteducation.link – software for international education Education by subject Philosophy of education International relations education Global culture

Structuralism (architecture)

Structuralism is a movement in architecture and urban planning that evolved around the middle of the 20th century. It was a reaction to Rationalism's (CIAM-Functionalism) perceived lifeless expression of urban planning that ignored the identity of the inhabitants and urban forms. Structuralism in a general sense is a mode of thought of the 20th century, which originated in linguistics. Other disciplines like anthropology, psychology, economy, philosophy and also art took on structuralist ideas and developed them further. An important role in the development of structuralism was played by Russian Formalism and the Prague School. Roland Barthes, a key figure of structuralist thought, argued that there was no complete structuralist philosophy but only a structuralist method. Dutch architects of structuralism did studies in a similar way as Claude Lévi-Strauss (anthropology) and were interested in the principle "langue et parole" by Ferdinand de Saussure (linguistics), especially for the theme participation. At the beginning of the general article Structuralism, the following explanations are noted:Structuralism is a theoretical paradigm emphasizing that elements of culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure.– Alternately, as summarized by philosopher Simon Blackburn: Structuralism is the belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract culture. Structuralism and Postmodernism In Europe, structuralism had a strong influence on the theoretical debate up to the end of the late 1960s. In its endeavor to offer an alternative to classical modern architecture, it was paralleled by New Brutalism. By 1975, structuralist philosophy lost its predominant position in the humanities due to important social and political changes. In architecture, its position was undermined by the increasing popularity of postmodern architecture promoted by authors such as Charles Jencks, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. Structuralist ideas kept up to inform the work of important architects during and after the postmodern era, which is estimated to have ended by 1995. The theoretical concepts of structuralism in architecture were developed mainly in Europe and Japan, with important contributions of the United States and Canada. Contributions in architectural magazines by Arnulf Lüchinger and his compilation of structuralist projects published in 1980 (Structuralism in Architecture and Urban Planning) introduced structuralism to a wider audience. Important assessments concerning structuralist theory in architecture have been made by Kenneth Frampton and . In the 2010s, a new interest in structuralism in architecture can be detected, although it can be established that it is not paralleled by a revival of structuralism in the humanities. In 2011, a comprehensive scientific compilation of "structuralist activity" appeared in a publication called Structuralism Reloaded. In this extensive book, articles by 47 international authors were published about philosophical, historical, artistic and other relevant aspects. The following parts of this article are based on the current state of the publication Structuralism Reloaded. A few months after publishing this book, the RIBA Institute in London discussed the new candidates for the RIBA Gold Medal in 2012. An actual question was: "Should the Venturis be given this year's RIBA Gold Medal?" Surprisingly enough, the RIBA-committee did not award the Venturis with their postmodernist view, and instead, gave Herman Hertzberger the prize for his structuralist architecture and theoretical contributions. The times had changed and a shift in emphasis had occurred. The comment of the former RIBA president Jack Pringle was: "The Royal Gold Medal, Britain's most prestigious award, should go to an architect that has taken us forward, not backwards." Today, postmodern architecture can be compared, to some degree with the architectural movement, Traditionalismus, in Europe. Various movements and directions The anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss, remarked: "I do not believe that we can still speak of one structuralism. There were a lot of movements that claimed to be structuralist." This diversity can also be found in architecture. However, architectural structuralism has an autonomy that does not comply with all the principles of structuralism in human sciences. In architecture, the different directions have created different images. In this article two directions are discussed. Sometimes these occur in combination. On the one hand, there is the Aesthetics of Number which was formulated by Aldo van Eyck in 1959. This concept can be compared to cellular tissue. The most influential prototype of this direction is the orphanage in Amsterdam by Aldo van Eyck, completed in 1960. The "Aesthetics of Number" can also be described as "Spatial Configurations in Architecture" or "Mat-Building" (Alison Smithson). On the other hand, there is the Architecture of Lively Variety (Structure and Infill) which was formulated for user participation in housing by John Habraken in 1961. Also, in the 1960s, many well-known utopian projects were based on the principle of "Structure and infill". An influential prototype of this direction is the Yamanashi Culture Chamber in Kofu by Kenzo Tange, completed in 1967. In relation to housing projects with participation Herman Hertzberger used the terms "Architecture as half-product" or "Open structures" and Alejandro Aravena the terms "Participatory design process", "Incremental housing" and "Half-houses". Origins Structuralism in architecture and urban planning had its origins in the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) after World War II. Between 1928 and 1959, the CIAM was an important platform for the discussion of architecture and urbanism. Various groups with often conflicting views were active in this organization; for example, members with a scientific approach to architecture without aesthetic premises (Rationalists), members who regarded architecture as an art form (Le Corbusier), members who were proponents of high- or low-rise building (Ernst May), members supporting a course of reform after World War II (Team 10), members of the old guard and so on. Individual members of the small splinter group Team 10 laid the foundations for Structuralism. The influence of this team was later interpreted by second generation protagonist Herman Hertzberger when he said: "I am a product of Team 10." As a group of avant-garde architects, Team 10 was active from 1953 to 1981, and two different movements emerged from it: the New Brutalism of the English members (Alison and Peter Smithson) and the Structuralism of the Dutch members (Aldo van Eyck and Jacob Bakema). Outside Team 10, other ideas developed that furthered the Structuralist movement - influenced by the concepts of Louis Kahn in the United States, Kenzo Tange in Japan and John Habraken in the Netherlands (with his theory of user participation in housing). Herman Hertzberger, Lucien Kroll and Alejandro Aravena made important architectural contributions in the field of participation. In 1960, the Japanese architect Kenzo Tange designed his well-known Tokyo Bay Plan. Reflecting later on the initial phase of that project, he said: "It was, I believe, around 1959 or at the beginning of the sixties that I began to think about what I was later to call Structuralism." Tange also wrote the article "Function, Structure and Symbol, 1966", in which he describes the transition from a functional to a structural approach in thinking. Tange considers the period from 1920 to 1960 under the heading of "Functionalism" and the time from 1960 onwards under the heading of "Structuralism". Le Corbusier created several early projects and built prototypes in a Structuralist mode, some of them dating back to the 1920s. Although he was criticized by the members of Team 10 in the 1950s for certain aspects of his work (urban concept without a "sense of place" and the dark interior streets of the Unité), they nevertheless acknowledged him as a great model and creative personality in architecture and art. Manifesto One of the most influential manifestos for the Structuralist movement was compiled by Aldo van Eyck in the architectural magazine Forum 7/1959. It was drawn up as the programme for the International Congress of Architects in Otterlo (7−15 September 1959). The central aspect of this issue of Forum was a frontal attack on the Dutch representatives of CIAM-Rationalism who were responsible for the reconstruction work after World War II, (for tactical reasons, planners like van Tijen, van Eesteren, Merkelbach and others were not mentioned). The magazine contains many examples of and statements in favour of a more human form of urban planning. This congress in 1959 marks the official start of Structuralism, although earlier projects and buildings did exist. The term structuralism in architecture was published incidentally in different countries since the 1950s (see literature). Another influential manifesto is published by John Habraken in 1961. His book Supports: An Alternative to Mass Housing is the beginning of participation in architecture, as part of the structuralist movement. This manifesto is published in the languages Dutch, English, Italian, Spanish and German. Otterlo Congress – participants Some presentations and discussions that took place during the Otterlo Congress in 1959 are seen as the beginning of Structuralism in architecture and urbanism. These presentations had an international influence. In the book CIAM '59 in Otterlo the names of the 43 participating architects are listed. , Alger / Aldo van Eyck, Amsterdam / Josep Antoni Coderch, Barcelona / Wendell Lovett, Bellevue-Washington / Werner Rausch, Berlin / , Bruxelles / Ch. Polonyi, Budapest / M. Siegler, Genf / , Genf / , Graz / Christian Farenholtz, Hamburg / Alison Smithson, London / Peter Smithson, London / Giancarlo de Carlo, Milan / Ignazio Gardella, Milan / Vico Magistretti, Milan / Ernesto Nathan Rogers, Milan / Blanche Lemco van Ginkel, Montreal / Sandy van Ginkel, Montreal / , Nieuwpoort / Geir Grung, Oslo / Arne Korsmo, Oslo / Georges Candilis, Paris / Aljoša Josić, Paris / André Wogenscky, Paris / Shadrach Woods, Paris / Louis Kahn, Philadelphia / , Porto / F. Tavora, Porto / Jacob B. Bakema, Rotterdam / Herman Haan, Rotterdam / J.M. Stokla, Rotterdam / John Voelcker, Staplehurst / Ralph Erskine, Stockholm / Kenzo Tange, Tokyo / Terje Moe (architect), Trondheim / Oskar Hansen, Warszawa / , Warszawa / Jerzy Sołtan, Warszawa / , Wien / Eduard F. Sekler, Wien / , Zagreb / , Zurich. Definition of the structuralist form Since structuralism has different directions, there is more than one definition. The theoretical contribution by Herman Hertzberger belongs to the most interesting versions. A recent and often cited statement by Hertzberger is: "In Structuralism, one differentiates between a structure with a long life cycle and infills with shorter life cycles." A more detailed description by Hertzberger was published in 1973. It is a structuralist definition in a general sense, but also the basis concept for user participation: "The fact that we put 'form' in a central position with respect to such notions as 'space' or 'architecture', means in itself no more than a shifting of accent. What we are talking about is in fact another notion of form than that, which premises a formal and unchanging relationship between object and viewer, and maintains this. It is not an outward form wrapped around the object that matters to us, but form in the sense of inbuilt capacity and potential vehicle of significance. Form can be filled-in with significance, but can also be deprived of it again, depending on the use that's made of it, through the values we attach to, or add to it, or which we even deprive it of, - all this dependent on the way in which the users and the form react to, and play on each other. The case we want to put is, that it is this capacity to absorb, carry and convey significance that defines what form can bring about in the users - and conversely - what the users can bring about in the form. What matters is the interaction of form and users, what they convey to each other and bring about in each other, and how they mutually take possession of each other. What we have to aim for, is, to form the material (of the things we make) in such a way that - as well as answering to the function in the narrower sense - it will be suitable for more purposes. And thus, it will be able to play as many roles as possible in the service of the various, individual users, - so that everyone will then be able to react to it for himself, interpreting it in his own way, annexing it to his familiar environment, to which it will then make a contribution." p. 56 Compared to other directions of structuralism in architecture, the following clarifications are noted: "In the new architectural movement there is often a tendency to call everything Structuralist that resembles a woven texture and has a grid. This would be a superficial way of looking at things. By nature Structuralism is concerned with the configuration of conditioned and polyvalent units of form (spatial, communicational, constructional or other units) at all urban scales. Only when the users have taken possession of the structures through contact, interpretation or filling-in the details, do the structures achieve their full status. Any architecture that has a tendency to formalism is thus excluded. Flexible form, which has been much discussed, is also rejected as a neutral enclosing system, since it does not offer the appropriate solution for any spatial programme. In the architecture of Herman Hertzberger Structuralist form can be found from the smallest detail up to the most complicated structure, whether it is in terms of spatial, facade or environmental design." p. 5 The next quotation is a definition of structuralism in different fields. It also discusses the autonomy of the primary structure: "Many Structuralists would describe a structure roughly in the following terms: it is a complete set of relationships, in which the elements can change, but in such a way that these remain dependent on the whole and retain their meaning. The whole is independent of its relationship to the elements. The relationships between the elements are more important than the elements themselves. The elements are interchangeable, but not the relationships." p. 16 Theoretical origins, principles and aspects Built structures corresponding in form to social structures, according to Team 10 (Working group for the investigation of interrelationships between social and built structures). The archetypical behaviour of man as the origin of architecture (cf. Anthropology, Claude Lévi-Strauss). Different Rationalist architects had contacts with groups of the Russian Avant-Garde after World War I. They believed in the idea that man and society could be manipulated. Coherence, growth and change on all levels of the urban structure. The concept of a Sense of place. Tokens of identification (identifying devices). Urban Structuring and Articulation (of the built volume). Polyvalent form and individual interpretations (compare the concept of langue et parole by Ferdinand de Saussure). User Participation in housing. Integration of "high" and "low" culture in architecture (fine architecture and everyday forms of building). Pluralistic architecture. The principle Structure and Infill remains relevant until now, both for housing schemes and urban planning. For housing schemes the following images were influential: the perspective drawing of the project "Fort l'Empereur" in Algiers by Le Corbusier (1934), the isometric drawing of the housing scheme "Diagoon" in Delft by Herman Hertzberger (1971) and the realized social housing projects by Alejandro Aravena in the 21st century. At city level, important projects were: the Tokyo Bay Plan of Kenzo Tange (1960) and the fascinating images of the model of the Free University of Berlin by Candilis Josic & Woods (1963). Also, worth mentioning are the utopias of Metabolism, Archigram and Yona Friedman. In general, instruments for urban structuring are: traffic lines (e.g. gridiron plans), symmetries, squares, remarkable buildings, rivers, seashore, green areas, hills etc. These methods were also used in previous cities. The principle Aesthetics of Number proved to be less useful for structuring an entire city. However, exemplary articulated configurations did arise, both in architecture and housing schemes. The first influential images for this direction Aldo van Eyck provided with aerial photos of his orphanage in Amsterdam (1960). Later he built another inspiring configuration for the Space Centre Estec in Noordwijk (1989). These two compositions can be counted among the most beautiful "icons" of structuralism. Housing estates, buildings and projects OMA, office Rem Koolhaas: Housing project Homeruskwartier in Almere, 2012 (participation) Richard Rogers: Madrid-Barajas Airport terminal 4, 2006 Renzo Piano: Zentrum Paul Klee, Museum in Bern, 2005 Alejandro Aravena: Social housing projects in Iquique 2004, Santiago 2007, Monterrey 2010, Constitución 2016 (participation) Riegler Riewe: Fakultät für Informations- und Elektrotechnik der Technischen Universität Graz, 2000 Adriaan Geuze et al.: New urban district Borneo-Sporenburg Scheepstimmermanstraat in Amsterdam, 1997 (participation) Rafael Moneo: National Museum of Roman Art, Mérida, 1986 Renzo Piano & Richard Rogers: Centre Georges-Pompidou in Paris, 1977 Lucien Kroll: Students' Centre St. Lambrechts-Woluwe in Louvain-la-Neuve near Brussels, 1976 (participation) Verhoeven Klunder Witstok & Brinkman: Housing estate in Berkel-Rodenrijs near Rotterdam, 1973 Piet Blom: Kasbah housing estate in Hengelo, 1973 / Urban district Oude Haven in Rotterdam, 1985 Craig Zeidler & Strong: McMaster University Medical Centre in Hamilton Canada, 1972 Kisho Kurokawa: Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo, 1972 Herman Hertzberger: Centraal Beheer office building in Apeldoorn, 1972 (participation, inside) / Diagoon, eight experimental houses in Delft, 1971 (participation) Moshe Safdie: Habitat '67 housing estate, World Exposition in Montréal, 1967 / The Children's Monument Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, 2005 Giancarlo De Carlo: Student housing Collegio del Colle Urbino, 1966 Stefan Wewerka: New city district Ruhwald in Berlin, project 1965 Candilis Josic & Woods: Free University of Berlin, 1963–73 Atelier 5: Halen housing estate near Bern, 1961 Kenzo Tange: Tokyo Bay Plan, project 1960 / Yamanashi Culture Chamber in Kofu, 1967 Aldo van Eyck: Orphanage in Amsterdam, 1960 / European Space Research and Technology Centre Estec, restaurant conference-hall library in Noordwijk, 1989 Louis Kahn: Jewish Community Center in Trenton, project 1954 / Salk Institute in La Jolla California, 1965 / Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, 1972 Alison and Peter Smithson: Golden Lane housing estate in London, project 1952 / Urban-planning scheme 1953: Hierarchy of Association "house-street-district-city" Van den Broek & Bakema, Stokla: New Rotterdam districts: Pendrecht project 1949 / Alexanderpolder projects 1953 and 1956 Le Corbusier: Perspective drawing of new city district Fort l'Empereur in Algiers, project 1934 (participation) / Weekend house near Paris, 1935 / Centre Le Corbusier in Zurich, 1967 Units of structure - a characteristic of structuralist architecture and urbanism A remarkable characteristic of the architectural movement is the 'structuring of the built volume with units and grid', in different variations. In the book Structuralism in Architecture and Urban Planning this design principle is published under the following titles: 1. Structures formed of building units 2. Structures formed of building groups 3. Structures formed of structural units 4. Structures formed of communication units (vertical units, horizontal units) 5. Other structures (without grid) Different types of structures Aesthetics of number The term "aesthetics of number" is introduced by Aldo van Eyck in the architectural magazine Forum 7/1959. In his article van Eyck showed two works of art: a structuralist painting by the contemporary artist Richard Paul Lohse and a Kuba textile (Bakuba tissue) by an African artist of the "primitive" culture. The combination of these two cultures has a symbolic meaning in the structuralist movement. The outward appearance of this architecture is unchangeable. Structure and infill – two-components approach – participation In the 1960s the Dutch structuralists criticised the narrowness of the functional principle "Form Follows Function". In historic cities they found solutions for a more relevant form principle: an interpretable, adaptable and expandable architecture (see below "Historic cities - Reciprocity of form"). In the magazine Forum they developed ideas about "Polyvalent form and individual interpretations", "Reciprocity of form", "Structure and infill" and "Participation". Herman Hertzberger also used the terms "Architecture as half-product" and "Open structures". The initiator of participation in architecture, as part of the structuralist movement, was John Habraken. In 1961 he published the book Supports: An Alternative to Mass Housing in different languages. In the 21st century architect Alejandro Aravena from Chile is working with similar principles of participation. In relation to his social housing projects Aravena is talking about "Participatory design process", "Half-houses for participation" and "Incremental housing". Although Aravena was awarded the Pritzker-Prize in 2016 for his architectural work, there are no photos on Wikipedia of his housing projects. In place of the missing photos, there are photos of the cities in this article. Illustrations of his housing projects can be found on Google (Maps and Images) with the added addresses. In 2008, for the Triennale in Milan Alejandro Aravena built a prototype of a "Half-house" in a similar way as the Pavillon de l'Esprit Nouveau in Paris by Le Corbusier in 1925. Structure and infill – vertical and horizontal communication units Participation in housing Participation with "Half-houses", five social housing projects in Chile, Mexico and Italy, realized by Alejandro Aravena: Other structures Urban structuring – the art of town planning – overarching structures Historic cities Examples of urban planning and urban structuring. About the relation between historic and contemporary architecture Le Corbusier wrote: "I was labelled a revolutionary, whereas my greatest teacher was the Past. My so-called revolutionary ideas are straight out of the history of architecture itself." Quotation in No.2. Historic cities – reciprocity of form In Forum 2/1962 Jacob Bakema made a study on the principle "reciprocity of form" and "participation", especially on the Diocletian's Palace in Split. In Forum 3/1962 Herman Hertzberger did research on the Roman amphitheatres in Arles and Lucca. Later, in 1966 the idea of the amphitheatre in Arles was taken over by Aldo Rossi in his book The Architecture of the City. In 1976 Reyner Banham presented the Ponte Vecchio in Florence as one of the historic prototypes in his book Megastructure. New cities New cities in the twentieth century. The term "Urban Structuring" is introduced by Alison and Peter Smithson, the term "Articulations" (of the built volume) by Herman Hertzberger. Both terms are used as a title of an architectural book. Residential areas, large and small scale Themes of Team 10 In 1957, Jacob Bakema and members of a re-organisationcommittee of CIAM called for the alteration of the name "CIAM: Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne" to "CIAM: Groupe de Recherches des Interrelations Sociales et Plastiques". Two years later, the themes for the new "Working group for the investigation of interrelationships between social and built structures" were published in the magazine Forum 7/1959. This magazine was also the program for the congress CIAM '59 in Otterlo. Themes of Team 10 on the cover of Forum 7/1959: cluster change and growth à mi-chemin ─ (half-way in relation to other cultures) imagination versus common-sense appreciated unit la plus grand realité du seuil ─ (the philosophy of the doorstep) l'espace corridor ─ (against the spatial corridor between functionalistic blocks) stad als interieur van de gemeenschap ─ (the city as "interior" of the community) identity ─ (architecture and residents) het ogenblik van core ─ (core of the city) hierarchy of human associations mobility l'habitat pour le plus grand nombre ─ (habitat for the largest section of the population) harmony in motion ─ (aesthetics of number) aspect of ascending dimensions identifying devices gedifferentieerde wooneenheid ─ (differentiated dwelling unit) visual group "De Drie Hoven" for elderly people in Amsterdam-Slotervaart,1974 (Herman Hertzberger) See also Metabolism (architecture) Kenzo Tange & Japanese students, The Metabolism manifesto CIAM, Otterlo, the Netherlands, 1959. Kiyonori Kikutake, Sky House, Tokyo, Japan, 1958. Literature and annotations Literature – interpretations since 1958 Robert von der Nahmer, Space for living - The experimental Diagoon Houses of Herman Hertzberger, Olympos, Delft 2023. Lidwine Spoormans et al., The Future of Structuralism, TU Delft Open, Delft 2020. Bernhard Denkinger: Die vergessenen Alternativen - Strukturalismus und brutalistische Erfahrung in der Architektur, Berlin 2019. Alejandro Aravena and Andrés Iacobelli, Elemental - Incremental Housing and Participatory Design Manual, Berlin 2016. Herman Hertzberger, Architecture and Structuralism - The Ordering of Space, Rotterdam 2015 (2014). Joaquin Warmburg and Cornelie Leopold (eds.), Strukturelle Architektur, Bielefeld 2012. Tomáš Valena, Tom Avermaete, and Georg Vrachliotis (eds.), Structuralism Reloaded - Rule-based Design in Architecture and Urbanism, 47 articles by international authors, Stuttgart-London 2011. Rivka Oxman and Robert Oxman (guest-eds.), "The New Structuralism - Design, Engineering and Architectural Technologies", in: Architectural Design July/August 2010, London. Mark Garcia (guest-ed.), "Patterns of Architecture", in: Architectural Design November/December 2009, London. Sabrina van der Ley and Markus Richter (eds.), Megastructure Reloaded - Visionary Architecture and Urban Design of the Sixties reflected by Contemporary Artists, Ostfildern near Stuttgart 2008. 25 articles about Archigram, Yona Friedman, Eckhard Schulze-Fielitz, Constant et al., (German+English). Michael Hecker, Structurel-Structural, Structuralist Theory in Architecture and Urbanism 1959-1975, thesis Stuttgart University of Technology, Stuttgart 2007. Max Risselada and Dirk van den Heuvel (eds.), Team 10 - In Search of a Utopia of the Present, essays and interviews by 23 international authors, Rotterdam 2005. Editor Dirk van den Heuvel about structuralism in the Netherlands on page 208: "Structuralism never turned into a real movement or an organized group." Francis Strauven, Aldo van Eyck - The Shape of Relativity, Amsterdam 1998 (1994). Biography of Aldo van Eyck and his "Configurative Discipline" of designing. Wim van Heuvel, Structuralism in Dutch architecture, Rotterdam 1992. Hans van Dijk, "The demise of structuralism", in: Architecture in the Netherlands - Yearbook 1988/1989 - Dutch Architectural Institute Rotterdam, Deventer 1989. Anders Ekholm, Nils Ahrbom, Peter Broberg, Poul-Erik Skriver, Strukturalism i Arkitekturen, Stockholm 1980. Reyner Banham, Megastructure - Urban Futures of the Recent Past, London 1976. Alison Smithson, "Mat-Building, mainstream architecture as it has developed towards the mat-building", in: Architectural Design 9/1974, London. Arnulf Lüchinger, "Strukturalismus", in: Bauen+Wohnen 5/1974, Zurich-Munich. – "Structuralism, a new trend in architecture", in: Bauen+Wohnen 1/1976, Zurich-Munich (guest-editor for this special issue). – "Dutch Structuralism", in: Architecture+Urbanism 3/1977, Tokyo. – Structuralism in Architecture and Urban Planning, Stuttgart 1980. – 2-Komponenten-Bauweise, The Hague 2000 (participation). Justus Dahinden, Stadtstrukturen für morgen (Urban Structures for the Future), Stuttgart 1971, London-New York 1972. Udo Kultermann, "Introduction", in: Kenzo Tange, Zurich 1970. The term "Structurism" is mentioned by Udo Kultermann as one of the themes, "characterizing the present phase in architecture". Arnaud Beerends, "Een Structuur voor het Raadhuis van Amsterdam" (A Structure for the Town Hall in Amsterdam), in: TABK 1/1969, Heerlen. In the Netherlands the architectural terms "Structuralism" and "Structuralists" are published the first time in this magazine, according to the "Configurative Discipline" with equal building units. Kenzo Tange, "Function, Structure and Symbol, 1966", in: Udo Kultermann, Kenzo Tange, Zurich 1970. Process of structuring in urban design. Kenzo Tange in a lecture in 1981: "It was, I believe, around 1959 or in the beginning of the Sixties, that I started to think about what I was later to call structuralism," (in: Plan 2/1982, Amsterdam). Félix Candela, "Architecture et 'structuralisme' ", in: habitation 3/1964, Lausanne, pp. 44–50, without illustrations, (see External link ETH). In 1960 Candela built the structuralist Bacardi-Factory in Cuautitlán near Mexico-City. N. John Habraken, Supports - An Alternative to Mass Housing. Participation in housing, structure and infill. Editions in Dutch 1961, English 1972, Italian 1974, Spanish 1975 and German 2000 (with illustrations). The third edition of Supports is published 2021 in the series "Routledge Revivals". Oscar Newman (ed.), CIAM '59 in Otterlo, Stuttgart-London-New York 1961. 30 articles by Louis Kahn, Kenzo Tange, Georges Candilis, Jacob Bakema, Aldo van Eyck, Alison and Peter Smithson et al. (English+German supplement). Aldo van Eyck, "Het Verhaal van een Andere Gedachte" (The Story of Another Idea), in: Forum 7/1959, Amsterdam-Hilversum. Program for the congress CIAM '59 in Otterlo, without using the term structuralism. Since the 1970s the Otterlo congress is considered the official start of the international structuralist movement. Ernesto Nathan Rogers and Pier Luigi Nervi, "Architettura e strutturalismo", in: Casabella 7/1959, Milano, pp. 4−5. Two months later Ernesto Rogers was participant of the Otterlo congress. He was related to Richard Rogers, who designed the Centre Pompidou in Paris in partnership with Renzo Piano. Giuseppe Vindigni, "Rundgang durch die Expo 1958" (Walking through the Expo 1958 in Brussels), in: Bauen+Wohnen 9/1958, Zurich, pp. 243–244, without illustrations. The US-Pavilion is described as 'Structuralism' and the Swiss Pavilion like a 'honeycomb'. Today the Swiss Pavilion by Werner Gantenbein is seen as an important early work of structuralism, (see External link ETH). External links ETH Library Search term: Structuralism Francis Strauven Video Dutch lecture "Structuralisme", University of Twente Enschede, 2014. Architecture 20th-century architectural styles Articles containing video clips

Corpus of Contemporary American English

The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) is a one-billion-word corpus of contemporary American English. It was created by Mark Davies, retired professor of corpus linguistics at Brigham Young University (BYU). Content The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) is composed of one billion words as of November 2021. The corpus is constantly growing: In 2009 it contained more than 385 million words; in 2010 the corpus grew in size to 400 million words; by March 2019, the corpus had grown to 560 million words. As of November 2021, the Corpus of Contemporary American English is composed of 485,202 texts. According to the corpus website, the current corpus (November 2021) is composed of texts that include 24-25 million words for each year 1990–2019. For each year contained in the corpus (1990–2019), the corpus is evenly divided between six registers/genres: TV/movies, spoken, fiction, magazine, newspaper, and academic (see Texts and Registers page of the COCA website). In addition to the six registers that were previously listed, COCA (as of November 2021) also contains 125,496,215 words from blogs, and 129,899,426 from websites, making it a corpus that is truly composed of contemporary English (see Texts and Register page of COCA). The texts come from a variety of sources: TV/Movies subtitles: (128 million words) Texts taken from the OpenSubtitles collection of American TV shows and movies. Spoken: (127 million words) Transcripts of unscripted conversation from nearly 150 different TV and radio programs. Fiction: (120 million words) Short stories and plays, first chapters of books 1990–present, and movie scripts. Popular magazines: (127 million words) Nearly 100 different magazines, from a range of domains such as news, health, home and gardening, women's, financial, religion, and sports. Newspapers: (123 million words) Ten newspapers from across the US, with text from different sections of the newspapers, such as local news, opinion, sports, and the financial section. Academic journals: (121 million words) Nearly 100 different peer-reviewed journals. These were selected to cover the entire range of the Library of Congress Classification system. Availability The Corpus of Contemporary American English is free to search for registered users. Queries The interface is the same as the BYU-BNC interface for the 100 million word British National Corpus, the 100 million word Time Magazine Corpus, and the 400 million word Corpus of Historical American English (COHA), the 1810s–2000s (see links below) Queries by word, phrase, alternates, substring, part of speech, lemma, synonyms (see below), and customized lists (see below) The corpus is tagged by CLAWS, the same part of speech (PoS) tagger that was used for the BNC and the Time corpus Chart listings (totals for all matching forms in each genre or year, 1990–present, as well as for subgenres) and table listings (frequency for each matching form in each genre or year) Full collocates searching (up to ten words left and right of node word) Re-sortable concordances, showing the most common words/strings to the left and right of the searched word Comparisons between genres or time periods (e.g. collocates of 'chair' in fiction or academic, nouns with 'break the [N]' in newspapers or academic, adjectives that occur primarily in sports magazines, or verbs that are more common 2005–2010 than previously) One-step comparisons of collocates of related words, to study semantic or cultural differences between words (e.g. comparison of collocates of 'small', 'little', 'tiny', 'minuscule', or lilliputian or 'Democrats' and 'Republicans', or 'men' and 'women', or 'rob' vs 'steal') Users can include semantic information from a 60,000 entry thesaurus directly as part of the query syntax (e.g. frequency and distribution of synonyms of 'beautiful', synonyms of 'strong' occurring in fiction but not academic, synonyms of 'clean' + noun ('clean the floor', 'washed the dishes')) Users can also create their own 'customized' word lists, and then re-use these as part of subsequent queries (e.g. lists related to a particular semantic category (clothes, foods, emotions), or a user-defined part of speech) Note that the corpus is available only through the web interface, due to copyright restrictions. Related The corpus of Global Web-based English (GloWbE; pronounced "globe") contains about 1.9 billion words of text from twenty different countries. This makes it about 100 times as large as other corpora like the International Corpus of English, and it allows for many types of searches that would not be possible otherwise. In addition to this online interface, you can also download full-text data from the corpus. It is unique in the way that it allows one to carry out comparisons between different varieties of English. GloWbE is related to the many other corpora of English. See also American National Corpus British National Corpus Bank of English Brown Corpus References Further reading External links "The Linguistics Search Engine That Overturned the Federal Mask Mandate" - article in Verge English corpora Online databases Applied linguistics Linguistic research Corpora

Tetrad of media effects

Marshall McLuhan's tetrad of media effects uses a tetrad - a four-part construct - to examine the effects on society of any technology/medium (that is, a means of explaining the social processes underlying the adoption of a technology/medium) by dividing its effects into four categories and displaying them simultaneously. The tetrad first appeared in print in articles by McLuhan in the journals Technology and Culture (1975) and et cetera (1977). It first appeared in book form in his posthumously-published works Laws of Media (1988) and The Global Village (1989). The tetrad The tetrad consists of four questions. What does the medium enhance? What does the medium make obsolete? What does the medium retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier? What does the medium reverse or flip into when pushed to extremes? The laws of the tetrad exist simultaneously, not successively or chronologically, and allow the questioner to explore the "grammar and syntax" of the "language" of media. McLuhan departs from the media theory of Harold Innis in suggesting that a medium "overheats", or reverses into an opposing form, when taken to its extreme. Visually, a tetrad can be depicted as four diamonds forming an X, with the name of a medium in the center, where the left/right direction reflects the figure/ground association. The two diamonds on the left of a tetrad are the Enhancement and Retrieval qualities of the medium, both Figure qualities. The two diamonds on the right of a tetrad are the Obsolescence and Reversal qualities, both Ground qualities. Enhancement (figure): What the medium amplifies or intensifies. For example, radio amplifies news and music via sound. Obsolescence (ground): What the medium drives out of prominence. Radio reduces the prominence of print and the visual. Retrieval (figure): What the medium recovers which was previously lost. Radio returns the spoken word to the forefront. Reversal (ground): What the medium does when pushed to its limits. Acoustic radio flips into audio-visual TV. See also Figure and ground (media) Hot and cool media Media ecology Time- and space-bias Footnotes Sources McLuhan, Marshall, "McLuhan's Laws of the Media", Technology and Culture, January 1975. McLuhan, Marshall, "Laws of the Media," ETC: A Review of General Semantics, June 1977, pp. 173-179, with Preface by Paul Levinson. Zingrone, Frank, "Laws of Media: The Pentad and Technical Syncretism", McLuhan Studies 1 (1991). McLuhan, Marshall & McLuhan, Eric, (1988). Laws of Media, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-5782-2. McLuhan, Marshall & Powers, Bruce R., (1989). The Global Village: Transformations in World Life and Media in the 21st Century, Oxford University Press. External links "Tetrad - McLuhan - Old Messengers, New Media: The Legacy of Innis and McLuhan - Library and Archives Canada" Augmented reality (AR) researcher Helen Papagiannis applies the tetrad to AR at ARE2011 in Silicon Valley. The tetrad applied to radio, the press, and the Western on the Ginko Press website. Applying the Laws of Media in the software testing field (with a good, clear introduction to the topic in general) - "McLuhan for Testers" "The MediuM: a Marshall McLuhan Board Game" is a gaming experience of Laws of Media. The New Science (1988), tetrad of media effects. Books about the media Marshall McLuhan he:דטרמיניזם טכנולוגי

Permissive society

A permissive society, also referred to as permissive culture, is used to describe a society in which social norms become increasingly liberal, especially with regard to sexual freedom. The term is often used pejoratively by cultural conservatives to criticise what is seen as a breakdown in traditional values, such as greater acceptance of premarital sex, an increase in divorce rates, and acceptance of non-traditional relationships such as cohabitation and homosexuality. A.P. Herbert was considered influential to the notion of permissiveness due to his reform of divorce laws in England. It was particularly used during the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s in Western culture by opponents of the changes in attitudes of the era. See also Cultural liberalism References Sociological terminology Sexual controversies

Medical humanities

Medical humanities is an interdisciplinary field of medicine which includes the humanities (philosophy of medicine, medical ethics and bioethics, history of medicine, literary studies and religion), social science (psychology, medical sociology, medical anthropology, cultural studies, health geography) and the arts (literature, theater, film, and visual arts) and their application to medical education and practice. Medical humanities uses interdisciplinary research to explore experiences of health and illness, often focusing on subjective, hidden, or invisible experience. This interdisciplinary strength has given the field a noted diversity and encouraged creative 'epistemological innovation'. Medical humanities is sometimes conflated with health humanities which also broadly links health and social care disciplines with the arts and humanities. Definitions Medical humanities can be defined as an interdisciplinary, and increasingly international endeavor that draws on the creative and intellectual strengths of diverse disciplines, including literature, art, creative writing, drama, film, music, philosophy, ethical decision making, anthropology, and history, in pursuit of medical educational goals. The humanistic sciences are relevant when multiple people’s perspectives on issues are compiled together to answer questions or even create questions. The arts can provide additional perspective to the sciences. Critical medical humanities is an approach which argues that the arts and humanities have more to offer to healthcare than simply improving medical education. It proposes that the arts and humanities offer different ways of thinking about human history, culture, behaviour and experience which can be used to dissect, critique and influence healthcare practices and priorities. The arts Medical books, pictures, and diagrams help medical students build an appreciation for anything in the medical field from the human body to diseases. The medical humanities can assist medical practitioners with viewing issues from more than one perspective, such as the visual arts and culture are supposed to do. Both patients and doctors/medical professionals deal with facing decision-making. Each person’s perspective of medical ethics is different from one another due to different cultures, religions, societies, and traditions. The humanities also assist and attempt to create a closer or more meaningful relationship between medical practitioners and their peers/patients. Ethics are perceived differently from person to person, so answering ethical questions requires the viewpoints of several people who may have different opinions of what is right from wrong. Bioethics The first category is bioethics, which includes the morals of healthcare. As science and technology develop, so does healthcare and medicine, and there is discussion and debate in society and healthcare committees that go over the ethics of these certain situations that pertain to medical humanities. For example, one of these cases involves the practice of body enhancements in which the ethics of this practice are questioned due to the fact that bio-medical and technological practices are making changes to a person’s body to improve the body and/or its appearance. Clinical ethics The second category in ethics of the medical humanities is clinical ethics, which refers to the respect that healthcare professionals have for patients and families, and this helps develop a sort of professionalism, respectability, and expertise that healthcare professionals must use in respect to their patients. Another example in the ethics of the medical humanities is bias people and society have against others with disabilities, and how these disabilities correlate with success or what the disabled person is able to do. It is unethical to judge or assume the incapability of a disabled person because disabled people are able to find ways to become successful through modern technology and even through self-determination. Various academic institutions offer courses of study in the ethics of medical humanities. These programs help their students learn professionalism in the medical field so that they may respectfully help their patients and do what it is right in any situation that may arise. Literature and medicine Formerly called medicine in literature, literature and medicine is an interdisciplinary subfield of the medical humanities considered a "dialogue rather than a merger" between the literary and the medical. Literature and medicine is flourishing in undergraduate programs and in medical schools at all levels. The Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine-Hershey was the first to introduce literature into a medical school curriculum when Joanne Trautmann (Banks), an English professor, was appointed to a position in literature there in 1972. The rationale for using literature and medicine in medical education is three-fold: reading the stories of patients and writing about their experiences gives doctors in training the tools they need to better understand their patients; discussing and reflecting on literature brings the medical practitioner's biases and assumptions into focus, heightening awareness; and reading literature requires critical thinking and empathetic awareness about moral issues in medicine. See also Biopolitics Cinemeducation, the use of film in medical education Disability studies Health communication Health humanities Medical anthropology Medical journalism Medical literature Narrative medicine Graphic medicine Philosophy of medicine Philosophy of healthcare Public health References Further reading http://philpapers.org/rec/HARWAS Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database http://medhum.med.nyu.edu (includes works and issues) Literature and Medicine Series http://www.kentstateuniversitypress.com/category/series/lit_med/ Literature and Medicine Track, Georgetown University School of Medicine https://web.archive.org/web/20160707114840/http://som.georgetown.edu/academics/lamt https://web.archive.org/web/20160818092843/http://www.fondazionelanza.it/medicalhumanities/texts/Jones%20AH,%20Literature%20and%20medicine%20an%20evolving%20canon.pdf Teaching Literature and Medicine: Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. https://www.cpcc.edu/taltp/archives/.../file Literature and Medicine, 1982 journal External links Medical Humanities (Articles) Medical Humanities Medical Humanities (Blog) Journal of Medical Humanities Centre for Medical Humanities, Durham University (Blog) Medicinae Humanistica (Blog) Medical Humanities Research Centre (MHRC), University of Glasgow SCOPE: The Health Humanities Learning Lab, University of Toronto Northwest Narrative Medicine Collaborative - community of narrative medicine, medical humanities, and health humanities practitioners in the U.S. Pacific Northwest Medical education Theatre of the Oppressed

Transatlantic relations

Transatlantic relations refer to the historic, cultural, political, economic and social relations between countries on both side of the Atlantic Ocean. Sometimes it specifically means relationships between the Anglophone North American countries (the United States and Canada), and particular European countries or organizations, although other meanings are possible. There are a number of issues over which the United States and Europe generally disagree. Some of these are cultural, such as the U.S. use of the death penalty, some are international issues such as the Middle East peace process where the United States is often seen as pro-Israel and where Europe is often seen as pro-Arab (or at least neutral), and many others are trade related. The current U.S. policies are often described as being unilateral in nature, whereas the European Union and Canada are often said to take a more multilateral approach, relying more on the United Nations and other international institutions to help solve issues. There are many other issues upon which they agree. Definition Transatlantic relations can refer to relations between individual states or to relations between groups of states or international organizations with other groups or with states, or within one group. For example: Within a group: Intra-NATO relations e.g. Canada–NATO relations Between groups: EU - North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) relations European Free Trade Area (EFTA) - NAFTA relations Transatlantic Free Trade Area (theoretical) CARIFORUM - European Commission (Economic Partnership Agreements) Between a group and a state: Canada–European Union relations United States–European Union relations Canada - EFTA Free Trade Agreement Between states: Germany–United States relations Canada–France relations, etc. By language and culture Commonwealth of Nations Community of Portuguese Language Countries Dutch Union La Francophonie Latin Union The boundaries of which states are part of Transatlantic relations depends on the context. The term may be used as a euphemism to a specific bilateral relationship, for example, Anglo-American relations. The boundary could be drawn so as only to refer member states of the EU plus the US, when discussing Euro-American relations. In other circumstances it may include Canada, or non-EU countries in Europe. The term may also be used in the context of the wider Atlantic world including Africa and Latin America. History The early relationship between Europe and America was based on colonialism and mercantilism. The majority of modern states in the Americas can be traced back to colonial states that were founded by European nations, states that were very different from the pre-Columbian civilizations and cultures that had existed before. Even after the United States (and later Canada) became independent, the main relationship between the two continents was one-way migration. Politically the United States tried to keep a distance from European affairs, and Canada was subordinate to British foreign policy. During the First World War however both North American states found themselves fighting in Europe and engrossed in European politics. President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points helped to redraw the map of Europe. Although the Roosevelt administration wanted to enter the war against Germany, the vast majority of Americans were too isolationist and disillusioned at their experience in World War I to seek involvement in the World War II, at least until the U.S. was attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941. Once involved, the US became pivotal to the war effort and therefore European politics. After the second war the United States and Canada both desired a permanent role in the defence of Europe, and European states wanted protection from the Soviet Union. The result was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which became the lynchpin of Transatlantic relations during the Cold War. Atlanticism is a philosophy which advocates for close cooperation between North America and Europe. See also Atlanticism Atlantic Community Atlantic Council Atlantic history United States–European Union relations European Union–NATO relations German Marshall Fund South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone Transatlantic Economic Council Transatlantic Free Trade Area (TAFTA) Canada–European Union relations Canada–NATO relations Western World References Bibliography Jussi M. Hanhimaki, Benedikt Schoenborn and Barbara Zanchetta, "Transatlantic Relations since 1945. An Introduction", Routledge, London, 2012. External links A stronger EU-US Partnership and a more open market for the 21st century European Union Institute for Security Studies: The Obama Moment - European and American Perspectives Atlantic Council of the U.S.: Transatlantic Cooperation Against Terrorism Atlantic Council publications on transatlantic economics, security, and politics "The Invisible Pillar of Transatlantic Cooperation: Activating Untapped Science & Technology Assets," Science & Diplomacy R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, called on the U.S. and Europe to embrace common purpose around an ambitious global agenda that would redefine its mission for the 21st Century. Center for Transatlantic Relations United States–European relations Third-country relations of the European Union Canada–Europe relations Relations

Untitled Series (with Sean Kalish)

Untitled Series (with Sean Kalish) is an untitled and unordered series of eleven untitled etchings, drawn between 1989 and 1990 by Keith Haring in collaboration with Sean Kalish, a 9-year-old patron of the Pop Shop. Also referred to as Untitled (w Sean Kalish) or Untitled, 1989. This anti-adultist artistic collaboration was a form of youth-adult partnership undertaken at Haring's studio in New York City and coincided with the drafting of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) at the United Nations General Assembly, also in New York City. The UN General Assembly adopted the Convention and opened it for signature on 20 November 1989 (the 30th anniversary of its Declaration of the Rights of the Child). This was one of the final projects undertaken by Haring, and the last to involve etching, before his death on , age 31. The United States of America did not sign the convention until 16 February 1995, exactly five years later, and remains to the present day the only country in the world not to have ratified the UNCRC. Background and collaboration Perceptions of childhood Philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau publishes Émile, or On Education (1762) which rejects the doctrine of Original Sin, and asserts that children are innately innocent, only becoming corrupted through experience of the world. Children's perspective as inspiration in art history The unique perspective of children has influenced Art history since Rousseau. Romantics such as painter Caspar David Friedrich along with writers including William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge promoted the idea that children could see the 'truth of nature' thanks to their "naive" perspective on the world. John Ruskin in his The Elements of Drawing (1857) encouraged artists to maintain an 'innocence of the eye', a freshness of vision that he called the 'condition of childhood'. Children's Art has been admired by artists and used as inspiration recurrently, including: From the late 19th century, Primitivists viewed childhood as the 'primitive' prehistory of the adult. In the 20th century, artists including Wassily Kandinsky, Joan Miró and Jean Dubuffet avidly collected, studied and in some instances took quite specific cues from children's art. A recurring theme throughout Haring's career is the value and engagement of youth voice and youth participation. Demonstrated by numerous murals assisted by local young people, such as Tuttomondo and We the Youth, or extensive collaborations with young people such as LA II. "Children know something that most people have forgotten". — Keith Haring"What I like about children is their imagination. It's a combination of honesty and freedom they seem to have in expressing whatever is on their minds-and the fact that they have a really sophisticated sense of humor." — Keith Haring Children's art in art history An exhibition of children's art from the classes of artist Franz Cižek was included in the Kunstschau Wien 1908. Roger Fry exhibited children's art at the Omega Workshops, London in 1917 and 1919. The International Museum of Children's Art in Oslo, Norway is established in 1986, by the Foundation of Children's History, Art and Culture, which itself was established in 1980. The museum is a member of the Association of Norwegian Museums of Art and Social History, and UNESCO's International Council of Museums. The museum receives an annual grant from the Norwegian Ministry of Culture. Anti-adultism The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 20 November 1989) formally enshrines the rights of children and young people to participate in matters that affect them: Article 12.1 provides: "States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child."The UNCRC protects the right of a child to participate in matters that affect them, including, for example, creative expression. However, Haring's collaboration was intended to champion the artistic value of children's creative expression and so actively counter adultism within the art world, especially within high art, by offering equal artistic credit and status to Kalish, whilst Haring was at the height of his career. "[Art] should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further". — Keith Haring Collaboration Produced and financed by Keith Haring in New York City in 1989, coinciding with the UN General Assembly's adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Drawn by Haring and Kalish in New York City between 1989 and 1990. The two would pass preliminary works back and forth as they made progress, importantly with Haring offering as much credit to Kalish as to himself."Keith was someone who was able to see beyond the usual criteria most of us use to define others. He was open to communication with the essential being regardless of their gender, race, age, etc... I listened to conversations he had with Sean on art ... and the creative process. Frankly, sometimes I was lost. I was thankful that Sean had found someone who he could have these conversations with. Part of the reason Keith chose etching as a medium for their collaboration was because Sean was not interested in color. Keith took the time to teach Sean about etching and then to teach him to etch. As part of this process, Keith gave Sean tools to do the etching. Sean was extremely excited after doing the etchings. We got to look at proofs with Keith on a visit to his studio. A lot of people were there that day. It was before the holidays, and I remember that visit as one of the longest and happiest times we spent with Keith. No one wanted the visit to end. I think it was the last time we saw him ..." — Marta Kalish, mother of Sean. Interviewed November 2004."When I was doing etchings with Keith, he let me draw anything I wanted to, and he made me feel that my drawings were very special. He made other children feel that way about their art. It was always fun to be with Keith because he knew how to have fun, just like a kid. I was about six years old when I met Keith. I was acting at the time, and there was a casting studio a block or so away from the Pop Shop. Every time I had an audition at that studio, my mother would take me into the Pop Shop. Typically, we would stay there for over an hour. After I had been visiting the store for a few months, the manager suggested that I meet Keith. I first met Keith in his studio. What I remember most about that meeting is that he did not talk down to or patronize me in any way, as adults always do with children. Rather, he spoke to me in perhaps the most honest way anyone ever had at the time. We always made art during our meetings. We would collaborate, or just work separately and share our art with one another." — Sean Kalish. Interviewed December 2004."Keith and I worked together on some etchings. There were these big metal plates. I would be working on one, and he would be working on one. Then we would switch and keep on drawing. I like drawing, because it's something you can do with someone else. I liked to draw with Keith, because he drew just like a kid. Now there won't be any more Keith Haring drawings. I wanted him to keep drawing for his whole life!" — Sean Kalish"Children are bearers of life in its simplest and most joyous form" — Keith HaringProofed and printed in an edition of 33, by Master printmaker Richard Spare at his Wellington Studios in London, England. Each print is stamped by the artist's estate, signed and dated verso (on the back) by Sean Kalish and Julia Gruen, Executor of the Keith Haring Estate and Executive director of The Keith Haring Foundation. Prints Public collections The complete series of eleven etchings is held in the permanent collections of: The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Keith Haring Foundation, New York. Exhibitions The complete series of eleven etchings have featured in the following exhibitions: . 'This catalog and exhibition document for the first time the unique body of work Haring completed through extraordinary collaborations with young friends and artists such as LA II, Kenny Scharf, Sean Kalish, Zena Scharf, Sean Lennon and Nina Clemente'. 'Exhibition co-curator Ron Roth examines Haring's ardent social activism and utilization of the potential of art to enlarge public support and involvement in a variety of charitable causes, one of the definitive contributions of Haring's work'. . Explored 'how Haring fought for change, using art as a platform for activism'. Described as a 'tribute to this iconic artist and his dedication to social justice and the betterment of youth worldwide'. Curated by Katharine J. Wright and organised in conjunction with Pan-Art Connections, Inc., touring to venues in the USA and Italy: . . . . Reception "The results have surprisingly loose, refreshing edges and subjects." — William Jaeger, Times Union"This series struck me. Like all people I'm familiar with his more iconic work, his pictograms. I like this because it also shows the influences of artists like Paul Klee, who Haring said was a great influence. So besides contemporaries such as Kenny Scharf, Andy Warhol and Walt Disney — Haring found inspiration in the Modern masters". [Verpoorten recalled a magazine interview with Haring on the subject]. "He talked about how liberating he found the art of Pierre Alechinsky, Jean Dubuffet and Pablo Picasso, and how he united that free form in his work." — Frank Verpoorten, Executive Director, Naples Art Institute Influence (2019–) Young Artists' Summer Show, a free annual open submission exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, for young artists aged 4–19 years studying in the UK. Modelled on the annual Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, it is a platform for children's art that advocates the importance of access to art, and the benefits of encouraging the arts, for children and young people. See also References Further reading Haring, Keith; Reading Public Museum and Art Gallery, eds. (2006). Keith Haring, Journey of the Radiant Baby: February 18 – August 6, 2006. Piermont, New Hampshire: Bunker Hill Publishing Inc. . Littmann, Klaus, ed. (1997). Keith Haring: Editions On Paper 1982–1990. Das Druckgraphische Werk / The Complete Printed Works / L'oeuvre Imprimé Complet. From the Collection of the Estate of Keith Haring (in German, English, and French) (2nd ed.). Ostfildern-Ruit, Stuttgart, Germany: Cantz. . Gruen, John. (1991). Keith Haring: The Authorized Biography (1st ed.). New York: Prentice Hall Editions. . External links Keith Haring 1989 works 1990 works 20th-century etchings Collection of the Museum of Modern Art (New York City)

Neo-conceptual art

Neo-conceptual art describes art practices in the 1980s and particularly 1990s to date that derive from the conceptual art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. These subsequent initiatives have included the Moscow Conceptualists, United States neo-conceptualists such as Sherrie Levine and the Young British Artists, notably Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin in the United Kingdom. History Many of the concerns of the "conceptual art" movement proper have been taken up by many contemporary artists since the initial wave of conceptual artists. While many of these artists may not term themselves "conceptual artists", ideas such as anti-commodification, social and/or political critique, digital art, and ideas/information as medium continue to be aspects of contemporary art, especially among artists working with computer art, installation art, performance art, net.art and electronic art. Many critics and artists may speak of conceptual aspects of a given artist or art work, reflecting the enduring influence that many of the original conceptual artists have had on the art world. New York City The idea of neo-conceptual art (sometimes later termed post-conceptual art) in the United States was clearly articulated by Tricia Collins and Richard Milazzo (working as a team called Collins & Milazzo) in the early 1980s in New York City, when they brought to prominence a whole new generation of artists through their copious writings and curatorial activity. It was their exhibitions and writings that originally fashioned the theoretical context for a new kind of neo (or post) conceptual art; one that argued simultaneously against Neo-Expressionism and Picture-Theory Art. It was through this context that the work of many of the artists associated with Neo-Conceptualism (or what some of the critics reductively called “Simulationism” and “Neo Geo”) was first brought together: artists such as Ross Bleckner, James Welling, Steven Parrino, Richard Prince, Peter Nagy, Joseph Nechvatal, Sarah Charlesworth, Mark Innerst, Allan McCollum, Peter Halley, Jonathan Lasker, Haim Steinbach, Philip Taaffe, Robert Gober and Saint Clair Cemin. Moscow The Moscow Conceptualists, in the 1970s and 80s, attempted to subvert socialist ideology using the strategies of conceptual art and appropriation art. The central figures were Ilya Kabakov and Komar and Melamid. The group also included Eric Bulatov and Viktor Pivovarov. London The Young British Artists (YBAs), led by Damien Hirst, came to prominence in the 1990s and their work was described at the time as neo-conceptual, even though it relies very heavily on the art object to make its impact. The term is used in relation to them on the basis that the object is not the artwork, or is often a found object, which has not needed artistic skill in its production. Tracey Emin is seen as a leading YBA and a neo-conceptualist, even though she has denied that she is and has emphasised personal emotional expression. Charles Harrison, a member of the conceptual art group Art and Language in the 1970s, criticizes the neo-conceptual art of the 1990s as conceptual art "without threat or awkwardness" and a "vacant" prospect. Other notable artists associated with neo-conceptualism in the UK include Martin Creed, Liam Gillick, Bethan Huws, Simon Patterson, Simon Starling and Douglas Gordon. Notable events 1991: Charles Saatchi funds Damien Hirst and the next year in the Saatchi Gallery exhibits his The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, a shark in formaldehyde in a vitrine. 1993: Vanessa Beecroft holds her first performance in Milan, Italy, using models to act as a second audience to the display of her diary of food. 1999: Tracey Emin is nominated for the Turner Prize. Part of her exhibit is My Bed, her dishevelled bed, surrounded by detritus such as condoms, blood-stained knickers, bottles and her bedroom slippers. 2001: Martin Creed wins the Turner Prize for Work No. 227: The lights going on and off, an empty room where the lights go on and off. 2005: Simon Starling wins the Turner Prize for Shedboatshed, a wooden shed which he had turned into a boat, floated down the Rhine and turned back into a shed again. Controversy in the UK In Britain, the rise to prominence of the Young British Artists (YBAs) after the 1988 Freeze show, curated by Damien Hirst, and subsequent promotion of the group by the Saatchi Gallery during the 1990s, generated a media backlash, where the phrases "conceptual art" and "neo-conceptual" came to be terms of derision applied to much contemporary art. This was amplified by the Turner Prize whose more extreme nominees (most notably Hirst and Emin) caused a controversy annually. The Stuckist group of artists, founded in 1999, proclaimed themselves "pro-contemporary figurative painting with ideas and anti-conceptual art, mainly because of its lack of concepts." They also called it pretentious, "unremarkable and boring" and on 25 July 2002 deposited a coffin outside the White Cube gallery, marked "The Death of Conceptual Art". They staged yearly demonstrations outside the Turner Prize. In 2002, Ivan Massow, the Chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts branded conceptual art "pretentious, self-indulgent, craftless tat" and in "danger of disappearing up its own arse ... led by cultural tsars such as the Tate's Sir Nicholas Serota. Massow was consequently forced to resign. At the end of the year, the Culture Minister, Kim Howells (an art school graduate) denounced the Turner Prize as "cold, mechanical, conceptual bullshit". In October 2004 the Saatchi Gallery told the media that "painting continues to be the most relevant and vital way that artists choose to communicate." Following this Charles Saatchi began to sell prominent works from his YBA collection. See also Notes and references Contemporary art movements Conceptual art Postmodern art

Ethnic identity development

Ethnic identity development includes the identity formation in an individual's self-categorization in, and psychological attachment to, (an) ethnic group(s). Ethnic identity is characterized as part of one's overarching self-concept and identification. It is distinct from the development of ethnic group identities. With some few exceptions, ethnic and racial identity development is associated positively with good psychological outcomes, psychosocial outcomes (e.g., better self-beliefs, less depressive symptoms), academic outcomes (e.g., better engagement in school), and health outcomes (e.g., less risk of risky sexual behavior or drug use). Development of ethnic identity begins during adolescence but is described as a process of the construction of identity over time due to a combination of experience and actions of the individual and includes gaining knowledge and understanding of in-group(s), as well as a sense of belonging to (an) ethnic group(s). It is important to note that given the vastly different histories of various racial groups, particularly in the United States, that ethnic and racial identity development looks very different between different groups, especially when looking at minority (e.g., Black American) compared to majority (e.g., White American) group comparisons. Ethnic identity is sometimes interchanged with, held distinct from, or considered as overlapping with racial, cultural and even national identities. This disagreement in the distinction (or lack thereof) between these concepts may originate from the incongruity of definitions of race and ethnicity, as well as the historic conceptualization of models and research surrounding ethnic and racial identity. Research on racial identity development emerged from the experiences of African Americans during the civil rights movement, however expanded over time to include the experiences of other racial groups. The concept of racial identity is often misunderstood and can have several meanings which are derived from biological dimensions and social dimensions. Race is socially understood to be derived from an individual's physical features, such as white or black skin tone. The social construction of racial identity can be referred as a sense of group or collective identity based on one's perception that they share a common heritage with a particular racial group. Racial identity is a surface-level manifestation based on what people look like yet has deep implications in how people are treated. History Generally, group level processes of ethnic identity have been explored by social science disciplines, including sociology and anthropology. In contrast, ethnic identity research within psychology usually focuses on the individual and interpersonal processes. Within psychology, ethnic identity is typically studied by social, developmental and cross-cultural psychologists. Models of ethnic development emerged both social and developmental psychology, with different theoretical roots. Roots in social psychology Ethnic identity emerged in social psychology out of social identity theory. Social identity theory posits that belonging to social groups (e.g. religious groups or occupational groups) serves an important basis for one's identity. Membership in a group(s), as well as one's value and emotional significance attached to this membership, is an important part of one's self-concept. One of the earliest statements of social identity was made by Kurt Lewin, who emphasized that individuals need a firm sense of group identification in order to maintain a sense of well-being. Social identity theory emphasizes a need to maintain a positive sense of self. Therefore, in respect to ethnic identity, this underscores affirmation to and salience of ethnic group membership(s). In light of this, affirmation of ethnicity has been proposed to be more salient among groups who have faced greater discrimination, in order to maintain self-esteem. There has also been research on family influences, such as cultural values of the family. Also, specific aspects of parenting, such as their racial socialization of youth, can contribute to the socialization of adolescents. Relatedly, collective identity is an overarching framework for different types of identity development, emphasizing the multidimensionality of group membership. Part of collective identity includes positioning oneself psychologically in a group to which one shares some characteristic(s). This positioning does not require individuals to have direct contact with all members of the group. The collective identity framework has been related to ethnic identity development, particularly in recognizing the importance of personal identification of ethnicity through categorical membership. Collective identity also includes evaluation of one's category. This affective dimension is related to the importance of commitment and attachment toward one's ethnic group(s). A behavioral component of collective identity recognizes that individuals reflect group membership through individual actions, such as language usage, in respect to ethnic identity. Roots in developmental psychology Identity becomes especially salient during adolescence as recognized by Erik Erikson's stage theory of psychosocial development. An individual faces a specific developmental crisis at each stage of development. In adolescence, identity search and development are critical tasks during what is termed the ‘Identity versus Role-confusion’ stage. Achievement of this stage ultimately leads to a stable sense of self. The idea of an achieved identity includes reconciling identities imposed on oneself with one's need to assert control and seek out an identity that brings satisfaction, feelings of industry and competence. In contrast, identity confusion occurs when individuals fail to achieve a secure identity, and lack clarity about their role in life. James Marcia elaborated on Erik Erikson's model to include identity formation in a variety of life domains. Marcia's focus of identity formation includes two processes which can be applied to ethnic identity development: an exploration of identity and a commitment. Marcia defines four identity statuses which combines the presence or absence of the processes of exploration and commitment: Identity diffusion (not engaged in exploration or commitment), identity foreclosure (a lack of exploration, yet committed), moratorium (process of exploration without having made a commitment), and identity achievement (exploration and commitment of identity). Researchers believe and have frequently reported that older individuals are more likely to be in an achieved identity status than younger people. Evidence shows that increasing age and a wide range of life experiences helps individuals develop cognitive skills. This combination of age, life experiences, and improved cognitive skills helps adolescents and young adults find their authentic selves. Adolescents with strong commitments to their ethnic identities also tend to explore these identities more than their peers. Factors Adolescence While children in early to middle childhood develop the ability to categorize themselves and others using racial and ethnic labels, it is largely during adolescence that ethnic and racial identity develops. Adriana J. Umaña-Taylor and colleagues write about the following concepts as playing key roles during this stage: Cognitive milestones include: abstract thinking, introspection, metacognition, and further development of social-cognitive abilities. Physiological changes include puberty and development of body image Social and environmental context includes: family, peers, social demands and transitions, navigating an expanding world, and media Ethnic and Racial Identity (ERI) components about process: Contestation Elaboration Negotiation Internalization of cultural values Collective self-verification Ethnic and Racial Identity (ERI) components about content: Public regard Ideology Affect (affirmation, private regard) Salience Centrality Importance Understanding of common fate or destiny Identity self-denial Certainty Suburbanization Critical race theory has explored the development of suburban "whiteness" in the United States as representing the racialized and classless fantasy of a heterogeneous white population. This work stands in contrast with earlier studies of white flight that assume a broad or homogeneous concept of "white people" who suburbanize in the post World War II era. The culture of suburbanization in Los Angeles through the 40s, 50's and 60's was represented by the icons of popular culture that were often exclusionary and became hallmarks of a "culture of suburban whiteness". There were some improvements for African-Americans during the era of New Deal reforms, but the housing policies of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) made it a practical certainty that nonwhites would not be able to own suburban homes. The HOLC tied its calculus of property values to racial demographics with the most racially homogeneous neighborhoods being given the highest ratings. Based on this, FHA loans were directed to the suburbs, making home ownership in the city out of reach for most residents. The FHA said that loans to support urban homeowners would not be sound investments because of the "presence of inharmonious racial or nationality groups". In a 1933 report the agency acknowledged some fluidity to the concept of "white identity": If the entrance of a colored family into a white neighborhood causes a general exodus of white people it is reflected in property values. Except in the case of Negroes and Mexicans, however, these racial and national barriers disappear when the individuals of foreign nationality groups rise in the economic scale to conform to American standards of living... Models for ethnic identity formation Jean Phinney Jean Phinney's model of ethnic identity development is a multidimensional model, with theoretical underpinnings of both Erikson and Marcia. In line with Erikson's identity formation, Phinney focuses on the adolescent, acknowledging significant changes during this time period, including greater abilities in cognition to contemplate ethnic identity, as well as a broader exposure outside of their own community, a greater focus on one's social life, and an increased concern for physical appearance. Phinney's three-stage progression: Unexamined ethnic identity – Prior to adolescence, children either give ethnicity little thought (related to Marcia's diffuse status) or are assumed to have derived their ethnic identity from others, rather than engaging in personal examination. This is related to Marcia's foreclosed identity status. Knowledge of one's ethnicity is "absorbed", which reflects the process of socialization. Broadly, socialization in the context of ethnic identity development refers to the acquisition of behaviors, perceptions, values, and attitudes of an ethnic group(s). This process recognizes that feelings about one's ethnic group(s) can be influenced by family, peers, community, and larger society. These contextual systems or networks of influence delineate from ecological systems theory. These systems influence children's feelings of belonging and overall affect toward ethnic group(s). Children may internalize both positive and negative messages and therefore hold conflicting feelings about ethnicity. Socialization highlights how early experiences for children are considered crucial in regards to their ethnic identity development. Ethnic identity search – During the onset of adolescence, there is a questioning of accepted views of ethnicity and a greater understanding of ethnicity in a more abstract sense. Typically this stage has been characterized as being initiated by a significant experience that creates heightened awareness of ethnicity, such as discrimination. Engagement in some form of exploration includes an interest in learning more about one's culture and actively involving oneself in activities such as talking with others about ethnicity, reading books on the subject, and thinking about both the current and future effects of one's ethnicity. This stage is related to Erikson's ‘Identity versus Role-confusion’, and Marcia's moratorium. Ethnic identity achievement – This stage is characterized by clarity about one's ethnic identity. The achievement phase includes a secure, confident, and stable sense of self. Achievement also is characterized as a realistic assessment of one's in-group(s) in a larger social context. In essence, the individual has internalized their ethnicity. This stage is related to Erikson's achieved identity, and identity achievement of Marcia. Identity achievement is also related to social identity theory in that this acceptance replaces one's negative ethnic self-image. Although achievement represents the highest level of ethnic identity development, Phinney believes reexamination can occur depending on experiences over time. More recently, Phinney has focused on the continuous dimensions of one's exploration and commitment to one's ethnic group(s), rather than on distinct identity statuses. Cultural Identity Development Model On top of Phinney's model, Atkinson, Morton & Sue present a racial and cultural identity development model. The model is split into five different stages that are experienced when individuals attempt to understand themselves within their culture, the dominant culture, and the relationship between the two. The stages include: conformity, dissonance, resistance and immersion, introspection, and integrative awareness. Stage 1 Conformity: the phase in which a person believes that the dominant culture is superior to all others and that their own cultural group is inferior. Stage 2 Dissonance: a person's conviction that the dominant group is superior and that minority groups, including his or her own, are inferior by an event that occurs suddenly or gradually. Stage 3 Resistance and Immersion: the period during which a person immerses themselves more deeply inside their own cultural group, rejecting the mainstream culture while experiencing intense feelings of rage, guilt, and humiliation for having initially chosen to identify with the dominant culture and rejected their own. Stage 4 Introspection: the period of time during which a person experiences some internal conflict but also becomes less hostile toward and distrustful of the dominant group, less enmeshed in their own culture, more appreciative of other cultures, and more likely to learn about their own identity. Stage 5 Integrative awareness: The phase in which a human being achieves better equilibrium, values both his or her own as well as other cultural groups, and develops self-awareness as both a cultural and an individual, recognizing both good and negative contrasts among cultural groups. Social/personality models Social/personality models for ethnic identity, unlike the more known Phinney's model for ethnic identity development derived from Erickson's model of personality development, focus less so on the development stages of ERI and more so on their content -what it means to the person and its impact on said person (concepts typically more explored in personality psychology). Though, like Phinney's model, ethnic identity is still viewed as being multidimensional. In the meta-analysis done by Tiffany Yip, Yijie Wang, Candace Mootoo, and Sheena Mirpuri, the prominent Multidimensional Model of Racial Identity (MMRI) is detailed along with possible, though conflicting dimensions: the Social Identity Theory (SIT) vs. the Self-Categorization Theory (SCT). These theories differ in their suggestion of the impact high ethnic/racial identity centrality on a person's personality. Social Identity Theory (SIT) suggests that the effects of ethnic/racial discrimination (ERD) will be mediated in a person with high ERI centrality whereas Self-Categorization Theory (SCT) suggests that high ethnic/racial identity centrality may result in more negative outcomes when faced with ethnic/racial discrimination. Effects Psychological Research has linked ethnic identity development with positive self-evaluation and self-esteem. Ethnic identity development has also been shown to serve as a buffer between perceived discrimination and depression. Specifically, commitment of an ethnic identity may help to abate depressive symptoms experienced soon after experiencing discrimination, which in turn alleviates overall stress. Researchers posit commitment to an ethnic identity group(s) is related to additional resources accumulated through the exploration process, including social support. Ethnic identity development has been linked to happiness and decreased anxiety. Specifically, regard for one's ethnic group may buffer normative stress. Numerous studies show many positive outcomes associated with strong and stable ethnic identities, including increased self-esteem, improved mental health, decreased self-destructive behaviors, and greater academic achievement. In contrast, empirical evidence suggests that ethnic identity exploration may be related to vulnerability to negative outcomes, such as depression. Findings suggest this is due to an individual's sensitivity to awareness of discrimination and conflicts of positive and negative images of ethnicity during exploration. Also, while commitment to an ethnic group(s) is related to additional resources, exploration is related to a lack of ready-access resources. Family Studies have found that in terms of family cohesion, the closer adolescents felt to their parents, the more they reported feeling connected to their ethnic group. Given the family is a key source of ethnic socialization, closeness with the family may highly overlap with closeness with one's ethnic group. Resources like family cohesion, proportion of same-ethnic peers, and ethnic centrality act as correlates of within-person change in ethnic identity, but it is only on the individual level and not as adolescents as a group. Limitations of research Ethnic identity development has been conceptualized and researched primarily within the United States. Due to the fact the individuals studied are typically from the United States, it may not be appropriate to extend findings or models to individuals in other countries. Some research has been conducted outside of the United States, however a majority of these studies were in Europe or countries settled by Europeans. Further, researchers also suggest that racial and ethnic identity development must be viewed, studied, and considered alongside the other normative developmental processes (e.g., gender identity development) and cannot be considered in a vacuum - racial and ethnic identity exist in particular contexts. Research considers some studies of ethnic developments cross-sectional in design. This type of design pales in comparison to longitudinal design whose topic of investigation is developmental in nature. This is because cross-sectional studies collect data at or around the same time from multiple individuals of different ages of interest, instead of collecting data over multiple time points for each individual in the study, which would allow the researcher to compare change for individuals over time, as well as differences between individuals. Another research consideration in the field is why certain ethnic and racial groups are looking towards their own expanding community for mates instead of continuing interracial marriages. An article in The New York Times explained that Asian-American couples have been kicking the trend and finding Asian mates because it gives them resurgence of interest in language and ancestral traditions. Further research can be found and explored throughout the many different racial and ethnic groups. Some researchers question the number of dimensions of ethnic identity development. For example, some measures of ethnic identity development include measures of behaviors, such as eating ethnic food or participating in customs specific to an ethnic group. One argument is that while behaviors oftentimes express identity, and are typically correlated with identity, ethnic identity is an internal structure that can exist without behavior. It has been suggested one can be clear and confident about one's ethnicity, without wanting to maintain customs. Others have found evidence of a behavioral component of ethnic identity development, separate from cognition and affect, and pertaining to one's ethnic identity. Ethnic identity development points toward the importance of allowing an individual to self-identify ethnicity during data collection. This method helps us collect the most accurate and relevant information about the subjective identification of the participant, and can be useful in particular with respect to research with multiethnic individuals. See also Group identity Ethnogenesis Identity formation Identity (social science) Cultural identity National identity Passing (racial identity) Racial-ethnic socialization White Racial Identity Development References Further reading Ethnicity Identity (social science) Social constructionism Collective identity

Sexuality in the United States

Sexuality in the United States varies by region and time period. History During the Victorian era, romance was increasingly viewed as a key component of sexuality. One study of the interwar period suggests that prudish attitudes were more pronounced among women than among men, with 47% in a poll describing premarital sex as wicked while only 28% of men said the same. The 1960s are often viewed as the period wherein the U.S. underwent a substantial change in perception of sexual norms, with a substantial increase in extramarital sex. LGBT history Media Some scholars argue that American media is the most sexually suggestive in the world. According to this view, the sexual messages contained in film, television, and music are becoming more explicit in dialog, lyrics, and behavior. In addition, these messages may contain unrealistic, inaccurate, and misleading information. Some scholars argue that still developing teens may be particularly vulnerable to media effects. A 2001 report found that teens rank the media second only to school sex education programs as a leading source of information about sex, but a 2004 report found that "the media far outranked parents or schools as the source of information about birth control." Media often portray emotional side-effects of sexuality such as guilt, and disappointment, but less often physical risks such as pregnancy or STDs. One media analysis found that sex was usually between unmarried couples and examples of using condoms or other contraception were "extremely rare." Many of programs or films do not depict consequence for sexual behavior. For example, only 10% programs that contain sexual scenes include any warnings to the potential risks or responsibilities of having sex such as sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancy. In television programing aimed at teens, more than 90% of episodes had at least one sexual reference in it with an average of 7.9 references per hour. However, government statistics suggest that since 1991, both teen sex and teen pregnancy have declined dramatically despite the media generally becoming increasingly sexually explicit. Some analysts have said that this points to an inclination among latter millennials and Generation Z to have hyposexual and desexualized tendencies. Demographics According to a 2016 study, an estimated 4.1% of American adults identified themselves as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Roughly 99% of the adult U.S. population is allosexual (experiences sexual desires) while 1% is asexual (experiences no sexual desires). One study has shown that there is no correlation between sexlessness and unhappiness, with sexually active and sexually inactive adult Americans showing roughly equal amounts of happiness. Vicenarian women (aged between twenty and twenty-nine years) are about as likely to engage in infidelity as vicenarian men at 11% and 10% respectively. Law Sexual relations are mostly legal in the U.S. if there is no direct or unmediated exchange of money, if it is consensual, teleiophilic (between adults) and non-consanguineous i.e. between people who are not related familially or by kinship. There are however exceptions, with for instance adult incestual relations being legal in states such as New Jersey and Rhode Island as of 2017. Prostitution laws in the U.S. are by far the strictest in the developed world, but the state of Nevada licenses several of its counties to operate brothels and permits prostitutes/sex workers to sell sex, and clients to purchase sex. There are also exceptions to age of consent laws, with some states permitting an ephebophilic relationship if the two persons are close in age under what are known as Romeo-and-Juliet laws. Modern The 21st century saw increasingly permissive attitudes towards homosexuality, however many laws continued to be heteronormative. One survey has found that Millennials, on average, have sex less frequently than previous generations. This has led to some analysts ruminating on a moral panic wherein young adults of the 2010s decade are uninterested in sex. According to OKCupid, Portland, Oregon is the most promiscuous city in the United States. Some studies have shown that Americans in general have more prudistic and coitophobic attitudes to sex than Europeans. See also Prostitution in the United States Pornography in the United States Sexuality in India Sexuality in China Sexuality in Japan References

Musical expression

Musical expression is the art of playing or singing with a personal response to the music. At a practical level, this means making appropriate use of dynamics, phrasing, timbre and articulation to bring the music to life. Composers may specify these aspects of expression to a greater or lesser extent in the notation of their musical score. The nature of musical expression has also been discussed at a theoretical level throughout of the history of classical music. One common view is that music both expresses and evokes emotion, forming a conduit for emotional communication between the musician and the audience. This view has been present through most of musical history, though it was most clearly expressed in musical romanticism. However, emotion's role in music has been challenged on occasion by those like Igor Stravinsky who see music as a pure art form and expression as an irrelevant distraction. Mimesis and rhetoric In the Baroque and Classical periods of music, music (and aesthetics as a whole) was strongly influenced by Aristotle's theory of mimesis. Art represented the perfection and imitation of nature, speech and emotion. As speech was taken as a model for music, composition and performance in the Baroque period were strongly influenced by rhetoric. According to what has become known as the theory of affect, a musician was expected to stir feelings in his audience in much the same way as an orator making a speech in accordance with the rules of classical rhetoric. As a result, the aim of a piece of music was to produce a particular emotion, for instance joy, sadness, anger or calm. The harmony, melody, tonality, metre and structure of the music worked to this end, as did all the aspects under the performer's control such as articulation and dynamics. As Johann Joachim Quantz wrote, Baroque composers used expressive markings relatively rarely, so it can be a challenge for musicians today to interpret Baroque scores, in particular if they adopt a historically informed performance perspective and aim to recreate an approach that might have been recognised at the time. There are some general principles. Looking at the rhythm of a piece, slow rhythms tend to be serious while quick ones tend towards light and frivolous. In the melodic line, small intervals typically represented melancholy while large leaps were used to represent joy. In harmony, the choice of dissonances used had a significant effect on which emotion was intended (or produced), and Quantz recommended that the more extreme the dissonance, the louder it should be played. A cadence normally represented the end of a sentence. The rhetorical approach to music begged the philosophical question of whether stirring the listener's passions in this manner was compatible with Aristotle's idea that art was only effective because it imitated nature. Some writers on music in the 18th century stayed closely true to Aristotle, with Charles Batteux writing that the sole unifying principle of taste and beauty was the reproduction of the ideal form that lay behind natural things. However, this view was challenged by others who felt that the role of music was to produce an emotional effect. For instance, Sir William Jones wrote in 1772 that: "‘it will appear, that the finest parts of poetry, musick, and painting, are expressive of the passions, and operate on our minds by sympathy; that the inferior parts of them are descriptive of natural objects, and affect us chiefly by substitution’". In 1785, Michel de Chabanon proposed that music was best understood as its own language, which then prompted an emotional response linked to but not limited by the musical expression. The same music could be associated with a wide range of emotional responses in the listener. Chabanon rejected the rhetorical approach to music, because he did not believe that there was a simple correspondence between musical characteristics and emotional affects. Much subsequent philosophy of music depended on Chabanon's views. Romantic era Around the start of the 19th Century, the idea of music as a kind of 'ultimate language of the emotions' gained currency. The new aesthetic doctrine of Romanticism placed sublime, heightened emotion at the core of artistic experience, and communicating these emotions became the aim of musical performance. Music was expected to convey intense feelings, highly personal to the vision of the composer. As the 19th century developed, musical nationalism extended these emotions beyond the personal level to embodying the feelings of entire nations. This emphasis on emotional communication was supported by an increasing confidence in using more complex harmony, and by instruments and ensembles capable of greater extremes of dynamic. At the start of the 19th century, dynamic markings like "" and "" were most commonly used, but by the late century, markings like "" and "" began to appear on the score. Romantic composers also made increasingly detailed use of expressive markings like crescendos and diminuendos, accents and articulation markings. Against expression After the increasing dominance of expression and emotion in music during the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a backlash. "Most people like music because it gives them certain emotions such as joy, grief, sadness, and image of nature, a subject for daydreams or – still better – oblivion from “everyday life”. They want a drug – dope -…. Music would not be worth much if it were reduced to such an end. When people have learned to love music for itself, when they listen with other ears, their enjoyment will be of a far higher and more potent order, and they will be able to judge it on a higher plane and realise its intrinsic value." - Igor Stravinsky See also Musical phrasing Tempo rubato References External links Music performance Philosophy of music

Eclectic approach

Eclectic approach is a method of language education that combines various approaches and methodologies to teach language depending on the aims of the lesson and the abilities of the learners. Different teaching methods are borrowed and adapted to suit the requirement of the learners. It breaks the monotony of the class. In addition, It is a conceptual approach that does not merely include one paradigm or a set of assumptions. Instead, eclecticism adheres to or is constituted from several theories, styles, and ideas in order to gain a thorough insight about the subject, and draws upon different theories in different cases. ‘Eclecticism’ is common in many fields of study such as psychology, martial arts, philosophy, teaching, religion and drama Approaches and methods There are varied approaches and methods used for language teaching. In eclectic approach, the teacher can choose from these different methods and approaches: Grammar-translation Method: It is a method of teaching languages by which students learn grammatical rules and then apply those rules by translating between the target language and the native language. Direct Method: In this method the teacher refrains from using the students' native language. The target language is directly used for teaching all the four skills—listening, speaking, reading and writing. Structural-situational Approach: In this approach, the teacher teaches language through a careful selection, gradation and presentation of vocabulary items and structures through situation based activities. Audio-lingual/Audio-visual Method: In this style of teaching students are taught through a system of reinforcement. Here new words and grammar are directly taught without using the students' native language. However, unlike direct method, audio-lingual method does not focus on vocabulary. Instead, the teacher focuses on grammar through drill and practice. Bilingual Method: The word 'bilingual' means the ability to speak two languages fluently. In bilingual method, the teacher teaches the language by giving mother tongue equivalents of the words or sentences. This method was developed by C.J. Dodson. Communicative Language Teaching: This approach lays emphasis on oral method of teaching. It aims to develop communicative competence in students. Total-Physical Response: It is based on the theory that memory is enhanced through association with physical response. The Silent Way: In this method the teacher uses a combination of silence and gestures to focus students' attention. It was developed by Caleb Gattegno. Advantages The teacher has more flexibility. No aspect of language skill is ignored. There is variety in the classroom. Classroom atmosphere is dynamic. These types of programs not only negotiate teacher skill-development within an improved recognition of and respect for cross-cultural and multi-linguistic classroom settings, but also encourages student pride in their heritage, language, communication preferences and self-identity One method can support the weaknesses of the other. Multiple intelligences in the classroom are better developed. Assistance to the different Students' learning styles References External links Eclectic approach to teaching language, by Masum Billah Language education

Homonormativity

Homonormativity is the adoption of heteronormative ideals and constructs onto LGBT culture and identity. It is predicated on the assumption that the norms and values of heterosexuality should be replicated and performed among homosexual people. Those who assert this theory claim homonormativity selectively privileges cisgender homosexuality (that is coupled and monogamous) as worthy of social acceptance. Origin The term "homonormativity" was popularized by Lisa Duggan in her 2003 critique of contemporary democracy, equality, and LGBT discourse. Duggan draws from heteronormativity, popularized by Michael Warner in 1991, and concepts rooted in Gayle Rubin's notion of the "sex/gender system" and Adrienne Rich's notion of compulsory heterosexuality. To place Duggan's views into political context and understand her perspective in framing these arguments in this manner, it is important to understand Duggan describes herself as a "commie pinko queer" feminist. Duggan writes, "homonormativity is a politics that does not contest dominant heteronormativity assumptions and institutions but upholds and sustains them while promising the possibility of a demobilised gay culture anchored in domesticity and consumption." Catherine Connell says homonormativity "emphasises commonality with the norms of heterosexual culture, including marriage, monogamy, procreation, and productivity." Queer theorist David M. Halperin sees the values of heteronormativity replicated and privileged as LGBT visibility and civil rights become normalized, writing "the keynote of gay politics ceases to be resistance to heterosexual oppression and becomes, instead, assimilation...the drive to social acceptance and integration into society as a whole." Halperin says that the urbanization, gentrification and recapitalization of inner city queer areas and gay-ghettos contribute to the prevalence and privileging of established heterosexual norms. Halperin has linked the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the advent of online dating as contributing to the displacement of LGBT people. He also attributes the shift in political rhetoric, discourse, and attitude from liberation to assimilation as a further reinforcement of a homonormative binary. Gayle Rubin's notion of "sex hierarchy" – that sees Western heteronormative society graduate sexual practices from morally "good sex" to "bad sex" – delineates the forms of homosexual behaviour that engenders conditional acceptance. She writes, "Stable, long-term lesbian and gay male couples are verging on respectability [...] if it is coupled and monogamous, the society is beginning to recognize that it includes the full range of human interaction." Rubin writes that these poles of acceptability and deviancy see a homonormative privileging of long-term gay couples over the bodies of transgender, non-binary, and promiscuous members of these groups, and that "Individuals whose behaviour stands high in this hierarchy are regarded with certified mental health, respectability, legality, social and physical mobility, institutional support and material benefits." Discrimination Homonormative discrimination is deployed similarly to heteronormativity. Social institutions and policies reinforce the presumption that people are heterosexual and that gender and sex are natural binaries. However, Rubin writes that homonormativity functions to displace the exclusive hold heterosexuality has over normative behavior, instead selectively privileging cisgendered homosexuality (that is coupled and monogamous) as worthy of social acceptance. Transgender people Among transgender people, Gerdes argues that homonormativity functions to selectively relegate identities and behaviors into sanctioned acts and ideals. Rubin states that the replication of heterosexual norms – monogamy, white-privilege, gender binary – contribute to the stigmatization and marginalization of perceived deviant forms of sexuality and gender. In the 1990s, transgender activists deployed the term "homonormative" in reference to intracommunity discrimination that saw an imposition of gay and lesbian norms over the concerns of transgender people. During the AIDS epidemic in the United States, transgender people were often excluded from the gay and lesbian demonstrations held in the capitol and denied access to the healthcare initiatives and programs established to combat the crisis. Transgender activist Sylvia Rivera spoke of her experiences campaigning for gay and trans liberation in the 70s and 80s, only to be stonewalled and ignored by those same people once their needs were met. In a 1989 interview she said: Holly Lewis states that continued pressure for non-normative individuals "to conform to traditional, oppositional sexist understandings of gender" has resulted in homonormativity permeating the behaviors and identities of the LGBT community, while replacing the radical past politics of the Gay Liberation Movement with goals of marriage equality and adoption. These are seen as conservative when framed against 70s/80s/90s LGBT activism. Homonormativity is perceived to stymie diversity and authenticity, with queer subcultures becoming commercialized and mainstreamed and political discourses structured around assimilation and normalization. This aspect of homonormativity has been called transnormativity. Evan Vipond describes transnormativity as "the normalization of trans bodies and identities through the adoption of cisgender institutions by trans persons," such that transgender identity upholds the sex and gender binary. Transnormativity encompasses transmedicalism, basing transgender identity on the medicalized transition from one side of the gender binary to the other, de-legitimizing non-binary identity and transgender people without gender dysphoria. Politics Politics and International Relations Lecturer at the University of New South Wales Penny Griffin says that politically homonormativity has been found to uphold, rather than critiquing, neoliberal values of monogamy, procreation and binary gender roles as inherently heterosexist and racist. Griffin sees homonormative behavior intertwined with capitalistic world systems, with consumer culture and materialism functioning at its core. Duggan asserts that homonormativity fragments LGBT communities into hierarchies of worthiness, and that LGBT people who come the closest to mimicking heteronormative standards of gender identity are deemed most worthy of receiving rights. She also writes that LGBT people at the bottom of this hierarchy (e.g. bisexual people, trans people, non-binary people, people of non-Western genders, intersex people, queers of color, queer sex workers) are seen as an impediment to this class of homonormative people realizing their rights. Media Andre Cavalcante says that as homosexuality becomes socially tolerated, representations of LGBT characters in film and television have come to reinforce strictures of cisgender, white, and binary authority. Gay writer and director Ryan Murphy's sitcom The New Normal has been critiqued for its homonormative portrayal of queer culture and deemed "more damaging than entertaining." Homonormative media representations are seen only as mimetic of heterosexual normality, reinforcing gay caricatures and "palatable adherents to cherished societal norms and dominant ideologies." Such representations, it is argued, omit the queer realities of non-white, non-binary LGBT people, papering over the lived experiences of variant identities and enforcing a "hierarchy by which individuals are expected to conform and are punished if they do not." While studies show having LGBT characters appearing in the media decreases prejudice among viewers, many network, cable and streaming services still lack diversity or cross-"community" representation when portraying queer characters. A 2015 GLAAD report profiling LGBT media representation found gay men (41%) still overwhelmingly featured as primary queer characters, despite increases in LGBT representation across a variety of sexual and gender identities. More LGBT content was produced in the media in 2018. According to GLAAD'S Annual Where We Are on TV Report, which records LGBTQ+ representation on television, the number of queer characters on TV shows rose 8.8%. Queer people of color also saw an increase in screen time; they outnumbered white queer people on television for the first time in the report's history. 1% of the population is intersex, so intersex people are almost completely omitted in the media, with discourses of binary gender identity largely excluding and displacing those who do not fall into the two categories of sex and gender. See also Respectability politics Bisexual erasure Discrimination against intersex people Gender studies Heteronormativity Intersex and LGBT List of transgender-related topics Non-binary discrimination Normality (behaviour) Pink capitalism Straightwashing Transphobia References Bibliography Marcus, Eric. "Silvia Rivera." Making Gay History, 1989. Further reading Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter Judith Butler, Gender Trouble Lisa Duggan, The Twilight of Equality? Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality David M. Halperin, Queer Forever Eric Marcus, Making History Gayle Rubin, Deviations Susan Stryker, Transgender History, Homonormativity, and Disciplinarity Michael Warner, Fear of a Queer Planet. Feminist terminology LGBTQ terminology Neologisms Queer theory

Modern influence of Ancient Greece

Modern influence of ancient Greece refers to the influence of Ancient Greece on later periods of history, from the Middle Ages up to the current modern era. Greek culture and philosophy has a disproprtionate influence on modern society and its core culture, in comparison to other ancient societies of similar settings. Background Classics Classics is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics also includes Greco-Roman philosophy, history, archaeology, anthropology, art, mythology and society as secondary subjects. In Western civilization, the study of the Greek and Roman classics was traditionally considered to be the foundation of the humanities and has traditionally been the cornerstone of a typical elite European education. Classical tradition The Western classical tradition is the reception of classical Greco-Roman antiquity by later cultures, especially the post-classical West, involving texts, imagery, objects, ideas, institutions, monuments, architecture, cultural artifacts, rituals, practices, and sayings. Philosophy, political thought, and mythology are three major examples of how classical culture survives and continues to have influence. The West is one of a number of world cultures regarded as having a classical tradition, including the Indian, Chinese, and Islamic traditions. The study of the classical tradition differs from classical philology, which seeks to recover "the meanings that ancient texts had in their original contexts." It examines both later efforts to uncover the realities of the Greco-Roman world and "creative misunderstandings" that reinterpret ancient values, ideas and aesthetic models for contemporary use. The classicist and translator Charles Martindale has defined the reception of classical antiquity as "a two-way process ... in which the present and the past are in dialogue with each other." Classical Greece Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years (the 5th and 4th centuries BC) in Ancient Greece, marked by much of the eastern Aegean and northern regions of Greek culture (such as Ionia and Macedonia) gaining increased autonomy from the Persian Empire; the peak flourishing of democratic Athens; the First and Second Peloponnesian Wars; the Spartan and then Theban hegemonies; and the expansion of Macedonia under Philip II. Much of the early defining politics, artistic thought (architecture, sculpture), scientific thought, theatre, literature and philosophy of Western civilization derives from this period of Greek history, which had a powerful influence on the later Roman Empire. Part of the broader era of classical antiquity, the classical Greek era ended after Philip II's unification of most of the Greek world against the common enemy of the Persian Empire, which was conquered within 13 years during the wars of Alexander the Great, Philip's son. In the context of the art, architecture, and culture of Ancient Greece, the Classical period corresponds to most of the 5th and 4th centuries BC (the most common dates being the fall of the last Athenian tyrant in 510 BC to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC). The Classical period in this sense follows the Greek Dark Ages and Archaic period and is in turn succeeded by the Hellenistic period. Classical Era The Classical Era, also known as the classical period, or classical age, is the period of history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD. It is the period in which ancient Greece and ancient Rome flourished and wielded huge influence throughout much of Europe, North Africa, and West Asia. These civilizations were centered on the Mediterranean Basin, and known together as the Greco-Roman World. Conventionally, it is taken to begin with the earliest-recorded Epic Greek poetry of Homer (8th–7th-century BC) and ends with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD. Such a wide span of history and territory covers many disparate cultures and periods. Classical antiquity may also refer to an idealized vision among later people of what was, in Edgar Allan Poe's words, "the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome". The culture of the ancient Greeks, together with some influences from the ancient Near East, was the basis of art, philosophy, society, and education in the Mediterranean and Near East until the Roman imperial period. The Romans preserved, imitated, and spread this culture over Europe, until they were able to compete with it, and the classical world began to speak Latin along with Greek. This Greco-Roman cultural foundation has been immensely influential on the language, politics, law, educational systems, philosophy, science, warfare, poetry, historiography, ethics, rhetoric, art and architecture of the modern world. Surviving fragments of classical culture led to a revival beginning in the 14th century which later came to be known as the Renaissance, and various neo-classical revivals occurred in the 18th and 19th centuries. Transmission of Greek Classics The transmission of the Greek Classics to Latin Western Europe during the Middle Ages was a key factor in the development of intellectual life in Western Europe. Interest in Greek texts and their availability was scarce in the Latin West during the Early Middle Ages, but as traffic to the East increased, so did Western scholarship. Classical Greek philosophy consisted of various original works ranging from those from Ancient Greece (e.g. Aristotle) to those Greco-Roman scholars in the classical Roman Empire (e.g. Ptolemy). Though these works were originally written in Greek, for centuries the language of scholarship in the Mediterranean region, many were translated into Syriac, Arabic, and Persian during the Middle Ages and the original Greek versions were often unknown to the West. With increasing Western presence in the East due to the Crusades, and the gradual collapse of the Byzantine Empire during the Late Middle Ages, many Byzantine Greek scholars fled to Western Europe, bringing with them many original Greek manuscripts, and providing impetus for Greek-language education in the West and further translation efforts of Greek scholarship into Latin. The line between Greek scholarship and Arab scholarship in Western Europe was very blurred during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Sometimes the concept of the transmission of Greek Classics is often used to refer to the collective knowledge that was obtained from the Arab and Byzantine Empires, regardless of where the knowledge actually originated. However, being once and even twice removed from the original Greek, these Arabic versions were later supplanted by improved, direct translations by Moerbeke and others in the 13th century and after. Political units and societies Athens The city of Athens was the major urban centre of the notable polis (city-state) of the same name, located in Attica, Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Isagoras. This system remained remarkably stable, and with a few brief interruptions remained in place for 180 years, until 322 BC (aftermath of Lamian War). The peak of Athenian hegemony was achieved in the 440s to 430s BC, known as the Age of Pericles. In the classical period, Athens was a centre for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum, Athens was also the birthplace of Socrates, Plato, Pericles, Aristophanes, Sophocles, and many other prominent philosophers, writers and politicians of the ancient world. It is widely referred to as the cradle of Western Civilization, and the birthplace of democracy, largely due to the impact of its cultural and political achievements during the 5th and 4th centuries BC on the rest of the then-known European continent. Philosophers Western philosophy originated in Ancient Greece in the 6th century BCE with the pre-Socratics. They attempted to provide rational explanations of the cosmos as a whole. The philosophy following them was shaped by Socrates (469–399 BCE), Plato (427–347 BCE), and Aristotle (384–322 BCE). They expanded the range of topics to questions like how people should act, how to arrive at knowledge, and what the nature of reality and mind is. The later part of the ancient period was marked by the emergence of philosophical movements, for example, Epicureanism, Stoicism, Skepticism, and Neoplatonism. The medieval period started in the 5th century CE. Its focus was on religious topics and many thinkers used ancient philosophy to explain and further elaborate Christian doctrines. Background Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC. Philosophy was used to make sense of the world using reason. It dealt with a wide variety of subjects, including astronomy, epistemology, mathematics, political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, ontology, logic, biology, rhetoric and aesthetics. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and later evolved into Roman philosophy. Greek philosophy has influenced much of Western culture since its inception, and can be found in many aspects of public education. Alfred North Whitehead once noted: "The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato". Clear, unbroken lines of influence lead from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers to Roman philosophy, Early Islamic philosophy, Medieval Scholasticism, the European Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment. Greek philosophy was influenced to some extent by the older wisdom literature and mythological cosmogonies of the ancient Near East, though the extent of this influence is widely debated. The classicist Martin Litchfield West states, "contact with oriental cosmology and theology helped to liberate the early Greek philosophers' imagination; it certainly gave them many suggestive ideas. But they taught themselves to reason. Philosophy as we understand it is a Greek creation". Subsequent philosophic tradition was so influenced by Socrates as presented by Plato that it is conventional to refer to philosophy developed prior to Socrates as pre-Socratic philosophy. The periods following this, up to and after the wars of Alexander the Great, are those of "Classical Greek" and "Hellenistic philosophy", respectively. Role of Athens The Golden Age of Athens, in the 5th century BCE, featured some of the most renowned Western philosophers of all time. Chief among these were Socrates, whose ideas exist primarily in a series of dialogues by his student Plato, who mixed them with his own; Plato; and Plato's student, Aristotle. Other notable philosophers of the Golden Age included Anaxagoras; Democritus (who first inquired as to what substance lies within all matter, the earliest known proposal of what is now called the atom or its sub-units); Empedocles; Hippias; Isocrates; Parmenides; Heraclitus; and Protagoras. In the second half of the 5th century BC the name of sophist (from the Greek sophistês, expert, teacher, man of wisdom) was given to the teachers that gave instruction on diverse branches of science and knowledge in exchange for a fee. In this age, Athens was the "school of Greece." Pericles and his mistress Aspasia had the opportunity to associate with not only the great Athenians thinkers of their day but also other Greek and foreign scholars. Among them were the philosopher Anaxagoras, the architect Hippodamus of Miletus, who reconstructed Peiraeus, as well as the historians Herodotus (484–425), Thucydides (460–400), and Xenophon (430–354). Athens was also the capital of eloquence. Since the late 5th century BC, eloquence had been elevated to an art form. There were the logographers who wrote courses and created a new literary form characterized by the clarity and purity of the language. It became a lucrative profession. It is known that the logographer Lysias (460–380 BC) made a great fortune thanks to his profession. Later, in the 4th century BC, the orators Isocrates and Demosthenes also became famous. Founding concepts The four main branches of philosophy are considered to be metaphysics, epistemology, logic, and ethics. Metaphysics studies what it is for something to exist (to "be") and what types of existence there are. It seeks to answer, in an abstract and fully general manner, the questions of: What is that exists; and What is like. The first named Greek philosopher, according to Aristotle, is Thales of Miletus, early 6th century BCE. He made use of purely physical explanations to explain the phenomena of the world rather than the mythological and divine explanations of tradition. He is thought to have posited water as the single underlying principle (or arche in later Aristotelian terminology) of the material world. His fellow, but younger Miletians, Anaximander and Anaximenes, also posited monistic underlying principles, namely apeiron (the indefinite or boundless) and air respectively. Another school was the Eleatics, in southern Italy. The group was founded in the early fifth century BCE by Parmenides, and included Zeno of Elea and Melissus of Samos. Methodologically, the Eleatics were broadly rationalist, and took logical standards of clarity and necessity to be the criteria of truth. Parmenides' chief doctrine was that reality is a single unchanging and universal Being. Zeno used reductio ad absurdum, to demonstrate the illusory nature of change and time in his paradoxes. Heraclitus of Ephesus, in contrast, made change central, teaching that "all things flow". His philosophy, expressed in brief aphorisms, is quite cryptic. For instance, he also taught the unity of opposites. Democritus and his teacher Leucippus, are known for formulating an atomic theory for the cosmos. They are considered forerunners of the scientific method. Pre-Socratic philosophy Pre-Socratic philosophy also known as Early Greek Philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of these early philosophers spanned the workings of the natural world as well as human society, ethics, and religion. They sought explanations based on natural law rather than the actions of gods. Their work and writing has been almost entirely lost. Knowledge of their views comes from testimonia, i.e. later authors' discussions of the work of pre-Socratics. Philosophy found fertile ground in the ancient Greek world because of the close ties with neighboring civilizations and the rise of autonomous civil entities, poleis. Pre-Socratic philosophy began in the 6th century BCE with the three Milesians: Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. They all attributed the arche (a word that could take the meaning of "origin", "substance" or "principle") of the world to, respectively, water, apeiron (the unlimited), and air. Another three pre-Socratic philosophers came from nearby Ionian towns: Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Pythagoras. Xenophanes is known for his critique of the anthropomorphism of gods. Heraclitus, who was notoriously difficult to understand, is known for his maxim on impermanence, ta panta rhei, and for attributing fire to be the arche of the world. Pythagoras created a cult-like following that advocated that the universe was made up of numbers. The Eleatic school (Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, and Melissus) followed in the 5th century BCE. Parmenides claimed that only one thing exists and nothing can change. Zeno and Melissus mainly defended Parmenides' opinion. Anaxagoras and Empedocles offered a pluralistic account of how the universe was created. Leucippus and Democritus are known for their atomism, and their views that only void and matter exist. The Sophists advanced philosophical relativism. The impact of the pre-Socratics has been enormous. The pre-Socratics invented some of the central concepts of Western civilization, such as naturalism and rationalism, and paved the way for scientific methodology. Ancient Greek philosophy Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC. Philosophy was used to make sense of the world using reason. It dealt with a wide variety of subjects, including astronomy, epistemology, mathematics, political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, ontology, logic, biology, rhetoric and aesthetics. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and later evolved into Roman philosophy. Greek philosophy has influenced much of Western culture since its inception, and can be found in many aspects of public education. Alfred North Whitehead once noted: "The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato". Clear, unbroken lines of influence lead from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers to Roman philosophy, Early Islamic philosophy, Medieval Scholasticism, the European Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment. Greek philosophy was influenced to some extent by the older wisdom literature and mythological cosmogonies of the ancient Near East, though the extent of this influence is widely debated. The classicist Martin Litchfield West states, "contact with oriental cosmology and theology helped to liberate the early Greek philosophers' imagination; it certainly gave them many suggestive ideas. But they taught themselves to reason. Philosophy as we understand it is a Greek creation". Subsequent philosophic tradition was so influenced by Socrates as presented by Plato that it is conventional to refer to philosophy developed prior to Socrates as pre-Socratic philosophy. The periods following this, up to and after the wars of Alexander the Great, are those of "Classical Greek" and "Hellenistic philosophy", respectively. Hellenistic philosophy Hellenistic philosophy is Ancient Greek philosophy corresponding to the Hellenistic period in Ancient Greece, from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC to the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. The dominant schools of this period were the Stoics, the Epicureans and the Skeptics. Thales Thales of Miletus was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. Thales was one of the Seven Sages, founding figures of Ancient Greece, and credited with the saying "know thyself" which was inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Many regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition, breaking from the prior use of mythology to explain the world and instead using natural philosophy. He is thus otherwise credited as the first to have engaged in mathematics, science, and deductive reasoning. The first philosophers followed him in explaining all of nature as based on the existence of a single ultimate substance. Thales theorized that this single substance was water. Thales thought the Earth floated in water. In mathematics, Thales is the namesake of Thales's theorem, and the intercept theorem can also be known as Thales's theorem. Thales was said to have calculated the heights of the pyramids and the distance of ships from the shore. In science, Thales was an astronomer who reportedly predicted the weather and a solar eclipse. He was also credited with discovering the position of the constellation Ursa Major as well as the timings of the solstices and equinoxes. Thales was also an engineer; credited with diverting the Halys River. Socrates Socrates; (–399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no texts and is known mainly through the posthumous accounts of classical writers, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon. These accounts are written as dialogues, in which Socrates and his interlocutors examine a subject in the style of question and answer; they gave rise to the Socratic dialogue literary genre. Contradictory accounts of Socrates make a reconstruction of his philosophy nearly impossible, a situation known as the Socratic problem. Plato's dialogues are among the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity. They demonstrate the Socratic approach to areas of philosophy including epistemology and ethics. The Platonic Socrates lends his name to the concept of the Socratic method, and also to Socratic irony. The Socratic method of questioning, or elenchus, takes shape in dialogue using short questions and answers, epitomized by those Platonic texts in which Socrates and his interlocutors examine various aspects of an issue or an abstract meaning, usually relating to one of the virtues, and find themselves at an impasse, completely unable to define what they thought they understood. Socrates is known for proclaiming his total ignorance; he used to say that the only thing he was aware of was his ignorance, seeking to imply that the realization of our ignorance is the first step in philosophizing. Socrates exerted a strong influence on philosophers in later antiquity and has continued to do so in the modern era. He was studied by medieval and Islamic scholars and played an important role in the thought of the Italian Renaissance, particularly within the humanist movement. Interest in him continued unabated, as reflected in the works of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. Depictions of Socrates in art, literature, and popular culture have made him a widely known figure in the Western philosophical tradition. Pythagoras Pythagoras of Samos was an ancient Ionian Greek philosopher, polymath and the eponymous founder of Pythagoreanism. His political and religious teachings were well known in Magna Graecia and influenced the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, and, through them, the West in general. Knowledge of his life is clouded by legend. Modern scholars disagree regarding Pythagoras's education and influences, but they do agree that, around 530 BC, he travelled to Croton in southern Italy, where he founded a school in which initiates were sworn to secrecy and lived a communal, ascetic lifestyle. This lifestyle entailed a number of dietary prohibitions, traditionally said to have included aspects of vegetarianism. The teaching most securely identified with Pythagoras is metempsychosis, or the "transmigration of souls", which holds that every soul is immortal and, upon death, enters into a new body. He may have also devised the doctrine of musica universalis, which holds that the planets move according to mathematical equations and thus resonate to produce an inaudible symphony of music. Scholars debate whether Pythagoras developed the numerological and musical teachings attributed to him, or if those teachings were developed by his later followers, particularly Philolaus of Croton. Following Croton's decisive victory over Sybaris in around 510 BC, Pythagoras's followers came into conflict with supporters of democracy, and Pythagorean meeting houses were burned. Pythagoras may have been killed during this persecution, or he may have escaped to Metapontum and died there. In antiquity, Pythagoras was credited with many mathematical and scientific discoveries, including the Pythagorean theorem, Pythagorean tuning, the five regular solids, the Theory of Proportions, the sphericity of the Earth, and the identity of the morning and evening stars as the planet Venus. It was said that he was the first man to call himself a philosopher ("lover of wisdom") and that he was the first to divide the globe into five climatic zones. Classical historians debate whether Pythagoras made these discoveries, and many of the accomplishments credited to him likely originated earlier or were made by his colleagues or successors. Some accounts mention that the philosophy associated with Pythagoras was related to mathematics and that numbers were important, but it is debated to what extent, if at all, he actually contributed to mathematics or natural philosophy. Pythagoras influenced Plato, whose dialogues, especially his Timaeus, exhibit Pythagorean teachings. Pythagorean ideas on mathematical perfection also impacted ancient Greek art. His teachings underwent a major revival in the first century BC among Middle Platonists, coinciding with the rise of Neopythagoreanism. Pythagoras continued to be regarded as a great philosopher throughout the Middle Ages and his philosophy had a major impact on scientists such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton. Pythagorean symbolism was used throughout early modern European esotericism, and his teachings as portrayed in Ovid's Metamorphoses influenced the modern vegetarian movement. Plato Plato (428/427 or 424/423 – 348 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period. In Athens, Plato founded the Academy, a philosophical school where he taught the philosophical doctrines that would later become known as Platonism. Plato, or Platon, was a pen name derived, apparently, from the nickname given to him by his wrestling coachallegedly a reference to his physical girth. According to Alexander Polyhistor, quoted by Diogenes Laërtius, his actual name was Aristocles, son of Ariston, of the deme (suburb) Collytus, in Athens. Along with his teacher, Socrates, and student Aristotle, Plato is a central figure in the history of philosophy. Unlike the work of nearly all of his contemporaries, Plato's entire body of work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years. Although their popularity has fluctuated, Plato's works have consistently been read and studied. Through Neoplatonism Plato also greatly influenced both Christian (through e.g. Augustine of Hippo) and Islamic philosophy (through e.g. Al-Farabi, Al-Kindi). In modern times, Alfred North Whitehead famously said: "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." Plato's Republic Plato's Republic (; ) is a Socratic dialogue, authored by Plato around 375 BC, concerning justice, the order and character of the just city-state, and the just man. It is Plato's best-known work, and one of the world's most influential works of philosophy and political theory, both intellectually and historically. In the dialogue, Socrates discusses the meaning of justice and whether the just man is happier than the unjust man with various Athenians and foreigners. He considers the natures of existing regimes and then proposes a series of hypothetical cities in comparison, culminating in Kallipolis (Καλλίπολις), a utopian city-state ruled by a class of philosopher-kings. They also discuss ageing, love, theory of forms, the immortality of the soul, and the role of the philosopher and of poetry in society. The dialogue's setting seems to be the time of the Peloponnesian War. Platonism Platonism is the philosophy of Plato and philosophical systems closely derived from it, though contemporary Platonists do not necessarily accept all doctrines of Plato. Platonism had a profound effect on Western thought. In its most basic fundamentals, Platonism affirms the existence of abstract objects, which are asserted to exist in a third realm distinct from both the sensible external world and from the internal world of consciousness, and is the opposite of nominalism. This can apply to properties, types, propositions, meanings, numbers, sets, truth values, and so on (see abstract object theory). Philosophers who affirm the existence of abstract objects are sometimes called Platonists; those who deny their existence are sometimes called nominalists. The terms "Platonism" and "nominalism" also have established senses in the history of philosophy. They denote positions that have little to do with the modern notion of an abstract object. In a narrower sense, the term might indicate the doctrine of Platonic realism, a form of mysticism. The central concept of Platonism, a distinction essential to the Theory of Forms, is the distinction between the reality which is perceptible but unintelligible, associated with the flux of Heraclitus and studied by the likes of science, and the reality which is imperceptible but intelligible, associated with the unchanging being of Parmenides and studied by the likes of mathematics. Geometry was the main motivation of Plato, and this also shows the influence of Pythagoras. The Forms are typically described in dialogues such as the Phaedo, Symposium and Republic as perfect archetypes of which objects in the everyday world are imperfect copies. Aristotle's Third Man Argument is its most famous criticism in antiquity. In the Republic the highest form is identified as the Form of the Good, the source of all other Forms, which could be known by reason. In the Sophist, a later work, the Forms being, sameness and difference are listed among the primordial "Great Kinds". Plato established the academy, and in the 3rd century BC, Arcesilaus adopted academic skepticism, which became a central tenet of the school until 90 BC when Antiochus added Stoic elements, rejected skepticism, and began a period known as Middle Platonism. In the 3rd century AD, Plotinus added additional mystical elements, establishing Neoplatonism, in which the summit of existence was the One or the Good, the source of all things; in virtue and meditation the soul had the power to elevate itself to attain union with the One. Many Platonic notions were adopted by the Christian church which understood Plato's Forms as God's thoughts (a position also known as divine conceptualism), while Neoplatonism became a major influence on Christian mysticism in the West through Saint Augustine, Doctor of the Catholic Church, who was heavily influenced by Plotinus' Enneads, and in turn were foundations for the whole of Western Christian thought.<ref>Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. Vol 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition 100–600; Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. Vol 3: The Growth of Mediaeval Theology 600–1300, section, "The Augustinian Synthesis".</ref> Many ideas of Plato were incorporated by the Roman Catholic Church. Aristotle Aristotle (384–322 BCE) was an Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology and the arts. As the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy in the Lyceum in Athens, he began the wider Aristotelian tradition that followed, which set the groundwork for the development of modern science. Aristotle's views profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. The influence of his physical science extended from late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, and was not replaced systematically until the Enlightenment and theories such as classical mechanics were developed. He influenced Judeo-Islamic philosophies during the Middle Ages, as well as Christian theology, especially the Neoplatonism of the Early Church and the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church. Aristotle was revered among medieval Muslim scholars as "The First Teacher", and among medieval Christians like Thomas Aquinas as simply "The Philosopher", while the poet Dante called him "the master of those who know". His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, and were studied by medieval scholars such as Peter Abelard and Jean Buridan. Aristotle's influence on logic continued well into the 19th century. In addition, his ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. Metaphysics Metaphysics (Greek: τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά, "those after the physics"; Latin: Metaphysica) is one of the principal works of Aristotle, in which he develops the doctrine that he calls First Philosophy. The work is a compilation of various texts treating abstract subjects, notably substance theory, different kinds of causation, form and matter, the existence of mathematical objects and the cosmos, which together constitute much of the branch of philosophy later known as metaphysics. The Metaphysics is considered to be one of the greatest philosophical works. Its influence on the Greeks, the Muslim philosophers, Maimonides thence the scholastic philosophers and even writers such as Dante was immense. In the 3rd century, Alexander of Aphrodisias wrote a commentary on the first five books of the Metaphysics, and a commentary transmitted under his name exists for the final nine, but modern scholars doubt that this part was written by him. Themistius wrote an epitome of the work, of which book 12 survivies in a Hebrew translation. The Neoplatonists Syrianus and Asclepius of Tralles also wrote commentaries on the work, where they attempted to synthesize Aristotle's doctrines with Neoplatonic cosmology. Aristotle's works gained a reputation for complexity that is never more evident than with the Metaphysics — Avicenna said that he had read the Metaphysics of Aristotle forty times, but did not understand it until he also read al-Farabi's Purposes of the Metaphysics of Aristotle. The flourishing of Arabic Aristotelian scholarship reached its peak with the work of Ibn Rushd (Latinized: Averroes), whose extensive writings on Aristotle's work led to his later designation as "The Commentator" by future generations of scholars. Maimonides wrote the Guide to the Perplexed in the 12th century, to demonstrate the compatibility of Aristotelian science with Biblical revelation. The Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) facilitated the discovery and delivery of many original Greek manuscripts to Western Europe. William of Moerbeke's translations of the work formed the basis of the commentaries on the Metaphysics by Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. They were also used by modern scholars for Greek editions, as William had access to Greek manuscripts that are now lost. Werner Jaeger lists William's translation in his edition of the Greek text in the Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis (Oxford 1962). Nicomachean Ethics The Nicomachean Ethics is Aristotle's best-known work on ethics: the science of the good for human life, that which is the goal or end at which all our actions aim. It consists of ten sections, referred to as books or scrolls, and is closely related to Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics. The work is essential in explaining Aristotelian ethics. Its theme is a Socratic question previously explored in the works of Plato, Aristotle's friend and teacher, about how to best live. In Aristotle's Metaphysics, he describes how Socrates, the friend and teacher of Plato, turned philosophy to human questions, whereas pre-Socratic philosophy had only been theoretical. Ethics, Aristotle claimed, is practical rather than theoretical, in the Aristotelian senses of these terms. It is not merely an investigation about what good consists of, but it aims to be of practical help in achieving the good. It is connected to another of Aristotle's practical works, Politics, which reflects a similar goal: for people to become good, through the creation and maintenance of social institutions. Ethics is about how individuals should best live, while politics adopts the perspective of a law-giver, looking at the good of a whole community. The Nicomachean Ethics had an important influence on the European Middle Ages, and was one of the core works of medieval philosophy. As such, it was of great significance in the development of all modern philosophy as well as European law and theology. Aristotle became known as "the Philosopher" (for example, this is how he is referred to in the works of Thomas Aquinas). In the Middle Ages, a synthesis between Aristotelian ethics and Christian theology became widespread, as introduced by Albertus Magnus. The most important version of this synthesis was that of Thomas Aquinas. Other more "Averroist" Aristotelians such as Marsilius of Padua were also influential. Until well into the seventeenth century, the Nicomachean Ethics was still widely regarded as the main authority for the discipline of ethics at Protestant universities, with over fifty Protestant commentaries published before 1682. During the seventeenth century, however, authors such as Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes argued that the medieval and Renaissance Aristotelian tradition in practical thinking was impeding philosophy. Interest in Aristotle's ethics has been renewed by the virtue ethics revival. Recent philosophers in this field include Alasdair MacIntyre, G. E. M. Anscombe, Mortimer Adler, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Martha Nussbaum. Plutarch Plutarch – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of illustrious Greeks and Romans, and Moralia, a collection of essays and speeches. Plutarch's writings had an enormous influence on English and French literature. Shakespeare paraphrased parts of Thomas North's translation of selected Lives in his plays, and occasionally quoted from them verbatim. Jean-Jacques Rousseau quotes from Plutarch in the 1762 Emile, or On Education, a treatise on the education of the whole person for citizenship. Rousseau introduces a passage from Plutarch in support of his position against eating meat: You ask me', said Plutarch, 'why Pythagoras abstained from eating the flesh of beasts... Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalists were greatly influenced by the Moralia and in his glowing introduction to the five-volume, 19th-century edition, he called the Lives "a bible for heroes". He also opined that it was impossible to "read Plutarch without a tingling of the blood; and I accept the saying of the Chinese Mencius: 'A sage is the instructor of a hundred ages. When the manners of Loo are heard of, the stupid become intelligent, and the wavering, determined. Montaigne's Essays draw extensively on Plutarch's Moralia and are consciously modelled on the Greek's easygoing and discursive inquiries into science, manners, customs and beliefs. Essays contains more than 400 references to Plutarch and his works. James Boswell quoted Plutarch on writing lives, rather than biographies, in the introduction to his own Life of Samuel Johnson. Other admirers included Ben Jonson, John Dryden, Alexander Hamilton, John Milton, Edmund Burke, Joseph De Maistre, Mark Twain, Louis L'amour, and Francis Bacon, as well as such disparate figures as Cotton Mather and Robert Browning. Plutarch's influence declined in the 19th and 20th centuries, but it remains embedded in the popular ideas of Greek and Roman history. One of his most famous quotes was one that he included in one of his earliest works. "The world of man is best captured through the lives of the men who created history." Statesmen Solon Solon ( BC) was an archaic Athenian statesman, lawmaker, political philosopher, and poet. He is one of the Seven Sages of Greece and credited with laying the foundations for Athenian democracy.Andrews, A. Greek Society (Penguin 1967) 197 Solon's efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline resulted in his constitutional reform overturning most of Draco's laws. Solon's reforms included debt relief later known and celebrated among Athenians as the Seisachtheia (shaking off of burdens). He is described by Aristotle in the Athenian Constitution as "the first people's champion." Demosthenes credited Solon's reforms with starting a golden age. Modern knowledge of Solon is limited by the fact that his works only survive in fragments and appear to feature interpolations by later authors. It is further limited by the general paucity of documentary and archaeological evidence covering Athens in the early 6th century BC. Ancient authors such as Philo of Alexandria, Herodotus, and Plutarch are the main sources, but wrote about Solon long after his death. Fourth-century BC orators, such as Aeschines, tended to attribute to Solon all the laws of their own, much later times.V. Ehrenberg, From Solon to Socrates: Greek History and Civilization, Routledge (1973) 71 Pericles Pericles ( – 429 BC) was a Greek politician and general during the Golden Age of Athens. He was prominent and influential in Ancient Athenian politics, particularly between the Greco-Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War, and was acclaimed by Thucydides, a contemporary historian, as "the first citizen of Athens". Pericles turned the Delian League into an Athenian empire and led his countrymen during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War. The period during which he led Athens, roughly from 461 to 429 BC, is sometimes known as the "Age of Pericles", but the period thus denoted can include times as early as the Persian Wars or as late as the following century. Pericles promoted the arts and literature, and it is principally through his efforts that Athens acquired the reputation of being the educational and cultural center of the ancient Greek world. He started an ambitious project that generated most of the surviving structures on the Acropolis, including the Parthenon. This project beautified and protected the city, exhibited its glory and gave work to its people. Pericles also fostered Athenian democracy to such an extent that critics called him a populist.S. Ruden, Lysistrata, 80. Pericles was descended, through his mother, from the powerful and historically-influential Alcmaeonid family. He, along with several members of his family, succumbed to the Plague of Athens in 429 BC, which weakened the city-state during a protracted conflict with Sparta. Demosthenes Demosthenes (384 – 12 October 322 BC) was a Greek statesman and orator in ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide insight into the politics and culture of ancient Greece during the 4th century BC. Demosthenes learned rhetoric by studying the speeches of previous great orators. He delivered his first judicial speeches at the age of 20, in which he successfully argued that he should gain from his guardians what was left of his inheritance. For a time, Demosthenes made his living as a professional speechwriter (logographer) and a lawyer, writing speeches for use in private legal suits. Demosthenes grew interested in politics during his time as a logographer, and in 354 BC he gave his first public political speeches. He went on to devote his most productive years to opposing Macedon's expansion. He idealized his city and strove throughout his life to restore Athens' supremacy and motivate his compatriots against Philip II of Macedon. He sought to preserve his city's freedom and to establish an alliance against Macedon, in an unsuccessful attempt to impede Philip's plans to expand his influence southward, conquering the Greek states. After Philip's death, Demosthenes played a leading part in his city's uprising against the new king of Macedonia, Alexander the Great. However, his efforts failed, and the revolt was met with a harsh Macedonian reaction. To prevent a similar revolt against his own rule, Alexander's successor in this region, Antipater, sent his men to track Demosthenes down. Demosthenes killed himself to avoid being arrested by Archias of Thurii, Antipater's confidant. The Alexandrian Canon, compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace, called Demosthenes one of the ten greatest Attic orators and logographers. Longinus likened Demosthenes to a blazing thunderbolt and argued that he had "perfected to the utmost the tone of lofty speech, living passions, copiousness, readiness, speed." Quintilian extolled him as ("the standard of oratory"). Cicero said of him that ("he stands alone among all the orators"), and also praised him as "the perfect orator" who lacked nothing. Rhetorical legacy Demosthenes is widely considered one of the greatest orators of all time, and his fame has continued down the ages. Authors and scholars who flourished at Rome, such as Longinus and Caecilius, regarded his oratory as sublime. Juvenal acclaimed him as "largus et exundans ingenii fons" (a large and overflowing fountain of genius), and he inspired Cicero's speeches against Mark Antony, also called the Philippics. According to Professor of Classics Cecil Wooten, Cicero ended his career by trying to imitate Demosthenes' political role. Plutarch drew attention in his Life of Demosthenes to the strong similarities between the personalities and careers of Demosthenes and Marcus Tullius Cicero: The divine power seems originally to have designed Demosthenes and Cicero upon the same plan, giving them many similarities in their natural characters, as their passion for distinction and their love of liberty in civil life, and their want of courage in dangers and war, and at the same time also to have added many accidental resemblances. I think there can hardly be found two other orators, who, from small and obscure beginnings, became so great and mighty; who both contested with kings and tyrants; both lost their daughters, were driven out of their country, and returned with honour; who, flying from thence again, were both seized upon by their enemies, and at last ended their lives with the liberty of their countrymen. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Demosthenes had a reputation for eloquence. He was read more than any other ancient orator; only Cicero offered any real competition. French author and lawyer Guillaume du Vair praised his speeches for their artful arrangement and elegant style; John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, and Jacques Amyot, a French Renaissance writer and translator, regarded Demosthenes as a great or even the "supreme" orator. For Thomas Wilson, who first published translation of his speeches into English, Demosthenes was not only an eloquent orator, but, mainly, an authoritative statesman, "a source of wisdom". In modern history, orators such as Henry Clay would mimic Demosthenes' technique. His ideas and principles survived, influencing prominent politicians and movements of our times. Hence, he constituted a source of inspiration for the authors of The Federalist Papers (a series of 85 essays arguing for the ratification of the United States Constitution) and for the major orators of the French Revolution. French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau was among those who idealised Demosthenes and wrote a book about him. For his part, Friedrich Nietzsche often composed his sentences according to the paradigms of Demosthenes, whose style he admired. Historians and academics Thucydides 'Thucydides ( BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work.Meyer, p. 67; de Sainte Croix. He also has been called the father of the school of political realism, which views the political behavior of individuals and the subsequent outcomes of relations between states as ultimately mediated by, and constructed upon, fear and self-interest. His text is still studied at universities and military colleges worldwide. The Melian dialogue is regarded as a seminal text of international relations theory, while his version of Pericles' Funeral Oration is widely studied by political theorists, historians, and students of the classics. More generally, Thucydides developed an understanding of human nature to explain behavior in such crises as plagues, massacres, and wars. Scientists Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos, also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is traditionally referred to as the "Father of Medicine" in recognition of his lasting contributions to the field, such as the use of prognosis and clinical observation, the systematic categorization of diseases, or the formulation of humoral theory. The Hippocratic school of medicine revolutionized ancient Greek medicine, establishing it as a discipline distinct from other fields with which it had traditionally been associated (theurgy and philosophy), thus establishing medicine as a profession. However, the achievements of the writers of the Hippocratic Corpus, the practitioners of Hippocratic medicine, and the actions of Hippocrates himself were often conflated; thus very little is known about what Hippocrates actually thought, wrote, and did. Hippocrates is commonly portrayed as the paragon of the ancient physician and credited with coining the Hippocratic Oath, which is still relevant and in use today. He is also credited with greatly advancing the systematic study of clinical medicine, summing up the medical knowledge of previous schools, and prescribing practices for physicians through the Hippocratic Corpus and other works. Mathematics Greek mathematics refers to mathematics texts and ideas stemming from the Archaic through the Hellenistic and Roman periods, mostly from the late 7th century BC to the 6th century AD, around the shores of the Mediterranean. Greek mathematicians lived in cities spread over the entire region, from Anatolia to Italy and North Africa, but were united by Greek culture and the Greek language. The development of mathematics as a theoretical discipline and the use of deductive reasoning in proofs is an important difference between Greek mathematics and those of preceding civilizations. Archimedes Archimedes of Syracuse ) was an Ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Considered the greatest mathematician of ancient history, and one of the greatest of all time, Archimedes anticipated modern calculus and analysis by applying the concept of the infinitely small and the method of exhaustion to derive and rigorously prove a range of geometrical theorems. These include the area of a circle, the surface area and volume of a sphere, the area of an ellipse, the area under a parabola, the volume of a segment of a paraboloid of revolution, the volume of a segment of a hyperboloid of revolution, and the area of a spiral.Heath, Thomas L. 1897. Works of Archimedes. Archimedes' other mathematical achievements include deriving an approximation of pi, defining and investigating the Archimedean spiral, and devising a system using exponentiation for expressing very large numbers. He was also one of the first to apply mathematics to physical phenomena, working on statics and hydrostatics. Archimedes' achievements in this area include a proof of the law of the lever, the widespread use of the concept of center of gravity, and the enunciation of the law of buoyancy known as Archimedes' principle. He is also credited with designing innovative machines, such as his screw pump, compound pulleys, and defensive war machines to protect his native Syracuse from invasion. Archimedes died during the siege of Syracuse, when he was killed by a Roman soldier despite orders that he should not be harmed. Cicero describes visiting Archimedes' tomb, which was surmounted by a sphere and a cylinder that Archimedes requested be placed there to represent his mathematical discoveries. Unlike his inventions, Archimedes' mathematical writings were little known in antiquity. Mathematicians from Alexandria read and quoted him, but the first comprehensive compilation was not made until by Isidore of Miletus in Byzantine Constantinople, while commentaries on the works of Archimedes by Eutocius in the 6th century opened them to wider readership for the first time. The relatively few copies of Archimedes' written work that survived through the Middle Ages were an influential source of ideas for scientists during the Renaissance and again in the 17th century, while the discovery in 1906 of previously lost works by Archimedes in the Archimedes Palimpsest has provided new insights into how he obtained mathematical results. Euclid Euclid BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician active as a geometer and logician. Considered the "father of geometry", he is chiefly known for the Elements treatise, which established the foundations of geometry that largely dominated the field until the early 19th century. His system, now referred to as Euclidean geometry, involved new innovations in combination with a synthesis of theories from earlier Greek mathematicians, including Eudoxus of Cnidus, Hippocrates of Chios, and Theaetetus. With Archimedes and Apollonius of Perga, Euclid is generally considered among the greatest mathematicians of antiquity, and one of the most influential in the history of mathematics. Very little is known of Euclid's life, and most information comes from the scholars Proclus and Pappus of Alexandria many centuries later. Medieval Islamic mathematicians invented a fanciful biography, and medieval Byzantine and early Renaissance scholars mistook him for the earlier philosopher Euclid of Megara. It is now generally accepted that he spent his career in Alexandria and lived around 300 BC, after Plato's students and before Archimedes. There is some speculation that Euclid studied at the Platonic Academy and later taught at the Musaeum; he is regarded as bridging the earlier Platonic tradition in Athens with the later tradition of Alexandria. In the Elements, Euclid deduced the theorems from a small set of axioms. He also wrote works on perspective, conic sections, spherical geometry, number theory, and mathematical rigour. In addition to the Elements, Euclid wrote a central early text in the optics field, Optics, and lesser-known works including Data and Phaenomena. Euclid's authorship of two other texts—On Divisions of Figures, Catoptrics—has been questioned. He is thought to have written many now lost works. Euclidean geometry Euclidean geometry is a mathematical system attributed to ancient Greek mathematician Euclid, which he described in his textbook on geometry, Elements. Euclid's approach consists in assuming a small set of intuitively appealing axioms (postulates) and deducing many other propositions (theorems) from these. Although many of Euclid's results had been stated earlier, Euclid was the first to organize these propositions into a logical system in which each result is proved from axioms and previously proved theorems. The Elements begins with plane geometry, still taught in secondary school (high school) as the first axiomatic system and the first examples of mathematical proofs. It goes on to the solid geometry of three dimensions. Much of the Elements states results of what are now called algebra and number theory, explained in geometrical language. For more than two thousand years, the adjective "Euclidean" was unnecessary because Euclid's axioms seemed so intuitively obvious (with the possible exception of the parallel postulate) that theorems proved from them were deemed absolutely true, and thus no other sorts of geometry were possible. Today, however, many other self-consistent non-Euclidean geometries are known, the first ones having been discovered in the early 19th century. An implication of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity is that physical space itself is not Euclidean, and Euclidean space is a good approximation for it only over short distances (relative to the strength of the gravitational field). Euclidean geometry is an example of synthetic geometry, in that it proceeds logically from axioms describing basic properties of geometric objects such as points and lines, to propositions about those objects. This is in contrast to analytic geometry, introduced almost 2,000 years later by René Descartes, which uses coordinates to express geometric properties by means of algebraic formulas. Euclid's Elements Euclid's Elements' is a mathematical treatise consisting of 13 books attributed to the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid 300 BC. It is a collection of definitions, postulates, propositions (theorems and constructions), and mathematical proofs of the propositions. The books cover plane and solid Euclidean geometry, elementary number theory, and incommensurable lines. Elements is the oldest extant large-scale deductive treatment of mathematics. It has proven instrumental in the development of logic and modern science, and its logical rigor was not surpassed until the 19th century. Euclid's Elements has been referred to as the most successful and influential textbook ever written. It was one of the very earliest mathematical works to be printed after the invention of the printing press and has been estimated to be second only to the Bible in the number of editions published since the first printing in 1482, the number reaching well over one thousand. For centuries, when the quadrivium was included in the curriculum of all university students, knowledge of at least part of Euclid's Elements was required of all students. Not until the 20th century, by which time its content was universally taught through other school textbooks, did it cease to be considered something all educated people had read. Artists Theatre A theatrical culture flourished in ancient Greece from 700 BC. At its centre was the city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political, and religious place during this period, and theatre was institutionalised there as part of a festival called the Dionysia, which honoured the god Dionysus. Tragedy (late 500 BC), comedy (490 BC), and the satyr play were the three dramatic genres to emerge there. Athens exported the festival to its numerous colonies. Modern Western theatre comes, in large measure, from the theatre of ancient Greece, from which it borrows technical terminology, classification into genres, and many of its themes, stock characters, and plot elements. Sophocles Sophocles ( 497/496 – winter 406/405 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, known as one of three from whom at least one play has survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those of Aeschylus; and earlier than, or contemporary with, those of Euripides. Sophocles wrote over 120 plays, but only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, Women of Trachis, Oedipus Rex, Electra, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus. For almost fifty years, Sophocles was the most celebrated playwright in the dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens which took place during the religious festivals of the Lenaea and the Dionysia. He competed in thirty competitions, won twenty-four, and was never judged lower than second place. Aeschylus won thirteen competitions, and was sometimes defeated by Sophocles; Euripides won four. The most famous tragedies of Sophocles feature Oedipus and Antigone: they are generally known as the Theban plays, though each was part of a different tetralogy (the other members of which are now lost). Sophocles influenced the development of drama, most importantly by adding a third actor (attributed to Sophocles by Aristotle; to Aeschylus by Themistius), thereby reducing the importance of the chorus in the presentation of the plot. He also developed his characters to a greater extent than earlier playwrights. Euripides Euripides was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete (Rhesus is suspect). There are many fragments (some substantial) of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declinedMoses Hadas, Ten Plays by Euripides, Bantam Classic (2006), Introduction, p. ixhe became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander. Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, some of which are characteristic of romance. He also became "the most tragic of poets", focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown.A.S. Owen, Euripides: Ion, Bristol Classical Press (1990), Introduction p. vii He was "the creator of ... that cage which is the theatre of Shakespeare's Othello, Racine's Phèdre, of Ibsen and Strindberg," in which "imprisoned men and women destroy each other by the intensity of their loves and hates". But he was also the literary ancestor of comic dramatists as diverse as Menander and George Bernard Shaw. His contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism. Both were frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as a corrupting influence. Ancient biographies hold that Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age, dying in Macedonia, but recent scholarship casts doubt on these sources. Aristophanes Aristophanes, son of Philippus and Zenodora, of the deme Kydathenaion, was a comic playwright or comedy-writer of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete. These provide the most valuable examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy and are used to define it, along with fragments from dozens of lost plays by Aristophanes and his contemporaries. Also known as "The Father of Comedy" and "the Prince of Ancient Comedy", Aristophanes has been said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more convincingly than any other author. His powers of ridicule were feared and acknowledged by influential contemporaries; Plato singled out Aristophanes' play The Clouds as slander that contributed to the trial and subsequent condemning to death of Socrates, although other satirical playwrights had also caricatured the philosopher. Aristophanes' second play, The Babylonians (now lost), was denounced by Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. It is possible that the case was argued in court, but details of the trial are not recorded and Aristophanes caricatured Cleon mercilessly in his subsequent plays, especially The Knights'', the first of many plays that he directed himself. "In my opinion," he says through that play's Chorus, "the author-director of comedies has the hardest job of all." See also General Ancient Greek literature Mythology Cosmology Ancient philosophy Byzantine philosophy Definitions of philosophy English words of Greek origin International scientific vocabulary List of ancient Greek philosophers Language and linguistics Translingualism Transliteration of Greek into English Classical compound Cyrillization of Greek English words of Greek origin Greek alphabet List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names Wiktionary's articles on Ancient Greek romanization and pronunciation, numerals, punctuation and Modern Greek transliteration. Arts Drama Tragedy Comedy Notes Notes bene Special notes References External links The Canadian Museum of Civilization—Greece Secrets of the Past Ancient Greece website from the British Museum Economic history of ancient Greece (archived 2 May 2006) The Greek currency history Limenoscope, an ancient Greek ports database (archived 11 May 2011) The Ancient Theatre Archive, Greek and Roman theatre architecture Illustrated Greek History, Janice Siegel, Department of Classics, Hampden–Sydney College, Virginia Ancient Greece Articles which contain graphical timelines Western culture World history Classical antiquity

Platform capitalism

Platform capitalism is an economic and business model in which digital platforms play a central role in facilitating interactions, transactions, and services between different user groups, typically consumers and producers. This model of capitalism has emerged and expanded with the rise of the Internet and digital technologies, transforming various sectors of the economy from retail and transportation to media and labor markets. Four main facets of platform capitalism are: crowdsourcing, sharing economy, gig economy and platform economy. Key characteristics of platform capitalism include: Network effects: the value of the platform increases exponentially as more users join, attracting even more users in a self-reinforcing cycle. This creates a dynamic where leading platforms can dominate markets, benefiting from economies of scale and scope; Data driven marketing and monetization: platforms collect vast amounts of user data, which is used to personalize experiences, target advertising, develop new products and services and refine algorithms. This data-centric approach enhances efficiency and user engagement; 'Asset-Light' business models: many platforms don't own the physical assets necessary to provide the services they offer, instead, they rely on the resources of their users and partners; Disruption of traditional industries: platforms are disrupting traditional industries (taxi industry, hospitality industry, old media industries such as television, music, radio and film, brick and mortar retails, banking and financial services etc.) by cutting out intermediaries and directly connecting producers with consumers; Algorithmic Governance: platforms use algorithms to manage and regulate interactions, determine rankings, and set prices. These algorithms play a crucial role in shaping the platform's ecosystem and can influence market dynamics and user behavior significantly; Regulatory challenges: he rapid growth and novel business models of platforms often outpace existing regulation, this leads to debates over issues like worker classification, data privacy, and market power; Global Reach and scalability: platforms enable businesses to scale rapidly and reach a global audience with relatively low marginal costs. Examples of platform capitalism include: e-commerce platforms (Amazon, Alibaba, eBay), social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, X), ride-hailing platforms (Uber, Lyft), short-term rental platforms (Airbnb), online travel booking platforms (Expedia, Booking.com, Kayak), video-sharing platforms (YouTube, TikTok), search engine platforms (Google Search, Microsoft Bing), web mapping platforms (Google Maps, Apple Maps, Petal Maps), app marketplaces platforms (Google Play, App Store) streaming platforms (Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video), music streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer), fintech platforms (PayPal), food delivery platforms (Just Eat, DoorDash, Deliveroo), crowdfunding platforms (GoFundMe, Patreon), freelancing platforms (Upwork, Fiverr), online learning platforms (Coursera, Udemy, Khan Academy, edX), voice and video calling platforms (Skype, Zoom), e-book hosting platforms (Kindle, Apple Books), career and job search platforms (Indeed, Monster.com, Glassdoor), manual work platforms (Helpling, Taskrabbit, MyHammer), video games marketplace platforms (Steam, Epic Games Store), dating platforms (Tinder, Bumble, OkCupid), pornographic platforms (Pornhub, XVideos, xHamster), subscription-based content platforms (OnlyFans), telemedicine platforms (WebMD, Teladoc Health), and generative artificial intelligence platforms (GPT-4o, Claude 3.5, Gemini, Llama, Copilot, Grok). In this business model both hardware and software are used as a foundation (platform) for other actors to conduct their own business. Platform capitalism has been both praised for its innovation, user empowerment and market efficiency and criticized for its potential for exploitation, market concentration, algorithmic bias and privacy concerns by various authors. The trends identified in platform capitalism have similarities with those described under the heading of surveillance capitalism. Technology companies build platforms that entire industries rely on, and those industries can easily collapse due to the decisions of those technology companies. The possible effect of platform capitalism on open science has been discussed. Platform capitalism has been contrasted with platform cooperativism. Companies that try to focus on fairness and sharing, instead of just profit motive, are described as cooperatives, whereas more traditional and common companies that focus solely on profit, like Airbnb and Uber, are platform capitalists (or cooperativist platforms vs capitalist platforms). In turn, projects like Wikipedia, which rely on unpaid labor of volunteers, can be classified as commons-based peer-production initiatives. See also Enshittification Platform economy References Business models Social sciences Computing and society Information Age Science and technology studies Capitalism

Immanent critique

Immanent critique is a method of analyzing culture that identifies contradictions in society's rules and systems. Most importantly, it juxtaposes the ideals articulated by society against the inadequate realization of those ideals in society's institutions. As a method for the critique of ideology, immanent critique analyzes cultural forms in philosophy, the social sciences and humanities. Immanent critique pays close attention to the logic and meanings of the ideas expressed in the cultural text. It further aims to contextualize not only the specific cultural object of its investigation, but also the broader ideological basis of that text: It aims to show that the ideology is a product of a historical process and does not reflect timeless truths. Immanent critique has its roots in the dialectic of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the criticisms of both Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Karl Marx. Today it is strongly associated with the critical theorists such as Theodor Adorno as well as literary theorists such as Fredric Jameson who, in his foundational work The Political Unconscious, explored the idea of an immanent analysis of texts to argue the primacy of political interpretation. Roy Bhaskar has advocated it as one of the key methodological elements of critical realism. Adorno contrasted immanent critique with "transcendent" critique, which typically reduces a set of ideas to their political uses or to the class interests they express. Transcendent critique, unlike immanent critique, adopts an external perspective and focuses on the historical genesis of ideas, while negating the values expressed in the cultural text. The purpose of immanent critique, instead, is the detection of societal contradictions that suggest possibilities for emancipatory social change. It considers the role of ideas in shaping society. An immanent critique of a cultural text discusses the ideal principles (overt or implicit) proposed by the text. It highlights the gaps between what something stands for and what is actually being done in society. Immanent critique tries to find contradictions in the internal logic of the cultural text and indirectly provide alternatives, without constructing an entirely new theory. It has the power to appeal to people's shared ideals while highlighting how far society has to go before those ideals are realized. Quoting Marx, Robert J. Antonio writes: "'Setting out from idealism ... I hit upon seeking the Idea in the real itself. If formerly the gods had dwelt above the world, they had now become its center.' Marx concluded that immanent principles were necessary weapons in the struggle for progressive social change, because they provide a basis for critique within historical reality. Later, this immanent grounding became the axis of his emancipatory critique of capitalism." According to David L. Harvey: "Critical theory at its most abstract and general level ... begins as a formal 'negativity.' As a dissenting motif, it selects some tradition, ideological premise, or institutionalized orthodoxy for analysis. As immanent critique, it then 'enters its object,' so to speak, 'boring from within.' Provisionally accepting the methodological presuppositions, substantive premises, and truth-claims of orthodoxy as its own, immanent critique tests the postulates of orthodoxy by the latter's own standards of proof and accuracy. Upon 'entering' the theory, orthodoxy's premises and assertions are registered and certain strategic contradictions located. These contradictions are then developed according to their own logic, and at some point in this process of internal expansion, the one-sided proclamations of orthodoxy collapse as material instances and their contradictions are allowed to develop 'naturally.'"<ref>Sociological Perspectives: Vol 33, No. 1, "Critical Theory," p. 5 (1990)</ref> See also Frankfurt School Reflective disclosure Quietism "World disclosing" arguments Herman Dooyeweerd#Dooyeweerd’s critiques of philosophy References External links Immanent critique from a theological perspective What is Immanent Critique? Social Science Research Network'', revised 3 Jun 2014, Titus Stahl, Department of Philosophy Hegelianism Marxian critique of political economy Critical theory

Social media and psychology

Social media began in the form of generalized online communities. These online communities formed on websites like Geocities.com in 1994, Theglobe.com in 1995, and Tripod.com in 1995. Many of these early communities focused on social interaction by bringing people together through the use of chat rooms. The chat rooms encouraged users to share personal information, ideas, or even personal web pages. Later the social networking community Classmates took a different approach by simply having people link to each other by using their personal email addresses. By the late 1990s, social networking websites began to develop more advanced features to help users find and manage friends. These newer generation of social networking websites began to flourish with the emergence of SixDegrees.com in 1997, Makeoutclub in 2000, Hub Culture in 2002, and Friendster in 2002. However, the first profitable mass social networking website was the South Korean service, Cyworld. Cyworld initially launched as a blog-based website in 1999 and social networking features were added to the website in 2001. Other social networking websites emerged like Myspace in 2002, LinkedIn in 2003, and Bebo in 2005. In 2009, the social networking website Facebook (launched in 2004) became the largest social networking website in the world. Active users of Facebook increased from just a million in 2004 to over 750 million by the year 2011. Making internet-based social networking both a cultural and financial phenomenon. Psychology of social networking A social network is a social structure made up of individuals or organizations who communicate and interact with each other. Social networking sites – such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn – are defined as technology-enabled tools that assist users with creating and maintaining their relationships. A study found that middle schooler's reported using social media to see what their friends are doing, to post pictures, and to connect with friends. Human behavior related to social networking is influenced by major individual differences. Meaning that people differ quite systematically in the quantity and quality of their social relationships. Two of the main personality traits that are responsible for this variability are the traits of extraversion and introversion. Extraversion refers to the tendency to be socially dominant, exert leadership, and influence on others. Contrastingly, introversion refers to the tendency of a person to have a disposition of shyness, social phobia, or even avoid social situations altogether, which could lead to a reduction in the number of potential contacts that person may have. These individual differences may result in different social networking outcomes. Other psychological factors related to social media are: depression, anxiety, attachment, self-identity, and the need to belong. Neuroscience The three domains that neural systems rely on to be strengthened to support social media use are social cognition, self-referential cognition, and social rewarding. When someone posts something on social media, they think of how their audience will react, while the audience thinks of the motivations behind posting the information. Both parties are analyzing the other's thoughts and feelings, which coherently rely on multiple network systems of the brain including the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, bilateral temporoparietal junction, anterior temporal lobes, inferior frontal gyri, and posterior cingulate cortex. All of these systems work to help us process social behaviors and thoughts drawn out on social media. Social media requires a great deal of self-referential thought. People use social media as a platform to express their opinions and show off their past and present selves. In other words, as Bailey Parnell said in her Ted Talk, we're showing off our "highlight reel" (4). When one receives feedback from others, the individual obtains more reflected self-appraisal which leads to comparisons of their social behaviors or "highlights" to other users. Self-referential thought involves activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex. The brain uses these systems when thinking of oneself. Social media also provides a constant supply of rewards that keeps users coming back for more. Whenever users receive a like or a new follower, it activates the brain's social reward system which includes the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, ventral striatum, and ventral tegmental area. While these areas of the brain become strengthened, other parts of the brain start to weaken. Technology is encouraging multi-tasking, especially because of how easy it is to switch from one task to another by opening another tab or using two devices at once. The brain's hippocampus is mainly associated with long-term memory. In a study done by Russell Poldark, a professor at UCLA, they found that "for the task learned without distraction, the hippocampus was involved. However, for the task learned with the distraction of the beeps, the hippocampus was not involved; but the striatum was, which is the brain system that underlies our ability to learn new skills." The study concludes that multitasking can cause reliance on the striatum more than the hippocampus, which can change the way we learn. The striatum is known to be connected to mainly the brain's reward system. The brain will strengthen the neurons to the striatum while it weakens the neurons to the hippocampus to make the brain more efficient. Because our brain starts to rely on the striatum more than the hippocampus, it becomes harder for us to process new information. Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: How The Internet Is Changing Our Brains, agrees: "What psychologists and brain scientists tell us about interruptions is that they have a fairly profound effect on the way we think. It becomes much harder to sustain attention, to think about one thing for a long period of time, and to think deeply when new stimuli are pouring at you all day long. I argue that the price we pay for being constantly inundated with information is a loss of our ability to be contemplative and to engage in the kind of deep thinking that requires you to concentrate on one thing." Depression Especially in today's society, social media has gained a new perspective on younger generations. It is what younger generations are born into and are growing up to use, particularly what is running today's society. Social Media has its downfalls regarding depression and mental health. Many users often compare their lives regarding what they see on these platforms. In an article Does Social Media Cause Depression? by the Child Mind Institute, Miller states that "several studies, teenage and young adult users who spend the most time on Instagram, Facebook and other platforms for have shown to have substantially (from 13 to 66 percent) higher rates of reported depression than those who spent the least time", what the study shows how Facebook and Instagram, platforms showcasing daily lives and or lifestyles, or less fulfilling or less satisfied or more flaunting base or superficial. Instead of social community, there has become a perception of individuals striving for a life that is not real, whether that is editing photos or making life seem perfect when it is not. This causes a sense of depression by the weight of a comparing game. Teenagers and young adults see these ideal lifestyles and make these assumptions about their personal lives, questioning their values and sense of belonging, bringing forth this aspect of depression. For example, on Facebook and Instagram, these platforms allow comments on posts or stories, indicating hateful and nasty comments/bullying that can cause mental health issues. As the internet first began to grow in popularity, researchers noted an association between increases in internet usage and decreases in offline social involvement and psychological well-being. Investigators explained these findings through the hypothesis that the internet supports poor quality relationships. In light of the recent emergence of online social networking, there has been growing concern of a possible relationship between individuals’ activities on these forums and symptoms of psychopathology, particularly depression. Research has shown a positive correlation between time spent on social networking sites and depressive symptoms. One possible explanation for this relationship is that people use social networking sites as a method of social comparison, which leads to social comparison bias. Adolescents who used Facebook and Instagram to compare themselves with and seek reassurance from other users experienced more depressive symptoms. It is likely, though, that the effects of social comparison on social networking sites is influenced by who people are interacting with on those sites. Specifically, Instagram users who followed a higher percentage of strangers were more likely to show an association between Instagram use and depressive symptoms than were users who followed a lower percentage of strangers. Other studies have found that social media use can potentially increase symptoms of depression in adolescents. Kleppgang et al. (2021) found that adolescents who used social media or played video games for more than three hours a day experienced a higher proportion of symptoms of depression. The goal of Kleppang's study was to examine the relationship between electronic media use and symptoms of depression and to observe whether gender or platonic relationships affect said relationship. They used surveys and web-based questionnaires to gather data. The subjects, sourced from all over Norway, were adolescents in tenth grade. The questions that were presented to the participants asked them to identify any symptoms of depression they have experienced, the frequency of which they used social media, and their gender. Research support for a relationship between online social networking and depression remains mixed. For example, some studies have found that people experiencing feelings of inferiority may share these spontaneously on social media rather than seeking face-to-face help with medical professionals. Similarly, Banjanin and colleagues (2015), for example, found a relationship between increased internet use and depressive symptoms, but no relationship between time spent on social networking sites and depressive symptoms. Several other studies have similarly found no relationship between online social networking and depression. In fact, studies that show there is no particular relationships between using Social media and the mental health suggest that there should be all the time support for young ages to prevent any mental health damage. Even though the direction of any relationship between depression and using social media platform is still unclear. Current research for this issue had been applying on ages between 13 and 18 and it was for the outcome depression, anxiety or psychological distress, assessed by validated instruments. Betul and colleagues, Suicide As found in a journal article from the American Academy of Pediatrics cyberbullying can lead to "profound psychosocial outcomes including depression, anxiety, severe isolation, and, tragically, suicide." (800–804). This introduces relationship between social networking and suicide. Cyberbullying on social media has a strong correlation to causes of suicide among adolescents and young adults. Results of a study by Hinduja and Patchin examining a large sample of middle school-aged adolescents found that those who experienced cyberbullying were twice as likely to attempt or be successful in committing suicide. In a study done by The 2019 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey (National Center for Education Statistics and Bureau of Justice) indicates that, nationwide, about 16 percent of students in grades 9–12 experienced cyberbullying by time they reach high school or are in high school. Attachment In psychology, attachment theory is a model that attempts to describe the interpersonal relationships people have throughout their lives. The most commonly recognized four styles of attachment in adults are: secure, anxious-preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant, and fearful-avoidant. With the rapid increase in social networking sites, scientists have become interested in the phenomenon of people relying on these sites for their attachment needs. Attachment style has been significantly related to the level of social media use and social orientation on Facebook. Additionally, attachment anxiety has been found to be predictive of less feedback seeking and Facebook usage, whereas attachment avoidance was found to be predictive less feedback seeking and usage. The study found that anxiously attached individuals more frequently comment, "like," and post. Furthermore, the authors suggest that anxious people behave more actively on social media sites because they are motivated to seek positive feedback from others. Despite their attempts to fulfill their needs, data suggests that individuals who use social media to fulfill these voids are typically disappointed and further isolate themselves by reducing their face-to-face interaction time with others. Self-identity One's self-identity, also commonly known as self-concept, can be defined as a collection of beliefs an individual has about his or herself. It can also be defined as an individual's answer to "Who am I?". Social media offers a means of exploring and forming self-identity, especially for adolescents and young adults. Early adolescence has been found to be the period in which most online identity experimentation occurs, compared to other periods of development. Researchers have identified some of the most common ways early adolescents explore identity are through self-exploration (e.g. to investigate how others react), social compensation (e.g. to overcome shyness), and social facilitation (e.g. to facilitate relationship formation). Additionally, early adolescents use the Internet more to talk to strangers and form new relationships, whereas older adolescents tend to socialize with current friends." Individuals have a high need for social affiliation but find it hard to form social connections in the offline world, and social media may afford a sense of connection that satisfies their needs for belonging, social feedback, and social validation." Of the various concepts comprising self-identity, self-esteem, and self-image, specifically body image, have been given much attention in regard to its relationship with social media usage. Despite the popularity of social media, the direct relationship between Internet exposure and body image has been examined in only a few studies. Individuals are known for having a tendency to compare themselves to others for their own self-evaluation, most prominently through adolescence. Social media makes it even easier for adolescents to engage in these behaviors of social comparison, allowing them to view others all over the world at any given moment. In one study looking at over 150 high school students, survey data regarding online social networking use and body image was collected. With students reporting an average of two to three hours per day online, online social media usage has been significantly related to an internalization of thin ideals, appearance comparison, weight dissatisfaction, and drive for thinness. In a more recent study that focused more specifically on Facebook usage in over 1,000 high school girls, the same association between the amount of use and body dissatisfaction was found, with Facebook users reporting significantly higher levels of body dissatisfaction than non-users. Current research findings suggest a negative relationship between self-image and social media usage for adolescents. In other words, the more an adolescent uses social media, the more likely he or she is to feel bad about themselves, more specifically regarding how they look. Types of social media engagement may differently affect self-esteem in youth. There are unsaid social understanding on social media that make people come as 'uncool' or 'desperate', as a study research points out that liking, commenting on others' s posts is predicted to reduce the appearance of self-esteem. Social media use decrease future appearance confidence in young women especially. This has increased the negative effects of the beauty standard that many women and young girls struggle to live up too with social media causing it to become worse for them. This has led them to be more negatively affected by social media and to lash out using the device. According to the study done in Italy with students that were 11, 13, and 15 years old, “Girls reported higher cyber-victimization and problematic social media usage than boys (9.1% vs 6.0% and 10.2% vs 6.1%, respectively)." Narcissism and social media use There are several personality disorders, one being narcissistic personality disorder. This disorder has been connected with an inflated sense of self-worth and a need for excessive attention. Like many disorders there are varying versions of narcissism. (1) Grandiose; typically arrogant, a higher sense of entitlement and a belief that they are better than everyone and everyone knows it. (2) malignant; similar to grandiose but as one tries to lift themselves up they have no concern with destroying others in the process. (3) covert; arrogance mixed with highly self-absorbed tendencies. Inability to accept responsibility and a chronic victim of the world and finally (4) communal; self-absorbed and needs acknowledgement for good they do while typically the good they do is all for show and not genuine. There is a direct connection between narcissistic personality disorder and social media. Studies are showing a connection between narcissism and motives for social media, such as seeking admiration for content and increase following. It has been implicated that narcissists find their content to be of higher quality and therefore share more information on their social media platforms due to a feeling of superiority. There have been many studies to date, all typically using predictive analysis and surveys that require participates to self-report social media usage. It should be mentioned as this self-reporting directly impacts the results and relies on participates to answer truthfully. In 2016, McCain and Campbell found that narcissism was related to greater number of posts, more time spent on social media platforms and having more friends/followers on their platforms. In 2017 Andreassen, Pallesen, and Griffiths found that narcissism may be associated with addictive use of social media. Most of the studies are finding positive relationships between grandiose forms of narcissism and self-reported SM activities. However, in general, there is still variance in the results and continued studies investigating how narcissism relates to use of social media is needed. Child psychology and social media. To clarify the impact even more, it is crucial to acknowledge the complex correlation between mental health issues and social media use. Primack et al. (2017) found that there is a correlation between heavy social media use and an increase in depressive symptoms in children, based on their longitudinal research. This emphasizes the need to understand the complex dynamics at work as well as the possible negative effects. The complex web of influences on mental health is influenced by several factors, including the type of content consumed, how long it is used for, and the caliber of online interactions. Understanding these intricacies emphasizes the necessity of an all-encompassing approach to awareness and research. The multibillion-dollar advertising industry targeting youth, particularly through digital channels, raises concerns. Research links advertising exposure to unhealthy behaviors in children—consumption of low-nutrient foods, tobacco, alcohol, and indoor tanning. Children's vulnerability arises from immature critical thinking. The policy urges pediatricians to promote digital literacy, emphasizing the need for policymakers and tech companies to adopt practices fostering healthier outcomes in the digital environment and expressing concern about tracking children's digital behavior for targeted marketing. In conclusion, the impact of social media on child psychology is a multifaceted and evolving field of study. As technology continues to advance, research and awareness must adapt to encompass the complexities of digital interactions. The lens social media creates A 2017 Washington Post study found that 55% of people who got plastic surgery did so to appear better in selfie pictures. Social media has created an environment in which people look at themselves through a unique lens. This lens may showcase whether the person is deemed worthy and whether they meet the requirements to fit into modern day society. At its core, social media is a place where people compare themselves and constantly attempt to better their online appearance as evidenced by the aforementioned study conducted in the Washington Post. There is not one set lens that people use to compare themselves, rather people can view themselves in any manner that is applicable to their lives. This the reason that people that come from poorer backgrounds and broken families are more likely to abuse social media. According to the study Sociodemographic factors and social media use in 9-year-old children: the Generation R Study, children from poorer backgrounds or broken homes are significantly more likely to abuse social media and use it. In the study they were found to have a more negative impacts to their lives when compared to children coming from wealthier and more stable families. This is because they are using it as an escape or that they are viewing social media through their lens and our developing mental health problems when they see people that have perceived better lives than them. Living With Everyday Evaluations Because social media plays such a significant role within society, our everyday lives are filled with constant evaluations based on the feedback we receive on social media. Blake Hallinan and Jed R. Brubaker (2021) discuss the significance of the "like" button on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, as an online form of evaluation. They explain that the like button is more than just a positive or good status update but is now interpreted as a "currency for self-esteem and belonging" (p. 1). To understand how social media users interpret likes they receive on their accounts, the researchers conducted in-depth interviews consisting of twenty-five self-identified artists who actively use Instagram to share their artwork. Hallinan and Brubaker explain they chose to interview artists is because artists take a lot of pride in their work and can be significantly influenced by the feedback they receive. The interview consisted of questions regarding the participants' artwork, experience, and knowledge of Instagram, and their interpretation of the networks like button. Based on the responses from the interviewers, the researchers found that some participants were unaffected by the number of likes they received from the posts of their artwork. However, they did find that the artists who were deeply affected by the feedback on their Instagram posts experienced doubt within their artwork and personally. As a result, their personal self-esteem decreased. Overall, the researchers emphasized the impact of likes among social media users and concluded that the like button is more than just a good rating, but a personal approval. The need to belong Belongingness Belongingness is the personal experience of being involved in a system or group. There are two major components of belongingness which are the feeling of being valued or needed in the group and fitting into the group. The sense of belongingness is said to stem from attachment theories. Neubaum and Kramer (2015) state that individuals with a greater desire to form attachments, have a stronger need for belonging in a group. Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary discussed the need to belong theory in a paper in 1995. They discuss the strong effects of belongingness and stated that humans have a "basic desire to form social attachments." Without social interactions, we are deprived of emotions and are prone to more illness, physical and psychological, in the future. In 2010, Judith Gere and Geoff MacDonald found inconsistencies in the research done on this topic and reported updated findings. Research still supported that lack of social interactions lead to negative outcomes in the future. When these needs were not met, an individual's daily life seemed to be negatively affected. However, questions about an individual's interpersonal problems, such as sensitivity and self-regulation, still seem to be unknown. In today's world, social media may be the outlet in which the need to belong theory is fulfilled for individuals. Perceived social closeness Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. are updated daily to include details of people's personal lives and what they are doing. This in turn gives the perception of being close to people without actually speaking with them. Individuals contribute to social media by ‘liking’ posts, commenting, updating statuses, tweeting, posting photos, videos and more. Sixty Facebook users were recruited in a study by Neubaum and Kramer (2015) to take part in a series of questionnaires, spend ten minutes on Facebook and then complete a post-Facebook perceptions and an emotional status questionnaires. These individuals perceived more social closeness on Facebook that lead to maintaining relationships. Individuals with a higher need to belong also relied on Facebook, but in more private messages. This allowed these individuals to belong in a one-on-one setting or in a more personal way with a group of members who are more significant to them. Active Facebook users, individuals who posted and contributed to their newsfeed, had a greater sense of social closeness, whereas passive Facebook users, who only viewed posts and did not contribute to the newsfeed, had a lesser sense of social closeness. These findings indicate that social closeness and belonging on social media is dependent on the individual's own interactions and usage style. Group membership In a study conducted by Cohen & Lancaster (2014), 451 individuals were asked to complete a survey online. The results suggested that social media usage during television viewing made individuals feel like they were watching the shows in a group setting. Different emotional reactions to the show, were found on all social media platforms due to hashtags of the specific show. These emotional reactions were due to certain parts of the show, reactions to characters, and commenting on the overall show. In this way, social media enhanced people's social interactions just as if they were face-to-face co-viewing television. Individuals with high needs to belong can use social media to participate in social interactions regularly, in a broader sense (Cohen & Lancaster, 2014). Social media has the tendency of making people viral over night and not always in their best interest. Especially cases like woman from Pakistan who became a meme in Pakistan overnight and she got abandoned by her community The relationship of virtual and real is closely intertwined and it has direct and in certain cases devastating effect on people's relationships and their belongingness to their groups. See also Instagram's impact on people References External links Digital media use and mental health Technology in society Social media

Foresight (futures studies)

In futurology, especially in Europe, the term foresight has become widely used to describe activities such as: critical thinking concerning long-term developments, debate and for some futurists who are normative and focus on action driven by their values who may be concerned with effort to create wider participatory democracy. Foresight is a set of competencies and not a value system, however. shaping the future, especially by influencing public policy. In the last decade, scenario methods, for example, have become widely used in some European countries in policy-making. The FORSOCIETY network brings together national Foresight teams from most European countries, and the European Foresight Monitoring Project is collating material on Foresight activities around the world. In addition, foresight methods are being used more and more in regional planning and decision –making (“regional foresight”). Several non-European think-tanks like Strategic Foresight Group are also engaged in foresight studies. The foresight of futurology is also known as strategic foresight. This foresight used by and describing professional futurists trained in Master's programs is the research-driven practice of exploring expected and alternative futures and guiding futures to inform strategy. Foresight includes understanding the relevant recent past; scanning to collect insight about present, futuring to describe the understood future including trend research; environment research to explore possible trend breaks from developments on the fringe and other divergencies that may lead to alternative futures; visioning to define preferred future states; designing strategies to craft this future; and adapting the present forces to implement this plan. There is notable but not complete overlap between foresight and strategic planning, change management, forecasting, and design thinking. At the same time, the use of foresight for companies (“corporate foresight”) is becoming more professional and widespread Corporate foresight is used to support strategic management, identify new business fields and increase the innovation capacity of a firm. Foresight is not the same as futures research or strategic planning. It encompasses a range of approaches that combine the three components mentioned above, which may be recast as: futures (forecasting, forward thinking, prospectives), planning (strategic analysis, priority setting), and networking (participatory, dialogic) tools and orientations. Much futurology research has been rather ivory tower work, but Foresight programmes were designed to influence policy - often R&D policy. Much technology policy had been very elitist; Foresight attempts to go beyond the "usual suspects" and gather widely distributed intelligence. These three lines of work were already common in Francophone futures studies going by the name la prospective. But in the 1990s we began to see what became an explosion of systematic organisation of these methods in large scale TECHNOLOGY FORESIGHT programmes in Europe and more widely. Foresight thus draws on traditions of work in long-range planning and strategic planning, horizontal policymaking and democratic planning, and participatory futurology - but was also highly influenced by systemic approaches to innovation studies, science and technology policy, and analysis of "critical technologies". Many of the methods that are commonly associated with Foresight - Delphi surveys, scenario workshops, etc. - derive from futurology. The flowchart to the right provides an overview of some of the techniques as they relate to the scenario as defined in the intuitive logics tradition. So does the fact that Foresight is concerned with: The longer-term - futures that are usually at least 10 years away (though there are some exceptions to this, especially in its use in private business). Since Foresight is action-oriented (the planning link) it will rarely be oriented to perspectives beyond a few decades out (though where decisions like aircraft design, power station construction or other major infrastructural decisions are concerned, then the planning horizon may well be half a century). Alternative futures: it is helpful to examine alternative paths of development, not just what is currently believed to be most likely or business as usual. Often Foresight will construct multiple scenarios. These may be an interim step on the way to creating what may be known as positive visions, success scenarios, aspirational futures. Sometimes alternative scenarios will be a major part of the output of Foresight work, with the decision about what future to build being left to other mechanisms. See also Accelerating change Emerging technologies Foresight Institute Forecasting Horizon scanning Optimism bias Reference class forecasting Scenario planning Strategic foresight Strategic Foresight Group Technology forecasting Technology Scouting References Further reading There are numerous journals that deal with research on foresight: Technological Forecasting and Social Change Futures Futures & Foresight Science European Journal of Futures Research Foresight Research focusing more on the combination of foresight and national R&D policy can be found in International Journal of Foresight and Innovation Policy External links The FORLEARN Online Guide developed by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies of the European Commission The Foresight Programme of UNIDO, the Investment and Technology Promotion Branch of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. Handbook of Knowledge Society Foresight published by the European Foundation, Dublin Foresight (futures studies) Transhumanism

Vision statement

A vision statement is a high-level, inspirational statement of an idealistic emotional future of a company or group. Vision describes the basic human emotion that a founder intends to be experienced by the people the organization interacts with. Vision statements may fill the following functions for a company: Serve as foundations for a broader strategic plan. Motivate existing employees and attract potential employees by clearly categorizing the company's goals and attracting like-minded individuals. Focus company efforts and facilitate the creation of core competencies by directing the company to only focus on strategic opportunities that advance the company's vision. Help companies differentiate from competitors. Characteristics A consensus does not exist on the characteristics of a "good" or "bad" vision statement. Commonly cited traits include: concise: able to be easily remembered and repeated clear: defines a prime goal time horizon: defines a time horizon future-oriented: describes where the company is going rather than the current state stable: offers a long-term perspective and is unlikely to be impacted by market or technology changes challenging: not something that can be easily met and discarded abstract: general enough to encompass all of the organization's interests and strategic direction inspiring: motivates employees and is something that employees view as desirable See also Strategic planning Mission statement Strategy Markup Language Citations References Business terms Statements Strategic management

Next Generation Science Standards

The Next Generation Science Standards is a multi-state effort in the United States to create new education standards that are "rich in content and practice, arranged in a coherent manner across disciplines and grades to provide all students an internationally benchmarked science education." The standards were developed by a consortium of 26 states and by the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Research Council, and Achieve, a nonprofit organization that was also involved in developing math and English standards. The public was also invited to review the standards, and organizations such as the California Science Teachers Association encouraged this feedback. The final draft of the standards was released in April 2013. Goal The purposes of the standards include; Creating science-literate citizens Creating common standards for teaching in the U.S. Making science and engineering relevant for and accessible to all students Developing greater interest in science among students so that more of them choose to major in science and technology in college. Overall, the guidelines are intended to; Help students deeply understand core scientific concepts, Develop proficiency in the scientific process of developing and testing ideas, Have a greater ability to evaluate scientific evidence. Curricula based on the standards may cover fewer topics, but will go more deeply into specific topics, possibly using a case-study method and emphasizing critical thinking and primary investigation. Possible approaches to implementing the standards may even include replacing traditionally isolated high school courses such as biology and chemistry with a case-study approach that uses a more holistic method of teaching science to consider both (or more) topics within a single classroom structure. Many education supply companies have already started offering NGSS-aligned products and resources to help teachers implement these new principles. Standards The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are based on the "Framework K–12 Science Education" that was created by the National Research Council. They have three dimensions that are integrated in instruction at all levels. The first dimension is the Disciplinary Core Ideas (the DCIs), which consists of content and concepts specific to four disciplines: Life Science, Earth and Space Science, Physical Science, and Engineering, Technology, and Applications of Science. The second dimension is the Science and Engineering Practices (the SEPs), which describe how scientists, engineers, and science students engage in their work of making sense of real-world phenomena and designing solutions to real-world problems. The specific elements of the science and engineering practices from the Framework are identified and described in Appendix F of the Next Generation Science Standards. These practices are asking questions and defining problems; developing and using models; planning and carrying out investigations; analyzing and interpreting data; using mathematics and computational thinking; constructing explanations and designing solutions; engaging in argument from evidence; and obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information. The third dimension is the Crosscutting Concepts, which are thinking tools and ideas that span disciplines and are used to bring disciplinary ideas together to explain a phenomenon or to design a solution to a problem. The NGSS give equal emphasis to engineering design and to scientific inquiry. In addition, they are aligned with the Common Core State Standards by grade and level of difficulty. The standards describe "performance expectations" for students in the areas of science and engineering. They define what students must be able to do in order to show competency. An important facet of the standards is that learning of content is integrated with doing the practices of scientists and engineers. This is a change from traditional teaching, which typically either dealt with these topics separately or did not attempt to teach practices. According to the NGSS, it is through the integration of content and practice "that science begins to make sense and allows students to apply the material." Adoption Over 40 states have shown interest in the standards, and as of March 2023, 20 states, along with the District of Columbia (D.C.), have adopted the standards: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. These represent over 36% of the students in U.S. Unlike the earlier roll-out of the Common Core (CC) mathematics and English language arts standards, states have no financial incentives from federal grants to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards. Previously, adoption of the CC standards was incentivized through states accepting federal grants during the 2009 TARP bailouts. Once states accepted the grant, they accepted the responsibility to adopt "college and career readiness" standards, which didn't have to be CC, but most states chose CC anyway. The 26 states involved in developing the NGSS, called Lead State Partners, were Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia. When the standards were released in April 2013, many states were expected to adopt them within 1–2 years. However, according to the New York Times, it will take several more years to actually develop curricula based on the new guidelines, to train teachers in implementing them, and to revise standardized tests. In addition, the pace of adoption is expected to be slower than was seen with the Common Core State Standards because, unlike Common Core, in which the states had financial incentives to adopt, there are no similar incentives for the NGSS. Many education supply companies have started offering NGSS-aligned products and resources to help teachers adopt NGSS. In 2018, Achieve partnered with Concentric Sky to offer digital badges for high-quality learning resources aligned to the NGSS. Reception News reports have suggested there will likely be resistance towards the Next Generations Science Standards from conservatives due to the inclusion of anthropogenic climate change and evolution. For example, the New Mexico Public Education Department initially attempted to make changes and deletions in the standards prior to adopting them. According to Skeptical Inquirer, the "proposed changes would have deleted key terms and concepts such as evolution and the 4.6-billion-year age of the Earth. Specifically, 'evolution' would be called 'biological diversity,' the specific age of the Earth would be changed to 'geologic history,' and a 'rise in global temperatures' would be changed to 'temperature fluctuations.'" Following significant protests by the New Mexico Academy of Science, New Mexicans for Science and Reason, the Coalition for Excellence in Science and Engineering as well as scientists, educators, and faith leaders, the department announced in October 2017 that it would adopt the standards in their entirety. See also Common Core State Standards Initiative References External links Next Generation Science Standards website Science education Education reform in the United States Education in the United States Science education in the United States Standards-based education

Abstraction (art)

Typically, abstraction is used in the arts as a synonym for abstract art in general. In the visual arts Strictly speaking, it refers to art unconcerned with the literal depiction of things from the visible world—it can, however, refer to an object or image which has been distilled from the real world, or indeed, another work of art. Artwork that reshapes the natural world for expressive purposes is called abstract; that which derives from, but does not imitate a recognizable subject is called nonobjective abstraction. In the 20th century the trend toward abstraction coincided with advances in science, technology, and changes in urban life, eventually reflecting an interest in psychoanalytic theory. Later still, abstraction was manifest in more purely formal terms, such as color, freedom from objective context, and a reduction of form to basic geometric designs and shapes. In music In music, the term abstraction can be used to describe improvisatory approaches to interpretation, and may sometimes indicate abandonment of tonality. Atonal music has no key signature, and is characterized by the exploration of internal numeric relationships. References Abstract art Abstraction

The Shock of the New

The Shock of the New is an eight-part documentary television series about the development of modern art written and presented in 1980 by Australian art critic Robert Hughes for the BBC, in association with Time-Life Films. Hughes also wrote a book to accompany the series. It was produced by Lorna Pegram, who also directed three of the episodes. In 2004 Hughes created a one-hour update to The Shock of the New titled The NEW Shock of the New. Series outline The series addressed the development of modern art since the Impressionists and was accompanied by a book of the same name. The series consisted of eight episodes each one hour long (58 min approx). It was re-broadcast on PBS in the United States. In the three case where PBS changed the titles, they are given in square brackets below. Quotations are spoken by Judi Dench and Martin Jarvis. Mechanical Paradise – how the development of technology influenced art between 1880 and end of World War I. Cubism and Futurism Cézanne, Picasso, Braque, Gris, Leger, Delaunay, Marinetti, Boccioni, Balla, Severini, Picabia, Duchamp The Powers That Be [Shapes of Dissent] – examining the relationship between modern art and authority. Dada, Constructivism, Futurism, architecture of power World War I and industrialised death, Exile and intellectuals as a class, Lenin, Tzara, Janco, Arp, Ball, Duchamp, Kirchner, Ernst, Höch, Dix, de Chirico, Hausmann, Grosz, Gabo, Tatlin, Moholy-Nagy, Lissitzky, Rodchenko, Marinetti, Prampolini, Speer, Piacentini, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Albany Mall, Picasso's Guernica, Tinguely The Landscape of Pleasure – examining art's relationship with the pleasures of nature, and visions of paradise 1870s to 1950s. Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism Fête champêtre, Titian, Giorgione, Jean-Antoine Watteau, Gainsborough, Bourgeoisie, Seurat, Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, the vivid colours of the South, Paul Gauguin, André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, Henri Matisse, Pierre Bonnard, Braque, Picasso, late Matisse Trouble in Utopia – examining the aspirations and reality of modern architecture. International Style, Art Nouveau, Futurist architecture, urban planning Johnson, Boullée, Garnier, Chiattone, Sant'Elia, Melnikov, Rodchenko, Leonidov, Sullivan, Labrouste, Berg, Mies, Le Corbusier, Chandigarh, Werkbund exhibition 1927, Bauhaus, Gropius, Behrens, De Stijl, Rietveld, van Duesberg, Mondrian, La Defense, Pruitt–Igoe, Costa, Niemeyer, Brasilia The Threshold of Liberty – examining the surrealists' attempts to make art without restrictions. May 1968, Breton, Ernst, de Chirico, Böcklin, Ducasse, child art, madness, Rousseau, Cheval, Miro, Gaudi, Dalí, flea market, Jean, Brauner, Paalen, Oppenheim, Man Ray, Margritte, de Sade, Catholicism and sexual taboo, Bellmer, Cornell, Pollock, Rothko, Gorky, Hofmann, 1945 liberation, Christo, Burden, hippies and self-expression, Vietnam War, cult of youth The View from the Edge [Sublime and Anxious Eye] – a look at those who made visual art from the crags and vistas of their internal world. Expressionism van Gogh, Munch, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, Kirchner, Kokoschka, Soutine, Bacon, de Kooning, photographical evidence of the Holocaust, Marc, Klee, Kandinsky, Brancusi, Rothko, Pollock, Motherwell Culture as Nature – examining the art that referred to the man-made world which fed off culture itself. Pop art and celebrity O'Keeffe, Davis, Rauschenberg, Schwitters, Johns, Hamilton, the influence of television, Warhol, Liechtenstein, Rosenquist, Katz, Las Vegas as a single "lousy" artwork, Oldenburg, McLuhan and quantity over quality The Future That Was [End of Modernity] – the commercialisation of modern art, the decline of modernism, and art without substance. Land art, performance art, and body art Heizer, MoMA and rich patrons, SoHo and urban renewal, Pompidou Centre and the changing uses of art, da Panicale, art as public discourse, the Salon system, the avantgarde and the bourgeoisie, Courbet, Andre, Judd, public and private, Segal, Kienholz, Frankenthaler, Louis, Noland, Stella, Riley, fashion, the art market, Brisley, Samaras, Rainer, Hockney, Beuys, de Maria Production The Shock of the New took three years to create, and Hughes travelled about during the filming to include particular places or people. The series also used archival footage of featured artists. The series was produced by Lorna Pegram, who also directed three of the episodes. Hughes remembers being directed by Pegram with her saying, "It's a clever argument, Bob dear, but what are we supposed to be looking at?". Broadcast The series was broadcast by the BBC in 1980 in the United Kingdom. It was re-broadcast on PBS in the United States. Book The book of the series was published in 1980 by the BBC under the title The Shock of the New: Art and the century of change. It was republished in 1991 by Thames and Hudson. The book was included by The Guardian in their list of the top 100 non-fiction books, and is still in print . Video releases The televised edition of The Shock of the New has been posted on the internet. and is published as a set of DVDs. 2004 update In 2004 Hughes created a one-hour update to The Shock of the New titled The NEW Shock of the New. Topics covered the Eiffel Tower, World Trade Center, 9/11, Turner, Goya, David, Picasso's Guernica as the last truly political painting, Whitney Biennial, Warhol, fashion as the primary model of art, Koons, Duchamp, Michelangelo, Masaccio, exploding prices of the art market, Rego, Kiefer, information overload, Hockney, the skill of drawing, art as the opposite of mass media, Freud, Gilbert and George, post-modernism, slowness of painting, Mondrian, Rothko, Kelly, Scully, beauty, and Eliasson. See also Civilisation The Ascent of Man References External links BBC television documentaries Documentary film series Modern art Documentary television series about art 1980 British television series debuts

Cultural humility

Cultural humility is the “ability to maintain an interpersonal stance that is other-oriented (or open to the other) in relation to aspects of cultural identity that are most important to the [person].” Cultural humility is different from other culturally-based training ideals because it focuses on self-humility rather than being an other-directed "they/them" way of achieving a state of knowledge or awareness. It is helpful to see as others see; what they themselves have determined is their personal expression of their heritage and their “personal culture”. Cultural humility was formed in the physical healthcare field and adapted for therapists, social workers, and medical librarians, to learn more about experiences and cultural identities of others and increase the quality of their interactions with clients and community members. Background To understand cultural humility, it is important to think about how culture is central in these interactions. The authors of the Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) standards explain the importance of culture in that “culture defines how health care information is received, how rights and protections are exercised, what is considered to be a health problem, how symptoms and concerns about the problem are expressed, who should provide treatment for the problem, and what type of treatment should be given. In sum, because health care is a cultural construct, arising from beliefs about the nature of disease and the human body, cultural issues are actually central in the delivery of health services treatment and preventative interventions.” Thus discovering and incorporating these differences help foster an environment that allows cultural humility to grow and take shape. History Cultural competence was an idea first promoted in the healthcare profession. Competence educational programs are aimed at preventing medical misdiagnoses and errors due to lack of cultural understanding. However, with the increasing diversity in the United States combined with an added cultural awareness, competence was not serving the needs of all medical professionals. Cultural humility is a term coined by Melanie Tervalon and Jann Murray-Garcia in 1998 to describe a way of incorporating multiculturalism into their work as healthcare professionals. Replacing the idea of cultural competency, cultural humility was based on the idea of focusing on self-reflection and lifelong learning. Tervalon and Murray-Garcia believed that health care professionals were not receiving appropriate education or training in terms of multiculturalism, and developed a new method of approaching the topic. Cultural humility in social work Recently, the social work profession has begun adopting cultural humility into frameworks for service delivery and practice. Most cultural humility rhetoric focuses on interpersonal, individual micro practice social work in terms of worker/client relationships and culturally appropriate intervention procedures. However, social work posits cultural humility as a strong self-reflection tool for the worker. Most importantly, it encourages social workers to realize their own power, privilege and prejudices, and be willing to accept that acquired education and credentials alone are insufficient to address social inequality. As such, this reflective practice, enables social workers to understand that the client is an expert in their own lives and that it is not the role of the worker to lean on their own understanding. In short, clients are the authority, not their service providers when it comes to lived experiences. Those who practice cultural humility view their clients as capable and work to understand their worldview and any oppression or discrimination that they may have experienced as well In terms of the workplace of a social worker, supervisors should try to help workers to: Normalize not knowing. Supervisors and managers should aim to instill in staff the understanding that it is not only okay to not know—it is a necessary condition for growth, central to the practice of cultural humility and good social work practice. Create a culture-based client self-assessment tool. Workers need to offer clients a mechanism by which they can be seen and heard—an instrument such as this affords that opportunity. While clients have the right to refuse to complete it, practitioners can nonetheless remain vigilant and true in the practice of cultural humility. In-service: A cultural self-identification workshop. Supervisors or program managers can lead an in-service style conversation where staff members self-report how they differ from the cultural stereotypes others may believe about them. Cultural humility is a tool that can be utilized by both macro (community organizing, social policy, evaluation, management) and micro (therapy, interpersonal) to better connect with individuals and communities as well as to gain more insight into personal biases and identities. Cultural humility can lead to both personal and professional growth of a social worker. The Code of Ethics from the National Association of Social Workers has no mention of cultural humility in its latest edition that was approved in 1996 and revised in 2008. Cultural humility in Occupational Therapy Occupational therapy is a client-centered health profession concerned with promoting health and wellbeing through occupation as defined by the World Federation of Occupational Therapists. The primary goal of occupational therapy is to enable people to participate in the activities of everyday life. Occupational therapists achieve this outcome by working with people and communities to enhance their ability to engage in the occupations they want to, need to, or are expected to do, or by modifying the occupation or the environment to better support their occupational engagement. Cultural humility is an approach that emphasizes humble and empathetic communication with clients, with reduced reliance on bias or implicit assumptions. Occupational therapy practitioners strive to treat all people impartially, reduce bias, create diverse communities in which members can flourish and function, address conditions that hinder or cause harm to others, and protect and defend the rights of individuals. In the United States, the profession of occupational therapy is grounded in seven Core Values that include Equality and Justice. The AOTA (2015) Code of Ethics states that practitioners should “advocate for changes to systems and policies that are discriminatory or unfairly limit or prevent access to occupational therapy services”.  Occupational therapy’s client-centered approaches distinctly focus on facilitating participation in meaningful occupations, and this outcome would not be possible without a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The profession of occupational therapy is resolute in its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion for its student bodies, workforce, and client populations and to advocacy for policies that lead to stronger, healthier, and more engaged communities. Occupational Therapy Practitioners promote Cultural Humility when working with clients by: Focusing on facilitating participation in meaningful occupations while providing collaborative help to their clients. Providing equitable care that maximizes the health potential and quality of life for their clients by increasing their own self-awareness and knowing their personal bias. Respecting the clients’ integrity beyond the practitioner's own prejudice. Enquiring about client’s lived experiences rather than practitioner's own assumptions when determining best practice methods. Building organizational support that demonstrates cultural humility as an important and ongoing aspect of the work itself Although the concept of cultural competence provides a useful starting place; cultural competence optimized health care experiences of clients with various backgrounds while emphasizing the practice of awareness, knowledge, and skills, it is time to develop a more radical and nuanced position to working in a multicultural society. Both cultural competence and cultural humility are focused on increasing awareness of one’s skills and behaviors while working in multicultural situations. However, important differences exist. Cultural humility provides a more critical and effective approach to working with clients with diverse perspectives. This shift in practice has the potential to increase the effectiveness of health professionals, reduce health disparities that fall along cultural lines, and increase the relevance of occupational therapy as it develops globally. See also Cross cultural sensitivity Social work Occupational Therapy References Health care quality Humility

Constructive alignment

Constructive alignment is a principle used for devising teaching and learning activities, and assessment tasks, that directly address the intended learning outcomes (ILOs) in a way not typically achieved in traditional lectures, tutorial classes and examinations. Constructive alignment was devised by Professor John B. Biggs, and represents a marriage between a constructivist understanding of the nature of learning, and an aligned design for outcomes-based teaching education. Constructive alignment is the underpinning concept behind the current requirements for programme specification, declarations of learning outcomes (LOs) and assessment criteria, and the use of criterion based assessment. There are two basic concepts behind constructive alignment: Learners construct meaning from what they do to learn. This concept derives from cognitive psychology and constructivist theory, and recognizes the importance of linking new material to concepts and experiences in the learner's memory, and extrapolation to possible future scenarios via the abstraction of basic principles through reflection. The teacher makes a deliberate alignment between the planned learning activities and the learning outcomes. This is a conscious effort to provide the learner with a clearly specified goal, a well designed learning activity or activities that are appropriate for the task, and well designed assessment criteria for giving feedback to the learner. A branch of educational evaluation theory has emerged that focuses on constructive alignment as a key element in effective educational design. Known as design-focused evaluation, this approach seeks student feedback on the efficacy of the designed alignment between the intended learning outcomes and the teaching and learning activities students engage in during a course of study. References Further reading Biggs, J and Tang, C. (2011): Teaching for Quality Learning at University, (McGraw-Hill and Open University Press, Maidenhead) Biggs, J (2003): Aligning Teaching and Assessment to Curriculum Objectives, (Imaginative Curriculum Project, LTSN Generic Centre) Brooks, J. and Brooks, M. (1993). In Search of Understanding: The Case for Constructivist Classrooms, ASCD) Cobb, P. (2002) Theories of knowledge and instructional design: a response to Colliver. Teaching and Learning in Medicine, 14 (1), 52-55 Smith, C. D. (2008). Design-Focused Evaluation. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 33(6), 631-645 See also Concept inventory Instructional scaffolding Constructivism (psychological school) Learning Educational psychology

Heritage interpretation

Heritage interpretation refers to all the ways in which information is communicated to visitors to an educational, natural or recreational site, such as a museum, park or science centre. More specifically it is the communication of information about, or the explanation of, the nature, origin, and purpose of historical, natural, or cultural resources, objects, sites and phenomena using personal or non-personal methods. Some international authorities in museology prefer the term mediation for the same concept, following usage in other European languages. Heritage interpretation may be performed at dedicated interpretation centres or at museums, historic sites, parks, art galleries, nature centres, zoos, aquaria, botanical gardens, nature reserves and a host of other heritage sites. Its modalities can be extremely varied and may include guided walks, talks, drama, staffed stations, displays, signs, labels, artwork, brochures, interactives, audio-guides and audio-visual media. The process of developing a structured approach to interpreting these stories, messages and information is called interpretive planning. The thematic approach to heritage interpretation advocated by University of Idaho professor Sam Ham, the National Association for Interpretation, the US National Park Service, and others, is considered best practice. Those who practice this form of interpretation may include rangers, guides, naturalists, actors (who may wear period dress and do reenactments), museum curators, natural and cultural interpretive specialists, interpretation officers, heritage communicators, docents, educators, visitor services staff, interpreters or a host of other titles. The interpretive process is often assisted by new technologies such as visualizing techniques. Purpose The goal of interpretation is to improve and enrich the visitor experience by helping site visitors understand the significance of the place they are visiting, and connecting those meanings to visitors' own personal lives. By weaving compelling, thematic stories about environmental phenomena and historical events, interpreters aim to provoke visitors to learn and think about their experiences. Effective interpretation enables the visitors to make associations between the information given and their previous perceptions. According to Moscardo interpretation can produce 'Mindful Visitors' who are carefully processing information and negotiating the meanings of the observed object or intangible element. Interpretation is often used by landowning government agencies and NGOs to promote environmental stewardship of the lands they manage. Definitions of heritage interpretation "Tilden's principles" of interpretation In his 1957 book, "Interpreting Our Heritage", Freeman Tilden defined six principles of interpretation: For the past 50 years, Tilden's principles have remained highly relevant to interpreters across the world. In 2002 Larry Beck and Ted Cable published "Interpretation for the 21st Century - Fifteen Guiding Principles for Interpreting Nature and Culture", which elaborated upon Tilden's original principles. In 2011, Beck and Cable released a new version of their principles in "The Gift of Interpretation". Interpretation organizations Association for Heritage Interpretation, UK (external link) Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums, USA (external link) Interpretation Latin América and the Caribbean (external link) Interpretation Australia (external link) Interpretation Canada (external link) Interpret Europe (external link) Interpret Scotland (external link) Interpretation Network New Zealand (external link ) ICOMOS Charter for the Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites, International (external link) ICOMOS International Committee on Interpretation and Presentation (external link) National Association for Interpretation, USA (external link) Swedish Centre for Heritage Interpretation (external link) See also Blue plaque First-person interpretation Interpretation centre Interpretive planning Living history Natural Heritage Education Thematic interpretation Visitor center References Beck, L.; Cable, T. (1998). Interpretation for the 21st Century: Fifteen guiding principles for interpreting nature and culture. Sagamore Publishing, Hadden, Robert Lee. "Reliving the Civil War: A reenactor's handbook". Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1999. Ham, S. (1992). Environmental Interpretation: A Practical Guide for People with Big Ideas and Small Budgets. Fulcrum Publishing, Ham, S. (2009). From Interpretation to protection—Is there a theoretical basis? Journal of Interpretation Research, 14(2), 49-57. Salazar, N. (2007). Towards a global culture of heritage interpretation? Evidence from Indonesia and Tanzania. Tourism Recreation Research, 32(3), 23–30. Salazar, N. (2012). Envisioning Eden: Mobilizing imaginaries in tourism and beyond. Oxford: Berghahn, . Silberman, N. (2006). "The ICOMOS Ename Charter Initiative: Rethinking the Role of Heritage Interpretation in the 21st Century." George Wright Forum Tilden, F. (1957). Interpreting our Heritage. University of North Carolina Press, North Carolina Online resources A Sense of Place - An interpretive planning handbook. James Carter Basic Interpretive Skills - A Course Manual. Thorsten Ludwig Definitions Project Distilling the Essence - New Zealand Department of Conservation Interpretation Handbook and Standard Heritage Destination Consulting Interpretive Resource Library Heritage Interpretation Centres. The hicira handbook* Museums Galleries Scotland Interpretation Guidance Scottish Natural Heritage Interpretation Guidance Tasmanian Thematic Interpretation Planning Manual The Interpret Scotland Journal - Back issues ShineNet.net, An on-line professional network for interpretation, environmental education, heritage education and non-formal education. Hermeneutics Cultural heritage Museology Communication Environmental interpretation Heritage interpretation

The Spirit of the Age

The Spirit of the Age (full title The Spirit of the Age: Or, Contemporary Portraits) is a collection of character sketches by the early 19th century English essayist, literary critic, and social commentator William Hazlitt, portraying 25 men, mostly British, whom he believed to represent significant trends in the thought, literature, and politics of his time. The subjects include thinkers, social reformers, politicians, poets, essayists, and novelists, many of whom Hazlitt was personally acquainted with or had encountered. Originally appearing in English periodicals, mostly The New Monthly Magazine in 1824, the essays were collected with several others written for the purpose and published in book form in 1825. The Spirit of the Age was one of Hazlitt's most successful books. It is frequently judged to be his masterpiece, even "the crowning ornament of Hazlitt's career, and ... one of the lasting glories of nineteenth-century criticism." Hazlitt was also a painter and an art critic, yet no artists number among the subjects of these essays. His artistic and critical sensibility, however, infused his prose style—Hazlitt was later judged to be one of the greatest of English prose stylists as well—enabling his appreciation of portrait painting to help him bring his subjects to life. His experience as a literary, political, and social critic contributed to Hazlitt's solid understanding of his subjects' achievements, and his judgements of his contemporaries were later often deemed to have held good after nearly two centuries. The Spirit of the Age, despite its essays' uneven quality, has been generally agreed to provide "a vivid panorama of the age". Yet, missing an introductory or concluding chapter, and with few explicit references to any themes, it was for long also judged as lacking in coherence and hastily thrown together. More recently, critics have found in it a unity of design, with the themes emerging gradually, by implication, in the course of the essays and even supported by their grouping and presentation. Hazlitt also incorporated into the essays a vivid, detailed and personal, "in the moment" kind of portraiture that amounted to a new literary form and significantly anticipated modern journalism. Background Preparation Hazlitt was well prepared to write The Spirit of the Age. Hackney College, where he studied for two years, was known for fostering radical ideas, immersing him in the spirit of the previous age, and a generation later helping him understand changes he had observed in British society. He was befriended in his early years by the poets Wordsworth and Coleridge, who at that time shared his radical thinking, and soon he entered the circle of reformist philosopher William Godwin. His brother John was also responsible for helping him connect with other like-minded souls, leading him to the centre of London intellectual culture, where he met others who, years later, along with Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Godwin, would be brought to life in this book, particularly Charles Lamb and, some time afterward, Leigh Hunt. Although Hazlitt had aimed at a career in philosophy, he was unable to make a living by it. His studies and extensive thinking about the problems of the day, however, provided a basis for judging contemporary thinkers. (He had already begun, before he was thirty, with an extensive critique of Malthus's theory of population.) After having practised for a while as an artist (a major part of his background that entered into the making of this book not in the selection of its content but as it helped inform his critical sensibility and his writing style), he found work as a political reporter, which exposed him to the major politicians and issues of the day. Hazlitt followed this by many years as a literary, art, and theatre critic, at which he enjoyed some success. He was subsequently beset by numerous personal problems, including a failed marriage, illness, insolvency, a disastrous love entanglement that led to a mental breakdown, and scurrilous attacks by political conservatives, many of them fuelled by his indiscreet publication of Liber Amoris, a thinly disguised autobiographical account of his love affair. English society was becoming increasingly prudish, the ensuing scandal effectively destroyed his reputation, and he found it harder than ever to earn a living. He married a second time. Consequently, more than ever in need of money, he was forced to churn out article after article for the periodical press. "The Spirits of the Age" Hazlitt had always been adept at writing character sketches. His first was incorporated into Free Thoughts on Public Affairs, written in 1806, when he was scarcely 28 years old. Pleased with this effort, he reprinted it three times as "Character of the Late Mr. Pitt", in The Eloquence of the British Senate (1807), in The Round Table (1817), and finally in Political Essays (1819). Another favourite of his own was "Character of Mr. Cobbett", which first appeared in Table-Talk in 1821 and was later incorporated into The Spirit of the Age. Following this proclivity, toward the end of 1823 Hazlitt developed the idea of writing "a series of 'characters' of men who were typical of the age". The first of these articles appeared in the January 1824 issue of The New Monthly Magazine, under the series title "The Spirits of the Age". Publication Four more articles appeared in the series, and then Hazlitt prepared numerous others with the goal of collecting them into a book. After he had left England for a tour of the continent with his wife, that book, bearing the title The Spirit of the Age: Or Contemporary Portraits, was published in London on 11 January 1825, by Henry Colburn, and printed by S. and R. Bentley. In Paris, Hazlitt arranged to have an edition, with a somewhat different selection and ordering of articles, published there by A. & W. Galignani. Unlike either English edition, this one bore his name on the title page. Finally, later in the same year, Colburn brought out the second English edition, with contents slightly augmented, revised, and rearranged but in many respects similar to the first edition. No further editions would appear in Hazlitt's lifetime. Editions Four of the essays that made it into the first edition of The Spirit of the Age, plus part of another, had appeared, without authorial attribution, in the series "The Spirits of the Age", in the following order: "Jeremy Bentham", "Rev. Mr. Irving", "The Late Mr. Horne Tooke", "Sir Walter Scott", and "Lord Eldon", in The New Monthly Magazine for 1824 in the January, February, March, April, and July issues, respectively. In the book first published in January 1825, these essays, with much additional material, appeared as follows: "Jeremy Bentham", "William Godwin", "Mr. Coleridge", "Rev. Mr. Irving", "The Late Mr. Horne Tooke", "Sir Walter Scott", "Lord Byron", "Mr. Campbell—Mr. Crabbe", "Sir James Mackintosh", "Mr. Wordsworth", "Mr. Malthus", "Mr. Gifford", "Mr. Jeffrey", "Mr. Brougham—Sir F. Burdett", "Lord Eldon—Mr. Wilberforce", "Mr. Southey", "Mr. T. Moore—Mr. Leigh Hunt", and "Elia—Geoffrey Crayon". An untitled section characterising James Sheridan Knowles concludes the book. A portion of "Mr. Campbell—Mr. Crabbe" was adapted from an essay Hazlitt contributed (on Crabbe alone) to the series "Living Authors" in The London Magazine, "No. V" in the May 1821 issue. Despite the closeness in the ordering of the contents of the first and second English editions, there are numerous differences between them, and even more between them and the Paris edition that appeared in between. The Paris edition, the only one to credit Hazlitt as the author, omitted some material and added some. The essays (in order) were as follows: "Lord Byron", "Sir Walter Scott", "Mr. Coleridge", "Mr. Southey", "Mr. Wordsworth", "Mr. Campbell and Mr. Crabbe" (the portion on Campbell was here claimed by Hazlitt to be "by a friend", though he wrote it himself), "Jeremy Bentham", "William Godwin", "Rev. Mr. Irving", "The Late Mr. Horne Tooke", "Sir James Mackintosh", "Mr. Malthus", "Mr. Gifford", "Mr. Jeffrey", "Mr. Brougham—Sir F. Burdett", "Lord Eldon and Mr. Wilberforce", "Mr. Canning" (brought in from the 11 July 1824 issue of The Examiner, where it bore the title "Character of Mr. Canning", this essay appeared only in the Paris edition), "Mr. Cobbett" (which had first appeared in Hazlitt's book Table-Talk in 1821), and "Elia". This time the book concludes with two untitled sections, the first on "Mr. Leigh Hunt" (as shown in the page header), the second again on Knowles, with the page header reading "Mr. Knowles". Finally, later in 1825, the second English edition was brought out (again, anonymously). There, the essays were "Jeremy Bentham", "William Godwin", "Mr. Coleridge", "Rev. Mr. Irving", "The Late Mr. Horne Tooke", "Sir Walter Scott", "Lord Byron", "Mr. Southey", "Mr. Wordsworth", "Sir James Mackintosh", "Mr. Malthus", "Mr. Gifford", "Mr. Jeffrey", "Mr. Brougham—Sir F. Burdett", "Lord Eldon—Mr. Wilberforce", "Mr. Cobbett", "Mr. Campbell and Mr. Crabbe", "Mr. T. Moore—Mr. Leigh Hunt", and "Elia, and Geoffrey Crayon". Again, an account of Knowles completes the book. Essays The order of the following accounts of the essays in the book follows that of the second English edition. (The essay on George Canning, however, appeared only in the Paris edition.) Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) was an English philosopher, jurist, and social and legislative reformer. He was a major proponent of Utilitarianism, based on the idea of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number", which he was the first to systematise, introducing it as the "principle of utility". Hazlitt's link with Bentham was unusual, as Bentham was his landlord and lived close by. Bentham would sometimes take his exercise in his garden, which was visible from Hazlitt's window. The two were not personally acquainted, yet what Hazlitt observed enabled him to interweave personal observations into his account of the older man. Bentham was a representative of the reformist element of the time. Yet, also symptomatic of "the spirit of the age"—and the note Hazlitt strikes on the opening of his sketch—was the fact that Bentham had only a small following in England, yet enjoyed respectful celebrity in nations half a world away. "The people of Westminster, where he lives, hardly dream of such a person ...." "His name is little known in England, better in Europe, best of all in the plains of Chili and the mines of Mexico." Hazlitt notes Bentham's persistent unity of purpose, "intent only on his grand scheme of Utility .... [r]egarding the people about him no more than the flies of a summer. He meditates the coming age .... he is a beneficent spirit, prying into the universe ...." But Hazlitt soon qualifies his admiring tone. First, he cautions against mistaking Bentham for the originator of the theory of utility; rather, "his merit is, that he has brought all the objections and arguments, more distinctly labelled and ticketed, under this one head, and made a more constant and explicit reference to it at every step of his progress, than any other writer." As Bentham's thinking gained complexity, his style, unfortunately, deteriorated. "It is a barbarous philosophical jargon" even though it "has a great deal of acuteness and meaning in it, which you would be glad to pick out if you could. ... His works have been translated into French", quips Hazlitt. "They ought to be translated into English." Bentham's refined and elaborated logic fails, in Hazlitt's assessment, to take into account the complexities of human nature. In his attempt to reform mankind by reasoning, "he has not allowed for the wind ". Man is far from entirely "a logical animal", Hazlitt argues. Bentham bases his efforts to reform criminals on the fact that "'all men act from calculation'". Yet, Hazlitt observes, "it is of the very essence of crime to disregard consequences both to ourselves and others." Hazlitt proceeds to contrast in greater detail the realities of human nature with Bentham's benevolent attempts to manipulate it. Bentham would observe and attempt to alter the behaviour of a criminal by placing him in a "Panopticon, that is, a sort of circular prison, with open cells, like a glass bee-hive." When the offender is freed from its restraints, however, Hazlitt questions whether it is at all likely he will maintain the altered behaviour that had seemed so amenable to change. "Will the convert to the great principle of Utility work when he was from under Mr. Bentham's eye, because he was forced to work when under it? ... Will he not steal, now that his hands are untied? ... The charm of criminal life ... consists in liberty, in hardship, in danger, and in the contempt of death, in one word, in extraordinary excitement". Further, there is a flaw in Bentham's endlessly elaborating on his single idea of utility. His "method of reasoning" is "comprehensive ..." but it "includes every thing alike. It is rather like an inventory, than a valuation of different arguments." Effective argument needs more colouring. "By aiming at too much ... it loses its elasticity and vigour". Hazlitt also objects to Bentham's considering "every pleasure" as "equally a good". This is not so, "for all pleasure does not equally bear reflecting on." Even if we take Bentham's reasoning as presenting "the whole truth", human nature is incapable of acting solely upon such grounds, "needing helps and stages in its progress" to "bring it into a tolerable harmony with the universe." In the manner of later journalists Hazlitt weaves into his criticism of the philosopher's ideas an account of Bentham the man. True to his principles, "Mr. Bentham, in private life, is an amiable and exemplary character", of regular habits, and with childlike characteristics, despite his advanced age. In appearance, he is like a cross between Charles Fox and Benjamin Franklin, "a singular mixture of boyish simplicity and the venerableness of age." He has no taste for poetry, but relaxes by playing the organ. "He turns wooden utensils in a lathe for exercise, and fancies he can turn men in the same manner." A century and a half later, critic Roy Park acclaimed "Hazlitt's criticism of Bentham and Utilitarianism" here and in other essays as constituting "the first sustained critique of dogmatic Utilitarianism." William Godwin William Godwin (1756–1836) was an English philosopher, social reformer, novelist, and miscellaneous writer. After the French Revolution had given fresh urgency to the question of the rights of man, in 1793, in response to other books written in reaction to the upheaval, and building on ideas developed by 18th-century European philosophers, Godwin published An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice. There he espoused (in the words of historian Crane Brinton) "the natural goodness of man, the corruptness of governments and laws, and the consequent right of the individual to obey his inner voice against all external dictates." Godwin immediately became an inspiration to Hazlitt's generation. Hazlitt had known Godwin earlier, their families having been friends since before Hazlitt's birth; as he also often visited the elder man in London in later years, he was able to gather impressions over many decades. While so many of his contemporaries soon abandoned Godwin's philosophy, Hazlitt never did so completely; yet he had never quite been a disciple either. Eventually, although he retained respect for the man, he developed a critical distance from Godwinian philosophy. By the time Hazlitt wrote this sketch some thirty years after Godwin's glory years, the political climate had changed drastically, owing in large part to the British government's attempts to repress all thinking they deemed dangerous to the public peace. Consequently, Godwin, though he had never been an advocate of reform by violent means, had disappeared almost completely from the public eye. Hazlitt, at the start of his essay, focuses on this drastic change. At the turn of the 19th century, notes Hazlitt, Godwin had been hailed as the philosopher who expounded "liberty, truth, justice". His masterwork, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, "gave ... a blow to the philosophical mind of the country". To those with a penchant for thinking about the human condition, Godwin was "the very God of our idolatry" who "carried with him all the most sanguine and fearless understandings of the time" and engaged the energy of a horde of "young men of talent, of education, and of principle." These included some of Hazlitt's most famous former friends, the poets Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey. Twenty-five years later, Hazlitt looks back in astonishment that, in the interval, Godwin's reputation "has sunk below the horizon, and enjoys the serene twilight of a doubtful immortality." "The Spirit of the Age", he declares in the opening sentence, "was never more fully shown than in its treatment of this writer—its love of paradox and change, its dastard submission to prejudice and to the fashion of the day." Yet there are problems with Godwin's philosophy, Hazlitt concedes. "The author of the Political Justice took abstract reason for the rule of conduct, and abstract good for its end. He absolves man from the gross and narrow ties of sense, custom, authority, private and local attachment, in order that he may devote himself to the boundless pursuit of universal benevolence." In its rules for determining the recipients of this benevolence, Godwin's philosophy goes further than Christianity in completely removing from consideration personal ties or anything but "the abstract merits, the pure and unbiassed justice of the case." In practice, human nature can rarely live up to this exalted standard. "Every man ... was to be a Regulus, a Codrus, a Cato, or a Brutus—every woman a Mother of the Gracchi. ... But heroes on paper might degenerate into vagabonds in practice, Corinnas into courtezans." Hazlitt proceeds with several examples: ... a refined and permanent individual attachment is intended to supply the place and avoid the inconveniences of marriage; but vows of eternal constancy, without church security, are found to be fragile. ... The political as well as the religious fanatic appeals from the overweening opinion and claims of others to the highest and most impartial tribunal, namely, his own breast. ... A modest assurance was not the least indispensable virtue in the new perfectibility code; and it was hence discovered to be a scheme, like other schemes where there are all prizes and no blanks, for the accommodation of the enterprizing and cunning, at the expense of the credulous and honest. This broke up the system, and left no good odour behind it! Yet the social failure of this attempt to guide our conduct by pure reason alone is no ground for discrediting reason itself. On the contrary, Hazlitt argues passionately, reason is the glue that binds civilisation together. And if reason can no longer be considered as "the sole and self-sufficient ground of morals", we must thank Godwin for having shown us why, by having "taken this principle, and followed it into its remotest consequences with more keenness of eye and steadiness of hand than any other expounder of ethics." By doing so, he has revealed "the weak sides and imperfections of human reason as the sole law of human action." Hazlitt moves on to Godwin's accomplishments as a novelist. For over a century, many critics took the best of his novels, Caleb Williams, as a kind of propaganda novel, written to impress the ideas of Political Justice on the minds of the multitude who could not grasp its philosophy; this was what Godwin himself had claimed in the book's preface. But Hazlitt was impressed by its strong literary qualities, and, to a lesser extent, those of St. Leon, exclaiming: "It is not merely that these novels are very well for a philosopher to have produced—they are admirable and complete in themselves, and would not lead you to suppose that the author, who is so entirely at home in human character and dramatic situation, had ever dabbled in logic or metaphysics." Next Hazlitt compares Godwin's literary method to Sir Walter Scott's in the "Waverley Novels". Hazlitt devoted considerable thought to Scott's novels over several years, somewhat modifying his views about them; this is one of two discussions of them in this book, the other being in the essay on Scott. Here, it is Godwin's method that is seen as superior. Rather than, like Scott, creating novels out of "worm-eaten manuscripts ... forgotten chronicles, [or] fragments and snatches of old ballads", Godwin "fills up his subject with the ardent workings of his own mind, with the teeming and audible pulses of his own heart." On the other hand, the flaw in relying so intensively on one's own imagination is that one runs out of ideas. "He who draws upon his own resources, easily comes to an end of his wealth." Hazlitt then comments on Godwin's other writings and the nature of his genius. His productions are not spontaneous but rather rely on long, laboured thought. This quality also limits Godwin's powers of conversation, so he fails to appear the man of genius he is. "In common company, Mr. Godwin either goes to sleep himself, or sets others to sleep." But Hazlitt closes his essay with personal recollections of the man (and, as with Bentham, a description of his appearance) that set him in a more positive light: "you perceive by your host's talk, as by the taste of seasoned wine, that he has a cellarage in his understanding." The scholar, critic, and intellectual historian Basil Willey, writing a century later, thought that Hazlitt's "essay on Godwin in The Spirit of the Age is still the fairest and most discerning summary I know of". Mr. Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) was a poet, philosopher, literary critic, and theologian who was a major force behind the Romantic movement in England. No single person had meant more to Hazlitt's development as a writer than Coleridge, who changed the course of Hazlitt's life on their meeting in 1798. Afterwards at odds over politics, they became estranged, but Hazlitt continued to follow the intellectual development of one who answered more closely to his idea of a man of genius than anyone he had ever met, as he continued to chastise Coleridge and other former friends for their abandonment of the radical ideals they had once shared. Unlike the accounts of Bentham and Godwin, Hazlitt's treatment of Coleridge in The Spirit of the Age presents no sketch of the man pursuing his daily life and habits. There is little about his appearance; the focus is primarily on the development of Coleridge's mind. Coleridge is a man of undoubted "genius", whose mind is "in the first class of general intellect". His problem is that he has been too bewitched by the mass of learning and literature from antiquity to the present time to focus on creating any truly lasting literary or philosophical work of his own, with the exception of a few striking poems early in his career. In an extensive account later acclaimed as brilliant, even "a rhetorical summit of English prose", Hazlitt surveys the astonishing range and development of Coleridge's studies and literary productions, from the poetry he wrote as a youth, to his deep and extensive knowledge of Greek dramatists, "epic poets ... philosophers ... [and] orators". He notes Coleridge's profound and exhaustive exploration of more recent philosophy—including that of Hartley, Priestley, Berkeley, Leibniz, and Malebranche—and theologians such as Bishop Butler, John Huss, Socinus, Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas, Jeremy Taylor, and Swedenborg. He records Coleridge's fascination also with the poetry of Milton and Cowper, and the "wits of Charles the Second's days". Coleridge, he goes on, also "dallied with the British Essayists and Novelists, ... and Johnson, and Goldsmith, and Junius, and Burke, and Godwin ... and ... Rousseau, and Voltaire". And then, observes Hazlitt, Coleridge "lost himself in ... the Kantean philosophy, and ... Fichte and Schelling and Lessing". Having followed in its breadth and depth Coleridge's entire intellectual career, Hazlitt now pauses to ask, "What is become of all this mighty heap of hope, of thought, of learning, and humanity? It has ended in swallowing doses of oblivion and in writing paragraphs in the Courier.—Such, and so little is the mind of man!" Hazlitt treats Coleridge's failings more leniently here than he had in earlier accounts (as he does others of that circle who had with him earlier "hailed the rising orb of liberty"). It is to be understood, he explains, that any man of intellect born in that age, with its awareness of so much that had already been accomplished, might feel incapable of adding anything to the general store of knowledge or art. Hazlitt characterises the age itself as one of "talkers, and not of doers. ... The accumulation of knowledge has been so great, that we are lost in wonder at the height it has reached, instead of attempting to climb or add to it; while the variety of objects distracts and dazzles the looker-on." And "Mr. Coleridge [is] the most impressive talker of his age ...". As for Coleridge's having gone over "to the unclean side" in politics, however regrettable, it may be understood by looking at the power then held by government-sponsored critics of any who seemed to threaten the established order. "The flame of liberty, the light of intellect was to be extinguished with the sword—or with slander, whose edge is sharper than the sword." Though Coleridge did not go as far as some of his colleagues in accepting a government office in exchange for withholding criticism of the current order, neither did he, in Hazlitt's account, align himself with such philosophers as Godwin, who, overtly steadfast in their principles, could be more resistant to "discomfiture, persecution, and disgrace." Following his typical method of explaining by antitheses, Hazlitt contrasts Coleridge and Godwin. The latter, having far less general capacity, nevertheless was capable of fully utilising his talents by focusing intently on work he was capable of; while the former, "by dissipating his [mind], and dallying with every subject by turns, has done little or nothing to justify to the world or to posterity, the high opinion which all who have ever heard him converse, or known him intimately, with one accord entertain of him." Critic David Bromwich finds in what Hazlitt does portray of Coleridge the man—metaphorically depicting the state of his mind—as rich with allusions to earlier poets and "echoes" of Coleridge's own poetry: Mr. Coleridge has a "mind reflecting ages past": his voice is like the echo of the congregated roar of the 'dark rearward and abyss' of thought. He who has seen a mouldering tower by the side of a chrystal lake, hid by the mist, but glittering in the wave below, may conceive the dim, gleaming, uncertain intelligence of his eye; he who has marked the evening clouds uprolled (a world of vapours), has seen the picture of his mind, unearthly, unsubstantial, with gorgeous tints and ever-varying forms ... Rev. Mr. Irving The Reverend Edward Irving (1792–1834) was a Scottish Presbyterian minister who, beginning in 1822, created a sensation in London with his fiery sermons denouncing the manners, practices, and beliefs of the time. His sermons at the Caledonian Asylum Chapel were attended by crowds that included the rich, the powerful, and the fashionable. Hazlitt was present on at least one occasion, 22 June 1823, as a reporter for The Liberal. Curious visitors to the chapel, along with some uneasy regular members of the congregation, would have been faced with a man of "uncommon height, a graceful figure and action, a clear and powerful voice, a striking, if not a fine face, a bold and fiery spirit, and a most portentous obliquity of vision" with, despite this slight defect, "elegance" of "the most admirable symmetry of form and ease of gesture", as well as "sable locks", a "clear iron-grey complexion, and firm-set features". Moreover, with the sheer novelty of a combination of the traits of an actor, a preacher, an author—even a pugilist—Irving keeps the public in awe by insulting all their favourite idols. He does not spare their politicians, their rulers, their moralists, their poets, their players, their critics, their reviewers, their magazine-writers .... He makes war upon all arts and sciences, upon the faculties and nature of man, on his vices and virtues, on all existing institutions, and all possible improvement ... Irving, with his reactionary stance, has "opposed the spirit of the age". Among those subjected to Irving's brutal verbal onslaughts were "Jeremy Bentham ... [with Irving looking] over the heads of his congregation to have a hit at the Great Jurisconsult in his study", as well as "Mr. Brougham ... Mr. Canning ... Mr. Coleridge ... and ... Lord Liverpool" (Prime Minister at the time). Of these notable figures, only Lord Liverpool did not rate his own chapter in The Spirit of the Age. But Irving's popularity, which Hazlitt suspected would not last, was a sign of another tendency of the age: "Few circumstances show the prevailing and preposterous rage for novelty in a more striking point of view, than the success of Mr. Irving's oratory." Part of Irving's appeal was due to the increased influence of evangelical Christianity, notes historian Ben Wilson; the phenomenon of an Edward Irving preaching to the great and famous would have been inconceivable thirty years earlier. But the novelty of such a hitherto unseen combination of talents, Wilson concurs with Hazlitt, played no small part in Irving's popularity. And the inescapable fact of Irving's dominating physical presence, Wilson also agrees, had its effect. "William Hazlitt believed that no one would have gone to hear Irving had he been five feet high, ugly and soft-spoken." As a case in point, Hazlitt brings in Irving's own mentor, the Scottish theologian, scientist, philosopher, and minister Dr. Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847), whom Hazlitt had heard preach in Glasgow. Comparing the published writings of both men, Chalmers was, thought Hazlitt, much more interesting as a thinker. Although he ultimately dismisses Chalmers' arguments as "sophistry", Hazlitt admires the elder clergyman's "scope of intellect" and "intensity of purpose". His Astronomical Discourses were engaging enough that Hazlitt had eagerly read through the entire volume at a sitting. His claim to our attention must rest on his writings; his unprepossessing appearance and ungainly manner in themselves, maintains Hazlitt, drew no audience. Chalmers' follower Irving, on the other hand, gets by on the strength of his towering physique and the novelty of his performances; judging him as a writer (his For the Oracles of God, Four Orations had just gone into a third edition), Hazlitt finds that "the ground work of his compositions is trashy and hackneyed, though set off by extravagant metaphors and an affected phraseology ... without the turn of his head and wave of his hand, his periods have nothing in them ... he himself is the only idea with which he has yet enriched the public mind!" John Kinnaird suggests that in this essay, Hazlitt, with his "penetration" and "characteristically ruthless regard for truth", in his reference to Irving's "portentous obliquity of vision" insinuates that "one eye of Irving's imagination ... looks up to a wrathful God cast in his own image, 'endowed with all his own ... irritable humours in an infinitely exaggerated degree' [while] the other is always squinting askew at the prestigious image of Edward Irving reflected in the gaze of his fashionable audience—and especially in the rapt admiration of the 'female part of his congregation'". Kinnaird also notes that Hazlitt's criticism of Irving anticipated the judgement of Irving's friend, the essayist, historian, and social critic Thomas Carlyle, in his account of Irving's untimely death a few years later. The Late Mr. Horne Tooke John Horne Tooke (1736–1812) was an English reformer, grammarian, clergyman, and politician. He became especially known for his support of radical causes and involvement in debates about political reform, and was briefly a Member of the British Parliament. He was also known for his ideas about English grammar, published in , or The Diversions of Purley (1786, 1805). By the time he was profiled as the third of "The Spirits of the Age" in Hazlitt's original series, Tooke had been dead for a dozen years. He was significant to Hazlitt as a "connecting link" between the previous age and the present. Hazlitt had known Tooke personally, having attended gatherings at his home next to Wimbledon Common until about 1808. "Mr. Horne Tooke", writes Hazlitt, "was in private company, and among his friends, the finished gentleman of the last age. His manners were as fascinating as his conversation was spirited and delightful." Yet "his mind, and the tone of his feelings were modern." He delighted in raillery, and prided himself on his cool, even temper. "He was a man of the world, a scholar bred, and a most acute and powerful logician ... his intellect was like a bow of polished steel, from which he shot sharp-pointed poisoned arrows at his friends in private, at his enemies in public." Yet his thinking was one-sided: "he had no imagination ... no delicacy of taste, no rooted prejudices or strong attachments". Tooke's greatest delight, as seen by Hazlitt, was in contradiction, in startling others with radical ideas that at the time were considered shocking: "It was curious to hear our modern sciolist advancing opinions of the most radical kind without any mixture of radical heat or violence, in a tone of fashionable nonchalance, with elegance of gesture and attitude, and with the most perfect good-humour." His mastery of the art of verbal fencing was such that many eagerly sought invitation to his private gatherings, where they could "admire" his skills "or break a lance with him." With a rapier wit, Tooke excelled in situations where "a ready repartee, a shrewd cross-question, ridicule and banter, a caustic remark or an amusing anecdote, whatever set [himself] off to advantage, or gratifie[d] the curiosity or piqued the self-love of the hearers, [could] keep ... attention alive and secure[d] his triumph ...." As a "satirist" and "a sophist" he could provoke "admiration by expressing his contempt for each of his adversaries in turn, and by setting their opinion at defiance." Tooke was in Hazlitt's view much less successful in public life. In private, he could be seen at his best and afford amusement by "say[ing] the most provoking things with a laughing gaiety". In public, as when he briefly served as a member of parliament, this attitude would not do. He did not really seem to believe in any great "public cause" or "show ... sympathy with the general and predominant feelings of mankind." Hazlitt explains that "it was his delight to make mischief and spoil sport. He would rather be against himself than for any body else." Hazlitt also notes that there was more to Tooke's popular gatherings than verbal repartee. Having been involved in politics over a long life, Tooke could captivate his audience with his anecdotes, especially in his later years: He knew all the cabals and jealousies and heart-burnings in the beginning of the late reign [of King George III], the changes of administration and the springs of secret influence, the characters of the leading men, Wilkes, Barrè, Dunning, Chatham, Burke, the Marquis of Rockingham, North, Shelburne, Fox, Pitt, and all the vacillating events of the American war:—these formed a curious back-ground to the more prominent figures that occupied the present time ... Hazlitt felt that Tooke would be longest remembered, however, for his ideas about English grammar. By far the most popular English grammar of the early 19th century was that of Lindley Murray, and, in his typical method of criticism by antitheses, Hazlitt points out what he considers to be its glaring deficiencies compared to that of Tooke: "Mr. Lindley Murray's Grammar ... confounds the genius of the English language, making it periphrastic and literal, instead of elliptical and idiomatic." Murray, as well as other, earlier grammarians, often provided "endless details and subdivisions"; Tooke, in his work commonly known by its alternate title of The Diversions of Purley, "clears away the rubbish of school-boy technicalities, and strikes at the root of his subject." Tooke's mind was particularly suited for his task, as it was "hard, unbending, concrete, physical, half-savage ..." and he could see "language stripped of the clothing of habit or sentiment, or the disguises of doting pedantry, naked in its cradle, and in its primitive state." That Murray's book should have been the grammar to have "proceeded to [its] thirtieth edition" and find a place in all the schools instead of "Horne Tooke's genuine anatomy of the English tongue" makes it seem, exclaims Hazlitt, "as if there was a patent for absurdity in the natural bias of the human mind, and that folly should be stereotyped!". A century and a half later, critic John Kinnaird saw this essay on Horne Tooke as being essential to Hazlitt's implicit development of his idea of the "spirit of the age". Not only did Tooke's thinking partake of the excessive "abstraction" that was becoming so dominant, it constituted opposition for the sake of opposition, thereby becoming an impediment to any real human progress. It was this sort of contrariness, fuelled by "self-love", that, according to Kinnaird, is manifested in many of the later subjects of the essays in The Spirit of the Age. Hazlitt's criticism of Tooke's grammatical work has also been singled out. Critic Tom Paulin notes the way Hazlitt's subtle choice of language hints at the broader, politically radical implications of Tooke's linguistic achievement. Paulin observes also that Hazlitt, himself the author of an English grammar influenced by Tooke, recognised the importance of Tooke's grammatical ideas in a way that presaged and accorded with the radical grammatical work of William Cobbett, whom Hazlitt sketched in a later essay in The Spirit of the Age. Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832), a Scottish lawyer and man of letters, was the most popular poet and, beginning in 1814, writing novels anonymously as "The Author of Waverley ", the most popular author in the English language. Hazlitt was an admirer as well as a reviewer of Scott's fiction, yet he never met the man, despite ample opportunities to do so. In Hazlitt's view, the essence of Scott's mind lay in its "brooding over antiquity." The past provided nearly all his subject matter; he showed little interest in depicting modern life. This was true of his poetry as much as his prose. But, in Hazlitt's view, as a poet, his success was limited, even as a chronicler of the past. His poetry, concedes Hazlitt, has "great merit", abounding "in vivid descriptions, in spirited action, in smooth and glowing versification." Yet it is wanting in "character ". Though composed of "quaint, uncouth, rugged materials", it is varnished over with a "smooth, glossy texture ... It is light, agreeable, effeminate, diffuse." Hazlitt declares, "We would rather have written one song of Burns, or a single passage in Lord Byron's Heaven and Earth, or one of Wordsworth's 'fancies and good-nights,' than all of [Scott's] epics." The matter is altogether different with Scott the novelist. The poems were read because they were fashionable. But the popularity of the novels was such that fanatically devoted readers fiercely debated the respective merits of their favourite characters and scenes. Hazlitt, whose reviews had been highly favourable and appreciated these books as much as anyone, here elaborates on his own favourites, after first discussing a qualifying issue. The greatest literary artists, Hazlitt had pointed out in the essay on Godwin, give shape to their creations by infusing them with imagination. As creator of such works as Old Mortality, The Heart of Midlothian, and Ivanhoe, Scott, adhering closely to his sources, restricts his imaginative investment in the story, hemming himself in by the historical facts. Even so, he manages to bring the past to life. He is the "amanuensis of truth and history" by means of a rich array of characters and situations. Hazlitt recalls these characters in a rhapsodic passage, described by critic John Kinnaird as "a stunning pageant, two pages in length, of more than forty Scott characters, which he summons individually from his memory, citing for each some quality or act or association which makes them unforgettable." From Waverley, the first of these books, published in 1814, he recalls "the Baron of Bradwardine, stately, kind-hearted, whimsical, pedantic; and Flora MacIvor". Next, in Old Mortality, there are that lone figure, like a figure in Scripture, of the woman sitting on the stone at the turning to the mountain, to warn Burley [of Balfour] that there is a lion in his path; and the fawning Claverhouse, beautiful as a panther, smooth-looking, blood-spotted; and the fanatics, Macbriar and Mucklewrath, crazed with zeal and sufferings; and the inflexible Morton, and the faithful Edith, who refused "to give her hand to another while her heart was with her lover in the deep and dead sea." And in The Heart of Midlothian we have Effie Deans (that sweet, faded flower) and Jeanie, her more than sister, and old David Deans, the patriarch of St. Leonard's Crags, and Butler, and Dumbiedikes, eloquent in his silence, and Mr. Bartoline Saddle-tree and his prudent helpmate, and Porteous, swinging in the wind, and Madge Wildfire, full of finery and madness, and her ghastly mother. He continues enthusiastically through dozens of others, exclaiming, "What a list of names! What a host of associations! What a thing is human life! What a power is that of genius! ... His works (taken together) are almost like a new edition of human nature. This is indeed to be an author!" Writing a century and a half later, critic John Kinnaird observes that Hazlitt was "Scott's greatest contemporary critic" and wrote the first important criticism of the novel, particularly in the form it was then beginning to assume. Hazlitt's thinking on the new historical fiction of Scott was in the process of evolving. Earlier, even to an extent in this essay, he had downplayed the novels as being little more than a transcription from old chronicles. But Hazlitt had begun to recognise the degree of imagination Scott had to apply in order to bring dry facts to life. Hazlitt also recognised that, at his best, Scott conveyed his characters' traits and beliefs impartially, setting aside his own political bias. Having faithfully and disinterestedly described "nature" in all its detail was in itself a praiseworthy accomplishment. "It is impossible", writes Hazlitt, "to say how fine his writings in consequence are, unless we could describe how fine nature is." Kinnaird also notes Hazlitt's psychologically acute observation of how Scott, in taking us back to our more primitive past, recognised "the role of the repressed unconscious self in shaping modern literary imagination." He sees Hazlitt, too, in The Spirit of the Age along with some other essays, as the first to recognise how Scott traced the action of historical forces through individual characters. Scott the man, laments Hazlitt, was quite different from Scott the poet and novelist. Even in his fiction, there is a notable bias, in his dramatisation of history, toward romanticising the age of chivalry and glorifying "the good old times". Hazlitt sarcastically observes that Scott appeared to want to obliterate all of the achievements of centuries of civilised reform and revive the days when "witches and heretics" were burned "at slow fires", and men could be "strung up like acorns on trees without judge or jury". Scott was known to be a staunch Tory. But what especially roused Hazlitt's ire was his association with the unprincipled publisher William Blackwood, the ringleader of a pack of literary thugs hired to smear the reputations of writers who expressed radical or liberal political views. One of the pack was Scott's own son-in-law, John Gibson Lockhart. Hazlitt grants that Scott was "amiable, frank, friendly, manly in private life" and showed "candour and comprehensiveness of view for history". Yet he also "vented his littleness, pique, resentment, bigotry, and intolerance on his contemporaries". Hazlitt concludes this account by lamenting that the man who was "(by common consent) the finest, most humane and accomplished writer of his age [could have] associated himself with and encouraged the lowest panders of a venal press ... we believe that there is no other age or country of the world (but ours), in which such genius could have been so degraded!" Lord Byron Lord Byron (1788–1824) was the most popular poet of his day, a major figure of the English Romantic movement, and an international celebrity. Although Hazlitt never met Byron, he had been following his career for years. Besides reviewing his poetry and some of his prose, Hazlitt had contributed to The Liberal, a journal Byron helped establish but later abandoned. "Intensity", writes Hazlitt, "is the great and prominent distinction of Lord Byron's writing. ... He grapples with his subject, and moves, and animates it by the electric force of his own feelings ... he is never dull". His style is "rich and dipped in Tyrian dyes ... an object of delight and wonder". Though he begins with "commonplaces", he "takes care to adorn his subject matter "with 'thoughts that breathe and words that burn' ... we always find the spirit of the man of genius breathing from his verse". In Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, for example, though the subject matter is no more than "what is familiar to the mind of every school boy", Byron makes of it a "lofty and impassioned view of the great events of history", "he shows us the crumbling monuments of time, he invokes the great names, the mighty spirit of antiquity." Hazlitt continues, "Lord Byron has strength and elevation enough to fill up the moulds of our classical and time-hallowed recollections, and to rekindle the earliest aspirations of the mind after greatness and true glory with a pen of fire." Despite being impressed by such passages, Hazlitt also voices serious reservations about Byron's poetry as a whole: "He seldom gets beyond force of style, nor has he produced any regular work or masterly whole." Hazlitt mentions having heard that Byron composed at odd times, whether inspired or not, and this shows in the results, with Byron "chiefly think[ing] how he shall display his own power, or vent his spleen, or astonish the reader either by starting new subjects and trains of speculation, or by expressing old ones in a more striking and emphatic manner than they have been expressed before." Such "wild and gloomy romances" like "Lara, the Corsair, etc.", while often showing "inspiration", also reveal "the madness of poetry", being "sullen, moody, capricious, fierce, inexorable, gloating on beauty, thirsting for revenge, hurrying from the extremes of pleasure to pain, but with nothing permanent, nothing healthy or natural". Byron's dramas are undramatic. "They abound in speeches and descriptions, such as he himself might make either to himself or others, lolling on his couch of a morning, but do not carry the reader out of the poet's mind to the scenes and events recorded." In this Byron follows most of his contemporaries, as Hazlitt argued in many of his critical writings, the tendency of the age, in imaginative literature as well as philosophical and scientific, being toward generalisation, "abstraction". Also counteracting his immense power, the tone of even some of the best of Byron's poetry is violated by annoying descents into the ridiculous. "You laugh and are surprised that any one should turn round and travestie himself". This is shown especially in the early parts of Don Juan, where, "after the lightning and the hurricane, we are introduced to the interior of the cabin and the contents of wash-hand basins." After noting several such provoking incongruities, Hazlitt characterises Don Juan overall as "a poem written about itself" (he reserves judgement about the later cantos of that poem). The range of Byron's characters, Hazlitt contends, is too narrow. Returning again and again to the type that would later be called the "Byronic hero", "Lord Byron makes man after his own image, woman after his own heart; the one is a capricious tyrant, the other a yielding slave; he gives us the misanthrope and the voluptuary by turns; and with these two characters, burning or melting in their own fires, he makes out everlasting centos of himself." Byron, observes Hazlitt, was born an aristocrat, but "he is the spoiled child of fame as well as fortune." Always parading himself before the public, he is not satisfied simply to be admired; he "is not contented to delight, unless he can shock the public. He would force them to admire in spite of decency and common sense. ... His Lordship is hard to please: he is equally averse to notice or neglect, enraged at censure and scorning praise." In his poetry—Hazlitt's example is the drama Cain—Byron "floats on swelling paradoxes" and "panders to the spirit of the age, goes to the very edge of extreme and licentious speculation, and breaks his neck over it." In the course of characterising Byron, Hazlitt glances back to Scott, subject of the preceding chapter, and forward to Wordsworth and Southey, each of whom secures his own essay later in The Spirit of the Age. Scott, the only one of these writers who rivals Byron in popularity, notes Hazlitt in a lengthy comparison, keeps his own character offstage in his works; he is content to present "nature" in all its variety. Scott "takes in half the universe in feeling, character, description"; Byron, on the other hand, "shuts himself up in the Bastile of his own ruling passions." While Byron's poetry, with all its power, is founded on "commonplaces", Wordsworth's poetry expresses something new, raising seemingly insignificant objects of nature to supreme significance. He is capable of seeing the profundity, conveying the effect on the heart, of a "daisy or a periwinkle", thus lifting poetry from the ground, "creat[ing] a sentiment out of nothing." Byron, according to Hazlitt, does not show this kind of originality. As for Robert Southey, Byron satirised Southey's poem "A Vision of Judgment"— which celebrates the late King George III's ascent to heaven—with his own The Vision of Judgment. Although Hazlitt says he does not much care for Byron's satires (criticising especially the heavy-handedness of the early English Bards and Scotch Reviewers), he grants that "the extravagance and license of [Byron's poem] seems a proper antidote to the bigotry and narrowness of" Southey's. Hazlitt argues that "the chief cause of most of Lord Byron's errors is, that he is that anomaly in letters and in society, a Noble Poet. ... His muse is also a lady of quality. The people are not polite enough for him: the court not sufficiently intellectual. He hates the one and despises the other. By hating and despising others, he does not learn to be satisfied with himself." In conclusion—at least his originally intended conclusion—Hazlitt notes that Byron was now in Greece attempting to aid a revolt against Turkish occupation. With this sentence the chapter would have ended; but Hazlitt adds another paragraph, beginning with an announcement that he has just then learned of Byron's death. This sobering news, he says, has put "an end at once to a strain of somewhat peevish invective". Rather than withhold what he has written or refashion it into a eulogy, however, Hazlitt maintains that it is "more like [Byron] himself" to let stand words that were "intended to meet his eye, not to insult his memory." "Death", Hazlitt concludes, "cancels everything but truth; and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue." Byron's accomplishments will be judged by posterity. "A poet's cemetery is the human mind, in which he sows the seeds of never-ending thought—his monument is to be found in his works. ... Lord Byron is dead: he also died a martyr to his zeal in the cause of freedom, for the first, last, best hopes of man. Let that be his excuse and his epitaph!" While Hazlitt showed an "obvious relish" for some of Byron's poetry, on the whole his attitude toward Byron was never simple, and later critics' assessments of Hazlitt's view of Byron's poetry diverge radically. Andrew Rutherford, who includes most of The Spirit of the Age essay on Lord Byron in an anthology of criticism of Byron, himself expresses the belief that Hazlitt had a "distaste for Byron's works". Biographer Duncan Wu, on the other hand, simply notes Hazlitt's admiration for the "power" of Don Juan. Biographer A. C. Grayling asserts that Hazlitt "was consistent in praising his 'intensity of conception and expression' and his 'wildness of invention, brilliant and elegant fancy, [and] caustic wit'." John Kinnaird judges that Hazlitt, in assessing the relative merits of Wordsworth's and Byron's poetry, dismisses too readily as morbid the obsession with death in Byron's poetry, thus minimising one of its strengths. David Bromwich emphasises the significance of Hazlitt's observation that Byron thought he stood "above his own reputation", pointing out that Hazlitt ties this attitude to Byron's imperfect sympathy with the feelings common to all humanity, which in turn undermines the best in his poetry and diminishes its value relative to the best of Wordsworth's. Mr. Southey Robert Southey (1774–1843) was a prolific author of poetry, essays, histories, biographies, and translations, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1813 to 1843. Hazlitt first met Southey in London in 1799. The two, along with Coleridge and Wordsworth, whom he had met not long before, were swept up in the movement supporting the rights of the common man that inspired much of the educated English population in the wake of the French Revolution. During his brief career as a painter, until about 1803, Hazlitt spent time in the Lake District with Southey and the others, where they debated the future improvement of society as they rambled over the countryside. Years earlier, a reaction by the establishment to the reformers had already begun to set in, and, after another fifteen years, the English political atmosphere had become stifling to the champions of liberty. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey all shifted their political allegiance to the right, which, among other things, drove a wedge between them and Hazlitt. The alteration in Southey's politics was the sharpest. His earlier extreme radical position was implied in his play Wat Tyler, which seemed to advocate violent revolt by the lower classes. Now he expressed a stance of absolute support of the severest reprisals against any who dared criticise the government, declaring that "a Reformer is a worse character than a housebreaker". This opinion was put forth in an article in the conservative Quarterly Review, published—anonymously but widely believed (and later confessed) to be Southey's—in 1817, the same year his Wat Tyler was brought to light and published against his will, to Southey's embarrassment. Hazlitt's reaction to Southey's abrupt about-face was a savage attack in the liberal Examiner. Wordsworth and Coleridge supported Southey and tried to discredit Hazlitt's attacks. By 1824, when Hazlitt reviewed the history of his relationship with Southey, his anger had considerably subsided. As with the other character sketches in The Spirit of the Age, he did his best to treat his subject impartially. He opens this essay with a painterly image of Southey as an embodiment of self-contradiction: "We formerly remember to have seen him [with] a hectic flush on his cheek [and] a smile betwixt hope and sadness that still played upon his quivering lip." Hazlitt continues: In a detailed psychological analysis, Hazlitt explains Southey's self-contradiction: rather than being wedded to truth, he is attached to his own opinions, which depend on "the indulgence of vanity, of caprice, [of] prejudice ... regulated by the convenience or bias of the moment." As a "politician", he is governed by a temperament that is fanciful, "poetical, not philosophical." He "has not patience to think that evil is inseparable from the nature of things." Hazlitt's explanation is that, despite Southey's changing opinions, based on "impressions [that] are accidental, immediate, personal", he is "of all mortals the most impatient of contradiction, even when he has turned the tables on himself." This is because at bottom he knows his opinions have nothing solid to back them. "Is he not jealous of the grounds of his belief, because he fears they will not bear inspection, or is conscious he has shifted them? ... He maintains that there can be no possible ground for differing from him, because he looks only at his own side of the question!" "He treats his opponents with contempt, because he is himself afraid of meeting with disrespect! He says that 'a Reformer is a worse character than a house-breaker,' in order to stifle the recollection that he himself once was one!" Despite Southey's then assumed public "character of poet-laureat and courtier", his character at bottom is better suited to the role of reformer. "Mr. Southey is not of the court, courtly. Every thing of him and about him is from the people." As evidenced in his writings, "he bows to no authority; he yields only to his own wayward peculiarities." His poetic eulogy of the late King George III, for example, which had been mercilessly mocked by Byron, was, oddly, also a poetic experiment, "a specimen of what might be done in English hexameters." Surveying the range of Southey's voluminous writings, constituting a virtual library, Hazlitt finds worth noting "the spirit, the scope, the splendid imagery, the hurried and startled interest" of his long narrative poems, with their exotic subject matter. His prose volumes of history, biography, and translations from Spanish and Portuguese authors, while they lack originality, are well researched and are written in a "plain, clear, pointed, familiar, perfectly modern" style that is better than that of any other poet of the day, and "can scarcely be too much praised." In his prose, "there is no want of playful or biting satire, of ingenuity, of casuistry, of learning and of information." Southey's major failing is that, with a spirit of free inquiry that he cannot suppress in himself, he attempts to suppress free inquiry in others. Yet, even in Southey's political writings, Hazlitt credits him as refraining from advocating what might be practised by "those whose hearts are naturally callous to truth, and whose understandings are hermetically sealed against all impressions but those of self-interest". He remains, after all, "a reformist without knowing it. He does not advocate the slave-trade, he does not arm Mr. Malthus's revolting ratios with his authority, he does not strain hard to deluge Ireland with blood." In Southey's personal appearance, there is something eccentric, even off-putting: he "walks with his chin erect through the streets of London, and with an umbrella sticking out under his arm, in the finest weather." "With a tall, loose figure, a peaked austerity of countenance, and no inclination to embonpoint, you would say he has something puritanical, something ascetic in his appearance." Hazlitt hopes the negative aspects of his character will dissipate, wishing that Southey live up to his own ideal as expressed in his poem "The Holly-Tree" so that "as he mellows into maturer age, all [his] asperities may wear off...." Continuing with a more balanced view than any he had expressed before, Hazlitt notes Southey's many fine qualities: he is a tireless worker, "is constant, unremitting, mechanical in his studies, and the performance of his duties. ... In all the relations and charities of private life, he is correct, exemplary, generous, just. We never heard a single impropriety laid to his charge." "With some gall in his pen, and coldness in his manner, he has a great deal of kindness in his heart. Rash in his opinions", concludes Hazlitt, Southey "is steady in his attachments—and is a man, in many particulars admirable, in all respectable—his political inconsistency alone excepted!" Historian Crane Brinton a century later applauded Hazlitt's "fine critical intelligence" in judging Southey's character and works. Later, Tom Paulin, with admiration for the richness of Hazlitt's style, traced his writing on Southey from the "savage" attacks in 1816 and 1817 through the more balanced assessment in this sketch. Paulin especially notes allusive and tonal subtleties in Hazlitt's poetic prose that served to highlight, or at times subtly qualify, the portrait of Southey he was trying to paint. This, Paulin observes, is an example of how Hazlitt "invest[s] his vast, complex aesthetic terminology with a Shakespearean richness ... perhaps the only critic in English" to do so. Mr. Wordsworth William Wordsworth (1770–1850) was an English poet, often considered, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, to have inaugurated the Romantic movement in English poetry with the publication in 1798 of their Lyrical Ballads. Hazlitt was introduced to Wordsworth by Coleridge, and both had a shaping influence on him, who was privileged to have read Lyrical Ballads in manuscript. Though Hazlitt was never close with Wordsworth, their relationship was cordial for many years. As between Coleridge and Hazlitt, as well as Southey and Hazlitt, differences between Wordsworth and Hazlitt over politics were a major cause of the breakdown of their friendship. But there was another cause for the rupture. Hazlitt had reviewed Wordsworth's The Excursion in 1814, approvingly, but with serious reservations. Wordsworth's poetry was appreciated by few at that time. The Excursion was notoriously demeaned by the influential Francis Jeffrey in his Edinburgh Review criticism beginning with the words, "This will never do", while Hazlitt's account was later judged to have been the most penetrating of any written at the time. Still, Wordsworth was unable to tolerate less than unconditional acceptance of his poetry, and he resented Hazlitt's review as much as he did Jeffrey's. Their relations deteriorated further, and by 1815 they were bitter enemies. Despite his grievous disappointment with a man he had once thought an ally in the cause of humanity, after nearly ten years of severe and sometimes excessive criticism of his former idol (some of it in reaction to Wordsworth's attempt to impugn his character), as with his other former friends of the period, in The Spirit of the Age Hazlitt attempts to reassess Wordsworth as fairly as he can. For all of Wordsworth's limitations, he is after all the best and most representative poetic voice of the period: "Mr. Wordsworth's genius is a pure emanation of the Spirit of the Age." His poetry is revolutionary in that it is equalizing. Written more purely in the vernacular style than any earlier poetry, it values all humanity alike rather than taking an aristocratic viewpoint. It is something entirely new: Mr. Wordsworth "tries to compound a new system of poetry from [the] simplest elements of nature and of the human mind ... and has succeeded perhaps as well as anyone could." Wordsworth's poetry conveys what is interesting in the commonest events and objects. It probes the feelings shared by all. It "disdains" the artificial, the unnatural, the ostentatious, the "cumbrous ornaments of style", the old conventions of verse composition. His subject is himself in nature: "He clothes the naked with beauty and grandeur from the stores of his own recollections". "His imagination lends 'a sense of joy to the bare trees and mountains bare, and grass in the green field'. ... No one has shown the same imagination in raising trifles into importance: no one has displayed the same pathos in treating of the simplest feelings of the heart." "There is no image so insignificant that it has not in some mood or other found its way into his heart...." He has described the most seemingly insignificant objects of nature in such "a way and with an intensity of feeling that no one else had done before him, and has given a new view or aspect of nature. He is in this sense the most original poet now living...." Hazlitt notes that, in psychological terms, the underlying basis for what is essential in Wordsworth's poetry is the principle of the association of ideas. "Every one is by habit and familiarity strongly attached to the place of his birth, or to objects that recal the most pleasing and eventful circumstances of his life. But to [Wordsworth], nature is a kind of home". Wordsworth's poetry, especially when the Lyrical Ballads had been published 26 years earlier, was such a radical departure that scarcely anyone understood it. Even at the time Hazlitt was writing this essay, "The vulgar do not read [Wordsworth's poems], the learned, who see all things through books, do not understand them, the great despise, the fashionable may ridicule them: but the author has created himself an interest in the heart of the retired and lonely student of nature, which can never die." "It may be considered as a characteristic of our poet's writings," Hazlitt reflects, "that they either make no impression on the mind at all, seem mere nonsense-verses, or that they leave a mark behind them that never wears out. ... To one class of readers he appears sublime, to another (and we fear the largest) ridiculous." Hazlitt then briefly comments on some of Wordsworth's more recent "philosophical production" which (for example, "Laodamia") he finds "classical and courtly ... polished in style without being gaudy, dignified in subject without affectation." As in the earlier sketches, Hazlitt finds links between his earlier and later subjects. If there are a few lines in Byron's poems that give him the heartfelt satisfaction that so many of Wordsworth's poems do, it is only when "he descends with Mr. Wordsworth to the common ground of a disinterested humanity" by "leaving aside his usual pomp and pretension." Ten years earlier Hazlitt had reviewed what was then Wordsworth's longest and most ambitious published poem, The Excursion, and he briefly remarks on it here. Though he does not disdainfully dismiss it as Jeffrey had, he expresses serious reservations. It includes "delightful passages ... both of natural description and of inspired reflection [yet] it affects a system without having an intelligible clue to one." The Excursion suffers from what Hazlitt highlights as a major flaw in contemporary poetry in general: it tends toward excessive generalisation, "abstraction". Thus it ends up being both inadequate philosophy and poetry that has detached itself from the essence and variety of life. As in his essays in this book on other subjects he had seen personally, Hazlitt includes a sketch of the poet's personal appearance and manner: "Mr. Wordsworth, in his person, is above the middle size, with marked features, and an air somewhat stately and Quixotic." He is especially effective at reading his own poetry. "No one who has seen him at these moments could go away with the impression that he was a man 'of no mark or likelihood.'" Then Hazlitt comments on the nature of Wordsworth's taste in art and his interest in and judgements of artists and earlier poets. His tastes show the elevation of his style, but also the narrowness of his focus. Wordsworth's artistic sympathies are with Poussin and Rembrandt, showing an affinity for the same subjects. Like Rembrandt, he invests "the minute details of nature with an atmosphere of sentiment". Wordsworth has little sympathy with Shakespeare. Related to this, asserts Hazlitt, is the undramatic nature of Wordsworth's own poetry. This is the result of a character flaw, egotism. He regrets his own harsh criticism of a few years earlier, but still maintains that Wordsworth's egotism, narrowing the range of his interests, restricts his literary achievement. And yet, Hazlitt reflects, as is frequently the case with men of genius, an egotistic narrowness is often found together with an ability to do one thing supremely well. Hazlitt concludes with a psychological analysis of the effect on Wordsworth's character of his disappointment with the poor reception of his poetry. But he ends on a note of optimism. Wordsworth has gained an increasing body of admirers "of late years". This will save him from "becoming the God of his own idolatry!" The 20th-century critic Christopher Salvesen notes that Hazlitt's observation in The Spirit of the Age that Wordsworth's poetry is "synthetic" characterises it best, and Roy Park in an extensive study expresses the view that Hazlitt, as the poet's contemporary, most completely understood the essence of his poetry as a significant component of the "spirit of the age". Sir James Mackintosh Sir James Mackintosh (1765–1832), widely admired as one of the most learned men in Europe, was a Scottish lawyer, legislator, educator, philosopher, historian, scholar, and Member of Parliament from 1813 to 1830. Mackintosh came to Hazlitt's attention as early as 1791, when he published his Vindiciae Gallicae, a defence of the French Revolution, then unfolding. Written as a response to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, it was warmly received by liberal thinkers of the time. However, later persuaded by Burke himself to renounce his earlier views about the Revolution, Mackintosh, in his 1799 lectures at Lincoln's Inn (published as A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations), attended by Hazlitt, reversed his position, subjecting reformers, particularly Godwin, to severe criticism, and dealing a blow to the liberal cause. Mackintosh thereafter became a bitter disappointment to Hazlitt. Looking back at the elder man's change of political sentiments, Hazlitt observed that the lecturer struck a harsh note if he felt it were a triumph to have exulted in the end of all hope for the "future improvement" of the human race; rather it should have been a matter for "lamentation". The two later again crossed paths, when Hazlitt, as a political reporter, attended Mackintosh's "maiden speech" in Parliament, in 1813, leading Hazlitt to think deeply about what constitutes an effective speech in a legislative body (Mackintosh's was presented as a counter-example in Hazlitt's 1820 essay on the subject). By this time, Mackintosh's return to the liberal camp had begun to take the edge off Hazlitt's bitterness, although he regretted that the nature of his talents kept Mackintosh from being an effective ally in Parliament. Eleven years later, in his summing up of Mackintosh's place among his contemporaries, as elsewhere in The Spirit of the Age, Hazlitt attempts a fair reassessment. As he analyses the characteristics of Mackintosh as a public speaker, a conversationalist, and a scholarly writer, Hazlitt traces the progress of his life, noting his interactions with Edmund Burke over the French Revolution, his tenure as chief judge in India, and his final career as Member of Parliament. "As a writer, a speaker, and a converser", he begins, Mackintosh is "one of the ablest and most accomplished men of the age", "a man of the world", and a "scholar" of impressive learning, "master of almost every known topic". "His Vindiciae Gallicae is a work of great labour, great ingenuity, great brilliancy, and great vigour." After he changed political sides for a time, Mackintosh then began to excel as an "intellectual gladiator". Of his qualifications in this regard, Hazlitt remarks, "Few subjects can be started, on which he is not qualified to appear to advantage as the gentleman and scholar. ... There is scarce an author he has not read; a period of history he is not conversant with; a celebrated name of which he has not a number of anecdotes to relate; an intricate question that he is not prepared to enter upon in a popular or scientific manner." As he praises Mackintosh's impressive talents and intellect, however, Hazlitt also brings out his limitations. In demolishing his adversaries, including Godwin and the reformers in his famous lectures, Mackintosh "seemed to stand with his back to the drawers in a metaphysical dispensary, and to take out of them whatever ingredients suited his purpose. In this way he had an antidote for every error, an answer to every folly. The writings of Burke, Hume, Berkeley, Paley, Lord Bacon, Jeremy Taylor, Grotius, Puffendorf, Cicero, Aristotle, Tacitus, Livy, Sully, Machiavel, Guicciardini, Thuanus, lay open beside him, and he could instantly lay his hand upon the passage, and quote them chapter and verse to the clearing up of all difficulties, and the silencing of all oppugners." But there is a fatal flaw in all this impressive intellectual "juggling" (which, Tom Paulin notes, alludes to Hazlitt's earlier contrast between the deft but mechanical "Indian jugglers" and representatives of true genius): his performances were "philosophical centos", the thoughts of others simply stitched together. "They were profound, brilliant, new to his hearers; but the profundity, the brilliancy, the novelty were not his own." For all his impressive erudition, Mackintosh's writing and speaking are entirely unoriginal. In his characteristic fashion, Hazlitt looks back to an earlier subject of these essays and compares Mackintosh with Coleridge. While the latter's genius often strays from reality, his imagination creates something new. Mackintosh, on the other hand, with a similarly impressive command of his subject matter, mechanically presents the thinking of others. There is no integration of his learning with his own thinking, no passion, nothing fused in the heat of imagination. This preference for book learning and lack of intense involvement in the world around him were detrimental to Mackintosh's later career, even though he drifted back to a more liberal political stance. Hazlitt, who heard him speak in Parliament, observes that, just as his previous appointment as a judge in India was unsuited to a man who worked out his thought in terms of "school-exercises", Mackintosh's mind did not fit well the defender of political causes, which needed more passionate engagement. "Sir James is by education and habit and ... by the original turn of his mind, a college-man [and] in public speaking the logician takes place of the orator". Hazlitt recalls having heard him speak publicly in the House of Commons "seldom ... without pain for the event." The House is not the place to speak only the truth. Too much "interest" rather than pure "love of truth" enters into the decisions made in Parliament. And "the judgment of the House is not a balance to weigh scruples and reasons to the turn of a fraction. ... Sir James, in detailing the inexhaustible stores of his memory and reading, in unfolding the wide range of his theory and practice, in laying down the rules and the exceptions, in insisting upon the advantages and the objections with equal explicitness, would be sure to let something drop that a dexterous and watchful adversary would easily pick up and turn against him...." Mackintosh, like Coleridge, shines as one of the great conversationalists in an age of "talkers, not of doers". Arguing cases in a Parliamentary setting, however, offers less immediate stimulation; in later years, Hazlitt claims, he has grown tired of all that weight of learning, unenlivened by anything new he might have used it for in his imagination. In speaking, as in his later writing, the "trim, pointed expression [and] ambitious ornaments ... ostentatious display and rapid volubility" of his earlier writing are gone, leaving only the productions of a mind that works with "given preconceptions." His ideas "do not flow naturally and gracefully from one another" and "have been laid down beforehand in a sort of formal division or frame-work of the understanding. ... There is no principle of fusion in the work; he strikes after the iron is cold, and there is a want of malleability in the style." However much Hazlitt tries to be fair to Mackintosh, in the view of Tom Paulin, nearly two centuries later, subtle stylistic elements in his account of Mackintosh, even in the latter's triumphant 1799 lectures, undermine his own account of him as an impressively learned man, casting the scholarly jurist and Member of Parliament in a ridiculous light and showing him to be "a self-caricaturing absurdity". Mr. Malthus Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) was an English clergyman, philosopher, economist, and educator whose Essay on the Principle of Population shocked the philosophers and social reformers of Europe in 1798, sparking two centuries of controversy about human population and its control. The first edition of Malthus's book claimed a mathematical foundation for the assertion that human population growth always far outstrips the growth of the means to support it, and population can be checked only by "vice and misery". As an open attack on schemes of Utopian reform advocated by Godwin and Condorcet, Malthus's book soon drew support from conservative politicians, who used it as an excuse to attempt to dismantle the Poor Laws, setting a trend that continued for centuries. In Hazlitt's day, at least one major political faction claimed that direct public assistance to alleviate poverty was ineffective, maintaining that businesses pursuing profit would automatically result in the best social conditions possible, allowing the inevitability of some attrition of the poor by disease and starvation. Liberal thinkers were outraged by these ideas, roundly condemning Malthus's book for its unfeeling blame of the poor for their own misery. The attempt to use Malthus's ideas to change the Poor Laws came in 1807, and the controversy was stirred to a fever pitch. Hazlitt, one of a number of liberal critics of Malthus, contributed a series of letters to Cobbett's Political Register, which were later, with additional material, published as a pamphlet. As one of the first critics of Malthusian theory, Hazlitt was afterward noted to have influenced later Malthusian critics, though he was typically uncredited. Hazlitt, often openly bitter, pursued his own critical attacks in several publications over many years. By the time he came to compose his account of Malthus for The Spirit of the Age, Hazlitt had acquired perspective and achieved a more balanced view of his subject. He notes at the outset that "Mr. Malthus ... [has] attained a scientific reputation in questions of moral and political philosophy." There is no mistaking what the man stands for: "In weighing his merits we come at once to the question of what he has done or failed to do." We know immediately that we are speaking of his "'Essay on Population' [and its] distinct leading proposition" which "has changed the aspect of political economy in a decided and material point of view": the proposition "that 'the population cannot go on perpetually increasing without pressing on the limits of the means of subsistence, and that a check of some kind or other must, sooner or later, be opposed to it.' This is the essence of the doctrine which Mr. Malthus has been the first to bring into general notice, and as we think, to establish beyond the fear of contradiction." Hazlitt then lays out several things we should know if we are to accept this proposition. First, the idea was not at all original with Malthus but was conceived, even in many details, "in an obscure and almost forgotten work published about the middle of the last century, entitled Various Prospects of Mankind, Nature, and Providence, by a Scotch gentleman of the name of Wallace." Advanced almost as a joke, an extreme paradox, according to Hazlitt, "probably written to amuse an idle hour", the idea was taken up by Malthus in 1798, without, Hazlitt regrets, recognising its flaws, even absurdities. The "geometrical" and "arithmetical" ratios constitute a fallacy, Hazlitt claims; for agricultural crops, like the human population, would grow geometrically if there were room to contain them. "A grain of corn, for example, will propagate and multiply itself much faster even than the human species." Hazlitt also notes another fallacy, the idea that "the desire to propagate the [human] species" is as fixed and immutable a law as hunger. That control of "the sexual passion" is possible by "moral restraint" is finally acknowledged by Malthus himself in later editions of his Essay, but inconsistently, so we do not know where he stands. Malthus is to be credited for showing that "population is not (as had been sometimes taken for granted) an abstract and unqualified good". Unfortunately, because Malthus never fully allowed that "moral restraint" could have much of an effect, and laid emphasis on the checks to population of "vice and misery", it led many to suppose that all increase of population is an evil, leading only to "a greater quantity of vice and misery". This emphasis on vice and misery, and the alleged "geometric" nature of human population increase, was brought to bear by Malthus as an alarm raised against all Utopian schemes of human improvement, such as that in "Mr. Godwin's Enquiry concerning Political Justice." For, the greater the comfort introduced into the lives of the masses by the advance of "virtue, knowledge, and civilization", the more inexorable will be the action of the "principle of population", "the sooner will [civilisation] be overthrown again, and the more inevitable and fatal will be the catastrophe .... famine, distress, havoc, and dismay ... hatred, violence, war, and bloodshed will be the infallible consequence ...." "Nothing", Hazlitt asserts, "could be more illogical"; for if, as Godwin and other reformers maintained, man is capable of being "enlightened", and "the general good is to obtain the highest mastery of individual interests, and reason of gross appetite and passions", then by that very fact it is absurd to suppose that men "will show themselves utterly blind to the consequences of their actions, utterly indifferent to their own well-being and that of all succeeding generations, whose fate is placed in their hands. This we conceive to be the boldest paralogism that was ever offered to the world, or palmed upon willing credulity." On the other hand, at those times when Malthus does allow for "moral restraint" as a population check, and allows that "its influence depends greatly on the state of laws and manners", then "Utopia stands where it did, a great way off indeed, but not turned topsy-turvy by our magician's wand!" So Malthus either raises an irresponsible alarm, or undercuts his own earlier argument. Malthus might have created a much better book, suggests Hazlitt, "a great work on the principle of population". But he has weakened its effect, even precipitated dangerous consequences, by being biassed in favour of the affluent establishment and too willing to place upon the poor the burden of solving the entire problem. "It is not our author's wish to recommend any alterations in existing institutions. ... Mr. Malthus's 'gospel is preached to the poor.'" "Our author has ... counteracted many capital errors formerly prevailing as to the universal and indiscriminate encouragement of population under all circumstances ... but he has countenanced opposite errors ... and has left it to future philosophers to follow up the principle, that some check must be provided for the unrestrained progress of population, into a set of wiser and more humane consequences." Hazlitt, as in many of these sketches anticipating modern journalism by mingling a personal sketch with his discussions of a contemporary's ideas, concludes by stepping back and acknowledging Malthus's "correct and elegant" style. His "tone of controversy [is] mild and gentlemanly; and the care with which he has brought his facts and documents together, deserves the highest praise." Two centuries later, critic Roy Park noted the significance of Hazlitt's criticism: Hazlitt understood Malthus's weaknesses as those common to many philosophers of the age, a reliance on excessive "abstraction", along with the erroneous belief that, man being inherently selfish, only selfish individual action results in public good. Mr. Gifford William Gifford (1756–1826) was an English satirical poet, translator, literary critic, and editor, most notably of the influential periodical The Quarterly Review. Notorious for his staunchly conservative political and religious views and for his merciless attacks on writers of liberal political sympathies, Gifford was, as was widely known, hired by Tory government officials for the express purpose of vilifying the characters of authors deemed dangerous by the government. He was known and feared for the brutality of his attacks; even some other politically conservative writers frequently disapproved of the harshness of his methods. Gifford could be equally vicious as a satirical poet and was involved in numerous affrays with other writers, most notably the satirist "Peter Pindar", which led to a physical altercation. Later, Gifford, or critics under his supervision on the Quarterly Review, subjected the poets Shelley, Keats, and Leigh Hunt to merciless attacks, as well as prose writers, including Hazlitt on several occasions, beginning in 1817, when the Quarterly savaged his collection The Round Table. The following year, after the second edition of Hazlitt's Characters of Shakespear's Plays had just been published, Gifford followed it with a review that resulted in the near drying-up of the sales of that book. This was followed in 1819 by an attack on Lectures on the English Poets and finally on Hazlitt's Political Essays. Hazlitt had had enough, and, after having responded in vain in some short essays, had published at his own expense an 87-page pamphlet, A Letter to William Gifford, Esq., a ferocious attack on the character and methods of Gifford. Though the latter's reviews had already done irreparable damage to Hazlitt's career, Hazlitt's Letter was highly appreciated by many of kindred political sympathies, including Leigh Hunt, Byron's friend John Cam Hobhouse, and, most notably, the poet John Keats, who hailed it as "'written in a style of genius'". By the time Hazlitt penned The Spirit of the Age five years later, he had cooled somewhat but still produced a portrait of Gifford that was laced throughout with satire. Hazlitt introduces his characterisation by summing up Gifford's background, position, and skills: "The low-bred, self-taught man, the pedant, and the dependant on the great contribute to form the Editor of the Quarterly Review. He is admirably qualified for this situation, which he has held for some years, by a happy combination of defects, natural and acquired ... ." Hazlitt then elaborates on the nature of Gifford's skills as a critic, which amount to practising a very narrow, nitpicking form of criticism. "A person of mediocre literary attainments" himself, Gifford "stands over a contemporary [literary] performance with all the self-conceit and self-importance of a country schoolmaster, tries it by technical rules, affects not to understand the meaning, examines the hand-writing, the spelling, shrugs up his shoulders and chuckles over a slip of the pen. ... There is nothing liberal, nothing humane in this style of judging; it is altogether petty, captious, and literal." With all this, he is retrograde and "would go back to the standard of opinions, style, the faded ornaments, and insipid formalities that came into fashion about forty years ago." Moreover, Gifford having been "all his life ... a follower ... of wealth and power", his "political subserviency adds the last finishing to his ridiculous pedantry and vanity." Hazlitt goes on to note his belief that Gifford shows such narrowness in his reviews not simply because he is a political tool, but because he really cannot understand literary originality. "His slow, snail-paced, bed-rid habits of reasoning, cannot keep up with the whirling, eccentric motion, the rapid, perhaps extravagant combinations of modern literature. ... He inclines, by a natural and deliberate bias, to the traditional in laws and government; to the orthodox in religion; to the safe in opinion; to the trite in imagination; to the technical in style; to whatever implies a surrender of individual judgment into the hands of authority, and a subjection of individual feeling to mechanic rules." These limitations, according to Hazlitt's psychological analysis, caused Gifford himself internal pain—"he is tetchy and impatient of contradiction; sore with wounded pride; angry at obvious faults, more angry at unforeseen beauties"—as well as leading him to inflict undeserved damage on the literary reputations of others of far superior talents. Hazlitt then brings up the case of the then deceased poet John Keats, whom Hazlitt had been among the first to recognise as "a true poet". He quotes extensively from Keats's "The Eve of St. Agnes", after which he offers for comparison some of Gifford's own poetry, "impoverished lines" written "in a low, mechanic vein", stating that the reader might easily judge which was superior, and lamenting that it was only for his low birth and his political associations that Keats with "his fine talents and wounded sensibilities" was "hooted out of the world" by Gifford or someone writing under his editorship. Hazlitt then elaborates on the methods of Gifford's Quarterly Review, in which he and his "friends systematically explode every principle of liberty, laugh patriotism and public spirit to scorn, resent every pretence to integrity as a piece of singularity or insolence, and strike at the root of all free inquiry or discussion, by running down every writer as a vile scribbler and a bad member of society, who is not a hireling and a slave." Hazlitt next steps back and sums up Gifford's other skills, as a satirist and as a textual editor of old dramatists. In the latter capacity, Hazlitt notes his one positive accomplishment. While as a satirist he is "violent ... abrupt [and] unmanly" (he had ridiculed a woman whose writing he disliked by pointing to her as hobbling on crutches), "as an editor of old authors, Mr. Gifford is entitled to considerable praise for the pains he has taken in revising the text, and for some improvements he has introduced into it." Even then, however, "he had better have spared the notes, in which, though he has detected the blunders of previous commentators, he has exposed his own narrowness of feeling more. Moreover, "as a critic, he has thrown no light on the character and spirit of his authors." Hazlitt never mellowed in his attitude toward Gifford as he did toward his "apostate" former friends, but as a result he created a sketch that has come to be recognised as a "masterpiece of invective". Some have thought of Hazlitt as merely "getting even" in this essay. But, increasingly, his treatment of Gifford has come to be seen as understandable as it is accurate, in view of the savage nature of the politically motivated criticism of that age as well as the damage inflicted by Gifford and his cronies on Hazlitt and other liberal-minded literary figures. To the critic Walter Jackson Bate, who named the attack on Gifford in the Letter to William Gifford as "one of the half-dozen most sustained pieces of invective in English", the sketch of Gifford in The Spirit of the Age is "even more effective". Mr. Jeffrey Francis Jeffrey (1773–1850), later Lord Jeffrey, was a Scottish jurist, Whig politician, literary critic, and editor of and major contributor to the quarterly Edinburgh Review. Arising from the intellectual ferment in Edinburgh around the turn of the 19th century, the Edinburgh was the first periodical of its kind to engage in extensive analysis and broad commentary, in which a "review" was really "an extended article based on a book and frequently departing from it." It featured articles on literature, science, travel, and politics, among other topics. With a distinct Whig political bias, but also notable for encouraging fair, open discourse, and with a mission of educating the upper and increasingly literate middle classes, the Edinburgh Review was the most prestigious and influential periodical of its kind in Europe for more than two decades at the time Hazlitt wrote this sketch. Hazlitt himself had been a proud contributor since 1815, after Jeffrey had been guiding the Review for more than a dozen years. Hazlitt's connection with Jeffrey was never close, but it played an important role in his career. In 1818, Jeffrey favourably reviewed Hazlitt's book Characters of Shakespear's Plays. During a visit to Scotland in 1822, Hazlitt met the man. Though the two were never personal friends, Jeffrey, over the years, provided financial assistance in the form of sizable advances for his contributions to the Review. Hazlitt, on his part, was always grateful for the support. So closely identified was Jeffrey with the Edinburgh Review that Hazlitt begins this sketch without referring to him directly. Instead, he contrasts Jeffrey's periodical with the Quarterly Review, to the detriment of the latter, continuing a theme from the preceding sketch of Gifford. The Quarterly, notes Hazlitt, was founded in reaction to the Edinburgh and to the latter's "spirit ... of fair and free discussion" in which "every question was tried upon its own ostensible merits, and there was no foul play." Alarmed, Hazlitt asserts sarcastically, at the danger that this free spirit posed to the "Monarchy [and the] Hierarchy", the founders of the Quarterly set up a periodical that would "present [itself as] one foul blotch of servility, intolerance, falsehood, spite, and ill manners." On the other hand, "The Edinburgh Review", Hazlitt continues, "stands upon the ground of opinion; it asserts the supremacy of intellect; the pre-eminence it claims is from an acknowledged superiority of talent and information and literary attainment ...". Hazlitt then assures his readers that he does "not implicitly bow to the political opinions, nor to the critical decisions of the Edinburgh Review ... but ... the talent with which they are supported, and ... the tone of manly explicitness in which they are delivered ... are eminently characteristic of the Spirit of the Age; as it is the express object of the Quarterly Review to discountenance and extinguish that spirit". After praising the Edinburgh Review general attempts at fairness, Hazlitt begins to note the flaws in its critical tone and method. For instance, in arguing a position, the Edinburgh allows too much to the opposite side "from an affectation of magnanimity and candour". At times it displays a "supercilious and cavalier" attitude, and has been "guilty of some capital oversights", most notably the failure to recognise the poetic value of Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads. Also, in its attempts to be fair to Malthus, it went too far, and ended by "screen[ing] his errors." On the other hand, he concedes, it shows "little of the cant of morality" and none of "that of religion". Finally, Hazlitt focuses on Jeffrey himself. As with his assessment of the Review, he begins with copious praise, then qualifies it as he goes along. Jeffrey is perfectly suited for his office of editor of this periodical, as a "person in advance of the age, and yet perfectly fitted both from knowledge and habits of mind to put a curb upon its rash and headlong spirit." He is an "acute... and discriminat[ing] ... logician" with "the habitual coolness and caution" of the lawyer. "He has great range of knowledge, an incessant activity of mind", with qualities enabling him to take "a comprehensive view of all circumstances of a case." "Mr. Jeffrey is neither a bigot nor an enthusiast. He is not the dupe of the prejudices of others, nor of his own." He is moreover an optimist and "argues well for the future hopes of mankind". There are, Hazlitt notes, flaws in the man as in the periodical: "A too restless display of talent, a too undisguised statement of all that can be said for and against a question, is perhaps the great fault that is to be attributed to him." Jeffrey also courteously defers too much to his adversaries and neglects the opportunity for passionate support of human rights. Hazlitt then considers Jeffrey's writing style: "He is a master of the foils. ... His strength consists in great range of knowledge, an equal familiarity with the principles and details of a subject, and in a glancing brilliancy and rapidity of style." Though other writers attempt to impress "with singularity of combination or tinsel ornaments", Jeffrey, without being a flowery or startlingly innovative writer, is impressive nonetheless with his "constant supply of ingenious solutions and pertinent examples", creating a "novel and sparkling effect". From Jeffrey's writing style, Hazlitt transitions to the conversational abilities of the man in company (and it is only in "mixed company" that "Mr. Jeffrey shines"). Again, the portrait is mostly positive but with a few faults noted in passing. "Mr. Jeffrey's conversation is equally lively, various and instructive. ... Whether it be politics, or poetry, or science, or anecdote, or wit, or raillery, he takes up his cue without effort" and provides "an uninterrupted flow of cheerfulness and animal spirits" and enormous "fund of information". Yet, again, his fault is that it is all too much: "If he is ever tedious, it is from an excess of liveliness". In addition, he shows too much of the lawyer: "what is said by another, seems to make no impression on him; he is bound to dispute, to answer it, as if he was in Court". Jeffrey also shows a bit too much of what Hazlitt finds typical of the character of Scottish intellectuals; in Scotland, "they criticise every thing, analyse every thing, argue upon every thing, dogmatise upon every thing". This makes Jeffrey "too didactic, too pugnacious, too full of electric shocks, too much like a voltaic battery", and he "reposes too little on his own excellent good sense, his own love of ease, his cordial frankness of temper and unaffected candour." Hazlitt concludes with warm praise, presenting Jeffrey as "a person that no one knows without esteeming ... He is a Scotchman without one particle of hypocrisy, of cant, of servility, or selfishness in his composition." Jeffrey is a man "of strict integrity ... is firm without violence, friendly without weakness—a critic and even-tempered, a casuist and an honest man—and amidst the toils of his profession and the distractions of the world, retains the gaiety, the unpretending carelessness and simplicity of youth." Again anticipating modern journalistic practise, Hazlitt records the immediate appearance of his subject, "in his person ... slight, with a countenance of much expression, and a voice of great flexibility and acuteness of tone." Later critics have judged this sketch of Jeffrey as largely positive—Paulin emphasises that Hazlitt's characterisation of his personality as "electric" and constantly in motion generally signified high praise from Hazlitt, valuing life over mechanism—but also incorporating serious criticism. As Grayling emphasises, Jeffrey, like his Edinburgh Review, showed the fault of being "insufficiently robust in [his] party spirit, always ... straining too far to accommodate both sides". Mr. Brougham—Sir F. Burdett Hazlitt's sketch combining Henry Brougham and Sir Francis Burdett is the first of a number of mostly shorter essays concluding The Spirit of the Age, sometimes thought to mark a falling off in quality. Mr. Brougham Henry Brougham (1778–1868), later Lord Brougham and Vaux, was a lawyer, Member of Parliament, and cofounder of and major contributor to the Edinburgh Review. A lifelong reformer, he was involved in the abolition of slavery, support for the freedom of religion, and the spread of educational opportunities for the lower and middle classes, and assisted in effecting major legal reforms. Much for which he would later become famous was accomplished after Hazlitt's death, however, such as helping to pass into law the Great Reform Bill of 1832. Known for his learning, Brougham wrote voluminously on such topics as mathematics, economics, and the physical sciences, as well as politics. He became especially famous as a fiery and compelling orator after his 1820 speech in defence of Queen Caroline in the controversial divorce suit brought by her husband, King George IV. Hazlitt knew Brougham chiefly as a Parliamentary speaker and contributor to the Edinburgh Review. In this brief account, he focuses on Brougham primarily as a representative of a class of speakers, typifying "Scotch eloquence", which Hazlitt contrasts with "Irish eloquence", a topic he had broached in the sketch of Mackintosh, and had explored at length in the article "On the Present State of Parliamentary Eloquence" in the October 1820 issue of The London Magazine. Irish eloquence is characterised by flights of fancy and verbal embellishments, carrying rhetorical exuberance to an extreme. Scottish eloquence is concerned only with facts, presented in dry, plodding monotonous fashion. If the Irish orator riots in a studied neglect of his subject and a natural confusion of ideas, playing with words, ranging them into all sorts of combinations, because in the unlettered void or chaos of his mind there is no obstacle to their coalescing into any shapes they please, it must be confessed that the eloquence of the Scotch is encumbered with an excess of knowledge, that it cannot get on for a crowd of difficulties, that it struggles under a load of topics, that it is so environed in the forms of logic and rhetoric as to be equally precluded from originality or absurdity, from beauty or deformity ... . Hazlitt presents both Mackintosh, whom he had already profiled, and Brougham as exemplifying the pinnacle of Scottish eloquence, which fails to attain great heights because of its "dry and rigid formality". Thus, just as Mackintosh weights his arguments with "abstract principles" found in "old authors", Brougham, whom Hazlitt had witnessed in Parliamentary debate, loads his with innumerable facts, impossible for an impatient audience to follow. Brougham is "apprised of the exact state of our exports and imports ... our colonial policy, prison-discipline, the state of the Hulks, agricultural distress, commerce and manufactures, the Bullion question, the Catholic question, the Bourbons [and] the Inquisition ...". He brings in a huge number of "resources [and] variety and solidity of information", all of which makes him a "powerful and alarming" debater, but not an "effectual" one. Brougham's incessant outpouring of facts represents an "eloquence" that "is clever, knowing, imposing, masterly, an extraordinary display of clearness of head, of quickness and energy of thought, of application and industry; but it is not the eloquence of the imagination or the heart, and will never save a nation or an individual from perdition." In following only his own paths of reasoning he is often led to fall afoul of his political allies as well as his enemies, and he cannot restrain himself from revealing facts that would undermine rather than support an objective of his own party. "Absorbed in the pursuit of truth as an abstract inquiry, he is led away by the headstrong and overmastering activity of his own mind." Thus he often gives the advantage to his Parliamentary opponents. Hazlitt then narrows his focus, ironically exclaiming: "Mr. Brougham has one considerable advantage in debate: he is overcome by no false modesty, no deference to others. ... He has no reserve of discretion, no ... check upon himself." Here Hazlitt's judgment is confirmed by that of later historians and biographers of Brougham, who point out his egotism, unreliability, indiscretion, and irascibility. Drawing on his personal experience, Hazlitt narrows his focus still further by observing that "Mr. Brougham speaks in a loud and unmitigated tone of voice, sometimes almost approaching to a scream. He is fluent, rapid, vehement, full of his subject, with evidently a great deal to say, and very regardless of the manner of saying it." The very scope of his knowledge and interests, however, limits his abilities as a lawyer, as he cannot be bothered with small issues, preferring to focus on the broad issues affecting the world. Yet the scope of Brougham's interests and accomplishments is remarkable in itself. After addressing the public in an election he might on returning home complete an article, three or four of which would be published in a single number of the Edinburgh Review. He has, Hazlitt continues, mastered several languages, "is a capital mathematician", and, "among other means of strengthening and enlarging his views, has visited ... most of the courts, and turned his attention to most of the Constitutions of the continent." Despite Brougham's shortcomings, Hazlitt concludes by offering him as an example of "the versatility and strength of the human mind", showing how, "if we make a good use of our time", there is "room enough to crowd into" a single life "almost every art and science". Sir F. Burdett Presenting a marked contrast to Brougham, whom Hazlitt believed to have shown some of the deviousness of (in Hazlitt's formulation) the typical Scot, Hazlitt subjoins a brief sketch of Sir Francis Burdett. Burdett (1770–1844), scion of the Burdett family of Bramcote, was a member of parliament from 1797 until his death. A celebrated reformer and friend of the people, his connection to Hazlitt goes back to the gatherings of Horne Tooke, of whom Burdett had been a follower, and, in later years, to his representing Parliament as Member for Westminster, where Hazlitt was a householder from 1811 to 1819, and thus could vote for him. During this time Hazlitt, as a political reporter, had numerous opportunities to hear Burdett speak. Of all politicians, Burdett, whom he saw as representing a type of traditional Englishman, was the one with whom he was the most in sympathy, and whose principles (for which Burdett had been imprisoned in 1810) Hazlitt most shared. Burdett is "a plain, unaffected, [and] unsophisticated English gentleman, ... one of the few remaining examples of the old English understanding and old English character." He is "a person of great reading and considerable information," which he refrains, however, from flaunting, "is one of the most pleasing speakers in the House, and is a prodigious favourite of the English people." Burdett's only flaw, according to Hazlitt, who gently chides him for the error, is that he believed that the source of liberty in modern times was to be found in the English constitution of old (Hazlitt ascribes liberty to "the growth of books and printing"). Otherwise, Hazlitt's praise of Burdett is unstinting. He finds Sir Francis a man of courage, honesty, and integrity. "There is no honest cause which he dares not avow: no oppressed individual that he is not forward to succour. He has the firmness of manhood with the unimpaired enthusiasm of youthful feeling about him." Lord Eldon—Mr. Wilberforce Lord Eldon John Scott, Lord Eldon (1751–1838) was a jurist, Tory politician, and Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (1801–1806, 1807–1827) for most of Hazlitt's adult life. Eldon was respected for his legal subtlety and for having enacted major legal decisions; as an arch-conservative, however, he was also widely hated. As Attorney General (when still Sir John Scott), he had been the prosecutor in the famous 1794 Treason Trials, the defendants of which trial Hazlitt's brother John had been closely associated with. At a time when some of the most noted thinkers and literary men narrowly escaped conviction of High Treason, a time of rejoicing by supporters of free thought in Britain, Eldon had been on the wrong side, which Hazlitt, then an impressionable youth, never forgot. Eldon, as Lord Chancellor, later continued to help enforce the government's severe reaction to the civil unrest in the wake of the French Revolution and during the Napoleonic Wars, and was a notoriously persistent blocker of legal reforms as well as of the speedy resolution of lawsuits over which he presided. As both Attorney General and Lord Chancellor, Eldon consistently stood against every humanitarian principle that Hazlitt had so fervently supported. Nevertheless, paradoxically, in person, Lord Eldon, as Hazlitt found, just as consistently presented himself as a kindly, amiable, even humble soul. Hazlitt explains this apparent paradox with a psychological analysis of Eldon as a particular representative of a well-known character type, the "good-natured man". What passes in the world for "good-nature", Hazlitt argues, "is often no better than indolent selfishness". The Lord Chancellor, as an example of a good-natured man, "would not hurt a fly ... has a fine oiliness in his disposition .... does not enter into the quarrels or enmities of others; bears their calamities with patience ... [and] listens to the din and clang of war, the earthquake and the hurricane of the political and moral world with the temper and the spirit of a philosopher ...". But this sort of good-natured person, exemplified by Eldon, is, if one scrutinises the case, good-natured out of selfishness: "tread on the toe of one of these amiable and imperturbable mortals, or let a lump of soot fall down the chimney and spoil their dinners, and see how they will bear it." "All their patience is confined to the accidents that befal others: all their good humour is to be resolved into giving themselves no concern about any thing but their own ease and self-indulgence. Their charity begins and ends at home." Their mode of self-focus cuts them off from human connection: their "being free from the common infirmities of temper is owing to their indifference to the common feelings of humanity". As was frequently noted at the time, and Hazlitt reminds his readers, Lord Eldon delights in investigating the mazes of the law, and will prolong a case as necessary to decide fairly between participants in a legal matter; and the decision, however protracted the delay, might well be a fair one. But when the matter is one in which deciding against the continuance of royal or noble privilege would risk disapproval of the king or lord, however long Eldon's delay, the ruling is invariably in favour of established prerogative. In this, Hazlitt notes, Eldon has been consistent, "a thorough-bred Tory ... an out-and-outer". Hazlitt supports his contention by following it with a list of issue after issue in which, by backing royal and aristocratic privilege, Eldon has decided in favoor of maintaining abuses of individual rights. The Lord Chancellor does this not out of malice; his persistent failure to sympathise with the suffering of the common man is due to his blindness to it. This in turn is enabled by the persistent underlying support of royal favour, along with other motives: "The King's hand is velvet to the touch—the Woolsack is a seat of honour and profit!" Nor has he any particular understanding of the plight of the common man through "strong feeling [or] principle." And in this (Hazlitt here continues his psychological explanation) he follows a common human tendency: "Where remote and speculative objects do not excite a predominant interest and passion, gross and immediate ones are sure to carry the day, even in ingenuous and well-disposed minds." Thus Lord Eldon presents himself to others as a pleasant person, "without one trace of pride, of spleen, or discontent in his whole demeanor". Yet having attained this state of poise and emotional equilibrium only with the underlying support of royalty, he also shrinks from the slightest difference with his royal patron. Thus "there has been no stretch of power attempted in his time that he has not seconded: no existing abuse, so odious or absurd, that he has not sanctioned ... . On all the great questions that have divided party opinion or agitated the public mind, the Chancellor has been found uniformly on the side of prerogative and power, and against every proposal for the advancement of freedom." Here ended the original article, the fifth in the "Spirits of the Age" series in The New Monthly Magazine. For the book, Hazlitt added, as an interesting contrast, a sketch of William Wilberforce. Mr. Wilberforce William Wilberforce (1759–1833) was a prominent and long-serving Member of Parliament (1780–1825), best known as a lifelong Abolitionist and campaigner against the slave trade. As an Evangelical Christian, he was a central member of the Clapham Sect. While celebrated for his tireless campaigning against slavery, Wilberforce was also frequently criticised for his conservative political position, supporting repressive domestic policies in the wake of the French Revolution and the period of the Napoleonic Wars, including even what became known as the "Peterloo massacre", with the journalist William Cobbett going so far as to accuse Wilberforce of "hypocrisy". As with Lord Eldon, Hazlitt takes a psychological approach in his assessment of Wilberforce, whom he had been watching and thinking about for years. However well-intentioned he might be, Wilberforce, according to Hazlitt, places himself in an impossible position. Differing with Cobbett, Hazlitt does not believe that Wilberforce is a true hypocrite. Rather, Wilberforce speaks "cant", that is, as Hazlitt explains, he vociferously expresses his religious beliefs while unwilling or unable to practise them consistently. Wilberforce is a man "of many excellent and admirable qualifications": he is eloquent, "amiable, charitable, conscientious, pious, loyal, [and] humane". But he is also "tractable to power" and "accessible to popularity". These qualities, according to Hazlitt, are inherently contradictory and render Wilberforce ineffectual. "Loyalty, patriotism, friendship, humanity, are all virtues; but may they not sometimes clash?" He is too afraid of criticism and too in love with praise. "We can readily believe", Hazlitt explains, "that Mr. Wilberforce's first object and principle of action is to do what he thinks right: his next (and that we fear is of almost equal weight with the first) is to do what will be thought so by other people." The result, muses Hazlitt, is that he becomes accused, and understandably so, of "affectation, cant, hollow professions, trimming, fickleness, and effeminate imbecility." So in love with praise, both popular and in the highest circles, is Wilberforce, observes Hazlitt, that he was even half inclined to give up his favourite cause, abolition of the slave trade, when William Pitt, the Prime Minister, was set to abandon it, and he sided with Pitt in approval of the repressive measures then imposed by the government in Britain and the government's later severe measures during the period of the Napoleonic Wars and afterward. "He has no mercy on those who claim a property in negro-slaves as so much live-stock on their estates ... but not a word has he to say, not a whisper does he breathe against the claim set up by the Despots of the Earth over their Continental subjects, but does every thing in his power to confirm and sanction it! He must give no offence. ... He preaches vital Christianity to untutored savages; and tolerates its worst abuses in civilized states." To "render signal services to mankind" requires greater moral strength than Wilberforce possesses: what is needed is "a severity, a sternness, a self-denial, and a painful sense of duty" that in Wilberforce's case vanish in exchange for a nod of approval from the king or the Prime Minister. Even in Wilberforce's acts of independence from his party's political standpoint, Hazlitt notes a subtle balancing of motives. In the words of Wilberforce biographer William Hague, who quotes Hazlitt's Spirit of the Age criticism, "Hazlitt considered that Wilberforce meant well, but would never risk becoming unpopular with the ruling establishment: 'He ... reaps the credit of independence without the obloquy ... He has all the air of the most perfect independence, and gains a character for impartiality and candour, when he is only striking a balance between the éclat of differing from a Minister on some vantage ground, and the risk or odium that may attend it. In line with his practice of interweaving personal elements into these sketches, Hazlitt briefly summarises the character of Wilberforce's speeches in Parliament: "Mr. Wilberforce's style of speaking is not quite parliamentary, it is halfway between that and evangelical. As in all things, he must have things both ways: "He is altogether a double-entendre ... ". Hazlitt concludes by exclaiming that to him, the real hero of the Abolitionist movement is not Wilberforce, but Thomas Clarkson, a man who persisted in the fight consistently without Wilberforce's "equivocation": with his "Herculean labours of body, and equally gigantic labors of mind", Clarkson was "the true Apostle of human Redemption on that occasion. ..." Mr. Canning George Canning (1770–1827) was an English politician, a long-time Member of Parliament, who also held several powerful and influential government offices, most notably that of British Foreign Secretary (1807–1809, 1822–1827). For a few months at the end of his life he was Prime Minister. In his early years he was also a satiric poet. Canning was acclaimed as a powerful orator and in later years for his achievements in international diplomacy. He was also criticised as overly ambitious, "slippery", and a "game player", and remained highly controversial throughout his political career. Hazlitt, at least from his days as a parliamentary reporter, had been following Canning for years, and, as with Brougham, had commented before about Canning's speechmaking. Canning's support for the Pitt government, which favoured a prolonged war with France, laying a heavy burden on the British populace, led Hazlitt to view Canning as self-centred, insensitive to the needs of the people, too ready to side with royal power, and ultimately dangerous. "Mr. Canning was the cleverest boy at Eton", exclaims Hazlitt, opening his sketch with a focus on Canning's personal character. As a speaker, Canning developed in the artificial climate of schools, first at Eton College and then at Oxford University. Later he merely transplanted his manner of speaking to the equally artificial climate of Parliament. As a member of parliament, he was always too insulated from his constituents to be able to understand them. Canning's oratory, Hazlitt maintains, is entirely artificial, his "reasoning a tissue of glittering sophistry ... his language a cento of florid commonplaces", elegantly constructed but trite and contrived. His speeches are "not the growth of truth, of nature, and feeling, but of state policy, of art, and practice." They are as unlike true eloquence as "artificial flowers" are unlike real ones, and are filled with such hollow and outworn phrases as the vessel of the state,' 'the torrent of popular fury,' 'the precipice of reform,' 'the thunderbolt of war,' 'the smile of peace,' etc." Canning adds to this the conventional modes of address used in parliament, such as The Honourable and Learned Gentleman,' and 'his Honourable and Gallant Friend, which Hazlitt dubs "House-of-Commons jargon". These speeches are delivered in a brilliant, witty, and elegant manner suggesting extemporaneity, yet, as Hazlitt claims, there are clues to indicate that they are in fact carefully worked up in advance and learned by rote. And the speeches are used often to conceal unpleasant truths for political ends. A master of sophistry, Canning can make a superficial case for any political action. Often it seems that his arguments follow his whims. "If all this", muses Hazlitt, "were fickleness, caprice, forgetfulness, accident, folly, it would be well ... we should stand a chance of sometimes being right, sometimes wrong." But the case is worse. Although Canning's arguments may seem arbitrary, so that sometimes some good may come of them, examination of their tendency shows a darker influence: that of support of "Legitimacy", warmongering for the restoration of Bourbon royalty on the European continent, with disastrous consequences. By unpredictable, seemingly arbitrary but carefully calculated movements, Canning "advances boldly to 'the deliverance of mankind'—into the hands of legitimate kings, but can do nothing to deliver them out of their power." To support his point, Hazlitt observes that when Napoleon invaded Spain, Canning urged the British to march to war to support the liberty of the Spanish people. Yet, after Napoleon's defeat, when the Bourbon King Ferdinand was restored to the Spanish throne but then broke all his promises to abide by a constitutional government and turned into a brutal oppressor, Canning's argument was that it would be "Quixotic" to interfere in Spain's affairs in any attempt to support the Spanish people. Winding up this account of George Canning as sophist in the service of devious political ends, Hazlitt maintains that his career is a significant example of the "Genius of the Age". The age is one of words without substance, the substitution of words for things being an unfortunate sign of the spirit of the times. "In fine," observes Hazlitt, "Mr. Canning's success as an orator, and the space he occupies in the public mind, are strong indications of the Genius of the Age, in which words have obtained a mastery over things 'and to call evil good and good evil,' is thought the mark of a superior and happy spirit." It is not by chance that Canning, with his deftness with words, was also known as a satiric poet. But his satire, Hazlitt maintains, is of a shallow kind founded in dismissal of human feeling, in superficial contempt for the true poetry of life. "Any thing more light or worthless cannot well be imagined." This sketch, originally an unsigned contribution to The Examiner of 11 July 1824, entitled "Character of Mr. Canning", appeared in book form only in the Paris edition of The Spirit of the Age. Mr. Cobbett William Cobbett (1763–1835) was an English journalist, farmer, social commentator and reformer, and a prolific author of books on gardening, household economy, religion, and other topics, including a popular grammar. His self-published Cobbett's Political Register (scornfully nicknamed "two-penny trash" by the political opposition, as it was affordable by labourers of modest means) was the most popular political journal of the day. Cobbett's sympathy for the working classes, disadvantaged by an economy undergoing wrenching upheavals, endeared him to them and greatly influenced popular opinion, as his unrelenting criticism of corruption and waste in the political establishment provoked government persecution, leading to imposition of fines, imprisonment, and self-imposed exile in the United States. In agreement about the wrongheadedness of Thomas Malthus's economic theories, Hazlitt and Cobbett met in or around 1807 when the latter published a series of Hazlitt's essays criticising Malthus, in the form of pseudonymous letters, in the Political Register. Hazlitt continued to read Cobbett and observe his career, resulting in the profile "Character of Cobbett", published in 1821 in Table Talk. Later included in The Spirit of the Age, this essay thus became one of the earliest written of the character sketches to be included in the book. Cobbett, asserts Hazlitt, is like the great prize-fighter Cribb—the most effective living political writer, as well as one of the best writers of any kind in the English language, so powerful in verbal combat that he amounts to a "fourth estate" in the politics of Great Britain. As with all first-rate writers, Cobbett's writing style is, Hazlitt reflects, difficult to describe. It is like that of Edmund Burke, which Hazlitt admired immensely, in only one way, namely, that he is sui generis, and his style is not quite like anyone else's. He is, Hazlitt grants, somewhat like Thomas Paine in his popular appeal and sympathy with the cause of the common man; but even then there are significant differences. Paine is a "sententious" and "poetical" writer; many of his lines are memorable and quotable. Cobbett's writing contains almost nothing suitable for quotation. Prosaic and down to earth, it produces its effects by the incessant accumulation of closely observed details. Cobbett, Hazlitt observes, is so powerful a verbal combatant that one would think him unopposable, that "not only no individual, but no corrupt system could hold out against his powerful and repeated attacks." If he does not in practice succeed as well as one would expect, it is that he undermines his position by a number of self-defeating faults. These include a maddening inconsistency, as well as an unwillingess to compromise or collaborate with others. In fact, he antagonizes his would-be supporters along with his opponents: "with the same weapon" he uses against his enemies, he also "lays his friends low, and puts his own party hors de combat." But Cobbett is not dishonest, servile, or mercenary. He believes in what he fights for, for the moment. "He is not a feed, time-serving, shuffling advocate ... but his understanding is the dupe and slave of his momentary, violent, and irritable humours." Employing another elaborate metaphor, Hazlitt observes that Cobbett "is like a young and lusty bridegroom that divorces a favourite speculation every morning, and marries a new one every night. He is not wedded to his notions, not he. He has not one Mrs. Cobbett among his opinions." With his usual psychological focus, Hazlitt observes that Cobbett takes pleasure only in opposition. As soon as it seems that he has gained ground and the other party has backed off, he loses interest and retreats. He is interested in the truth, but not in holding his ground founded on "fixed principles" kept constantly in mind. "He abandons his opinions as he does his friends ... ." If he appears to be succeeding, he loses interest. "In fact, he cannot bear success of any kind, not even of his own views or party; and if any principle were likely to become popular, would turn round against it to shew his power in shouldering it on one side. In short, wherever power is, there is he against it. ... I do not think this is vanity or fickleness so much as a pugnacious dispostion, that must have an antagonist power to contend with, and only finds itself at ease in systematic opposition." Cobbett "likes the cut and thrust, the falls, bruises, and dry blows of an argument ..." But then he loses all interest. "As to any good or useful results that may come of the amicable settling of it, any one is welcome to them for him. The amusement is over, when the matter is once fairly decided." Hazlitt provides as one notable example Cobbett's brief fondness for some ideas of Thomas Paine. Cobbett even brought Paine's bones back with him from the United States to England, planning to erect a monument. But then his enthusiasm dwindled, and he "ratted from his own project", and went off to fight other battles. Often, it takes only firm resistance or an attack in response to turn Cobbett around. Cobbett attacks only until he meets serious opposition, and then runs away, like a bullying schoolboy. Pursuing his analysis, Hazlitt stops to consider a major cause of Cobbett's inconsistency: the "want of a regular education." Cobbett is almost entirely self-educated. Anyone with a conventional education would know enough of what has been thought before to be discouraged from believing that the kind of discoveries Cobbett made about corruption are anything new, would be less likely to be impressed by the originality of his own discoveries. He would know that there has been evil and corruption in the world before him, and be more likely to remain content with things as they are. There is an advantage, however, in learning things for oneself. Cobbett, discovering the world anew, understands it better in its small details, and is better equipped to persuade others. Cobbett's observations are always fresh. "Whatever he finds out, is his own, and he only knows what he finds out. He is in the constant hurry and fever of gestation: his brain teems incessantly with some fresh project." If he is an egotist, his focusing on his own life is justified because he finds well-observed details in that life's events to provide the best illustrations of his thoughts. Hazlitt in conclusion shows his subject in a favourable light, appending a footnote with his impression of Cobbett's appearance on the occasion when they met: "Mr. Cobbett speaks almost as well as he writes", although does not seem to care about how extreme some of his critical expressions might be. (Later commentators have noted how Cobbett was filled with the prejudices of the age.) "He seemed ... a very pleasant man—easy of access, affable, clear-headed, simple and mild in his manner, deliberate and unruffled in his speech ... ." To the eye, he gives the impression of one of the "gentlemen-farmers in the last century ... ." Hazlitt concludes that he "certainly did not think less favourably of him for seeing him." A century and a half later, biographer A.C. Grayling applauded Hazlitt's preserving in this essay Cobbett's appearance, down to the details of "the flaps of [his] waistcoat pockets", while James Sambrook noted that Hazlitt "caught perfectly Cobbett's political temper, and the vitality which can thrive only on opposition", declaring that Hazlitt's account of Cobbett "remains far and away the best characterization of Cobbett as a man and writer ... ." Mr. Campbell—Mr. Crabbe Mr. Campbell Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) was a Scottish poet and the editor of the New Monthly Magazine, where several of the essays that were later incorporated into The Spirit of the Age were first published. With the 1799 publication of his poem "The Pleasures of Hope", written in the formal language and rhymed couplets characteristic of an earlier period (though also with some traits of the emerging Romantic period), Campbell was catapulted into fame, becoming one of the most popular poets of the day, far more so than his Romantic contemporaries Wordsworth and Coleridge, whose Lyrical Ballads had been issued the previous year. Despite the popular acclaim, "The Pleasures of Hope" did not gain critical favour, Hazlitt being one of the disapproving critics. In his 1818 Lectures on the English Poets, he heaped scorn on the poem's sacrificing "sense and keeping in the ideas" to a "jingle of words and epigrammatic turn of expression". Meanwhile, the unprolific Campbell, after some short lyric verses, had produced a longer narrative poem, Gertrude of Wyoming; Or, The Pennsylvanian Cottage (1809), a verse tale about European settlers in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania, in the early days of the United States, depicted as an idyllic enclave before the community was destroyed in an attack by a hostile Indian tribe. Still embodying some of the conventions and the formality of Augustan poetry, it was also heavily sentimental like much literature of the later 18th century. But in its narration of a specific event based on historical fact (however loosely), its exotic setting, and its verse form, the Spenserian stanza, it belonged to the emerging Romantic era (though the Spenserian stanza dated back hundreds of years, many of Campbell's contemporaries were experimenting with such older verse forms). In his 1818 Lectures, after severely censuring "The Pleasures of Hope", Hazlitt pauses to observe that Gertrude of Wyoming is better, with some bright spots. By the time he wrote the present essay in 1824, his overall attitude toward the earlier poem had softened, and he compares it favourably to the "too effeminate" Samuel Rogers' "The Pleasures of Memory" on the one hand, and the overly "extravagant" poetry of Lord Byron on the other. Campbell's place among poets is as "a high finisher in poetry ... who labours to lend every grace of execution to his subject, while he borrows his ardour and inspiration from it." The more recent Gertrude of Wyoming now receives yet greater approbation, containing, as Hazlitt had come to feel, "passages of so rare and ripe a beauty, that they challenge, as they exceed all praise." He proceeds to quote a lengthy selection of verse that he feels to be particularly beautiful, especially singling out the passage "All uncompanion'd else her heart had gone/Till now, in Gertrude's eyes, their ninth blue summer shone.'" In poetry like this, Hazlitt exclaims, Campbell "has succeeded in engrafting the wild and more expansive interest of the romantic school of poetry on classic elegance and precision." The only qualification Hazlitt makes is in his noting that the achievement of this poem is "chiefly in sentiment and imagery": The story moves slow, and is mechanically conducted, and rather resembles a Scotch canal carried over lengthened aqueducts and with a number of locks in it, than one of those rivers that sweep in their majestic course, broad and full, over Transatlantic plains and lose themselves in rolling gulfs, or thunder down lofty precipices. Hazlitt then heaps praise on some of Campbell's shorter verse, much of which was about warfare, quoting in full his "Battle of Hohenlinden" about the 1800 battle of that name between the Austrians and Bavarians, and the French, and calling Campbell's short poem "of all modern compositions the most lyrical in spirit and in sound." Later commentators on Campbell's poetry and Hazlitt's extravagant praise of it have noted this as one instance in The Spirit of the Age where Hazlitt's judgement failed him, his enthusiasm for Campbell's poetry having been carried too far. Recent critical assessment has rated Campbell's poetry, now mostly forgotten, far lower than Hazlitt here did. Mr. Crabbe George Crabbe (1754–1832), an English clergyman, surgeon, and amateur entomologist, was best known as a poet, later often considered an early practitioner of the style of literary "realism". Much older than most of his contemporary poets, Crabbe wrote in a style that harked back to the Augustan period, with his first widely acclaimed poem, The Village, dating to 1783. He produced most of his verse, however, in the early 1800s, during the Romantic period, when he was hailed by the respected critic Francis Jeffrey as a faithful portrayer of the daily life of the common people in their typical surroundings. Though somewhat controversial, his poetry won both critical and popular acclaim, and was praised by contemporary poets as notable as Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron. Hazlitt first reviewed Crabbe at length in his 1818 Lectures on the English Poets. This was followed by an 1821 article in The London Magazine (much of which he incorporated into the present sketch) in which he critically surveyed many of Crabbe's major works, including The Village and The Borough (1810). In 1824 he included lengthy extracts from, among other works, The Village, The Borough (including "Peter Grimes"), and the 1812 collection Tales in his anthology of Select British Poets. In The Spirit of the Age he presents Crabbe as a radical contrast to Campbell, characterising at length the nature of Crabbe's poetry, attempting to account for its popularity, and adding some historical background. Crabbe, notes Hazlitt, focuses on the lives of ordinary people in minutely described, most often dreary and oppressive, surroundings. He does not omit the meanest, least flattering aspects of human behaviour or the petty disappointments, the sickness and misery found in everyday life. "His song is one sad reality, one unraised, unvaried note of unavailing woe." There are none of the traditional poetic "flights of fancy", no imaginative transformation of the scene. He "dissects the most trivial objects" with "microscopic minuteness"; and he "deals in incessant matters of fact ... of the most familiar, the least animating, and the most unpleasant kind ... ." Yet this is "nature". We are part of nature and deeply interested in its tiniest details, even if the focus is on the sordid and trivial. That "Mr. Crabbe is one of the most popular and admired of our living authors ... can be accounted for by ... the strong ties that bind us to the world about us ... ." We are captivated by Crabbe's poetry despite its focus, not on the "spirit of youth" but rather almost entirely on the "spirit of fear, despondency, and decay". Yet there is something compelling in its microscopic scrutiny of life, and "we read on!" "We can only explain this", writes Hazlitt, "by saying ... that Mr. Crabbe gives us one part of nature, the mean, the little, the disgusting, the distressing; that he does this thoroughly and like a master, and we forgive all the rest!" Though often oppressive, Crabbe's poetry had remarkable popular appeal, which Hazlitt attempts to explain by isolating two causes: the reading public was tiring of the formal, conventional, empty phrasing of most poetry of the day; and simultaneously there had been developing a public taste for painting. Something in Crabbe's The Village had caught the interest of the respected critic Dr. Johnson, but it was a painter, the famous Sir Joshua Reynolds, who in 1783 had brought it to his attention. The time was ripe for this kind of verse: Crabbe essentially paints in words, and his word paintings embody the attention to detail typical of Dutch and Flemish painters of the 17th century, a sharp and welcome relief from the vapid, conventional phraseology of much Augustan poetry. "Painting is essentially an imitative art; it cannot subsist for a moment on empty generalities ... . Mr. Crabbe ... paints in words, instead of colours." Unfortunately, the artificial and laboured character of his versification has a detrimental effect on the poetry, and Hazlitt suggests that Crabbe might have written his tales in plain prose: "Mr. Crabbe ... is for the most part a poet, only because he writes in lines of ten syllables." Crabbe's shift in approach was not necessarily a bad thing. The flaw in Crabbe's poetry, however, is, according to Hazlitt, that, with all its detail, it misses much of life, emphasising much too heavily the oppressive and the squalid, along with the mean and malicious tendencies of human nature. Hazlitt points to ways in which all this might be incorporated into literature and yet made uplifting, as in tragedy. With Crabbe, we get mostly the oppressive. In this, Hazlitt finds Crabbe unimaginative. It is not that he doesn't indulge in flights of fancy, but rather that he doesn't use his imagination to see, and help the reader see, into the minds and hearts of the poor, to feel what they feel in their situation. Instead, scrutinizing in detail the squalor of their surroundings, he attributes to them feelings he would have in their place. Crabbe's persistent depressed attitude might be, Hazlitt muses in one of his psychological analyses, because Crabbe himself was a dissatisfied man, a country parson set down in a remote location for life, "and he takes his revenge by imprisoning the reader's imagination in luckless verse. Shut out from social converse, from learned colleges and halls, where he passed his youth, he has no cordial fellow feeling with the unlettered manners of the Village or the Borough; and he describes his neighbors as more uncomfortable and discontented than himself." Hazlitt concludes with a lengthy quotation from the "Peter Grimes" letter in The Borough, characterising it as "an exact fac-simile of some of the most unlovely parts of the creation." He allows, however, that Crabbe's poetry in Tales is more readable than that in his earlier collection Poems. Still oppressive, this later poetry contains "highly finished, striking, and original portraits", with acute psychological insight, "an intimate knowledge of the small and intricate folds of the human heart." There is enough that is striking, even "profound", so that if they do not affect us as "entertaining" or "delightful", they compel us to read on, even if once you lay the poems down "you never wish to take them up again". Thus "they will remain, 'as a thorn in the side of poetry,' perhaps for a century to come!" Hazlitt's sketch of Crabbe has drawn much more serious interest by recent critics than the companion sketch on Campbell. Tim Fulford assents to Hazlitt's observation that Crabbe viewed his poor villagers from a distance ("as an overseer of the poor"; the words are from his lectures on poetry but the idea was brought forward into The Spirit of the Age), rather than showing the reader what they feel about their situation. Roy Park notes with approval Hazlitt's observations on the imbalance in what Crabbe shows the reader in his verse narratives, his overemphasis of the pictorial, as well as of the dark side of the human condition. And David Bromwich notes the importance of Hazlitt's discussion of the relationship of a fictional world to the world it draws upon, including the extent to which a writer of fiction is said to create a world, in which Hazlitt here comes close to "a full-scale debate on the question". Mr. T. Moore—Mr. Leigh Hunt Mr. T. Moore Thomas Moore (1779–1852) was an Irish-born English poet, songwriter, satirist, and writer of miscellaneous prose. He skyrocketed to fame in 1817 with his exotic poem Lalla Rookh, and his controversial biography of Byron was an immediate success. Moore's most lasting popularity came with his series of sentimental, patriotic, but well-crafted and sometimes inspired Irish Melodies (1808–34). For these, Moore set original lyrics to traditional Irish tunes, and he frequently publicly performed them himself. Some, like "The Last Rose of Summer", remained popular well into the twentieth century. Hazlitt devoted serious coverage to Moore's poetry in one of his January 1818 Lectures on the English Poets, an earlier lecture in which series Moore himself had attended. His opinions of some of Moore's major verse productions, particularly the highly touted Lalla Rookh, a part-prose, part-verse "Oriental Romance", were not altogether complimentary. Soon afterwards, Hazlitt published an anonymous review, mostly favourable, of Moore's sometimes lighthearted but often politically barbed satire, The Fudge Family in Paris (itself published pseudonymously, as "edited" by "Thomas Brown, the younger"), in the 25 April 1818 issue of The Yellow Dwarf, and Moore in turn presented Hazlitt with an inscribed copy of that short epistolary novel in verse. Hazlitt and Moore shared many left-wing political views; however, Hazlitt's critical stance against much of Moore's poetry and some of his actions later distanced the two men. One of these actions was Moore's discouraging his friend Byron from joining Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt in Hunt's new left-leaning political journal, The Liberal. Also Moore harshly criticised the personal life of one of Hazlitt's favourite writers, Rousseau, and simultaneously disparaged Rousseau's literary accomplishments, later angrily defended by Hazlitt against Moore. By the time Hazlitt came to size up Moore in his sketch in The Spirit of the Age, there was no hope of any real reconciliation. Hazlitt begins his sketch of Moore in The Spirit of the Age by focusing on Lalla Rookh, which had appeared in 1817, at the height of the craze for poetry about exotic locales, particularly the Near East. Although Moore had no first-hand knowledge of that region of the world, and the poem achieves its "local colour" by weaving in bits and pieces of knowledge acquired from second-hand sources, it achieved a sparkle and lush effect that had immense popular appeal, and it was an instant success. As Hazlitt notes at the outset, "Mr. Moore's poetry ... is like a shower of beauty; a dance of images; a stream of music; or like the spray of the water-fall, tinged by the morning beam with rosy light. The characteristic distinction of our author's style is this continuous and incessant flow of voluptuous thoughts and shining allusions." However delightful this may sometimes be, Hazlitt observes, Moore carries all to excess, to satisfy popular taste: "It has been too much our author's object to pander to the artificial taste of the age. ... Now all must be raised to the same tantalising and preposterous level. ... The craving of the public mind after novelty and effect ... must be pampered with fine words at every step—we must be tickled with sound, startled with show, and relieved by the importunate, uninterrupted display of fancy and verbal tinsel as much as possible from the fatigue of thought or shock of feeling." Individual verses may be appealing, but Moore fails to construct a satisfactory whole: "He can write verses, not a poem. There is no principle of massing or of continuity in his productions—neither height nor breadth nor depth of capacity. There is no truth of representation, no strong internal feeling [but merely] flippant forwardness and unmeaning sentimentality." Neither does Moore's superficial sentimentality, especially in light of the tribulations of Ireland at the time, go well with Irish patriotism in Moore's Irish Melodies, Hazlitt adds, and he gibes: "If these national airs do indeed express the soul of impassioned feeling in his countrymen, the case of Ireland is hopeless." Moore's satire, on the other hand, claims Hazlitt, shows Moore's talent at its best. In such works as the Twopenny Post-bag and, to a lesser degree, The Fudge Family in Paris, Moore's "light, agreeable, polished style pierces through the body of the court ... weighs the vanity of fashion in tremulous scales, mimics the grimace of affectation and folly, shows up the littleness of the great, and spears a phalanx of statesmen with its glittering point as with a diamond brooch." Hazlitt concludes with a note—in line with his practise in The Spirit of the Age—on Moore's personal character, observing that "Mr. Moore is in private life an amiable and estimable man." Hazlitt's resentment, however, of Moore's dissuading Byron from participating in Hunt's periodical, to which Hazlitt had also contributed, increasingly colours his account as he winds down to a conclusion. Moore, Hazlitt asserts, wants to have things both ways, identifying with the people and with liberal causes, yet at the same time moving in aristocratic circles above the masses. While he stands fast by his patriotic beliefs and "vindicates his own dignity" (thereby preventing his ever being accepted in royal circles), Moore "has been ... accustomed to the society of Whig Lords, and ... enchanted with the smile of beauty and fashion ... ". "There is", Hazlitt claims, "a little servility and pandering to aristocratic pride" in Moore's actions, and Moore is too ready to "advise a Noble Peer to get as fast as possible out of a certain publication ... ". "Does Mr. Moore," Hazlitt disappointedly wonders aloud, "insist on the double claim of birth and genius as a title to respectability in all advocates of the popular side—but himself?" Although most of Moore's accomplishments faded from the public eye (his satire having been too topical to last, however stunning it was in its day), in a reassessment of Moore a century and a half later, critic and biographer Miriam Allen deFord singled out Hazlitt's treatment of Moore in this sketch to have been particularly level-headed and on point, stating, "The most acute critic of Moore in his own time was William Hazlitt ...". Mr. Leigh Hunt Leigh Hunt (1784–1859) was an English man of letters—a poet, political commentator, drama critic, literary critic, translator, and essayist. The centre of a literary circle including the poets Byron, Shelley, and Keats, and the essayists Charles Lamb and Hazlitt himself, he exerted an influence on and was an avid promoter of all of them. Hunt began to gain notice in 1808, when, as editor of the radical periodical The Examiner, and a valiant advocate of liberty, free speech, and political reform, he attracted a wide audience; he gained even more attention in 1813 when his outspoken criticism of the Prince Regent landed him in prison. In 1816, Hunt published his innovative but controversial narrative poem The Story of Rimini. It drew many enthusiastic admirers, but its theme of forbidden love provided Hunt's political foes with an instrument to chastise him, and from then on Hunt's reputation was sharply split along political lines. Hazlitt and Hunt became close friends—helped by their strong radical political alignment—but Hunt's self-centred ways and Hazlitt's irritation with, and finally his tactless open reaction to, Hunt's egotism severely strained their relationship. The friendship survived, however, and when he included Hunt in The Spirit of the Age, as in the other sketches, Hazlitt took a measured approach; in making the transition, for contrast, from Moore to Hunt, Hazlitt walks a fine line, balancing critical assessment with personal and political considerations. Distinguished as a poet, Hunt is at the same time, according to Hazlitt, one of the finest prose writers among those primarily known as poets (along with Southey, as he remarks in the sketch of the latter poet). He singles out for special mention several of Hunt's poems, yet along the way expresses numerous qualifications. "A light, familiar grace, and mild unpretending pathos are the characteristics of his more sportive or serious writings, whether in poetry or prose. A smile plays round the sparkling features of the one; a tear is ready to start from the other." And yet, "He perhaps takes too little pains, and indulges in too much wayward caprice in both." Moreover, "He sometimes trifles with his readers, or tires of a subject. ..." What is distinctive about Leigh Hunt, according to Hazlitt, and compensates for his faults as an author, is his captivating personality. "Indeed, the very faults of his style are virtues in the individual. His natural gaiety and spriteliness of manner, his high animal spirits, and the vinous quality of his mind, produce an immediate fascination and intoxication in those who come in contact with him ... . His look, his tone are required to point many things that he says ... ." Even Hunt's egotism becomes excusable on better acquaintance: "his frank, cordial manner reconciles you instantly to a little over-bearing, over-weening self-complacency." Summing up while alluding to the politically motivated attacks that prevented Hunt's fuller acceptance as a major literary figure in his time, Hazlitt draws a comparison with certain gentleman-poets of an earlier age, integrating this with what he has noted of Hunt's personal vanity: "We have said that Lord Byron is a sublime coxcomb: why should we not say that Mr. Hunt is a delightful one? ... He is the only poet or literary man we ever knew who puts us in mind of Sir John Suckling or Killigrew or Carew; or who united rare intellectual acquirements with outward grace and natural gentility. ... A wit and a poet, Mr. Hunt is also distinguished by fineness of tact and sterling sense: he has only been a visionary in humanity, the fool of virtue." And here Hazlitt brings in the main reason for the hostile politically oriented attacks on him in Tory periodicals, his notorious criticism of the Prince Regent in his own periodical: "What then is the draw-back to so many shining qualities, that has made them useless, or even hurtful to their owner? His crime is, to have been Editor of the Examiner ten years ago ...". Nearly two centuries afterward, Hunt's biographer Anthony Holden found this sketch of Hunt as "vivid (and candid) as any we have ...". Elia, and Geoffrey Crayon "Elia" and "Geoffrey Crayon" were pen names of Charles Lamb and Washington Irving, respectively. Both authors enjoyed sudden, near simultaneous, popularity in Britain in 1820, as Lamb began his celebrated series of essays under the name "Elia" in The London Magazine in that year, and Irving, the first American author to attract significant notice in Europe, had his collection of essays and short stories, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., published in Britain. In the light of their near-simultaneous emergence into the literary spotlight, Hazlitt presents the two as a contrasted pair. While Irving created a considerable stir when he burst on the English scene, and was at that time the more popular of the two, to Hazlitt that phenomenon was a consequence of the current rage for novelty. Irving's writings made for pleasant reading, Hazlitt allowed, yet he believed that Lamb, whose writing under the pen name of "Elia" is Hazlitt's chief focus here, was more original and deserved greater attention. Elia "Elia" was the best-known pen name of Charles Lamb (1775–1834), an English essayist, critic, antiquarian, and poet. Having been close friends with Lamb for almost two decades, Hazlitt had written warmly of his frequent attendance at Charles and Mary Lamb's "at home" gatherings, he and Charles had had endless literary discussions and had sometimes written on the same topics, and Hazlitt had dedicated his book Characters of Shakespear's Plays to Lamb, all of which provided Hazlitt with a wealth of personal impressions to draw upon. Thus, to a far greater extent than with Irving—of whom he notes little more of a personal nature than that he was "agreeable"—Hazlitt to a considerable degree interweaves personal elements into his account of Lamb. Lamb's shyness and unpretentiousness, combined with his personal convictions and critical taste, along with his antiquarian preferences, Hazlitt explains, have led him away from the fashions of the day. In his writing as "Elia", he "has borrowed from previous sources", but his taste and discernment enable his style to "run ... pure and clear, though it may often take an underground course, or be conveyed through old-fashioned conduit-pipes." "He has none of the turbulence or froth of new-fangled opinions." Rather, "Mr. Lamb has the very soul of an antiquarian, as this implies a reflecting humanity. ... He is shy, sensitive, the reverse of every thing coarse, vulgar, obtrusive, and commonplace." "Mr. Lamb succeeds not by conforming to the Spirit of the Age, but in opposition to it. He does not march boldly along with the crowd, but steals off the pavement to pick his way in the contrary direction." Although there is something of an affectation in Lamb's focus on the past, "the obscure and remote", that focus is justified by its depth of humanity. He discerns that which possesses an "intrinsic and silent merit". As Hazlitt epitomises Lamb's style, using a metaphor derived from painting, there is a touch of sadness in his essays' brightest passages, "a fine tone of chiaro-scuro, a moral perspective in his writings." Hazlitt then probes Lamb's distaste for the new, and affection for the past, but that only as it has "something personal and local in it." He mentions with approval Lamb's sketches of "the former inmates of the South-Sea House", his firm yet subtle sketch of the title character of the essay "Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist", his portrayal of "lasting and lively emblems of human infirmity" in fictionalised sketches of his friends and family, and then, "With what a gusto Mr. Lamb describes the inns and courts of law, the temple and Gray's-Inn, as if he had been a student there for the last two hundred years", and, in general, his ability to render the life and implied history in his native city: "The streets of London are his fairy-land, teeming with wonder, with life and interest in his retrospective glance, as it did to the eager eye of childhood: he has contrived to weave its tritest traditions into a bright and endless romance!" Hazlitt then reflects further on Lamb's taste in literature and art, his abilities as a conversationalist, and his appearance and personal character. "Mr. Lamb's taste in books is not the worse for a little idiosyncrasy ... no man can give a better account of Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, or Sir Thomas Brown's [sic] Urn-Burial, or Fuller's Worthies, or John Bunyan's Holy War. ... no one relishes a recondite beauty more" than he. Hazlitt tempers his praise with a note of reservation: "His worst fault is an over-eagerness of enthusiasm, which occasionally makes him take a surfeit of his highest favourites." But then, as a conversationalist, at which he excels nearly as much as in his writing, "He is as little of a proser as possible; but he blurts out the finest wit and sense in the world." Hazlitt intersperses a few more thoughts on Lamb's character and notes that he "is a general favourite", explaining this with the psychological observation that this is in part due to the absence of any kind of threat posed by Lamb's modest, unassuming personality, indeed by his personal shortcomings. Hazlitt also observes that such a retiring character as his might never have been noticed if not for the phenomenon of the periodical press of the day. And that led to a popularity, especially for his depictions of London, great enough that the Elia essays procured Lamb "civic honours (a thing unheard of in our times), and he has been invited, in his character of Elia, to dine at a select party with the Lord Mayor." Looking back a century and a half later, the critic John Kinnaird finds Hazlitt's presentation of Lamb, especially in the place where it is inserted, to be more appropriate than is immediately obvious. "It may seem inapposite that Hazlitt's panorama of the Zeitgeist should end with glimpses of a crotchety bibliophile indulging in an eccentric taste for literary antiquities at a bookstall in an alley off Fleet Street," Kinnaird muses. "But precisely this contrast with the public world of political London serves to make Hazlitt's critical point. The figure of Elia represents in the symbolic landscape of the age those least tractable but deeply natural 'infirmities' of man which, ignored by, when not wholly invisible to, the humorless self-abstraction of modern pride, will never be made to yield to 'the progress of intellectual refinement.'" Geoffrey Crayon "Geoffrey Crayon" was the pen name under which the American essayist, short-story writer, biographer, historian, and humourist Washington Irving (1783–1859) first became popular in Europe. His Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., published in Britain in 1820, was a collection of travel sketches, short stories, folk tales, and miscellaneous essays. It included the two stories by which Irving is best remembered, "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". Many contemporary critics in England and Scotland praised the book as an original, distinctly American contribution to literature. A century and more afterward, critics observed the influences that Irving shared with his Romantic contemporaries, in particular the influence of Sir Walter Scott, and Irving's own original contributions to literary form. At the outset, Hazlitt, on the other hand, restricts the scope of his examination of Irving's "Geoffrey Crayon" writings, reserving judgement about the material set in America, and choosing to focus entirely on Irving's observations of English life that occupy the greater portion of the collection. It is here, Hazlitt finds, where Irving comes up short. The English life that Irving describes is that of the past. So heavily influenced is Irving by the English writers of the previous century, maintains Hazlitt, that the very characters he depicts in his wanderings through England are those that might have appeared in essays by Addison or Steele, or novels by Fielding, character types that flourished in the eighteenth century but are not representative of those found in the nineteenth. Arriving in England for the first time, the American writer, in Hazlitt's judgement, saw what he encountered with the eyes of one steeped in the writings of the previous century. Irving, he notes, has absorbed the refined style of the older writers and writes well: "Mr. Irvine's [sic] language is with great taste and felicity modeled on that of Addison, Goldsmith, Sterne, or Mackenzie"; but what he sees might have been seen with their eyes, and are such as are scarcely to be found in modern England. "Instead of looking round to see what we are, he sets to work to describe us as we were—at second hand. He has Parson Adams, or Sir Roger de Coverley in his mind's eye; and he makes a village curate or a country 'squire sit to these admired models for their portraits in the beginning of the nineteenth century." As such characters and customs hardly had any actual existence any more, Hazlitt even suggests that they might have been spun out of Irving's imagination, based on his reading of the English authors of the previous century. Paralleling his treatment of other contemporaries, Hazlitt concludes with a glance at Irving's character and appearance, combined with a summing up of the key flaw in the books Irving produced to introduce himself to the British public: "Mr. Irvine [sic] is himself, we believe, a most agreeable and deserving man, and has been led into the natural and pardonable error we speak of, by the tempting bait of European popularity ..." He has served up England's most "attractive and praise-worthy" characters of the previous century, overflowing with "simplicity, honesty, modesty, hospitality, and good-nature." This compliments his hosts' "national and Tory prejudices; and coupled with literal or exaggerated portraits of Yankee peculiarities, could hardly fail to please." A century and a half afterward, in view of the warm reception Irving received from many other British literary eminences, critic Jeffrey Rubin-Dorsky observed that Hazlitt, in this instance, turned out to be Irving's severest British critic. James Sheridan Knowles Another paragraph, not part of the essay on Lamb and Irving (though at first glance appearing to be so), is tacked on to the end of the English editions (but not the Paris edition) of The Spirit of the Age, in which Hazlitt offers a few appreciative words about his friend James Sheridan Knowles (1784–1862), an Irish-born actor and dramatist whose family had moved to England when he was a child. When Knowles was 15 years old, Hazlitt, then earning a living primarily as a portrait painter, was commissioned to capture Knowles and his sister on canvas. Knowles and Hazlitt took a liking to each other, kept in touch, and as Hazlitt delved more deeply into literature, he took the talented younger man, who had already published poetry, under his wing, offering constructive criticism of his literary output. Distance kept the two apart for years, but they maintained a friendly relationship, later finding time to see each other in London and Scotland. In 1820, Hazlitt travelled to London from his country retreat at Winterslow, Wiltshire, to attend a performance of Knowles's tragedy Virginius at Covent Garden. By then a respected drama critic, Hazlitt had, in The London Magazine just a few months earlier, lamented the dearth of good tragic drama, to which he thought the social climate was not conducive. Yet, in his review in the same magazine, he reacted favourably to Knowles's play, as well as the superlative performance of William Macready as the title character, pleasantly surprised that his old friend had blossomed into at the very least a highly competent writer of tragedy at such an unfavourable time. "Virginius is a good play ... . A real tragedy; a sound historical painting", Hazlitt wrote in "The Drama: No VII" of July 1820. "Strange to say," he added sarcastically, "in this age of poetical egotism, the author, in writing his play, has been thinking of Virginius and his daughter, more than of himself!" Thus, a few years later, Hazltt saw fit to conclude his assessment of the "spirit of the age" with a nod to Knowles. Acknowledging his long friendship with the dramatist, he puts forth his belief that Knowles's Virginius is "the best acting tragedy that has been produced on the modern stage." Knowles himself is "the first tragic writer of the age" because he keeps his ego out of his plays; following no rules and having read few plays, he has observed closely what little of life he has experienced, and then, aided by the practice of having been an actor himself, he focuses intensely on his subject and pours into his plays the "impulses of [his] natural feeling, and produces a perfect work of art." On a personal basis, Hazlitt concludes, the man is so self-effacing that you would never be able to connect his plays with his personality without knowing the fact that he is their author. Briefly, with the personal emphasis he adds to most of the essays in The Spirit of the Age, Hazlitt reflects that, when not focused on his drama, Knowles lives a retired life: he modestly "divides his time and affections between his plots and his fishing tackle, between the Muses' spring, and those mountain-streams which sparkle like his own eye, that gush out like his own voice at the sight of an old friend." Hazlitt's biographer Ralph Wardle, a century and a half later, found his way of ending The Spirit of the Age with a nod to Knowles "anticlimactic". Critical reception When The Spirit of the Age appeared at the beginning of 1825, Hazlitt's reputation had been tarnished, and, according to biographer Duncan Wu, his "name was dirt." At the very least, he was frequently disparaged as, in the words of A. C. Grayling, an "immoral and splenetic critic." Yet the book sold very well and proved to be among the most popular of Hazlitt's books. Despite Hazlitt's unsavory reputation, reviews of The Spirit of the Age were far from entirely negative. The reviewer in The New Monthly Magazine, readily identifying the author (the English editions were published anonymously), observed that this was "another volume from the reckless, extravagant, and hasty, but acute, brilliant, spirit-stirring, and always entertaining pen of the author of 'Table-Talk'; for his it must be—or the devil's." The respected Quarterly Review (a Tory periodical that had been severely critical of Hazlitt in the past) conspicuously ignored the book. Overall, however, the book was widely noticed, with the reviews running the gamut from outright abuse to effusive, though almost always highly qualified, praise. The reviewer in the May 1825 issue of Blackwood's Magazine, the source of many of the harshest attacks on Hazlitt in earlier years, stood out with an unrelieved rant against the book and its author, raising the question, "Now that the Pillory is ... taken down, what adequate and appropriate punishment is there that we can inflict on this rabid caitiff?" The Literary Gazette found the book mostly unintelligible and maintained that Hazlitt was too much "guided by personal feelings rather than a regard to fidelity and likeness". The London Magazine saw in it "a vast quantity of verbiage that overlays and smothers his better sense". The Monthly Review thought the author showed undisciplined "malice prepense". A number of other reviewers, however, still hedging their praise with qualifiers—noting, for example, that Hazlitt's sketches tend more toward caricature than fully rounded likenesses (The Eclectic Review), or that he weakens his position by showing "a dash of the coxcomb in his criticisms" (The Gentleman's Magazine)—nevertheless had much to offer in praise. The European Magazine admired the book's elegant writing. The Philomathic Journal praised Hazlitt's "extraordinary talent" and the book's "many happy illustrations, many ingenious thoughts, excellent sentiments, and brilliant displays of imagination." And Albany Fonblanque's review in The Examiner staunchly defended the book against its harshest assailants. Hazlitt was known to have been badly affected by one notable review, that of Francis Jeffrey, himself one of the "spirits of the age", who published his assessment of The Spirit of the Age in the April 1825 issue of the Edinburgh Review, which Hazlitt did not see until September. Jeffrey, who had boosted Hazlitt's reputation considerably in 1817 with his favourable reception of Characters of Shakespear's Plays, was far less kind to this book. He praised the book's frequently brilliant ideas and Hazlitt's "being an advocate of human liberty and improvement". But he also chastised Hazlitt for his "perpetual hunting after originality, and a determination to say every thing in a strange manner, [which] lead him into paradox, error, and extravagance; and give a tinge of affectation to his style." Hazlitt, who liked and respected Jeffrey, was badly shaken. He had contributed to his Edinburgh Review for years, but now several more years were to elapse until he attempted any communication with Jeffrey, nor did he contribute again to the Edinburgh Review until Jeffrey had resigned as its editor. Hereafter, stung by Jeffrey's criticism, Hazlitt focused his attention elsewhere, giving particular weight to writing a biography of Napoleon, which he thought would be remembered as his masterpiece. But neither that nor any other of his later writings sold as well as The Spirit of the Age. However imperfectly appreciated by the critics of his time, the book was read and enjoyed. Themes The title of The Spirit of the Age would seem to announce the book's central theme; yet, as late as 1971, a major criticism was that no discernible theme emerges. Hazlitt's biographer Ralph Wardle described the book as a "vivid panorama" of the times, but one that, hastily written and loosely organised, failed to arrive at a clear definition of what the age's "spirit" truly was. At best, as in the essays on Godwin, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and a few others, asserts Wardle, Hazlitt "was clearly working toward a definition of" the spirit of the age; but the subjects of the individual essays "remain 'Spirits of the Age' rather than facets of the spirit of the age." With Hazlitt's work attracting increased interest and undergoing intense scrutiny around this time, however, critics' attitudes toward The Spirit of the Age as a unified composition began to undergo a radical shift. According to Roy Park, a central theme in fact emerges: Hazlitt's criticism of the excessive "abstraction" in the literature and discourse of the time, in part the effect of a growing interest in science. This had been anticipated by Hazlitt's having written, several years earlier, "A bias to abstraction is evidently ... the reigning spirit of the age ...". A tendency in the influential and respected writing of the time noted by Hazlitt, as well as some before him, was the formation of premature generalisations, with a failure to embrace the richness of human experience. There was considerable debate at the time about the influence of science and philosophical reasoning on poetry, as well as on the discourse of the age more generally. Poetry, in Hazlitt's words, is successful insofar as it results from "an aggregate of well-founded particulars"; the generalisations of science, while more naturally "abstract", must not be formed prematurely, before the fullness of experience is completely accounted for. John Kinnaird, supporting Park's conclusions a few years later, writes that "Hazlitt is extending his reference [to a 'bias to abstraction'] here beyond the abstractions of reason and science; he has in mind several other kinds of 'abstraction' from the reality of self ... especially ... the highly generalized, dubiously 'poetic' anti-empiricism of Coleridge and other Transcendentalists." But, notes Kinnaird, this does not completely account for what emerges from Hazlitt's book, a collection of essays not wholly dissimilar to many other contemporary series of essays on notable living persons; but one in which, as the author entered into their composition more intently, consciously and deliberately developed a critical stance that in its own fashion could be considered to be an account of a "spirit of the age". This was not necessarily just a single tendency, nor was it likely, according to Kinnaird, that Hazlitt shared a belief in the growing idea at the time, especially in Germany, of the "Zeitgeist", that is, a spirit that, operating outside of any individual thinkers, shapes the overall thought and actions of the age. But there is indeed, asserts Kinnaird, a consciously undertaken set of "themes" implicit in what Hazlitt included in the series of essays. This is reinforced, as Park had noted, by the ordering of the essays, especially by Hazlitt's choice for the last edition. There the essays show a thoughtful grouping, in which the "spirit" of the age emerges indirectly and implicitly, by the "massing of particulars". It is, Park maintains, this very massing of particulars that significantly supports Hazlitt's criticism of excessive abstraction that he had been developing. The Spirit of the Age was meant, insists Park, as an example of a book that itself avoids premature introduction of abstract assertions. The ordering of the essays, moreover, is anything but hasty and careless. Thus, Scott, who in his novels stands out as avoiding abstraction as well as egotism (another thematic thread in Hazlitt's book) by directing his focus on his characters, is followed by Byron, an extreme example of a poetic genius who nevertheless misses much of humanity by focusing on himself. Kinnaird also points to a "dialectic of conflict" as a thematic thread, a key to which is a statement Hazlitt had made in a somewhat earlier essay: "the spirit of the age" is "the progress of intellectual refinement, warring with our natural infirmities". Thus, after beginning with sketches of the major thinkers Bentham, Godwin, and Coleridge (illustrating "the progress of intellectual refinement"), Hazlitt follows them with sketches of now obscure figures, Edward Irving and Horne Tooke, who illustrate more starkly one of the age's "natural infirmities", self-love. More recent opinion has tended to support the existence of such meaningful themes in The Spirit of the Age as a whole, though nothing easily captured in a brief summary. As Roy Park had said earlier, Hazlitt's "critical effort" as a whole can be considered as "a series of intricate and repetitious variations on a theme. In the Spirit of the Age, the theme is implicit in the variations themselves." Although critical judgements shifted toward agreement that there is more unity than previously thought in The Spirit of the Age as a book, there has been disagreement as to the emotional impact and philosophical implications of the whole. To Tom Paulin much of the tone of the book is comic. To Kinnaird, the book in the end, offering a few rays of hope, depicts the positive aspects of the "spirit of the age" as mostly defeated, and both the "passion of creative genius and the systematic 'principle' of philosophy have failed to save" it. Bromwich concludes similarly that those who have read the book through will find that in the end, "for Hazlitt 'the spirit of the age' is something that has been defeated." Style "The Spirit of the Age is one of those rare works of criticism which really do approach to the character of a work of art", observed John Kinnaird in 1978. Shortly thereafter, with increased scrutiny of the "art" in the book, David Bromwich noted that Hazlitt appreciated the extent to which a work of prose could advantageously incorporate elements of poetry. Writing "at the confluence of the Augustan and romantic idioms", Hazlitt created prose that is "dense" with thought, "extraordinarily varied", alternating plain, reasoned explanations, with attempts at "effects of oratorical grandeur". He "can be grave and clever, irritable and above dispute in the quick succession of his moods as his sentences move straight to the mark. The pace and consistency, the head-on stubbornness and willing imperfection of a man talking to you about what concerns him most" are traits that, taken together, form prose like that of no other writer in English. Following Bromwich, who had noted that Hazlitt had already spent twenty years thinking and writing about many of the subjects of the verbal portraits he sketched before he laid these thoughts down on paper, Tom Paulin's 1998 book-length study explored in depth the specific elements of the style that glued together and propelled that thinking. Poetic imagery, similes, and devices like assonance and alliteration abound. The poet and essayist Robert Southey, for example, is alliteratively described as "practical", "pointed", and "pert", with the "p" sounds emphasising the dry quality of Southey's thought. Since Hazlitt also praises Southey as the best prose writer of any poet of the day, the effect here, claims Paulin, is to add a subtle "textural" undercutting of that praise, introducing a note of ambiguity. The description of Jeremy Bentham's appearance as combining traits of "[Benjamin] Franklin and Charles Fox, with the comfortable double-chin and sleek thriving look of the one, and the quivering lip, the restless eye ... of the other", is tied together by a "subtle assonance" in "thriving" and "quivering", according to Paulin. Poetic rhythms (as studied in "prosody") are often also used to great effect. Paulin focuses on a frequently praised part of the book, the "epic, wittily affectionate sketch of Coleridge's intellectual development". One paragraph conveys the feeling of a "tumbling, but rather soothing, almost stroking movement"; the passage "and so dwelt for a while in the spirit with John Huss" has a "fluid anapaestic movement", and the rhythms in the sentences that contain it "ask not so much to be read as to be intoned like a familiar reading from the Bible or a children's story." The account of Coleridge mimics the almost too fluid movement of Coleridge's own thought as it "compresses in a beautiful silky manner [his] intellectual development". Hazlitt, as had been noted for some time, makes frequent use of quotations in his writing, often only indirectly, by "allusion" or even faint "echoes". Sometimes he was chastised for the practice. Now his critics' emphasis was on how expertly Hazlitt could use the material. Paulin concludes that Hazlitt is the "supreme master of the art of quotation", with quotations and allusions adding layers of meaning throughout The Spirit of the Age. In the celebrated passage on Coleridge's development, Paulin notes that the Latin for a dried, preserved collection of plant specimens, "hortus siccus", is brought in as "the hortus siccus of Dissent, where [Coleridge] pared religion down to the standard of reason". The term had been notably used with a negative connotation by Edmund Burke in his Reflections on the Revolution in France. But elsewhere, in his own writing, Hazlitt in expounding on the character of the Protestant Dissenters had used this term with more positive connotations, lauding them for their steadfast adherence to their principles. This metaphoric allusion, therefore, adds a note of ambiguity, the more apparent to those who had read Hazlitt's own earlier writing as well as Burke's, but still potentially present. In dissecting Hazlitt's account of Coleridge's development, Paulin also allies himself with those who found deliberate art in the ordering of the essays, an ordering that not only contributes shape and movement to the book but affords meaningful comparisons. It is no accident that the Coleridge sketch immediately follows that of Godwin. Godwin had been brought up in the Dissenting tradition, and, although Coleridge possessed the superior intellect, it was Godwin's steadfastness that enabled some kinds of achievements unattainable by Coleridge, with his wavering, airy, insubstantial thinking. The sketch of Bentham precedes both, as an example of the driest reasoner of the three, ushering in an "age of steamboats and steam central heating". The "spirit" of the age is thus conveyed indirectly and subtly, by depicting contending, multifaceted forces, rather than as a single, simple entity. Not only poetry but painting, claims Paulin, exerted a measurable influence on this book. Hazlitt especially admired the Italian Renaissance painter Titian, noting in his art criticism how adept Titian was at capturing his subjects as if in the moment. Rather than the detriment it had been seen as only a quarter-century earlier, Hazlitt's haste in composing the essays in this book is seen by Paulin as an asset, using Hazlitt's own analogy with a glass blower who after long preparation must rapidly shape a glass artwork in the heat of the moment. Himself working in this manner, and inspired by the visual arts, Hazlitt, according to Paulin, was able to imbue his sketches with that feeling of immediacy, so, at times, the reader feels as if attending a play. Hazlitt here even anticipates the modern television documentary, while in the process laying the groundwork for much of modern journalism. Legacy The Spirit of the Age was for long seen as a lively, opinionated account of Hazlitt's notable contemporaries, filled with keen observations but marred by the author's prejudices. Views of the book soon began to evolve, however, with emphasis shifting to the pinpoint accuracy of many of Hazlitt's judgements, rendered while his subjects were still living, and therefore all the more remarkable for their impartiality. Only long afterward, the book came to be valued as a subtle, unified masterpiece of criticism, itself a work of art, with an impact far more than ephemeral, and exerting an influence on the literature of the later 19th century and beyond. Shortly following Hazlitt's death, the general idea of the book was emulated by books and articles with similar or identical titles, such as "The Spirit of the Age" (a series in The Examiner, 1831), by John Stuart Mill, and A New Spirit of the Age (1844), by R. H. Horne. The book's influence also took other forms less direct or obvious. For example, Hazlitt's critique of Jeremy Bentham and his world view resonated, according to Tom Paulin, with Charles Dickens, who was known to appreciate Hazlitt's work, showing its effects in Bleak House and elsewhere. The likelihood of influence of The Spirit of the Age on the writings of successors like Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Babington Macaulay, and others, was also noted. Long before the unity of the book as a whole gained critical acceptance, many individual articles were singled out for praise over the years. The earlier sketches in particular were frequently cited as masterpieces in their own right. The account of Bentham, for example, was notable both as "the first sustained critique of dogmatic Utilitarianism" and as a major anticipation of modern journalism. The essay on Coleridge was praised for its stylistic triumphs and for being one of the best contemporary accounts of the man. Hazlitt's account of Coleridge's intellectual development was especially spotlighted: "for three brilliant pages", observed critic John Kinnaird, "Hazlitt reviews the saga of Coleridge's voyage through strange seas of thought". As early as 1940, the scholar, critic, and intellectual historian Basil Willey pointed to the essay on Godwin as "still the fairest and most discerning summary" of Godwin's achievement. The account of Southey was appreciated not only at the turn of the 21st century, but decades earlier, in 1926, by historian Crane Brinton, who approved of Hazlitt's "critical intelligence" in that sketch. Despite the overall critical preference for the earlier essays, over the years some of the later ones received nods of approval as well. Biographers of Cobbett (James Sambrook in 1973), Moore (Miriam Allen deFord in 1967), and Hunt (Anthony Holden in 2005), for example, commended the accuracy of Hazlitt's judgement in assessing those contemporaries. For its critical acumen, David Bromwich singled out the portrait of George Crabbe, with Hazlitt's forward-looking discussion of the relationship of a fictional world to the world it draws upon. In time, critics and biographers, looking back, observed how unbiased this book was, and the uncanncy accuracy with which Hazlitt weighed the relative importance of many of his subjects. Wordsworth, for example, was not then regarded by the reading public as the major poet he later was; yet Hazlitt saw Wordsworth as the greatest poet of the day, the founder of a whole new "original vein in poetry". The Spirit of the Age also marked a notable change in attitude. Hazlitt had been frequently condemned for his splenetic attacks on contemporaries like Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey. Yet it was later noted how fair, even "generous", Hazlitt's treatment of these figures in this book was. According to David Bromwich, Hazlitt was unique in his day, a "representative observer" whose observations on what lay "directly before him" were so objective as to have the effect of "prophecy". With its combination of critical analysis and personal sketches of notable figures captured "in the moment", Hazlitt in The Spirit of the Age laid the groundwork for much of modern journalism and to an extent even created a new literary form, the "portrait essay" (although elements of it had been anticipated by Samuel Johnson and others). The book is now frequently viewed as "one of Hazlitt's finest achievements", his "masterpiece", the "crowning ornament of Hazlitt's career, and ... one of the lasting glories of nineteenth-century criticism." The Spirit of the Age, according to Duncan Wu, is still the best account of "the Romantic period", and is important "not just as cultural history, but as a reminder of where the modern age began." Notes References Baines, Paul; and Burns, Edward, eds. Five Romantic Plays, 1768–1821. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Barnett, George L. Charles Lamb: The Evolution of Elia. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1964. Bate, Walter Jackson. John Keats. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963. Bentham, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. London: W. Pickering and R. Wilson, 1823 (1st edition 1789). Brinton, Crane. The Political Ideas of the English Romanticists. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1926 (reissued in paperback by the University of Michigan Press, 1966; citations are to this edition). Bromwich, David. Hazlitt: The Mind of a Critic. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999 (originally published 1983). Clark, Roy Benjamin. William Gifford: Tory Satirist, Critic, and Editor. New York: Columbia University Press, 1930. Clive, John. Scotch Reviewers: The "Edinburgh Review" 1802–1815. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1957. Cook, Jon. Hazlitt in Love: A Fatal Attachment. London: Short Books, 2007. deFord, Miriam Allen. Thomas Moore. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1967. Dixon, Peter. George Canning: Politician and Statesman. New York: Mason/Charter, 1976. Driver, Julia. "The History of Utilitarianism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edward N. Zalta, ed. Summer 2009 Edition. Eisler, Benita. Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. Fulford, Tim. "'Nature' Poetry." pp. 109–31. In Sitter, John, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Eighteenth-Century Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Grayling, A. C. The Quarrel of the Age: The Life and Times of William Hazlitt. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000. Hague, William. William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner. Orlando, Florida: Harcourt, inc., 2007. Harvey, A. D. Britain in the Early Nineteenth Century. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1978. Harvey, A. D. English Poetry in a Changing Society 1780–1825. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980. Hawes, Frances. Henry Brougham. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1958 (first published by J. Cape in London, 1957). Hazlitt, William. The Complete Works of William Hazlitt. P. P. Howe, ed. 21 vols. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1930–1934. Hazlitt, William. The Spirit of the Age; or, Contemporary Portraits. Paris: A. & W. Galignani, 1825. Holden, Anthony. The Wit in the Dungeon: The Remarkable Life of Leigh Hunt—Poet, Revolutionary, and the Last of the Romantics. New York and Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2005. Howe, P. P. The Life of William Hazlitt. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1922, 1947 (reissued in paperback by Penguin Books, 1949; citations are to this edition). Irving, Washington. The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1906 [originally published 1819]. Jones, Brian Jay. Washington Irving: An American Original. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2008. Jones, Stanley. Hazlitt: A Life from Winterslow to Frith Street. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Kinnaird, John. William Hazlitt: Critic of Power. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978. Langford, Paul. A Polite and Commercial People; England 1727–1783. (The New Oxford History of England.) Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. Lauber, John. Sir Walter Scott. Revised Edition. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989. Malthus, Thomas Robert. An Essay on the Principle of Population. Philip Appleman, ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1976. Mathieson, William Law. England in Transition, 1789–1832: A Study in Movements. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1920. McFarland, Thomas. Romantic Cruxes: The English Essayists and the Spirit of the Age. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987. Natarajan, Uttara. Hazlitt and the Reach of Sense: Criticism, Morals, and the Metaphysics of Power. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. New, Chester W. The Life of Henry Brougham to 1830. Oxford: Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1961. Park, Roy. Hazlitt and the Spirit of the Age: Abstraction and Critical Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. Paulin, Tom. The Day-Star of Liberty: William Hazlitt's Radical Style. London: Faber and Faber, 1998. Pollard, Arthur, ed. Crabbe: The Critical Heritage. (The Critical Heritage Series.) London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972. Roe, Nicholas. Fiery Heart: The First Life of Leigh Hunt. London: Pimlico, 2005. Rolo, P. J. V. George Canning: Three Biographical Studies. London: Macmillan & Co Ltd, 1965. Rubin-Dorsky, Jeffrey. "Washington Irving and the Genesis of the Fictional Sketch", Washington Irving: The Critical Reaction, edited by James W. Tuttleton. New York: AMS Press, 1993, pp. 217–237. Rutherford, Andrew, ed. Byron: The Critical Heritage. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1970. Salvesen, Christopher. The Landscape of Memory: A Study of Wordsworth's Poetry. London: Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd, 1965. Sambrook, James. William Cobbett. (Routledge Author Guides.) London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973. Sutherland, John. The Life of Walter Scott. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1995. Tuttleton, James W. "Introduction", Washington Irving: The Critical Reaction, edited by James W. Tuttleton. New York: AMS Press, 1993, pp. 1–12. Wardle, Ralph M. Hazlitt. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971. Wilson, Ben. The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in Britain, 1789–1837. New York: The Penguin Press, 2007. Willey, Basil. The Eighteenth Century Background: Studies on the Idea of Nature in the Thought of the Period. London: Chatto & Windus, 1940 (reissued in paperback by Beacon Press, 1961; citations are to this edition). Wu, Duncan. William Hazlitt: The First Modern Man. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. External links Hazlitt, William. The Spirit of the Age: Or, Contemporary Portraits, second edition 1825 non-fiction books British biographies Books by William Hazlitt Henry Colburn books

Praxis School

The Praxis school was a Marxist humanist philosophical circle, whose members were influenced by Western Marxism. It originated in Zagreb in the SFR Yugoslavia, during the 1960s. Prominent Praxis school theorists include Gajo Petrović and Milan Kangrga of Zagreb and Mihailo Marković of Belgrade. From 1964 to 1974 they published the Marxist journal Praxis, which was renowned as one of the leading international journals in Marxist theory. The group also organized the widely popular Korčula Summer School in the island of Korčula. Basic tenets Due to the tumultuous sociopolitical conditions in the 1960s, the affirmation of 'authentic' Marxist theory and praxis, and its humanist and dialectical aspects in particular, was an urgent task for philosophers working across the SFRY. There was a need to respond to the kind of modified Marxism–Leninism enforced by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (see Titoism). To vocalize this need, the program of Praxis school was defined in the first issue of Praxis (Why Praxis?). Predrag Vranicki ("On the problem of Practice") and Danko Grlić ("Practice and Dogma") expanded this program in the same issue. The Praxis philosophers considered Leninism and Stalinism to be apologetic due to their ad hoc nature. Leninist and Stalinist theories were considered to be unfaithful to the Marxist theory, as they were adjusted according to the needs of the party elite and intolerant of ideological criticism. The defining features of the school were: 1) emphasis on the writings of the young Marx; and 2) call for freedom of speech in both East and West based upon Marx's insistence on ruthless social critique. As Erich Fromm has argued in his preface to Marković's work From Affluence to Praxis, the theory of the Praxis theoreticians was to "return to the real Marx as against the Marx equally distorted by right wing social democrats and Stalinists". Different school's theorists emphasized different aspects of the theory. Where Gajo Petrović writes of philosophy as radical critique of all existing things, emphasizing the essentially creative and practical nature of human beings, Mihailo Marković writes of alienation and the dynamic nature of human beings. Milan Kangrga emphasizes creativity as well, but also the understanding of human beings as producers humanizing nature. The Praxis School critiqued the implementation of socialist self-management in Yugoslavia, arguing that the expansion of bureaucratic power in the Yugoslav economy was because Yugoslav workers' self-management was not sufficiently implemented. Another important feature of the Praxis theory is the incorporation of existential philosophy into the Praxis brand of Marxist social critique, spearheaded by Rudi Supek. Organizing Korčula Summer School and publishing the international edition of Praxis were ways to promote open inquiry in accordance with these postulates. Erich Fromm's collection of articles from 1965 entitled Socialist Humanism: An International Symposium has been of much help in promoting the Praxis school abroad. As many as six members of the Praxis school have published articles in this collection: Marković, Petrović, Danilo Pejović, Veljko Korać, Rudi Supek and Predrag Vranicki. Although the tolerance for dissent from orthodox Communist thought afforded to the Praxis School in Yugoslavia was unusual, it had its limits. When University of Belgrade students held mass demonstrations in 1968 against poor living conditions, authoritarianism, unemployment and the Vietnam War with the support of eight academics associated with the Praxis School, Tito urged that they be sacked on the grounds that they were "corrupting" their students, although the Belgrade Eight (as they became known) narrowly held on to their jobs. The Praxis journal The Praxis journal was published by a group of praxis theoreticians, mainly from the departments of Philosophy and Sociology at Zagreb University and the Philosophy department at Belgrade University. It was established as the successor to a previous political journal, Pogledi, which was published in Zagreb for three years in the 1950s before being disbanded due to state suppression. Praxis was published in two editions: Yugoslav (in Serbo-Croatian) and foreign (in multiple languages). The first issue of the Yugoslav edition was published on 1 September 1964 and was published until 1974. As for the foreign edition, it was published between 1965 and 1973. Its founders were Branko Bošnjak, Danko Grlić, Milan Kangrga, Rudi Supek, Gajo Petrović, Predrag Vranicki, Danilo Pejović and Ivan Kuvačić. The first editors of the journal were Petrović and Pejović, but in 1966 Pejović resigned from Praxis. After that, Supek was the co-editor of the journal together with Petrović. In January 1974 Supek also resigned and was replaced by Kuvačić as the co-editor of Praxis. Praxis has helped to restore the creative potential of Marxism. It drew inspiration from the works of Antonio Gramsci, Karl Korsch, Georg Lukács, Ernst Bloch, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm and Lucien Goldmann. The texts in the magazine featured articles by writers from both the East and the West. Praxis editors had a strong tendency to publish articles that went against the Leninist theory and praxis promoted and enforced by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. They also advocated freedom of speech and of the press. According to Praxis School member Žarko Puhovski, Praxis articles on controversial areas such as politics and ideology were often disguised as writings about more abstract topics such as aesthetics or ontology. Korčula Summer School Korčula Summer School was preceded by a symposium organized by Gajo Petrovic and Milan Kangrga in the summer of 1963 in Dubrovnik. The summer school was organized by the publishers of the journal Praxis from 1964 to 1974 in the Croatian island of Korčula, with the exception of 1966, when the gathering was cancelled due to the intense attacks by the League of Communists of Croatia. The school was a meeting place for philosophers and social critics from the entire world. Some of the prominent attendees included Ernst Bloch, Eugen Fink, Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas, Henri Lefebvre, Richard J. Bernstein and Shlomo Avineri, to name a few. Other notable participants included A. J. Ayer, Norman Birnbaum and Lucien Goldmann. Another peculiarity is that one of the attendants was from the Vatican, Father Gustav Wetter, which testifies to the fact that Korčula Summer School was not merely a Marxist symposium—the attendees held interests ranging from phenomenology to theology. The articles produced during the meeting were published in the journal during the following year. Each summer, the gathering focused on a particular topic: 1963: Progress and Culture (held in Dubrovnik) 1964: Meaning and Perspectives of Socialism 1965: What is History? 1966: The summer school was canceled due to the intense attacks by the League of Communists of Croatia 1967: Creativity and Creation 1968: Marx and Revolution 1969: Power and Humanity 1970: Hegel and Our Time (celebrating the anniversary of 200 years since Hegel's birth) 1971: Utopia and Reality 1972: Freedom and Equality 1973: The Essence and Limits of Civil Society 1974: Art in a Technologized World Suppression Due to its critical nature - some party ideologues referred to the editors and authors of Praxis as "professional Anti-Communists" and "enemies of self-managing socialism" — the journal was banned on several occasions. By 1975 it became impossible to publish the journal under the increasingly repressive conditions in SFRY. In the same year, in January, the aforementioned Belgrade Eight (Mihailo Marković, Ljubomir Tadić, Zagorka Golubović, Svetozar Stojanović, Miladin Životić, Dragoljub Mićunović, Nebojša Popov and Trivo Inđić) were expelled from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade on the basis of a decision of the Serbian Assembly. Some of the Eight taught abroad: Marković took up a part-time position at the University of Pennsylvania, whilst Stojanović worked at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Kansas. Although the Zagreb Praxisists were treated less harshly, they still faced restrictions: Puhovski was unable to publish for two years. During subsequent years, the Praxisists organised underground meetings in private homes, which they dubbed the "Free University": however these were at risk of police interruption. Praxis International journal The Praxis members tried in several occasions to resume publishing of Praxis and reopening Korčula Summer School. Their efforts failed, which was the main motive for several Praxis members from Belgrade to try to publish the journal abroad. They succeeded in achieving this and by April 1981, the Praxis International journal was edited and published in Oxford in the spirit of the original Praxis journal. However, not all Praxis members supported this move. This move was supported by four members of the editorial board of the Praxis: Supek, Marković, Tadić and Stojanović. The majority of the Praxis theorists, however, led by Kangrga, disagreed on the basis of the fact that an international journal with the same or similar name as the original journal would reduce the possibilities of republishing the journal inside Yugoslavia. First co-editors of Praxis International were Richard J. Bernstein and Mihailo Marković. From 1986 the co-editors were Seyla Benhabib and Svetozar Stojanović. Praxis International was published until January 1994 when it continued to be published under the name Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory. Aftermath As inter-ethnic tensions in Yugoslavia rose, some of the Belgrade Praxisists turned towards Serbian nationalism. In 1986, Marković, Tadić and Golubović, along with writer and Praxis associate Dobrica Ćosić, signed a petition in support of Kosovo Serbs, who had made allegations that they were being persecuted by the ethnic Albanian community there: the petition implied support for removing the region's autonomous status. Marković was also a co-author of the SANU Memorandum, which has been described as the catalyst for Slobodan Milošević's rise to power. In 1990, Praxis International published an article by Marković on Kosovo in which he claimed that the high birthrate among the Albanian community in the province was a plot by Albanian nationalists against the Serb population, and that despite their poverty, the Kosovo Albanians had historically had support from powerful allies against the Serbian community, including the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, Italy, the Catholic Church, the United Kingdom, the Comintern, the United States, Pan-Islamists, Albania and bureaucrats in the Yugoslav government. He proposed a reduction in financial investment in the province and the introduction of a family planning program, "in a gentle and psychologically acceptable way, and by the Albanians themselves, using primarily educational means". Seyla Benhabib subsequently stated that the publication of the article was the one editorial decision she regretted at Praxis International: in a 1999 interview she explained that whilst she was aware of tensions in Kosovo, she lacked knowledge regarding the situation, and the commissioning of the article was an attempt to remedy this. Looking back, she highlighted the article's invoking of the Albanians as a demographic threat as its most striking feature: "This is cliche neo-fascist thinking, racist thinking about an oppressed group. You will find racists everywhere saying the same thing". The outbreak of the Yugoslav Wars shortly afterwards drove a wedge between the Belgrade Praxisists and their western collaborators: by this time Marković had been appointed vice-president of Milošević's Socialist Party of Serbia, and served as its ideologue. This divide eventually led to the end of the journal under its original name. Of the other Belgrade Praxisists, Stojanović became chief adviser to Ćosić when the latter was appointed President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by Milošević in 1992. Tadić and Mićunović formed the Democratic Party in 1990. Although Tadić was a leader of the opposition to Milošević in Serbia, he was an uncritical supporter of Radovan Karadžić, the President of the Republika Srpska in Bosnia: in 1996 he and Marković signed a petition urging the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to drop charges against Karadžić, describing him as "the true leader of all Serbs". However, some of the Belgrade Praxisists maintained opposition to the nationalist turn: Popov founded the liberal Civic Alliance of Serbia, whilst Životić (who had moved away from Marxism towards post-structuralism in the 1980s) founded the Belgrade Circle, an NGO dedicated to inter-ethnic dialogue and peace activism, in collaboration with Tito protege-turned veteran dissident Milovan Djilas. Of the Zagreb Praxisists, Puhovski became a leading member of the Croatian Helsinki Committee, and spoke out against ethnic cleansing campaigns by the Croatian Army. Influence The influence of the Praxis school is mainly through its intellectual legacy as a heterodox interpretation of Marxism. This interpretation has been popular among Western Marxists and academics, notably Marshall Berman, who references the Praxis group in his major works. Many praxis theoreticians taught at various universities in Europe and US. The Praxis approach was appealing to Western academia due to its emphasis on the dialectical, humanist Marx. See also Budapest School (Lukács) Critical theory New class Novi Plamen, a new journal drawing from the Praxis tradition Praxis intervention References Further reading Mihailo Markovic and Robert S. Cohen Yugoslavia: The Rise and Fall of Socialist Humanism. A History of the Praxis Group, Nottingham, Spokesman Books, 1975. Gerson S. Sher, Praxis: Marxist Criticism and Dissent in Socialist Yugoslavia. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1977. Oskar Gruenwald The Yugoslav search for man: Marxist humanism in contemporary Yugoslavia. J.F. Bergin Publishers, South Hadley, MA. 1983. Nebojša Popov (ed.) Freedom and Violence: a conversation about the Praxis journal and Korčula Summer school ("Sloboda i nasilje: Razgovor o časopisu Praxis i Korčulanskoj letnjoj školi"), "Res publica", Beograd, 2003 (in Serbian) Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd Edition. Gen. Ed. Robert Audi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. External links The Praxis Archive at Marxists Internet Archive Praxis International Archive Praxis Philosophy Study Guide at Autodidact Project Robert Stallaerts, The Disintegration of the Yugoslav Intellectual Community Rei Shigeno, On the Conception of Politics of the Praxis Group: Exposing the Limits Noam Chomsky on the repression of the Belgrade Praxis members, The New York Review of Books, February 7, 1974. Online archive of Praxis and Korcula Summer School (in Serbo-croatian) Milan Kangrga, The Korčula Summer School (in Croatian) Bozidar Jakšić, The Praxis of Gajo Petrović (in Serbian) 2002 Republika article about the Praxis school (in Croatian) 1999 NIN article about Mihailo Marković and the Praxis school (in Serbian) An Analysis of a Serbian Anarchist Group about Praxis (in Serbian) Webpage contributed to the Philosophy of praxis Social philosophy Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Marxist schools of thought Marxist theory 1960s in Yugoslavia 1970s in Yugoslavia

Visual rhetoric

Visual rhetoric is the art of effective communication through visual elements such as images, typography, and texts. Visual rhetoric encompasses the skill of visual literacy and the ability to analyze images for their form and meaning. Drawing on techniques from semiotics and rhetorical analysis, visual rhetoric expands on visual literacy as it examines the structure of an image with the focus on its persuasive effects on an audience. Although visual rhetoric also involves typography and other texts, it concentrates mainly on the use of images or visual texts. Using images is central to visual rhetoric because these visuals help in either forming the case an image alone wants to convey, or arguing the point that a writer formulates, in the case of a multimodal text which combines image and written text, for example. Visual rhetoric has gained more notoriety as more recent scholarly work started exploring alternative media forms that include graphics, screen design, and other hybrid visual representations that does not privilege print culture and conventions. Also, visual rhetoric involves how writers arrange segments of a visual text on the page. In addition to that, visual rhetoric involves the selection of different fonts, contrastive colors, and graphs, among other elements, to shape a visual rhetoric text. One vital component of visual rhetoric is analyzing the visual text. The interactional and commonly hybrid nature of cyber spaces that usually mixes print text and visual images unable some detachment of them as isolated constructs, and scholarship has claimed that especially in virtual spaces where print text and visuals are usually combined, there is no place either for emphasizing one mode over another. One way of analyzing a visual text is to look for its significant meaning. Simply put, the meaning should be deeper than the literal sense that a visual text holds. One way to analyze a visual text is to dissect it in order for the viewer to understand its tenor. Viewers can break the text into smaller parts and share perspectives to reach its meaning. In analyzing a text that includes an image of the bald eagle, as the main body of the visual text, questions of representation and connotation come into play. Analyzing a text that includes a photo, painting, or even cartoon of the bold eagle along with written words, would bring to mind the conceptions of strength and freedom, rather than the conception of merely a bird. This includes an understanding of the creative and rhetorical choices made with coloring, shaping, and object placement. The power of imagery, iconic photographs, for instance, can potentially generate actions in a global scale. Rhetorical choices carry great significance that surpass reinforcement of the written text.  Each choice, be font, color, layout, represents a different message that author wants to portray for the audience. Visual rhetoric emphasizes images as sensory expressions of cultural and contextual meaning, as opposed to purely aesthetic consideration. Analyzing visuals and their power to convey messages is central to incorporating visual rhetoric within the digital era as nuances of choices regarding audience, purpose and genre can be analyzed within a single frame and the rationale behind designers’ rhetorical choices can be revealed and analyzed by how the elements of visuals play out altogether. Visual rhetoric has been approached and applied in a variety of academic fields including art history, linguistics, semiotics, cultural studies, business and technical communication, speech communication, and classical rhetoric. Visual rhetoric seeks to develop rhetorical theory in a way that is more comprehensive and inclusive with regard to images and their interpretations. History and origin The term rhetoric originated in ancient Greece and its concept has been widely discussed for thousands of years. Sophists first coined the idea as an abstract term to help label the concept, while Aristotle more narrowly defined rhetoric as a message's potential to influence audiences. Linguists and other researchers often define rhetoric through the well-known five canons of rhetoric. Over time, this definition has evolved, expanded, and raised serious debate as new digital mediums of communicating have developed. In his book Elements of Criticism, rhetorician Lord Kames (also known as Henry Home) laid the groundwork for later rhetoricians by taking the controversial stance of including visual art in his theory of criticism. Kames argued many of the same points as other Enlightenment scholars—mainly that art was beneficial to the public—and worthy of note and praise—if it was encouraging a moral improvement of its audience. French theorist Roland Barthes in 1977 brought to light a new way to evaluate other communication means, showing the relevance of traditional rhetorical theories to the still photographic medium. Barthes explained visual rhetoric generally as the implied and interpreted messages from the work, yet these bigger messages often extend beyond the initial superficial interpretation. Visual rhetoric uses a variety of tools to hook readers within its mediums (e.g. gifs). Although similar in nature, one striking difference between visual and classical rhetoric is the newfound outlook on Aristotle's original canons. Linda Scott created a newfound audience by constructing new cannons exclusive to visual rhetoric. Instead of closely monitoring the content, as with the initial five canons, Scott's focused on the visual medium's ability to invent and argument, arrangement of the item, and all coupled with a meaningful delivery of presentation. Since its inception, popular studies have appeared in published works to discuss the role of visual rhetoric in many facets of human life, especially advertising. The term emerged largely as an effort to set aside a certain area of study that would focus attention on specific rhetorical elements of visual mediums. Historically, the study of rhetoric has been geared toward linguistics. Visual symbols were deemed trivial and subservient and thus, were largely ignored as part of a rhetorical argument. As a result, modern rhetorical theory developed with a significant exclusion of these visual symbols, ignoring the field of visual rhetoric as a separate area of study. Scholars of visual rhetoric analyze photographs, drawings, paintings, graphs and tables, interior design and architecture, sculpture, Internet images, and film. From a rhetorical perspective, the focus is on the contextual response rather than the aesthetic response. An aesthetic response is a viewer's direct perception with the sensory aspects of the visual, whereas with a rhetorical response, meaning is given to the visual. Every part of the artifact has significance in the message being conveyed; each line, each shading, each person has a purpose. As visual rhetoricians study images and symbols, their findings catalyze challenges to the linguistic meaning altogether, allowing a more holistic study of the rhetorical argument to emerge with the introduction of visual elements. Related studies Composition The field of composition studies has recently returned its attention to visual rhetoric. In an increasingly visual society, proponents of visual rhetoric in composition classes suggest that increased literacy requires writing and visual communication skills. In relation to visual rhetoric, the composition field positions itself, more broadly, into challenging reductive definitions of composing and rhetoric that gravitate toward verbal communication only. Touching upon rhetorical processes/decisions that affect a visual design is a venue for calling composition scholars’ attention of the function that arrangements of images and words play out in writing practices and thus communication, emphasizing the complex relationship between verbal and visual meanings. Visual communication skills relate to an understanding of the mediated nature of all communication, especially to an awareness of the act of representation. Visual rhetoric can be utilized in a composition classroom to assist with writing and rhetoric development. Semiotics Semiotic theory is defined as a theory that seeks to describe the rhetorical significance of sign-making. The central idea of the theory is that a sign does not exist outside of a contextual experience, but it only exists in relation to other signs, objects, and entities. Therefore, the sign belongs to a larger system, and when taken out of context of other signs, is rendered meaningless and uncommunicable. The parts of a semiotic are divided into two parts: the material part of the sign is known as the form of expression, the meaning of the form of expression is known as form of content. In semiotic theory, the expression only has meaningful content when existing in a larger contextual framework. Areas of focus While studying visual objects, rhetorical scholars tend to have three areas of study: nature, function, or evaluation. Nature encompasses the literal components of the artifact. This is a primary focus of visual rhetoric because in order to understand the function of an image, it is necessary to understand the substantive and stylistic nature of the artifact itself. Function holds a somewhat literal definition—it represents the purpose an image serves for an audience. The function, or purpose, of an image may be to evoke a certain emotion. The evaluation of an artifact determines if the image serves its function. Rhetorical application Visual rhetoric studies how humans use images to communicate. Elements of images, such as size color, line, and shape, are used to convey messages. In images, meanings are created by the layout and spatial positions of these elements. The entities that constitute an image are socially, politically, and culturally constructed. The same image may represent different rhetorical meanings depending on the audience. The choice and arrangement of the elements in an image should be used to achieve the desired rhetorical effects and convey messages accurately to specific audiences, societies, and cultures. The use of images is a conscious, communicative decision as the colors, form, medium, and size are each chosen on purpose. However, a person may come in contact with a sign, but if they have no relation to the sign, its message is arbitrary. Therefore, in order for artifacts or products to be conceptualized as visual rhetoric, they must be symbolic, involve human intervention, and be presented to an audience for the purpose of communicating. In "The Rhetoric of the Image", Roland Barthes examines the semiotic nature of images, and the ways that images function to communicate specific messages. Barthes points out that messages transmitted by visual images include coded iconic and non-coded iconic linguistic messages. Visual rhetorical images can be categorized into two dimensions: meaning operation and visual structure. Meaning operation refers to the relations and connections between elements in visual images. Visual structure refers to the way that the elements are visually displayed. Analysis terminology Rhetorical critics have borrowed analysis terminology from C.S. Peirce to accomplish direct analysis of visual messages. Icon (or iconic signs), index (or indexical signs), and symbol (or symbolic signs) are three basic categories of recognizable characteristics of visual messages. Icons, or iconic signs, are recognized based on resemblance to known elements or items (e.g., one's ID photo on a company badge). Indexes, or indexical signs, are recognized based on understanding of a visual trace, imprint, or element that signals prior activity, or process, the agent of which is no longer visible (e.g., tire tracks in the sand). Symbols, or symbolic signs, are recognized only on the basis of a shared, learned code of visual signs (e.g., a Mercedes Benz logo, or any printed word in any written language). These three types of visual signs individually, or in combination, make up the visual design elements of nearly all visual messages. Modern application Visual images have always played a role in communication; however, the recent advancements in technology have enabled users to produce and share images on a mass scale. The mass communication of images has made spread of news and information a much quicker process. As a result, certain images may go "viral", meaning the image may have been shared and seen by a large number of audiences, and attracted mainstream media attention. Images are utilized in a variety of ways for a number of purposes. From business to art to entertainment, the versatility of images in popular culture have some scholars arguing words will eventually become outdated. Rhetorical analysis of an image Determine the audience, i.e. the intended readership/viewer of the text. Determine the purpose, i.e. the importance of the message behind the image. Determine the context and meaning(s) behind the image/text. Analyzing the design choices of an image Emphasis: search for the stress of the image; where does the author/artist want the audience attention to go to? Contrast: search for the element that stands out in the image; where is the emphasis in the image? Color: helps the audience figure out the emphasis of an image. Why were certain colors used in this image? What do the choice of these colors tell us? Organization: the arrangement of elements that make the image a whole. How is the image organized? What does the organization of the image tell the audience? Alignment: the line up of the image. How does the alignment of the image control how the audiences' eyes view the image? Proximity: the space used (or not used) in an image. How close (or not so close) are the elements portrayed in the image? What meaning does that make? Visual communication design Method of appeal Aristotle proposed three types of appeal to an audience: Ethos is the appeal to ethics or integrity. Pathos is the appeal to emotions Logos is the appeal to logic or reason These techniques are a technical skill learned and utilized by visual communication designer's today, such as in the field of advertising. Each of these methods of appeal have the ability to influence their audience in different ways. Methods of appeal can also be combined to strengthen the underlying message. Visual literacy Visual literacy is the ability to read, analyze, and evoke meaning from visual text through the means of visual grammar. Visual Communication Designers depend on their audience having visual literacy to comprehend their outputted materials. Visual ethics Research has shown that there are ethical implications to the presentation of visuals. "Visuals present the risk of, all too easily, swaying their audiences in an unethical fashion." Advances in technology have made it easier to manipulate and distort visuals. Visual communicators are expected to accurately portray information and avoid misleading or deceiving viewers. Advertisements Advertisers know that their consumers are able to associate one thing to another; therefore, when an ad shows two things that seemingly different, they know that the consumer will find a connection between the two. Advertisers also find ways to make sure that the consumer creates a positive association between what they are selling and whatever they are associating their product with. In advertising, there are nine main classifications for how ads incorporate visual rhetoric. These classifications vary in complexity with the least complex being when advertisers juxtapose their product with another image (listed as 1,2,3). After juxtaposition, the complexity is increased with fusion, which is when an advertiser's product is combined with another image (listed as 4,5,6). The most complex is replacement, which replaces the product with another product (listed as 7,8,9). Each of these sections also include a variety of richness. The least rich would be connection, which shows how one product is associated with another product (listed as 1,4,7). The next rich would be similarity, which shows how a product is like another product or image (listed as 2,5,8,). Finally, the most rich would be opposition, which is when advertisers show how their product is not like another product or image (listed as 3,6,9). Advertisers can put their product next to another image in order to have the consumer associate their product with the presented image. Advertisers can put their product next to another image to show the similarity between their product and the presented image. Advertisers can put their product next to another image in order to show the consumer that their product is nothing like what the image shows. Advertisers can combine their product with an image in order to have the consumer associate their product with the presented image. Advertisers can combine their product with an image to show the similarity between their product and the presented image. Advertisers can combine their product with another image in order to show the consumer that their product is nothing like what the image shows. Advertisers can replace their product with an image to have the consumer associate their product with the presented image. Advertisers can replace their product with an image to show the similarity between their product and the presented image. Advertisers can replace their product with another image to show the consumer that their product is nothing like what the image shows. Each of these categories varies in complexity, where putting a product next to a chosen image is the simplest and replacing the product entirely is the most complex. The reason why putting a product next to a chosen image is the most simple is because the consumer has already been shown that there is a connection between the two. In other words, the consumer just has to figure out why there is the connection. However, when advertisers replace the product that they are selling with another image, then the consumer must first figure out the connection and figure out why the connection was made. Visual arts Visual tropes and tropic thinking are a part of visual rhetoric. While the field of visual rhetoric isn't necessarily concerned with the aesthetic choices of a piece, the same principles of visual composition may be applied to the study and practice of visual art. For example, figures of speech, such as personification or allusion, may be implemented in the creation of an artwork. A painting may allude to peace with an olive branch or to Christianity with a cross; in the same way, an artwork may employ personification by attributing human qualities to a non-human entity. In general, however, visual art is a separate field of study than visual rhetoric. Graffiti Graffiti is a "pictorial or visual inscription on a accessible surface." According to Hanauer, Graffiti achieves three functions; the first is to allow marginalized texts to participate in the public discourse, the second is that graffiti serves the purpose of expressing openly "controversial contents", and the third is to allow "marginal groups to the possibility of expressing themselves publicly." Bates and Martin note that this form of rhetoric has been around even in ancient Pompeii, with an example from 79 A.D. reading, "Oh wall, so many men have come here to scrawl, I wonder that your burdened sides don't fall". Gross and Gross indicated that graffiti is capable of serving a rhetorical purpose. Within a more modern context, Wiens' (2014) research showed that graffiti can be considered an alternative way of creating rhetorical meaning for issues such as homelessness. Furthermore, according to Ley and Cybriwsky graffiti can be an expression of territory, especially within the context of gangs. This form of visual rhetoric is meant to communicate meaning to anyone who so happens to see it, and due to its long history and prevalence, several styles and techniques have emerged to capture the attention of an audience. Text While visual rhetoric is usually applied to denote the non-textual artifacts, the use and presentation of words is still critical to understanding the visual argument as a whole. Beyond how a message is conveyed, the presentation of that message encompasses the study and practice of typography. Professionals in fields from graphic design to book publishing make deliberate choices about how a typeface looks, including but not limited to concerns of functionality, emotional evocations, and cultural context. Memes Though a relatively new way of using images, visual Internet memes are one of the more pervasive forms of visual rhetoric. Visual memes represent a genre of visual communication that often combines images and text to create meaning. Visual memes can be understood through visual rhetoric, which "combines elements of the semiotic and discursive approaches to analyze the persuasive elements of visual texts." Furthermore, memes fit into this rhetorical category because of their persuasive nature and their ability "to draw viewers into the argument's construction via the viewer's cognitive role in completing "visual enthymemes" to fill in the unstated premise." The visual portion of the meme is a part of its multimodal grammar, allowing a person to decode the text through "cultural codes" that contextualize the image to construct meaning. Because of what is unstated, memetic images can hold multiple interpretations. As groups create and share a specific meme template what is unstated becomes a fixed reading with "novel expression". Shifman, in an analysis of KnowYourMeme.com, found that popular memetic images often feature juxtaposition and frozen motion. Juxtaposition frames clashing visual elements in order to "deepen the ridicule" with a large incongruity or diminishes the original contrast by taking the visual object into a more fitting situation. Frozen motion pictures an action made static, leaving the viewer to complete the motion in order to complete the premise. Considered by some scholars to be a subversive form of communication, memetic images have been used to unify political movements, such as umbrellas during the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong or the images of tea bags by the Tea Party Movement in 2009. According to a 2013 study by Bauckhage, et al., the temporal nature of most memes and their "hype cycles" of popularity are in line with the behavior of a typical fad and suggest that after they proliferate and become mainstream, memes quickly lose their appeal and popularity. Once it has lost its appeal, a meme is pronounced "dead" to signify its overuse or mainstream appearance. Among the intrinsic factors of memes that affect their potential rise to popularity is similarity. A 2014 study conducted by researcher Michele Coscia concluded that meme similarity has a negative correlation to meme popularity, and can therefore be used, along with factors like social network structure, to explain the popularity of various memes. A 2015 study by Mazambani et al. concluded that other factors of influence in meme spread within an online community include how relevant a meme is to the "topic focus" or theme of the online community as well as whether the posting user is in a position of power within an online setting. Memes that are consistent with a group's theme and memes that originate from lower-status members within the group spread faster than memes that are inconsistent and are created by members of a group that are in positions of power. Scholars like Jakub Nowak propose the idea of popular driven media as well. Successful memes originate and proliferate by means of anonymous internet users, not entities like corporations or political parties that have an agenda. For this reason, anonymity is linked to meme popularity and credibility. Nowak asserts that meme authorship should remain anonymous, because this is the only way to let people make the statements that they want to freely. See also Digital rhetoric Media influence Media theory of composition Rhetoric Visual communication Visual culture Visual literacy Visualization (graphics) References External links Visual Rhetoric in Social Campaigns viz.: Rhetoric, Visual Culture, Pedagogy Semiotics for Beginners Pictorial Semiotics Communication studies Writing Graphic design Rhetoric Semiotics Scientific visualization Visual arts theory

Feminization (sociology)

In sociology, feminization is the shift in gender roles and sex roles in a society, group, or organization towards a focus upon the feminine. It can also mean the incorporation of women into a group or a profession that was once dominated by men. Examples of feminization in society Feminization of education – Majority female teachers, a female majority of students in higher education and a curriculum which is better suited to the learning process of women. Feminization of the workplace – Lower paying female-dominated occupations such as (1) food preparation, food-serving and other food-related occupations, and (2) personal care and service. Feminization of smoking – The phrase torches of freedom is emblematic of the phenomenon of tobacco shifting from being seen as a male activity to also a feminine one. See women and smoking for a comprehensive treatment of this topic. Definition of feminization Feminization has two basic meanings. The first concerns a person who was not initially feminine but becomes feminine later in their life through the perceptions of both the individual and those around them. According to gender theorist Judith Butler, a person's gender is not solely an act of will or self-description, as it is also shaped by the people who describe, categorize, and treat the person according to their own perceptions of their gender. The second meaning of the term feminization describes when a person who originally had feminine qualities begins to incorporate more feminine attributes into their personality in some way, shape, or form. The term has often been used to describe females, however over time it shifted to where the term can be used to describe the process of someone or something becoming more feminine by adopting feminine qualities. Feminization of poverty Women are more likely than men to live below the poverty line, a phenomenon known as the feminization of poverty. The 2015 poverty rates for men and women in the U.S. were 10% and 15% respectively. Women are less likely to pursue advanced degrees and tend to have low paying jobs. There is a gender pay gap: even with the same level of education and occupational role, women earn much less than men, though research suggests this is largely due to women working fewer hours than men overall for reasons such as caring for children or lifestyle factors, rather than direct discrimination. Feminization of the labor force Feminization of the labor force in present-day associations is inescapable in that females make up half of the labor force and the revelation of them as a potential profitable asset. Post-war, there have been considerable advances in balancing the workforce when comparing women and men's job status and pay rates in the North America and Europe economies. References Gender roles Sociology of culture Cultural trends Sociological terminology Femininity

Ecotype

In evolutionary ecology, an ecotype, sometimes called ecospecies, describes a genetically distinct geographic variety, population, or race within a species, which is genotypically adapted to specific environmental conditions. Typically, though ecotypes exhibit phenotypic differences (such as in morphology or physiology) stemming from environmental heterogeneity, they are capable of interbreeding with other geographically adjacent ecotypes without loss of fertility or vigor. Definition An ecotype is a variant in which the phenotypic differences are too few or too subtle to warrant being classified as a subspecies. These different variants can occur in the same geographic region where distinct habitats such as meadow, forest, swamp, and sand dunes provide ecological niches. Where similar ecological conditions occur in widely separated places, it is possible for a similar ecotype to occur in the separated locations. An ecotype is different from a subspecies, which may exist across a number of different habitats. In animals, ecotypes owe their differing characteristics to the effects of a very local environment. Therefore, ecotypes have no taxonomic rank. Terminology Ecotypes are closely related to morphs. In the context of evolutionary biology, genetic polymorphism is the occurrence in the equilibrium of two or more distinctly different phenotypes within a population of a species, in other words, the occurrence of more than one form or morph. The frequency of these discontinuous forms (even that of the rarest) is too high to be explained by mutation. In order to be classified as such, morphs must occupy the same habitat at the same time and belong to a panmictic population (whose members can all potentially interbreed). Polymorphism is actively and steadily maintained in populations of species by natural selection (most famously sexual dimorphism in humans) in contrast to transient polymorphisms where conditions in a habitat change in such a way that a "form" is being replaced completely by another. In fact, Begon, Townsend, and Harper assert that The notions "form" and "ecotype" may appear to correspond to a static phenomenon, however; this is not always the case. Evolution occurs continuously both in time and space, so that two ecotypes or forms may qualify as distinct species in only a few generations. Begon, Townsend, and Harper use an illuminating analogy on this: Thus ecotypes and morphs can be thought of as precursory steps of potential speciation. Range and distribution Experiments indicate that sometimes ecotypes manifest only when separated by great spatial distances (of the order of 1,000 km). This is due to hybridization whereby different but adjacent varieties of the same species (or generally of the same taxonomic rank) interbreed, thus overcoming local selection. However other studies reveal that the opposite may happen, i.e., ecotypes revealing at very small scales (of the order of 10 m), within populations, and despite hybridization. In ecotypes, it is common for continuous, gradual geographic variation to impose analogous phenotypic and genetic variation. This situation is called cline. A well-known example of a cline is the skin color gradation in indigenous human populations worldwide, which is related to latitude and amounts of sunlight. But often the distribution of ecotypes is bimodal or multimodal. This means that ecotypes may display two or more distinct and discontinuous phenotypes even within the same population. Such phenomenon may lead to speciation and can occur if conditions in a local environment change dramatically through space or time. Examples Tundra reindeer and woodland reindeer are two ecotypes of reindeer. The first migrate (travelling 5,000 km) annually between the two environments in large numbers whereas the other (who are much fewer) remain in the forest for the summer. In North America, the species Rangifer tarandus (locally known as caribou), was subdivided into five subspecies by Banfield in 1961. Caribou are classified by ecotype depending on several behavioural factors – predominant habitat use (northern, tundra, mountain, forest, boreal forest, forest-dwelling), spacing (dispersed or aggregated) and migration (sedentary or migratory). For example, the subspecies Rangifer tarandus caribou is further distinguished by a number of ecotypes, including boreal woodland caribou, mountain woodland caribou, and migratory woodland caribou (such as the migratory George River Caribou Herd in the Ungava region of Quebec). Arabis fecunda, a herb endemic to some calcareous soils of Montana, United States, can be divided into two ecotypes. The one "low elevation" group lives near the ground in an arid, warm environment and has thus developed a significantly greater tolerance against drought than the "high elevation" group. The two ecotypes are separated by a horizontal distance of about . It is commonly accepted that the Tucuxi dolphin has two ecotypes – the riverine ecotype found in some South American rivers and the pelagic ecotype found in the South Atlantic Ocean. In 2022, the common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), which had been considered to have two ecotypes in the western North Atlantic, was separated into two species by Costa et al. based on morphometric and genetic data, with the near-shore ecotype becoming Tursiops erebennus Cope, 1865, described in the nineteenth century from a specimen collected in the Delaware River. The warbler finch and the Cocos Island finch are viewed as separate ecotypes. The aromatic plant Artemisia campestris also known as the field sagewort grows in a wide range of habitats from North America to the Atlantic coast and also in Eurasia. It has different forms arccoding to the environment where it grows. One variety which grows on shifting dunes at Falstrebo on the coast of Sweden has broad leaves, and white hairs while exhibiting upright growth. Another variety that grows in Oland in calcareous rocks displays horizontally expanded branches with no upright growth. These two extreme types are considered different varieties. Other examples include Artemisia campestris var. borealis which occupies the west of the Cascades crest in the Olympic Mountains in Washington while Artemisia campestris var. wormskioldii grows on the east side. The Northern wormwood, var. borealis has spike like-inflorescences with leaves concentrated on the plant base and divided into long narrow lobes. Wormskiold's northern wormwood, Artemisia campestris var. wormskioldii is generally shorter and hairy with large leaves surrounding the flowers. The Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) has 20 different ecotypes in an area from Scotland to Siberia, all capable of interbreeding. Ecotype distinctions can be subtle and do not always require large distances; it has been observed that two populations of the same Helix snail species separated by only a few hundred kilometers prefer not to cross-mate, i.e., they reject one another as mates. This event probably occurs during the process of courtship, which may last for hours. See also Adaptation Biological classification Cline (biology) Ecotope Epigenetics Evolution Polymorphism (biology) Ring species Speciation Species problem Terroir Explanatory notes References Landscape ecology Botany Zoology Ecology

21st-century communist theorists

According to the political theorist Alan Johnson, there has been a revival of serious interest in communism in the 21st century led by Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou. History In 2009, many of these advocates contributed to the three-day conference, "The Idea of Communism", in London that drew a substantial paying audience. Journals such as Endnotes, Salvage, Ebb Magazine Kites and Historical Materialism launched with communist outlooks, as well as news outlets such as Novara Media. Furthermore, internet culture and declining life prospects has led to a general rise amongst Millennials and Gen-Z in support for communism and socialism, in tandem with the rise of left-populism in the US and the UK. Explicitly left-wing contemporary artists, such as filmmakers, musicians, video-game creators and comedians have received widespread attention, such as the rapper/producer JPEGMafia, and a whole media-creator ecosystem has developed around the online left, known as BreadTube. Contemporary communist theorists Étienne Balibar Bruno Bosteels Harry Cleaver Angela Davis Jodi Dean Costas Douzinas Mark Fisher Silvia Federici Anuradha Ghandy Agon Hamza Michael Hardt Michael Heinrich John Holloway Robin Kelley Andreas Malm China Miéville J. Moufawad-Paul Antonio Negri Vijay Prashad Jose Maria Sison Kohei Saito Alberto Toscano Erik Olin Wright Gianni Vattimo Other non-Marxist thinkers who have also had an effect on the 'new communists' include the revolutionaries Subcomandante Marcos and Abdullah Öcalan, abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore, economist Frédéric Lordon, architecture journalist Owen Hatherley and the late anthropologist David Graeber. Whilst these theorists come from a broad range of traditions, included but not limited to the Black Radical Tradition, Eco-socialism, Maoism, Neo-Marxism, post-Marxism and Autonomist/Open Marxism, what they all tend to have in common is a critique of past socialist experiments, and a re-orientation of the revolutionary subject. Notable works Empire was a major turning stone in 21st-century Marxist and communist thought. Theoretical publications, some published by Verso Books, include The Idea of Communism, edited by Costas Douzinas and Žižek; Badiou's The Communist Hypothesis; and Bosteels's The Actuality of Communism. The defining common ground is the contention that "the crises of contemporary liberal capitalist societies—ecological degradation, financial turmoil, the loss of trust in the political class, exploding inequality—are systemic; interlinked, not amenable to legislative reform, and requiring 'revolutionary' solutions". In the introduction to The Idea of Communism (2009), Žižek and Douzinas also identified four common premises among the thinkers in attendance: The idea of communism confronts depoliticization through a return to voluntarism. Communism as a radical philosophical idea. It must be thought of as taking distance from economism and statism as well as learning from the experiences of the 21st century. Communism combats neoliberalism by returning to the idea of the "common". Communism as freedom and equality. Equality cannot exist without freedom and vice versa. A rise in Marxist thought followed the financial crisis of 2007–2008, with the publishing of books including G. A. Cohen's Why Not Socialism? (2009), Paul Paolucci's Marx's Scientific Dialectics (2009), Kieran Allen's Marx and the Alternative to Capitalism (2011), Terry Eagleton's Why Marx Was Right (2011) and Vincent Mosco's Marx Is Back (2012). The Communist Horizon, published in 2012 by Jodi Dean, marked the beginning in a series of books from Dean which argue for the necessity of communist and Leninist politics. The most wide-read of these was Mark Fisher's (2009) Capitalist Realism. The Communist Necessity, published in 2015 by J. Moufawad-Paul, also argues for the necessity of the communist party in radical social change. Fully Automated Luxury Communism, published in 2019, has helped normalise the term 'communist' within public discourse in the anglophone world. 2023 saw the publication of two significant books on the topic of communism: Marx in the Anthropocene by Kohei Saito, which developed a notion of a degrowth communism, and Communism and Strategy by Isabelle Garo, which examines contemporary communist theorists in relation to Antonio Gramsci and Karl Marx. See also Autonomism Black radical tradition Chinese New Left Critical theory Critical race theory Communism Gender studies Neo-Marxism New Communist Movement Prison abolition movement Post-Marxism Post-structuralism Postcolonialism Socialism of the 21st century References Further reading Communism, A New Beginning? 14–16 October 2011. "Full Communism" blog post at versobooks.com by Huw Lemmey 3 May 2012. Communist theory Communists Writers about communism Marxist theorists

Social conditioning

Social conditioning is the sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond in a manner generally approved by the society in general and peer groups within society. The concept is stronger than that of socialization, which is the process of inheriting norms, customs and ideologies. Manifestations of social conditioning are vast, but they are generally categorized as social patterns and social structures including nationalism, education, employment, entertainment, popular culture, religion, spirituality and family life. The social structure in which an individual finds him or herself influences and can determine their social actions and responses. Social conditioning represents the environment and personal experience in the nature and nurture debate. Society in general and peer groups within society set the norms which shape the behavior of actors within the social system. Though society shapes individuals; however, it was the individual who made society to begin with and society in turn shaped and influenced us. Emile Durkheim who really played an important role in the theory of social facts, explained and talked how what was once a mere idea which in this case Durkheim is talking about society has turned out to be a thing which basically controls and dictates us. Socialization Social conditioning is directly related to the particular culture that one is involved in. In You May Ask Yourself, Dalton Conley, a professor of sociology at New York University, states that "culture affects us. It's transmitted to us through different processes, with socialization—our internalization of society's values, beliefs and norms—being the main one." The particular manner or influence that one is exposed to is associated by the herd that he or she is involved in. Social conditioning bases its principals on the natural need for an animal to be a part of a pack. Herd Instinct Sigmund Freud, known as the father of psychoanalysis, recorded his observations of group dynamics in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. In his work, he refers to Wilfred Trotter as the group conditions its members, Freud states "opposition to the herd is as good as separation from it, and is therefore anxiously avoided". Such fear causes the individual members and even leaders of a particular group to go along with the decisions a group based in accordance to its culture. On a micro scale, the individual is conditioned to partake in the social norms of the said group even if they contradict his or her personal moral code. The consequences of such protest (may) result in isolation. Such, in accordance to Freud, is one of the greatest punishments than can be instilled on an individual. This would result in the inability of an individual to practice his or her "instinctual impulses". These instincts, in accordance to Freud, are the motives behind actions that the individual may take. The father of psychoanalysis further states that, "we thus have an impression of a state in which an individual's private emotional impulses and intellectual acts are too weak to come to anything by themselves and are entirely dependent for this on being reinforced by being repeated in a similar way in the other members of the group". Out of fear of isolation and to secure the practice of instinctual impulses, there may be little protest from individual members as the group continues to conditions. Propaganda Edward Bernays, Freud's nephew and the father of propaganda and public relations, used many of his uncle's theories in order to create new methods in marketing. In Propaganda, he published that "If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it". He used the herd theory in order to create public relations, thus conditioning the public to need particular goods from certain manufacturers. In the same publication he stated, "A single factory, potentially capable of supplying a whole continent with its particular product, cannot afford to wait until the public asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through advertising and propaganda, with the vast public in order to assure itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant profitable." His theories and applications in social conditioning continue throughout his work. Bernays and the elite Bernays continued the application of his work as he associates the method in which a minority elite use social conditioning to assert their dominance and will power. In You May Ask Yourself, Dalton Conley describes this ideal with hegemony. He states that the term "refers to a historical process in which a dominant group exercises 'moral and intellectual leadership' throughout society by winning the voluntary 'consent' of popular masses." Bernays believed that this was a functionalist approach. Stating "vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses." Such influence is made possible by persistent repetition. Wilbert E. Moore, a formal Princeton University Sociology professor, in Social Change, states that "the persistence of patterns gives order and constancy to recurrent events. In terms of behavior, many elements of persistence are more nearly cyclical, the near repetition of sequences of action over various time periods." He continues to state that "role structures (and this norms) grow out of the need for predictability". While he does state that there are several reasons for group formation (spontaneous, deliberate and coercive) the group usually winds up 'repeating sequences' and then, in accordance to Freud and Bernays, contribute to the socialization of possibly new members. Classical conditioning – Ivan Pavlov and behaviorism Such repetition contributes to basic social conditioning. Ivan Pavlov demonstrated this theory with his infamous conditioned stimuli experiment. In Pavlov's dog experiment, the research proved that repeated exposure to a particular stimuli results in a specific behavior being repeated. In accordance to Mark Bouton of the University of Vermont, the strength of such 'repetition' and influence can be seen in operant conditioning. Where, depending on reinforcement and punishment of a particular behavior, a response is conditioned. Methods of social conditioning – media In accordance to Ashley Lutz, an editor of Business Insider, 90% of the media, in 2011, was owned by merely six companies. Such limits the exposure to information, at least the perspective on information. The limited exposure to the perspectives of information results in increase of particular social conditioning. Through repetition of a particular perspective of an ideal, the view is reinforced into the audience and results in a formed social norm. This contributes to the formation of a reflection of the culture in media. Conley states that "culture is a projection of social structures and relationships into the public sphere, a screen onto which the film of the underlying reality or social structure of our society is shown". Such cycling repetition creates a method of socialization and a manner in which society further molds its current members or new ones into the culture. Labeling theory Social control and stigmatization (SCS) Conley states that "individuals subconsciously notice how others see or label them, and their reactions to these labels over time form the basis of their self-identity. It is only through the social process of labeling that we create deviance by assigning shared meanings to acts." Social conditioning is formed by the creation of 'good' and 'bad' behaviors - persistent reinforcement and the use of operant conditioning influences individuals/groups to develop particular behaviors and/or ideals. In "A Differential Association—Reinforcement Theory of Criminal Behavior", from Criminological Theory Readings and Retrospectives, social norms and deviance in a particular group is described as follows: "We often infer what the norms of a group are by observing reaction to behavior, i.e., the sanctions applied to, or reinforcement and punishment of, such behavior. We may also learn what a group's norms are through verbal and written statements. The individual group member also learns what is and is not acceptable behavior on the basis of verbal statements made by others, as well as through sanctions (i.e. the reinforcing or aversive stimuli) applied by others in response to his behavior and that of other norms violators." A particular group conditions its members into certain behaviors. In Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas, the authors note that even illegal behaviors may be seen as positive and promoted within a particular group because different social organizations have a varying amount of influence over particular members – in particular, as children age, their friends play a greater amount of influence than the family. Burgess and Akers further reinforce this point: "In terms of our analysis, the primary group would be seen to be the major source of an individual's social reinforcements. The bulk of behavioral training which the child receives occurs at a time when the trainers, usually the parents, possess a very powerful system of reinforcement. In fact, we might characterize a primary group as a generalized reinforce (one associated with many reinforces, conditioned as well as unconditioned). And, as we suggest above, as the child grows older, groups other than the family may come to control a majority of an individual's reinforces, e.g. the adolescent peer group. Such theories are further backed up by Mead's theory of Social Development and are reinforced by stigmatization." Mead's theory of social development In accordance to Margaret Mead, one's identity is shaped by outside forces. While the self exists on its own at birth, the first interactions influence the development of one's identity. With the introductions of more and more groups, starting with the significant other (ex. family) and reference groups (ex. friends) an individual develops his or her perception of self. As Conley states, individuals "...develop a sense of other, that is, someone or something outside of oneself". Finally, individuals interact with the generalized other, "which represents an internalized sense of the total expectations of others in a variety of settings—regardless of whether we're encountered those people or places before". Stigma "A stigma is a negative social label that not only changes others' behaviour towards a person but, also alters that person's self-concept and social identity." Once placed into such a category, an individual finds it nearly impossible to move out of that particular grouping. Such becomes his or her master status, overshadowing any other statuses. Such conditions the individual to continuously partake in the activities ascribed to the master status, good or bad. See also Brave New World Operant conditioning Peer pressure Social theory Political correctness References Sociological terminology

The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century

The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century is a 1991 book by Samuel P. Huntington which outlines the significance of a third wave of democratization to describe the global trend that has seen more than 60 countries throughout Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa undergo some form of democratic transitions since Portugal's "Carnation Revolution" in 1974. The catch-phrase "the third wave" has been widely used among scholars studying what is considered by some to be democratic transitions and democratization throughout much of the developing world. The phrase however, has come under criticism, largely by those who stress that so called democratic transitions are little more than transitions to semi-authoritarian rule, as demanded by the international realities of a post-Cold War world. Transition Causes According to Huntington, the rise of the Third Wave is derived from five main causative factors: Decrease of legitimacy of authoritarian regimes due to increased popular expectation of periodic and competitive election, and/or military failure. The economic crisis during the 1970s had a massive impact especially on those regimes which used economic growth for legitimisation. Growth in global economic output helped modernize many less developed economies. Economic modernization, which includes structural changes like increased rates of urbanization, education, and a rising middle class, unleashes a constellation of social forces with the organizational capacity and education to press for democratic governance. Changes in the Catholic Church brought about by Vatican II emphasized individual rights and opposition to authoritarian rule. This shift in world view was especially important for the Catholic countries of Southern Europe and Latin America, as well as the Philippines, Poland and Hungary. Regional contingency factor (Snowball effect. For Soviet equivalent see Domino Theory), also known as demonstration effects, happens when success of democracy in one country causes other countries to democratize. The role played by the US and the EU. President Carter renewed a critical approach toward communist countries bringing back on the table the theme of human rights; EU was an appreciated model in Europe and after 1989 required precise democratic standards to be joined. Gorbachev contributed to easing the tensions with Eastern European countries and pushing toward reforms. International structural factors during the 1970s were cited by Huntington as the causal sources for initiating the Third-Wave. Prospects for European Union membership provided the necessary pressure for creating the critical domestic masses for the push toward democracy in Portugal, Spain, and Greece, since the establishment of democratic institutions was necessary to secure the economic benefits for Community membership. As other authors have pointed out, E.U. membership has also functioned to inspire democratic changes in a number of former Soviet satellites, including Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. Other international factors also contributed to launching the Third-Wave. First, international efforts by states and activists helped politicise issues such as human rights and democratisation at the international level. Huntington believes that the beginning of the third wave corresponds to the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, which helped secure commitments for human rights and democratic governance from Eastern European countries. While this by itself was not enough to guarantee democratisation, it did provide an easy gauge by which the Soviet Bloc was measured and criticised. Secondly, by the mid-1970s, the United States began to reformulate its foreign policy. Rather than supporting any regime that promised loyalty to the west, economic and political support was increasingly premised upon the observance of civil liberties and political rights. In addition to the reform pressures from international actors and powerful states as a culprit to the sustenance of the third-wave, which transpired from the 1970s through to the 1990s, Huntington cites that the "demonstration effect" is an important factor for explaining the breadth of the third wave. For example, once it was clear that the reformist Solidarity in Poland would come to power, reformists in other eastern European countries gained energy to push for change. As the wave swept through Eastern Europe, African leaders began to see ’the winds of change’ and subsequently redrafted their constitutions to allow for multiparty elections, fearing that any resistance to reforms would lead to an emboldened opposition. Processes Transformation – A top-down (elite-controlled) change from within government (as postulated by the theoreticians of the modernization theory some 30 years ago). Transplacement – Negotiated reform of regime and government. Replacement – Regime breakdown (rupture) and the collapse of authoritarianism. Characteristics Uncertainty Internal factors paramount – Especially important is role of elites and the ensuing split in the regime. Consolidation Problems Transitional problems (institution-building) Contextual problems. Systemic problems (performance of new regime) Consolidation after "two-turnover test" (Huntington 1991) Elites Huntington believed in the importance of individual agents in the transition to democracy: "democracies are created not by causes but by causers" (Huntington 1991:107). To Huntington the transition was based on elite choice, perception, beliefs and actions, while subsequent consolidation was based on elite pacts and consensus. References 1991 non-fiction books Books about democracy English-language books Political science books University of Oklahoma Press books Works by Samuel P. Huntington

Food and sexuality

Food and sexuality have been associated in various ways throughout history. Foods such as chocolate and oysters are said to be aphrodisiacs. In some cultures animal testicles and other items are consumed to increase sexual potency. Food items also provide symbolism, such as the biblical "forbidden fruit" or the cherry with its associations related to virginity. Food items are also used metaphorically in slang sexual terminology and poetry. Some foods are considered sensual for their appearance, texture and taste. Whipped cream, melted chocolate, jam, miso, cake batter, pies, and peanut butter are sometimes used for intimate titillation in an act known as sploshing. The relationship between food and sex has also been explored in books and cinema. Art and literature The connection between food and sexuality has been explored in various art works. A 1998 art show, Reflect, an exhibition of works by Monali Meher explored connections and themes including voyeurism, stereotypes, consumerism, freedom and advertising. A display of food and sex related artworks from 19th- and 20th-century American artists was one of 16 concept groupings at a New York Historical Society show in 1991. In sociology and anthropology Tasting food, tasting freedom by Sidney Wilfred Mintz includes essays taking "an anthropological view of food, including its relationship to power, freedom, and purity." Food and Sex is also a chapter in Breaking the food seduction by Neal D. Barnard, Joanne Stepaniak. and a topic discussed in Women's conflicts about eating and sexuality by Rosalyn M. Meadow and Lillie Weiss. Chocolate aphrodisiac controversy Although some foods do qualify as aphrodisiacs, and chocolate has been thought to be an aphrodisiac for many years, there is some controversy surrounding whether it truly is an aphrodisiac. A study conducted by Salonia et al. (2006) evaluated the sexual function of women who reported that they ate chocolate daily, and women who reported they did not eat chocolate. The study concluded that once scores were adjusted for age, there were no significant differences in the sexual arousal, satisfaction, desire or distress of those who ate chocolate daily and those who did not. This illustrates that the consumption of chocolate has no effect on sexual function. Likewise, Shamloul (2010) concluded that there is little scientific evidence suggesting that natural aphrodisiacs are an effective method of enhancing sexual desire or performance, nor are they an effective treatment of sexual dysfunction. On the contrary, some studies suggest that chocolate is an aphrodisiac and claim that its chemical components such as phenylethylamine, causes an increase in pleasure and sexual drive and N-acylethanolamines, causes an increase in sensitivity and euphoria (Afoakwa, E. 2008). Other studies suggest it is the flavinoids and serotonin found in chocolate that regulate vasoconstriction and dilation and increase female genital functioning, and thus sexual functioning (Shamloul, 2010). Due to these conflicting views, and the lack of scientific evidence currently available, it is clear that firm conclusions cannot be drawn on whether chocolate is an aphrodisiac. Examples in media The movies Tampopo, 9½ Weeks, Chocolat, Like Water for Chocolate, Eat Drink Man Woman, and Babette's Feast are among those exploring the relationship. The film Tom Jones contains a notable eating scene. Songs that feature metaphors of food for sex include "Les sucettes" (1966), "Le Banana Split" (1979), "Peaches & Cream" (2001) and "Lollipop" (2008). The cover of the Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass 1965 album Whipped Cream and Other Delights famously features a woman covered in whipped cream. In the movie American Pie, a young adult engages in simulated intercourse with a pie. Carl's Junior advertisements have featured a scantily clad Paris Hilton rapturously eating one of the company's burger offerings. Symbolism Some foods are symbolic or act as metaphors for body parts involved in sexual relations. Common examples include eggplant, bananas, zucchini and cucumbers as phallic symbols, and peaches as vaginal symbols. Melons have a similar use and are sometimes used as stand-ins for breasts, as in the Austin Powers movie where they are used to cover up an Elizabeth Hurley chest. See also Bread dildo Nyotaimori Erotica Food porn Vorarephilia References Erotica Human sexuality Food and drink culture

The Educated Mind

The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding is a 1997 book on educational theory by Kieran Egan. Main arguments Criticism of previous education theories Egan argues that much educational theorizing pivots around three basic ideas about the aim of education: to educate people in content that would give them a "privileged and rational view of reality" (Plato). Here we find the following ideas: reason and knowledge can provide privileged access to the world; knowledge drives the student's mental development; education is an epistemological process. to realize the right of every individual to pursue his own educational curriculum through self-discovery (Rousseau). Student development drives knowledge and education is a psychological process. to Socialize the child - to homogenize children and ensure that they can fulfill a useful role in society, according to its values and beliefs. Egan argues in Chapter One that "these three ideas are mutually incompatible, and this is the primary cause of our long-continuing educational crisis"; the present educational program in much of the West attempts to integrate all three of these incompatible ideas, resulting in a failure to effectively achieve any of the three. "Cultural recapitulation" theory Egan argues that knowledge and understanding arise through five kinds of understanding. This development can be explained by "logical and psychological pressures." Egan differentiates his theory from the conceptions of recapitulation common in the late 19th century and early 20th century. People can learn cognitive tools that are grouped and classified into five kinds of understanding: Somatic - somatic understanding is the innate understanding of one's physical functions as well as emotions. This understanding persists in the way children "model their overall social structure in play". This understanding comes before language acquisition and the development of language Mythic - mythic understanding is understanding of "binary opposites" such as Tall/Short or Good/Evil. Tools or methods such as images, metaphor, and story-structure are used in pre-literate sense-making. Romantic - romantic understanding occurs when the "limits of reality" are discovered. At this stage, there is a desire to explore the limits of reality, an interest in the transcendent qualities of things, and "engagement with knowledge represented as a product of human emotions and intentions" (p. 254) Philosophic - philosophic understanding is the creation of principles which underlie patterns and limits found in data, and the ordering of knowledge into coherent general schemes. Ironic - ironic understanding is the "mental flexibility to recognize how inadequately flexible are our minds, and the languages we use, to the world we try to represent in them". This includes the ability to consider alternative philosophic explanations, and is characterized by a Socratic stance in the world. "Drawing from an extensive study of cultural history and evolutionary history and the field of cognitive psychology and anthropology, Egan gives a detailed account of how these various forms of understanding have been created and distinguished in our cultural history". Each stage includes a set of "cognitive tools", as Egan calls them, that enrich our understanding of reality. Egan suggests that recapitulating these stages is an alternative to the contradictions between the Platonic, Rousseauian and socialising goals of education. Egan resists the suggestion that religious understanding could be a further last stage, arguing instead that religious explanations are examples of ironic understanding preserving a richly developed somatic understanding. Connections with other authors Egan's main influence comes from the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. The idea of applying theory of recapitulation to education came from 19th century philosopher Herbert Spencer, although Egan uses it in a very different way. Egan also uses educational ideas from William Wordsworth and expresses regret that Wordsworth's ideas, because they were expressed in poetry, are rarely considered today. In popular culture The same year the essay was published (1997), Italian comedian-satirist Daniele Luttazzi used Egan's ideas for his character Prof. Fontecedro in the popular TV show Mai dire Gol, aired on Italia 1. Fontecedro was satirizing the inadequacies of the Italian school system, and the reforms proposed by Luigi Berlinguer, 1996-2000 Ministry of Education of Italy. Fontecedro's sketches brought Egan's theory to extreme levels with surreal humor. The jokes were later published in the book Cosmico! (1998, Mondadori, ), where the five stages of mind development are also cited at pp. 45–47. In 2023, a review of the book won the blog Astral Codex Ten's annual book review contest. See also Merlin Donald Northrop Frye's The Educated Imagination (1964) References previous works on ironic knowledge: Bogel, Fredric V. "Irony, Inference, and Critical Understanding." Yale Review 69 (1980): 503-19. Editions External links Book dedicated section in Egan official website Conceptions of Development in Education, Egan's essay that explain the main ideas of the book From the Imaginative Education Research Group: A brief guide to imaginative education, Some thoughts on "Cognitive tools", Cognitive tools that come along with oral language, Cognitive tools that come along with literacy, Cognitive tools that come along with theoretic thinking Excerpts from google books Using entheogens as cognitive tools to foster Somatic and Mythic types of understanding Reviews reader2.com 1997 non-fiction books Books about education Philosophy books Books about irony Pedagogical publications

Dialogic

Dialogic refers to the use of conversation or shared dialogue to explore the meaning of something. (This is as opposed to monologic which refers to one entity with all the information simply giving it to others without exploration and clarification of meaning through discussion.) The word "dialogic" relates to or is characterized by dialogue and its use. A dialogic is communication presented in the form of dialogue. Dialogic processes refer to implied meaning in words uttered by a speaker and interpreted by a listener. Dialogic works carry on a continual dialogue that includes interaction with previous information presented. The term is used to describe concepts in literary theory and analysis as well as in philosophy. Along with dialogism, the term can refer to concepts used in the work of Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin, especially the texts Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics and The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin. Overview Bakhtin contrasts the dialogic and the "monologic" work of literature. The dialogic work carries on a continual dialogue with other works of literature and other authors. It does not merely answer, correct, silence, or extend a previous work, but informs and is continually informed by the previous work. Dialogic literature is in communication with multiple works. This is not merely a matter of influence, for the dialogue extends in both directions, and the previous work of literature is as altered by the dialogue as the present one is. Though Bakhtin's "dialogic" emanates from his work with colleagues in what we now call the "Bakhtin Circle" in years following 1918, his work was not known to the West or translated into English until the 1970s. For those only recently introduced to Bakhtin's ideas but familiar with T. S. Eliot, his "dialogic" is consonant with Eliot's ideas in "Tradition and the Individual Talent," where Eliot holds that "the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past". For Bakhtin, the influence can also occur at the level of the individual word or phrase as much as it does the work and even the oeuvre or collection of works. A German cannot use the word "fatherland" or the phrase "blood and soil" without (possibly unintentionally) also echoing (or, Bakhtin would say "refracting") the meaning that those terms took on under Nazism. Every word has a history of usage to which it responds, and anticipates a future response. The term 'dialogic' does not only apply to literature. For Bakhtin, all language—indeed, all thought—appears as dialogical. This means that everything anybody ever says always exists in response to things that have been said before and in anticipation of things that will be said in response. In other words, we do not speak in a vacuum. All language (and the ideas which language contains and communicates) is dynamic, relational and engaged in a process of endless redescriptions of the world. Bakhtin also emphasized certain uses of language that maximized the dialogic nature of words, and other uses that attempted to limit or restrict their polyvocality. At one extreme is novelistic discourse, particularly that of a Dostoevsky (or Mark Twain) in which various registers and languages are allowed to interact with and respond to each other. At the other extreme would be the military order (or "1984" newspeak) which attempts to minimize all orientations of the work toward the past or the future, and which prompts no response but obedience. Distinction between dialogic and dialectic A dialogic process stands in contrast to a dialectic process (proposed by G. W. F. Hegel): In a dialectic process describing the interaction and resolution between multiple paradigms or ideologies, one putative solution establishes primacy over the others. The goal of a dialectic process is to merge point and counterpoint (thesis and antithesis) into a compromise or other state of agreement via conflict and tension (synthesis). "Synthesis that evolves from the opposition between thesis and antithesis." Examples of dialectic process can be found in Plato's Republic. In a dialogic process, various approaches coexist and are comparatively existential and relativistic in their interaction. Here, each ideology can hold more salience in particular circumstances. Changes can be made within these ideologies if a strategy does not have the desired effect. These two distinctions are observed in studies of personal identity, national identity, and group identity. Sociologist Richard Sennett has stated that the distinction between dialogic and dialectic is fundamental to understanding human communication. Sennett says that dialectic deals with the explicit meaning of statements, and tends to lead to closure and resolution. Whereas dialogic processes, especially those involved with regular spoken conversation, involve a type of listening that attends to the implicit intentions behind the speaker's actual words. Unlike a dialectic process, dialogics often do not lead to closure and remain unresolved. Compared to dialectics, a dialogic exchange can be less competitive, and more suitable for facilitating cooperation. See also Allusion Dialogic learning Dialogical analysis Dialogical self Heteroglossia Internal discourse Relational dialectics Notes References Literary concepts Postmodern theory Post-structuralism

BioArt

BioArt is an art practice where artists work with biology, live tissues, bacteria, living organisms, and life processes. Using scientific processes and practices such as biology and life science practices, microscopy, and biotechnology (including technologies such as genetic engineering, tissue culture, and cloning) the artworks are produced in laboratories, galleries, or artists' studios. The scope of BioArt is a range considered by some artists to be strictly limited to "living forms", while other artists include art that uses the imagery of contemporary medicine and biological research, or require that it address a controversy or blind spot posed by the very character of the life sciences. Bioart originated at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century. Although BioArtists work with living matter, there is some debate as to the stages at which matter can be considered to be alive or living. Creating living beings and practicing in the life sciences brings about ethical, social, and aesthetic inquiry. With his essay “Biotechnology and Art” from 1981, Peter Weibel introduced the term Bioart, and defined an art movement that uses biological systems as a means of artistic expression. The creation of living beings and the study of the biological sciences bring with them ethical, social and aesthetic questions. Within Bio Art there is a debate about whether any form of artistic engagement with the biosciences and their social consequences (e.g. in the form of images from medicine) should be viewed as part of the art movement, or whether only such works of art, that were created in the laboratory are classified as organic art. Overview BioArt is often intended to highlight themes and beauty in biological subjects, address or question philosophical notions or trends in science, and can at times be shocking or humorous. One survey of the field, Isotope: A Journal of Literary Science and Nature Writing, puts it this way: "BioArt is often ludicrous. It can be lumpy, gross, unsanitary, sometimes invisible, and tricky to keep still on the auction block. But at the same time, it does something very traditional that art is supposed to do: draw attention to the beautiful and grotesque details of nature that we might otherwise never see." While raising questions about the role of science in society, "most of these works tend toward social reflection, conveying political and societal criticism through the combination of artistic and scientific processes." Works of bioart are most often seen as a contribution to the social, political and economic questions that arise from scientific research, however at times contribute and make advancements in research. Artists in laboratories While most people who practice BioArt are categorized as artists in this new media, they can also be seen as scientists. In Bio Art, artists often work with scientists, and in some cases they are scientists themselves. While some artists have prior scientific training, others must be trained to perform the procedures or work in tandem with scientists who can perform the tasks that are required. Historical BioArt In previous centuries artists dealt more critically with the images from the life sciences and understand them not only as a mere illustration of biological findings, but as a process linked to the time and the respective style vocabulary. Leonardo da Vinci born 1452, renowned for masterpieces like the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, was deeply invested in the intersection of science and art. To produce accurate and realistic art, he conducted firsthand, extensive studies of anatomy by dissecting around 30 human cadavers, sometimes dissecting multiple bodies in a single day. His pursuit of knowledge across the sciences, including detailed studies of plants, optics, and light, was driven by Da Vinci's goal to enhance his artistic representations. Leonardo da Vinci's deep exploration of human anatomy and movement anticipated modern robotics, as he connected anatomy to engineering and designed automata that mimicked human motion. Ernst Haeckel was a German biologist, zoologist, and artist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who used art to illustrate his scientific findings before macrophotography and photographic microscopy. He meticulously recorded the hidden intricacies of natural forms through his vibrant and stylized drawings. His celebrated publication "Kunstformen Der Natur" (Artforms in Nature) from 1904 is regarded as a "visual encyclopedia" of living organisms even to this day. His work fusing biology and art, not only promoted Darwinism in Germany but also deeply influenced art, design, and architecture of the early 20th century. Contemporary BioArt The concept of transgenic art (transgenic art) was coined in 1998 by Eduardo Kac and refers to an art form “which works with genetic methods to transplant synthetic genes into one organism or natural genetic material from one species into another and thus to create unique living beings.” Already before this definition, Reiner Maria Matysik presented an art project in 1986 named Rekombination The goal of transgenic art is to create organisms that carry foreign DNA within them. In Kac's vision, art can continue evolution and make an actual creation of new living beings. Eduardo Kac's best-known works include Genesis (1998/99), The Eight Day (2000/2001) and GFP Bunny (2000) which he commissioned in 2000 as the creation of a transgenic GFP rabbit. "The PR campaign included a picture of Kac holding a white rabbit and another rabbit photographically enhanced to appear green." Symbiotica developed one of the earlier art/science laboratories for artists interested in working with BioArt methods and technologies. Some of the founders of SymbioticA, Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr also founded The Tissue Culture & Art Project. Since the early 1990s, The Tissue Culture & Art Project has been working with the artificial production of biological tissue whereas the cell culture serves as an artistic medium. The works of TC&A deal, among other things, with foods bred foods, tissue-growing clothing, sculptural forms from fabric culture and the changing relationship between the living and non-living company, among other things. Within the framework of their artistic research, the artists have developed the term “Semi-Living” to describe a new category of life that was created in the laboratory. In 2003, The Tissue Culture & Art Project in collaboration with Stelarc grew a 1/4 scale replica of an ear using human cells to create the Extra Ear project. The project was carried out at Symbiotica: the Art & Science Collaborative Research Laboratory, School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Western Australia. In 2006, Marc Stelarc had the first of two experimental surgeries to have his “Ear On Arm” implanted. The second surgery was to implant a microphone in the implanted ear so it could hear. The implanted ear then projects the sound to other parts of the world, so people could listen into what the ear on arm was hearing. He has connected it to the internet, which further connects his bio to technology but also opens the possibility of being hacked. The project took over 12 years. In 2004, Suzanne Anker and Dorothy Nelkin's The Molecular Gaze also helped establish the integration of molecular biology with artistic practice. In 2015-2016 Amy Karle created Regenerative Reliquary, a sculpture of bio-printed scaffolds for human MSC stem cell culture into bone, in the shape of a human hand form installed in a vessel. In 2019, Karle made The Heart Of Evolution, a 3D printed heart featuring a redesigned vascular system to potentially improve the heart's functionality and mitigate the impact of embolism. In 2024 she created an interactive artwork Echoes From the Valley of Existence, which sends DNA samples converted into powder and encased in a polymer into space. Bioart continues to evolve into the 2020s to address issues of environmental sustainability and social justice. Art addressing topics in biology and society The scope of the term BioArt is a subject of ongoing debate. The primary point of debate centers around whether BioArt must necessarily involve manipulation of biological material, as is the case in microbial art which by definition is made of microbes. A broader definition of the term would include work that addresses the social and ethical considerations of the biological sciences. Under these terms BioArt as a genre has many crossovers with fields such as critical or speculative design. This type of work often reaches a much broader general audience, and is focused on starting discussions in this space, rather than pioneering or even using specific biological practices. Examples in this space include Ray Fish shoes, which advertised shoes made and patterned with genetically engineered stingray skin, BiteLabs, a biotech startup that attempted to make salami out of meat cultured from celebrity tissue samples, and Ken Rinaldo's Augmented Fish Reality, an installation of five rolling robotic fish-bowl sculptures controlled by Siamese Fighting Fish. Controversy Artworks that use living materials created with scientific processes and biotechnology in itself brings up many ethical questions and concerns. Wired magazine has reported that the "emerging field of "bioart" can be extremely provocative, and brings with it a range of technical, logistical and ethical issues." Bioart practitioners can and have at times aided the advancement of scientific research and researchers in the process of creating their work; however, bioart and bioartists can also cross into controversy by challenging scientific thinking, by working with controversial human or animal material, or by releasing invasive species, as they are not regulated to adhere to standards, including biosafety or biosecurity. Another big issue are the dangers that come from errors and fringe activities that could occur through creating in non-regulated or not completely safe lab spaces, DIYbio, biohacking, and bioterrorism. One of the most publicized instances of a non-scientist being arrested for suspected “bioterrorism” was the case of artist Steve Kurtz, a founding member of Critical Art Ensemble (arrest in 2004, bioterrorism charges never brought). He was investigated by the FBI for four years and culminated with him being indicated for mail and wire fraud for obtaining a strain of bacteria commonly used in school lab experiments. He was planning on using that bacteria in a project critiquing the United States. His bioart work was considered pioneering in politically engaged art, biotechnology and ecological struggle. The ordeal became the subject of a book and a film. BioArt has been scrutinized and criticized as it may lack ethical oversight. USA Today reported that animal rights groups accused Kac and others of using animals unfairly for their own personal gain, and conservative groups question the use of transgenic technologies and tissue-culturing from a moral standpoint. Alka Chandna, a senior researcher with PETA in Norfolk, Virginia, has stated that using animals for the sake of art is no different from using animal fur for clothing material. "Transgenic manipulation of animals is just a continuum of using animals for human end, regardless of whether it is done to make some sort of sociopolitical critique. The suffering and exacerbation of stress on the animals is very problematic." Many BioArt projects deal with the manipulation of cells and not whole organisms, such as Victimless Leather by the Tissue Culture & Art Project. "An actualized possibility of wearing 'leather' without killing an animal is offered as a starting point for cultural discussion. Our intention is not to provide yet another consumer product, but rather to raise questions about our exploitation of other living beings." However, due to rapid cell growth, the exhibit was eventually "killed" by cutting off its nutrients, aligning with the creators' intent to remind viewers of the responsibility towards manipulated life. Notable exhibitions of bioart Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria and the Ars Electronica Festival was an early adaptor of exhibiting and promoting bioart, and continues to be a pioneer of sharing and promoting bioart, life projects, and bioartists. Their long-standing Prix Ars Electronica award which exhibits and honors artists in various media categories includes categories of hybrid arts and life art encompassing bioart. In 2016, The Beijing Media Art Biennale's Theme was "Ethics of Technology" and in 2018 it was "<Post-Life>". The Biennale is held at the CAFA Museum in Beijing, China and includes major works in biological arts, with thematic exhibitions. The 2018 Bienalle included international artworks relevant to the thematic topics of “Data Life”, “Mechanical Life” and “Synthesized Life” and a Lab Space exhibition area that focused on showcasing international laboratory practice in art and technology. The Centre Pompidou in Paris, France presented La Fabrique Du Vivant, "The Fabric of the Living" in 2019, a group exhibition of living and artificial life with recent work of artists, designers, and research from scientific laboratories. The artworks question the links between the living and the artificial, as well as the processes of artificial recreation of life; the manipulation of chemical procedures on living matter; self-generating works with ever-changing forms; hybrid works of organic matter and industrial material, or the hybridization of human and plant cells. In this era of digital technologies, artists draw on the world of biology, developing new social and political environments based on issues of those living in this era. The Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan Future and the Arts: AI, Robotics, Cities, Life - How Humanity Will Live Tomorrow in 2019-2020 This was a group exhibition that included a "bio atelier" with bioartworks from prominent bioartists across the world. One of the curatorial goals was to evoke the contemplation – through the latest scientific and technological developments in fields such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, robotics and augmented reality used in art, design, and architecture – of how human beings, their lives, and the environmental issues may look in the imminent future because of these developments. Gallery See also Computer art Cyberarts Digital art Ecological art Electronic art Environmental art Evolutionary art Genetic art Hybrid arts Internet art Land art Neuroaesthetics New Media art References Bibliography Anker, Suzanne, and Dorothy Nelkin. The Molecular Gaze: Art in the Genetic Age. Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2004. Bök, Christian. The Xenotext: Book I. Coach House Books, 2015. Da Costa, Beatriz, and Kavita Philip (eds.). Tactical Biopolitics: Art, Activism, and Technoscience. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008. Gatti, Gianna Maria. The Technological Herbarium. Edited, translated from the Italian, and with a preface by Alan N. Shapiro. Berlin: Avinus Press, 2010. Online at alan-shapiro.com Gessert, George. Green Light: Toward an Art of Evolution. Cambridge: MIT Press/Leonardo Books, 2010. . . "Bio Art - Taxonomy of an Etymological Monster." UCLA Art/Sci Center series, 2006. Online at Hauser, Jens (ed.). sk-interfaces. Exploding borders - creating membranes in art, technology and society. Liverpool: University of Liverpool Press, 2008. . Kac, Eduardo.Telepresence and Bio Art. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005. . Kac, Eduardo (ed.). Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond. Cambridge: MIT Press/Leonardo Books, 2007. . Kaniarē, Asēmina, and Kathryn High. Institutional Critique to Hospitality: Bio Art Practice Now : A Critical Anthology, Grigoris publications, 2017. Nicole C. Karafyllis (ed.). Biofakte - Versuch über den Menschen zwischen Artefakt und Lebewesen. Paderborn: Mentis 2003. In German. Levy, Steven. "Best of Technology Writing 2007." Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007 (in conjunction with DIGITALCULTUREBOOKS) Miah, Andy. (ed.). Human Futures: Art in an Age of Uncertainty. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008. . Mitchell, Rob. Bioart and the Vitality of Media. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010. . Mitchell, Rob, Helen Burgess, and Phillip Thurtle. Biofutures: Owning Body Parts and Information. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. Interactive DVD. Reichle, Ingeborg. Kunst aus dem Labor. Springer, 2005. In German. Sammartano, Paola. Electrophotographs and Photographs with Human Hair for Future Cloning. Sergio Valle Duarte Zoom Internacional, 1995. Savini, Mario. Arte transgenica: la vita è il medium. Connessioni. Pisa: Pisa University Press, 2018. (pub.09/2018, ) Schnugg, Claudia. Creating artscience collaboration : bringing value to organizations. Cham, Switzerland. ISBN 978-3-030-04549-4. OCLC 108901485 Simou Panagiota, Tiligadis Konstantinos, Alexiou Athanasios. Exploring Artificial Intelligence Utilizing BioArt, 9th Artificial Intelligence Applications and Innovations Conference, IFIP AICT 412, pp. 687–692, 2013, © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2013, Springer. Thacker, Eugene. "Aesthetic Biology, Biological Art." Contextin' Art (Fall Issue, 2003). Online at Thacker, Eugene. The Global Genome - Biotechnology, Politics, and Culture (Massachusetts: MIT Press/Leonardo Books, 2006. pp. 305–320. Vita-More, Natasha. "Brave BioArt 2: Shedding the Bio, Amassing the Nano, and Cultivating Emortal Life." "Reviewing the Future" Summit, Montreal, Canada, Coeur des Sciences, University of Quebec, 2007. Wilson, Stephen. "Art and Science Now: How scientific research and technological innovation are becoming key to 21st-century aesthetics." London, England: Thames and Hudson, 2012. Zylinska, Johanna. Bioethics in the Age of New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press/Leonardo Books, 2009. Visual arts genres

Constructivist teaching methods

Constructivist teaching is based on constructivism (philosophy of education). Constructivist teaching is based on the belief that learning occurs as learners are actively involved in a process of meaning and knowledge construction as opposed to passively receiving information. History Constructivist approach teaching methods are based on Constructivist learning theory. Scholars such as Ernst von Glasersfeld trace the origin of this approach to the philosophies of Immanuel Kant, George Berkeley, and Jean Piaget. There are those who also cite the contribution of John Dewey such as his works on action research, which allows the construction of complex understanding of teaching and learning. Dewey and Piaget researched childhood development and education; both were very influential in the development of informal education. Dewey's idea of influential education suggests that education must engage with and enlarge exploration of thinking and reflection associated with the role of educators. Contrary to this, Piaget argued that we learn by expanding our knowledge by experiences which are generated through play from infancy to adulthood which are necessary for learning. Both theories are now encompassed by the broader movement of progressive education. Constructivist learning theory states that all knowledge is constructed from a base of prior knowledge. As such, children are not to be treated as a blank slate, and make sense of classroom material in the context of his or her current knowledge. The development of constructivist models of teaching are specifically attributed to the works of Maria Montessori, which were further developed by more recent by theorists such as David A. Kolb, and Ronald Fry, among others. These theorists have proposed sensory and activity-based learning methods. It was Kolb and Fry who were able to develop a methodology for experiential learning that involves concrete experience, observation and reflection, forming abstract concepts, and testing in new situations. Activities The constructivist method is composed of at least five stages: inviting ideas, exploration, proposition, explanation and solution, and taking action. The constructivist classroom also focuses on daily activities when it comes to student work. Teaching methods also emphasize communication and social skills, as well as intellectual collaboration. This is different from a traditional classroom where students primarily work alone, learning through repetition and lecture. Activities encouraged in constructivist classrooms include: Experimentation: Students individually perform an experiment and then come together as a class to discuss the results. Research projects: Students research a topic and can present their findings to the class. Field trips: This allows students to put the concepts and ideas discussed in class in a real-world context. Field trips would often be followed by class discussions. Films: These provide visual context and thus bring another sense into the learning experience. Class discussions: This technique is used in all of the methods described above. It is one of the most important distinctions of constructivist teaching methods. Campus wikis: These provide learners with a platform for curating helpful learning resources. Constructivist approaches can also be used in online learning. Tools such as discussion forums, wikis and blogs can enable learners to actively construct knowledge. Because existing knowledge schemata are explicitly acknowledged as a starting point for new learning, constructivist approaches tend to validate individual and cultural differences and diversity. Assessment Traditional testing is only one facet of constructivist assessment of student success. Assessment also consists of personal, thorough interpretation of students' performance in the context of what their out-of-school life. Non-traditional constructivist assessment strategies include: Oral discussions: The teacher presents students with a "focus" question and allows an open discussion on the topic. KWL(H) Chart (What we know, What we want to know, What we have learned, How we know it). This technique can be used throughout the course of study for a particular topic, but is also a good assessment technique as it shows the teacher the progress of the student throughout the course of study. Mind Mapping: In this activity, students list and categorize the concepts and ideas relating to a topic. Hands-on activities: These encourage students to manipulate their environments or a particular learning tool. Teachers can use a checklist and observation to assess student success with the particular material. Pre-testing: This allows a teacher to determine what knowledge students bring to a new topic and thus will be helpful in directing the course of study. Arguments against constructivist teaching techniques Critics have voiced the following arguments against constructivist based teaching instruction: A group of cognitive scientists has also questioned the central claims of constructivism, saying that they are either misleading or contradict known findings. One possible deterrent for this teaching method is that, due to the emphasis on group work, the ideas of the more active students may dominate the group's conclusions. While proponents of constructivism argue that constructivist students perform better than their peers when tested on higher-order reasoning, the critics of constructivism argue that this teaching technique forces students to "reinvent the wheel". Supporters counter that "Students do not reinvent the wheel but, rather, attempt to understand how it turns, how it functions." Proponents argue that students — especially elementary school-aged children — are naturally curious about the world, and giving them the tools to explore it in a guided manner will serve to give them a stronger understanding of it. Mayer (2004) developed a literature review spanning fifty years and concluded "The research in this brief review shows that the formula constructivism = hands-on activity is a formula for educational disaster." His argument is that active learning is often suggested by those subscribing to this philosophy. In developing this instruction these educators produce materials that require learning to be behaviorally active and not be "cognitively active". That is, although they are engaged in activity, they may not be learning (Sweller, 1988). Mayer recommends using guided discovery, a mix of direct instruction and hands-on activity, rather than pure discovery: "In many ways, guided discovery appears to offer the best method for promoting constructivist learning." Kirchner et al. (2006) agree with the basic premise of constructivism, that learners construct knowledge, but are concerned with the instructional design recommendations of this theoretical framework. "The constructivist description of learning is accurate, but the instructional consequences suggested by constructivists do not necessarily follow." (Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark, 2006, p. 78). Specifically, they say instructors often design unguided instruction that relies on the learner to "discover or construct essential information for themselves" (Kirchner et al., 2006, p75). For this reason they state that it "is easy to agree with Mayer's (2004) recommendation that we "move educational reform efforts from the fuzzy and nonproductive world of ideology—which sometimes hides under the various banners of constructivism—to the sharp and productive world of theory-based research on how people learn" (p. 18). Finally Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006) cite Mayer to conclude fifty years of empirical results do not support unguided instruction. Specific approaches Specific approaches to education that are based on constructivism include the following: Constructionism An approach to learning based on the constructivist learning ideologies presented by Jean Piaget (Harel & Papert, 1991). In this approach, the individual is consciously engaged in the construction of a product (Li, Cheng, & Liu, 2013). The utilization of constructionism in educational settings has been shown to promote higher-order thinking skills such as problem-solving and critical thinking (Li et al., 2013). Guided instruction A learning approach in which the educator uses strategically placed prompts, cues, questions, direct explanations, and modeling to guide student thinking and facilitate an increased responsibility for the completion of a task. Problem-based learning A structured educational approach which consists of large and small group discussions (Schmidt & Loyens, 2007). Problem-based learning begins with an educator presenting a series of carefully constructed problems or issues to small groups of students (Schmidt & Loyens, 2007). The problems or issues typically pertain to phenomena or events to which students possess limited prior knowledge (Schmidt & Loyens, 2007). The first component of problem-based learning is to discuss prior knowledge and ask questions related to the specific problems or issues (Schmidt & Loyens, 2007). Following the class discussion, there is typically time in which students individually research or reflect on the newly acquired information and/or seek out areas requiring further exploration (Schmidt & Loyens, 2007). After a pre-determined amount of time (as outlined by the educator), students will meet in the same small groups that were composed prior to the class discussion (Schmidt & Loyens, 2007). In the first meeting, groups will spend between one and three hours further discussing the problems or issues from class in addition to presenting any new information collected during individual research (Schmidt & Loyens, 2007). Following the first meeting, students will independently reflect on the group discussion, specifically in comparing thoughts regarding the problems or issues in question (Schmidt & Loyens, 2007). Typically, groups will meet a second time to critically analyse individual and group thoughts and discussions and will attempt to synthesize the information in order to draw conclusions about the given problem or issue (Schmidt & Loyens, 2007). Within the educational setting, problem-based learning has enabled students to actively construct individual understandings of a topic using both prior and newly acquired knowledge (Schmidt & Loyens, 2007). Moreover, students also develop self-directed and group learning skills which ultimately facilitates the comprehension of the problems or issues (Schmidt & Loyens, 2007). Inquiry-based learning An educational approach associated with problem-based learning in which the student learns through investigating issues or scenarios (Hakverdi-Can & Sonmez, 2012). In this approach, students pose and answer questions individually and/or collaboratively in order to draw conclusions regarding the specific issues or scenarios (Hakverdi-Can & Sonmez, 2012). Within the educational setting, inquiry-based learning has been beneficial in developing student inquiry, investigation, and collaboration skills, in turn, increasing overall comprehension of the issue or scenario (Hakverdi-Can & Sonmez, 2012). Effective essential questions include student thought and research, connect to student's reality and can be solved in different ways (Crane, 2009). There are no incorrect answers to essential questions, rather answers reveal student understanding(Crane, 2009). Anchored instruction An educational approach associated with problem-based learning in which the educator introduces an 'anchor' or theme in which students will be able to explore (Kariuki & Duran, 2004). The 'anchor' acts as a focal point for the entire task, allowing students to identify, define, and explore problems while exploring the topic from a variety of different perspectives (Kariuki & Duran, 2004). Cooperative learning A variety of educational approaches focusing on individuals working together to achieve a specific learning outcome (Hsiung, 2012). Reciprocal Peer Teaching A cooperative learning approach wherein students alternate roles as teacher and learner (Krych, March, Bryan, Peake, Wojciech, & Carmichael, 2005). The utilization of Reciprocal Peer Teaching (RPT) in educational settings has been effective in the development of teamwork, leadership, and communication skills in addition to improving students' understanding of course content (Krych et al., 2005). Jigsaw A highly structured cooperative learning approach which is implemented in four stages: introduction, focused exploration, reporting and re-shaping, and integration and evaluation. In the introduction stage, the class is divided into heterogeneous 'home' groups consisting of between three and seven students. Upon establishing the 'home' groups, the teacher will discuss the subtopics pertaining to the subject matter. In the focused exploration stage, each student within all 'home' groups selects one of the subtopics. Students from each 'home' group that have selected the same subtopic will form a 'jigsaw' group. It is in the 'jigsaw' group that students will explore the material pertaining to the subtopic and will prepare for teaching it to their 'home' group, the reporting and re-shaping stage. The approach concludes in the fourth stage, integration and evaluation, wherein each of the 'home' groups combine the learning of each subtopic together to create the completed piece of work See also Constructivism in science education Constructivist epistemology Marian Small Montessori method References Laffey, J., Tupper, T., Musser, D., & Wedman, J. (1997). A computer-mediated support system for project-based learning. Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL. Taber, K. S. (2011). Constructivism as educational theory: Contingency in learning, and optimally guided instruction. In J. Hassaskhah (Ed.), Educational Theory (pp. 39–61). New York: Nova. Available from https://camtools.cam.ac.uk/wiki/eclipse/Constructivism.html. Wood, & Middleton, (1975). A study of assisted problem solving. British Journal of Psychology, 66(2), 181–191. Thirteen Ed Online (2004). Constructivism as a paradigm for teaching and learning. http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/index.html Durmus, Y. T. (2016). Effective Learning Environment Characteristics as a requirement of Constructivist Curricula: Teachers' Needs and School Principals' Views . International Journal of Instruction, 9(2). Cross, K. P. (1987). Teaching for learning. AAHE Bulletin, 39(8). Winkler, T., Kritzenberger, H., & Herczeg, M. (2002). Mixed Reality Environments as Collaborative and Constructive Learning Spaces for Elementary School Children. External links Constructivist Teaching and Learning Models SSTA Research Centre Report on Constructivist Teaching and Learning Constructivist Teaching Association for Constructivist Teaching Constructivist Teaching Practices: Perceptions of Teachers and Students Constructivist Learning and Teaching Constructivism as a Paradigm for Teaching and Learning A follow up critique of constructivism by Eric Scerri Learning theory (education) Constructivism (psychological school)

Sex and sexuality in speculative fiction

Sexual themes are frequently used in science fiction or related genres. Such elements may include depictions of realistic sexual interactions in a science fictional setting, a protagonist with an alternative sexuality, a sexual encounter between a human and a fictional extraterrestrial, or exploration of the varieties of sexual experience that deviate from the conventional. Science fiction and fantasy have sometimes been more constrained than non-genre narrative forms in their depictions of sexuality and gender. However, speculative fiction (SF) and soft science fiction also offer the freedom to imagine alien or galactic societies different from real-life cultures, making it a tool to examine sexual bias, heteronormativity, and gender bias and enabling the reader to reconsider their cultural assumptions. Prior to the 1960s, explicit sexuality of any kind was not characteristic of genre speculative fiction due to the relatively high number of minors in the target audience. In the 1960s, science fiction and fantasy began to reflect the changes prompted by the civil rights movement and the emergence of a counterculture. New Wave and feminist science fiction authors imagined cultures in which a variety of gender models and atypical sexual relationships are the norm, and depictions of sex acts and alternative sexualities became commonplace. There is also science fiction erotica, which explores more explicit sexuality and the presentation of themes aimed at inducing arousal. Critical analysis As genres of popular literature, science fiction and fantasy often seem even more constrained than non-genre literature by their conventions of characterization and the effects that these conventions have on depictions of sexuality and gender. Sex is often linked to disgust in science fiction and horror, and plots based on sexual relationships have mainly been avoided in genre fantasy narratives. On the other hand, science fiction and fantasy can also offer more freedom than do non-genre literatures to imagine alternatives to the default assumptions of heterosexuality and masculine superiority that permeate some cultures. In speculative fiction, extrapolation allows writers to focus not on the way things are (or were), as non-genre literature does, but on the way things could be different. It provides science fiction with a quality that Darko Suvin has called "cognitive estrangement": the recognition that what we are reading is not the world as we know it, but a world whose difference forces us to reconsider our own world with an outsider's perspective. When the extrapolation involves sexuality or gender, it can force the reader to reconsider their heteronormative cultural assumptions; the freedom to imagine societies different from real-life cultures makes science fiction an incisive tool to examine sexual bias. In science fiction, such estranging features include technologies that significantly alter sex or reproduction. In fantasy, such features include figures (for example, mythological deities and heroic archetypes) who are not limited by preconceptions of human sexuality and gender, allowing them to be reinterpreted. Science fiction has also depicted a plethora of alien methods of reproduction and sex. Uranian Worlds, by Eric Garber and Lyn Paleo, is an authoritative guide to science fiction literature featuring gay, lesbian, transgender, and related themes. The book covers science fiction literature published before 1990 (2nd edition), providing a short review and commentary on each piece. Themes explored Some of the themes explored in speculative fiction include: Sex with aliens, machines and sex robots Reproductive technology including cloning, artificial wombs, parthenogenesis, and genetic engineering Sexual equality of men and women Male- and female-dominated societies, including single-gender worlds Polyamory Changing gender roles Homosexuality and bisexuality Androgyny and sex changes Sex in virtual reality Other advances in technology for sexual pleasure such as teledildonics Asexuality Mpreg, an abbreviation of male pregnancy Sexual taboos and morality Sex in zero gravity Birth control and other, more radical measures to prevent overpopulation SF literature Proto SF True History, a Greek-language tale by Assyrian writer Lucian (120-185 CE), has been called the first ever science fiction story. The narrator is suddenly enveloped by a typhoon and swept up to the Moon, which is inhabited by a society of men who are at war with the Sun. After the hero distinguishes himself in combat, the king gives him his son, the prince, in marriage. The all-male society reproduces (male children only) by giving birth from the thigh or by growing a child from a plant produced by planting the left testicle in the Moon's soil. In other proto-SF works, sex itself, of any type, was equated with base desires or "beastliness," as in Gulliver's Travels (1726), which contrasts the animalistic and overtly sexual Yahoos with the reserved and intelligent Houyhnhnms. Early works that showed sexually open characters to be morally impure include the first lesbian vampire story "Carmilla" (1872) by Sheridan Le Fanu (collected in In a Glass Darkly). The 1915 utopian novel Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman depicts the visit by three men to an all-female society in which women reproduce by parthenogenesis. Pulp era (1920–30s) During the pulp era, explicit sexuality of any kind was not characteristic of genre science fiction and fantasy. The frank treatment of sexual topics of earlier literature was abandoned. For many years, the editors who controlled what was published, such as Kay Tarrant, assistant editor of Astounding Science Fiction, felt that they had to protect the adolescent male readership that they identified as their principal market. Although the covers of some 1930s pulp magazines showed scantily clad women menaced by tentacled aliens, the covers were often more lurid than the magazines' contents. Implied or disguised sexuality was as important as that which was openly revealed. In this sense, genre science fiction reflected the social mores of the day, paralleling common prejudices. This was particularly true of pulp fiction, more so than literary works of the time. H. P. Lovecraft seminal short story, "The Call of Cthulhu", first published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928, launched what developed into the Cthulhu Mythos, a shared fictional universe taken up by various other writers and considerably affecting the entire field of Fantasy. Bobby Derie's 2014 book Sex and The Cthulhu Mythos treats extensively the various sexual aspects of this Mythos:"H. P. Lovecraft was one of the most asexual beings in history - at least by his own admission. Whether we accept this view of his own sexual instincts or not, there is no denying that sexuality - normal and aberrant - underlies a number of significant tales in the Lovecraft oeuvre. The impregnation of a human woman by Yog-Sothoth in "The Dunwich Horror" and the mating of humans with strange creatures from the sea in "The Shadow over Innsmouth" are only two such examples."Sex and The Cthulhu Mythos examines the significant uses of love, gender, and sex in the work of H. P. Lovecraft, moving on to some of his leading disciples and noting that "The work of such significant writers of the Lovecraft tradition as Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Ramsey Campbell, W. H. Pugmire, and Caitlín R. Kiernan, features far more explicit sexuality than anything Lovecraft could have imagined". Finally, Derie goes on to study sexual themes in other venues, such as Lovecraftian occultism, Japanese manga and anime, and even Lovecraftian fan fiction. In Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel Brave New World (1932), natural reproduction has been abolished, with human embryos being raised artificially in "hatcheries and conditioning centres." Recreational sex is promoted, often as a group activity; what passes for a religious ceremony consists of six men and six women meeting once a week to hold an "orgy porgy". To prepare for this life, little boys and girls are made to play sexual games with each other as part of the official curriculum in what passes for kindergartens and elementary schools. On the other hand, marriage, pregnancy, natural birth, and parenthood are considered too vulgar to be mentioned in polite conversation. An important part of the plot concerns the Savage Reservation in New Mexico, where marriage, pregnancy and motherhood are still practiced by the local Native Americans. Linda, a woman from 'civilized' London who was marooned there and sticking to her accustomed sexual mores, is persecuted as "a whore" by the local women whose husbands she seduced. John, Linda's son who grew up on the Reservation but was always alienated from its society, comes to London and there falls deeply in love with a girl - seeking a happy loving consummation with her and then violently assaulting her from jealousy when she behaves according to her society's sexual mores. One of the earliest examples of genre science fiction that involves a challenging amount of unconventional sexual activity is Odd John (1935) by Olaf Stapledon. John is a mutant with extraordinary mental abilities who will not allow himself to be bound by many of the rules imposed by the ordinary British society of his time. The novel strongly implies that he has consensual intercourse with his mother and that he seduces an older boy who becomes devoted to him but also suffers from the affront that the relationship creates to his own morals. John eventually concludes that any sexual interaction with "normal" humans is akin to bestiality. War with the Newts, a 1936 satirical science fiction novel by Czech author Karel Čapek, concerns the discovery in the Pacific of a sea-dwelling race, an intelligent breed of newts – who are initially enslaved and exploited by humans and later rebel and go war against them. The book includes a detailed appendix entitled 'The Sex Life of the Newts', which examines the Newts' sexuality and reproductive processes in a pastiche of academese. This is one of the first attempts to speculate on what form sex might have among non-human intelligent beings. C.L. Moore's 1934 story "Shambleau" begins in what seems a classical damsel in distress situation: the protagonist, space adventurer Northwest Smith, sees a "sweetly-made girl" pursued by a lynch mob intent on killing her and intervenes to save her. But once he takes her to his room, she turns to be a disguised alien creature who spreads her inhuman long tendrils of hair, trapping Smith in a kind of psychic bondage and drawing out his life, and but for his partner arriving and killing her, it would have ended with his death. The story has little explicit sex, and no other physical contact than that of the hair of the "girl" with Smith's body; ye t the story clearly explores sexual themes in a way highly daring for its time. In C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength, a prominent place is given among the cast of villains to a monstrous lesbian – Miss Hardcastle, Security Chief of the satanic "Institute" which quite literally intends to take over the world. Hardcastle is presented as an inveterate sadist who takes pleasure in torturing "fluffy" young women and inflicting on them burns with a lighted cigarette. Golden Age (1940–50s) Regarding the aversion to sexual material in science fiction magazines well into the 1950s, Sam Moskowitz reported: Writing in the December, 1945, Fantasy Times, Thomas S. Gardner, Ph.D., said: “Sex should be incorporated into science fiction as a standard life pattern and treated from all phases just as political systems are discussed.... But just mention sex and one has not only a figurative fight but a literal fight on his hands. Sex is very, very tabu, and can cause the most violent disagreements possible. Just why that is so is hard to understand.” G. Legman, erotica authority, presented his theory. “The reason for this [aversion to sex] is neither due to oversight nor external censorship, but the fact that the largest percentage of the audience for … pulp science fiction literature is composed of adolescent boys (who continue reading it even after they are grown up), who are terrified of women, sex, and pubic hair.” The foregoing might explain the policy that kept sex out of science fiction, but it fails to explain the absolute rejection of such material until Philip José Farmer’s The Lovers. The answer most probably is that science fiction is a literature of ideas. The people who read it are entertained and even find escape through mental stimulation. Sex, vulgar or artistic, is available to them in countless forms if they wish it, but the type of intellectual speculation they enjoy is presented only in science fiction. As the readership for science fiction and fantasy began to age in the 1950s, writers were able to introduce more explicit sexuality into their work. William Tenn wrote in 1949 Venus and the Seven Sexes – featuring the Plookhs, natives of the planet Venus, who require the participation of seven different sexes in order to reproduce and who get corrupted by human film director Hogan Shlestertrap. The rather satirical story might be the first case of an author speculating of creatures having more than two sexes, an idea later taken up by various others. Philip José Farmer wrote The Lovers (1952), arguably the first science fiction story to feature sex as a major theme, and Strange Relations (1960), a collection of five stories about human/alien sexual relations. In his novel Flesh (1960; expanded 1968), a hypermasculine antlered man ritually impregnates legions of virgins in order to counter declining male fertility. Theodore Sturgeon wrote many stories that emphasised the importance of love regardless of the current social norms, such as The World Well Lost (1953), a classic tale involving alien homosexuality, and the novel Venus Plus X (1960), in which a contemporary man awakens in a futuristic place where the people are hermaphrodites. When Robert A. Heinlein's The Puppet Masters was originally published in 1951, it was censored by the publisher to remove various references to sex. The opening scene, where the protagonist is called urgently to HQ on an early morning hour, was re-written to remove all mention of his being in bed with a girl he had casually picked up. The published version did mention that the book's alien invaders cause human beings whose bodies they take over to lose sexual feeling – but removed a later section mentioning that after some time on Earth the invaders "discovered sex" and started engaging in wild orgies and even broadcasting them on TV in areas under their control. Thirty years later, with changing mores, Heinlein published the book's full, unexpurgated text. Heinlein's time-travel short story All You Zombies (1959) chronicles a young man (later revealed to be intersex) taken back in time and tricked into impregnating his younger, female self before he underwent a sex change. He then turns out to be the offspring of that union, with the paradoxical result that he is both his own mother and father. In Time Enough for Love (1973), Heinlein's recurring protagonist Lazarus Long – who never grows old and has an extremely long and eventful life – travels backward in time to the period of his own childhood. As an unintentional result, he falls in love with his own mother. He has no guilt feeling about pursuing and eventually consummating that relationship – considering her simply as an extremely attractive young woman named Maureen who just happens to have given birth to him thousands of years ago (as far as his personal timeline is concerned). The sequel, To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987) takes place after Maureen had discovered the true identity of her lover – and shows that for her part, she was more amused than shocked or angry. Poul Anderson's 1958 novel War of the Wing-Men, centers on a species of winged intelligent creatures and sexual differences are central to its plot. Of the two mutually-hostile societies featured in the book, one practices monogamous marriage, while in the other there are every spring several days of a wild indiscriminate orgy – and a complete celibacy for the rest of the year. Ironically, both societies alike consider themselves chaste and the other depraved: "We keep faithful to our mates while they fuck around indiscriminately – disgusting!"; "We keep sex where it belongs, to one week per year where you are not really yourself. They do it all over the year- disgusting!". Humans who land on the planet intervene in the centuries-long war, by showing members of the two societies that they are not all that different from each other. Another Poul Anderson novel of the same period, Virgin Planet (1959), deals in a straightforward manner with homosexuality and polyamory on an exclusively female world. The plot twist is that the protagonist is the only male on a world of women, and though quite a few of them are interested in sex with him, it is never consummated during his sojourn on the planet. A mirror image was presented by A. Bertram Chandler in Spartan Planet (1969), featuring an exclusively male world, where by definition homosexual relations are the normal (and only) sexual relations. The plot revolves around the explosive social upheaval resulting when the planet is discovered by a spaceship from the wider galaxy, whose crew includes both men and women. Until the late 1960s, few other writers depicted alternative sexuality or revised gender roles, nor openly investigated sexual questions. More conventionally, A. Bertram Chandler's books include numerous episodes of free fall sex, his characters (male and female alike) strongly prone to extramarital relations and tending to while away the boring months-long Deep Space voyages by forming complicated love triangles. Plots and themes New Wave era (1960–70s) By the late 1960s, science fiction and fantasy began to reflect the changes prompted by the civil rights movement and the emergence of a counterculture. Within the genres, these changes were incorporated into a movement called "the New Wave," a movement more skeptical of technology, more liberated socially, and more interested in stylistic experimentation. New Wave writers were more likely to claim an interest in "inner space" instead of outer space. They were less shy about explicit sexuality and more sympathetic to reconsiderations of gender roles and the social status of sexual minorities. Notable authors who often wrote on sexual themes included Joanna Russ, Thomas M. Disch, John Varley, James Tiptree, Jr., and Samuel R. Delany. Under the influence of New Wave editors and authors such as Michael Moorcock (editor of the influential New Worlds magazine) and Ursula K. Le Guin, sympathetic depictions of alternative sexuality and gender multiplied in science fiction and fantasy, becoming commonplace. In Brian Aldiss's 1960 novel The Interpreter (in the US published as Bow Down to Nul), Earth is a backwater colony planet in the galactic empire of the Nuls, a giant, three-limbed, civilised alien race. The plot, dealing with complicated relations between humans and their Nul rulers, touches among other things on Nul sex. The Nul wear no clothes, but their equivalent of hands and arms are wide membranes which are normally held in a fixed position before the body, not moving even when the "fingers" are manipulating a tool. Only in a sexual context are the hands moved aside, to reveal the genital organs behind – the equivalent of humans undressing. In one scene, the human protagonist is able to tune to an erotic (or pornographic) Nul sensory device, made for internal Nul consumption and not intended for humans, which replicates the wild ecstasy felt by Nuls when daring to move aside their membrane hands and reveal their bodies to each other – similar in some ways to human sexual arousal but also very different. Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966) both depict heterosexual group marriages and public nudity as desirable social norms, while in Heinlein's Time Enough for Love (1973), the main character argues strongly for the future liberty of homosexual sex. Heinlein's character Lazarus Long, travelling back in time to the period of his own childhood, discovers, to his surprise and (initial) shame, a sexual desire of his own mother – but overcoming this initial shame, he comes to think of her simply as "Maureen", an attractive young woman who is far from indifferent to him. Samuel R. Delany's Nebula Award-winning short story Aye, and Gomorrah (1967) posits the development of neutered human astronauts, and then depicts the people who become sexually oriented toward them. By imagining a new gender and resultant sexual orientation, the story allows readers to reflect on the real world while maintaining an estranging distance. In his 1975 science fiction novel entitled Dhalgren, Delany colors his large canvas with characters of a wide variety of sexualities. Once again, sex is not the focus of the novel, although it does contain some of the first explicitly described scenes of gay sex in science fiction. Delany depicts, mostly with affection, characters with a wide variety of motivations and behaviours, with the effect of revealing to the reader the fact that these kinds of people exist in the real world. In later works, Delany blurs the line between science fiction and gay pornography. Delany faced resistance from book distribution companies for his treatment of these topics. In 1968, Anne McCaffrey's Dragonflight launched the Dragonriders of Pern series, depicting the lives of humans living in close partnership with dragons. In a key scene, the young golden Dragon Queen takes off on her mating flight, pursued by the male dragons – until finally one of them catches up with her and they engage in passionate mating high up in the air, their necks and wings curled around each other. On the ground the woman and man who are these dragons' riders share their passion telepathically – and inevitably wildly embrace and kiss, embarking in parallel human mating. Ursula K. Le Guin explores radically alternative forms of sexuality in The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) and again in Coming of Age in Karhide (1995), which imagine the sexuality of an alien "human" species in which individuals are neither "male" nor "female," but undergo a monthly sexual cycle in which they randomly experience the activation of either male or female sexual organs and reproductive abilities; this makes them in a sense bisexual, and in other senses androgynous or hermaphroditic. It is common for an individual of that species to undergo at some moment of life pregnancy and birth-giving, while at another time having the male role and impregnating somebody else. In the novel, the Genthian political leader, who appears externally male, becomes pregnant. Le Guin has written considerations of her own work in two essays, "Is Gender Necessary?" (1976) and "Is Gender Necessary? Redux" (1986), which respond to feminist and other criticism of The Left Hand of Darkness. In these essays, she makes it clear that the novel's assumption that Gethenians would automatically find a mate of the gender opposite to the gender they were becoming produced an unintended heteronormativity. Le Guin has subsequently written many stories that examine the possibilities science fiction allows for non-traditional sexuality, such as the sexual bonding between clones in Nine Lives (1968) and the four-way marriages in Mountain Ways (1996). The complicated plot of Roger Zelazny's 1970 fantasy novel The Guns of Avalon includes the protagonist Corwin meeting and making love to Dara, who seems a normal (and very attractive) young woman. But at the end of the book, when she walks the powerfully magical "Pattern" she is changing, her hair "crackling with static electricity" and then she seems to grow horns and hoofs, then becomes an enormous cat, then "a bright winged thing of indescribable beauty" followed by "a tower of ashes". Finally, she again becomes a recognizable Dara, but "tall and magnificent, both beautiful and somehow horrible at the same time, her arms raised in exultation and inhuman laughter flowing from her lips". Shocked, Corwin wonders "had I truly held, caressed, made love to - that?". While Corwin struggles with feeling mightily repelled and simultaneously attracted as never before, the changed Dara declares herself his mortal enemy and nemesis - and disappears. Zelazny's publishers had no problem with this final scene and its ambiguous sexual connotations, but they did object to an earlier sex scene - straightforward but explicit by 1970s American publishing standards - between Corwin and the seemingly normal Dara. Zelazny was amused when the book's editor asked him to remove it "so that sales to libraries would not be jeopardized". That deleted scene has never appeared with the novel, even in later editions when mores had become more elastic, but has been printed for the first time in The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Volume 3: This Mortal Mountain. In his 1972 novel The Gods Themselves, Isaac Asimov describes an alien race with three sexes, all of them necessary for sexual reproduction. One sex produces a form of sperm, another sex provides the energy needed for reproduction, and members of the third sex bear and raise the offspring. All three genders are included in sexual and social norms of expected and acceptable behavior. In this same novel, the hazards and problems of sex in microgravity are described, and while people born on the Moon are proficient at it, people from Earth are not. Similarly, Poul Anderson's Three Worlds to Conquer depicts centaur-like beings living on Jupiter who have three genders: female, male and "demi-male". In order to conceive, a female must have sex with both a male and a demi-male within a short time of each other. In the society of the protagonist, there are stable, harmonious three-way families, in effect a formalized Menage a Trois, with the three partners on equal terms with each other. An individual in that society feels a strong attachment to all three parents – mother, father and demi-father – who all take part in bringing up the young. Conversely, among the harsh invaders who threaten to destroy the protagonist's homeland and culture, males are totally dominant over both females and demi-males; the latter are either killed at birth or preserved in subjugation for reproduction – which the protagonist regards as a barbaric aberration. In Anderson's satirical story A Feast for the Gods, the Greek god Hermes visits modern America and has casual sex with an American woman, who tells him that she is "on the pill" and does not take seriously Hermes telling her that "The Embrace of a God is always fertile". She ends up pregnant and destined to give birth to a modern demi god. Feminist science fiction authors imagined cultures in which homo- and bisexuality and a variety of gender models are the norm. Joanna Russ's award-winning short story "When It Changed" (1972), portraying a female-only lesbian society that flourished without men, and her novel The Female Man (1975), were enormously influential. Russ was largely responsible for introducing radical lesbian feminism into science fiction. The bisexual female writer Alice Bradley Sheldon, who used James Tiptree, Jr. as her pen name, explored the sexual impulse as her main theme. Some stories by Tiptree portray humans becoming sexually obsessed with aliens, such as "And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side" (1972), or aliens being sexually abused. The Girl Who Was Plugged In (1973) is an early precursor of cyberpunk that depicts a relationship via a cybernetically controlled body. In her award-winning novella Houston, Houston, Do You Read? (1976), Tiptree presents a female-only society after the extinction of men from disease. The society lacks stereotypically "male" problems such as war but is stagnant. The women reproduce via cloning, and consider men to be comical. In Robert Silverberg's novelette The Way to Spook City the protagonist meets and has an affair with a woman named Jill, who seems completely human – and convincingly, passionately female human. Increasingly in love with her, he still has a nagging suspicion that she is in fact a disguised member of the mysterious extraterrestrial species known as "Spooks", who had invaded and taken over a large part of the United States. Until the end, he repeatedly grapples with two questions: Is she human or a Spook? And if she is a Spook, could the two of them nevertheless build a life together? In the centuries-long, futile space war described in Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, the protagonist's increasing feeling of alienation is manifested, among other things, when he is appointed as the commanding officer of a "strike force" whose soldiers are exclusively homosexual, and who resent being commanded by a heterosexual. Later in the book, he finds that while he was fighting in space, humanity has begun to clone itself, resulting in a new, collective species calling itself simply Man. Luckily for the protagonist, Man has established several colonies of old-style, heterosexual humans, just in case the evolutionary change proves to be a mistake. In one of these colonies, the protagonist is happily reunited with his long-lost beloved and they embark upon monogamous marriage and on having children through sexual reproduction and female pregnancy – an incredibly archaic and old-fashioned way of life for most of that time's humanity. Elizabeth A. Lynn's science fiction novel A Different Light (1978) features a same-sex relationship between two men and inspired the name of the LGBT bookstore chain A Different Light. Lynn's The Chronicles of Tornor (1979–80) series of novels, the first of which won the World Fantasy Award, were among the first fantasy novels to include gay relationships as an unremarkable part of the cultural background. Lynn also wrote novels depicting sadomasochism. John Varley, who also came to prominence in the 1970s, is another writer who examined sexual themes in his work. In his "Eight Worlds" suite of stories and novels, humanity has achieved the ability to change sex quickly, easily and completely reversibly – leading to a casual attitude with people changing their sex back and forth as the sudden whim takes them. Homophobia is shown as initially inhibiting the uptake of this technology, as it engenders drastic changes in relationships, with bisexuality becoming the default mode for society. Sexual themes are central to the story "Options": a married woman, Cleo, living in King City, undergoes a change to male despite her husband's objections. As "Leo" she finds out what it means to be a man in her society and even becomes her husband's best friend. She also learns that people are adopting new names that are historically neither male nor female. She eventually returns to female as "Nile". Varley's Gaea trilogy (1979-1984) features lesbian protagonists. Female characters in science fiction films, such as Barbarella (1968), continued to be often portrayed as simple sex kittens. Modern SF (post-New Wave) After the pushing back of boundaries in the 1960s and 70s, sex in genre science fiction gained wider acceptance and was often incorporated into otherwise conventional science fiction stories with little comment. In 1968 Jack Vance introduced the Planet of Adventure, inhabited by four different alien races, each with its own distinct society and culture. One of these – the predatory, part feline, part bird-like Dirdir – is described as having a very complex sexuality, with many different genders that leads to many different combinations of gender-compatibility when it comes to sex and breeding, though each breeding still seems to involve only two individuals. Jack L. Chalker's Well World series, launched in 1977, depicts a world – designed by the super science of a vanished extraterrestrial race, the Markovians – which is divided into numerous "hexes", each inhabited by different sentient race. Anyone entering one of these hexes is transformed into a member of the local race. This plot device gives a wide scope for exploring the divergent biology and cultures of the various species – including their sex life. For example, a human entering a hex inhabited by an insectoid intelligent race is transformed into a female of that species, feels sexual desire for a male and mates with him. Too late does she discover that in this species, pregnancy is fatal – the mother being devoured from the inside by her larvae. In a later part, a very macho villain gains control of a supercomputer whose power includes the ability to "redesign" people's bodies to almost any specification. He uses the computer to give himself a "super-virile" body, capable of a virtually unlimited number of erections and ejaculations – and then proceeds to transform his male enemies into beautiful women and induce in them a strong sexual desire towards himself. However, a computer breakdown restores to these captives their normal minds. Though they are still in women's bodies, these bodies were designed with great strength and stamina, so as to enable them to undergo repeated sexual encounters. Thus, they are well-equipped to chase, catch and suitably punish their abuser. In Frederik Pohl's Jem, humans exploring the eponymous planet Jem discover by experience that local beings emit a milt which has a strong aphrodisiac effect on humans. Characters who were hitherto not at all drawn to each other find themselves suddenly involved in wild, uncontrollable sex. At the ironic ending, their descendants who colonize the planet and build up a distinctive society and culture develop the custom of celebrating Christmas by deliberately stimulating the local beings into emitting the milt, and then taking off their clothes and engaging in a wild indiscriminate orgy – their copulations accompanied by a chorus of the planet's enslaved indigenous beings who were taught to sing "Good King Wenceslas", with the song's Christian significance long forgotten. Also set on an alien planet, Octavia E. Butler's acclaimed short story "Bloodchild" (1984) depicts the complex relationship between human refugees and the insect-like aliens who keep them in a preserve to protect them, but also to use them as hosts for breeding their young. Sometimes called Butler's "pregnant man story," "Bloodchild" won the Nebula Award, Hugo Award, and Locus Award. Other of Butler's works explore miscegenation, non-consensual sex, and hybridity. In Robert Silverberg's 1982 novella Homefaring, the protagonist enters the mind of an intelligent lobster of the very far future and experiences all aspects of lobster life, including sex: "He approached a female, knowing precisely which one was the appropriate one, and sang to her, and she acknowledged his song with a song of her own, and raised her third pair of legs for him, and let him plant his gametes beside her oviducts. There was no apparent pleasure in it, as he remembered pleasure from his time as a human. Yet it brought him a subtle but unmistakable sense of fulfillment, of the completion of biological destiny, that had a kind of orgasmic finality about it, and left him calm and anchored at the absolute dead center of his soul". When finally returning to his human body and his human lover, he keeps longing for the lobster life, to "his mate and her millions of larvae". Quentin and Alice, the extremely shy and insecure protagonists of Lev Grossman's fantasy novel The Magicians, spend years as fellow students at a School of Magic without admitting to being deeply in love with each other. Only the experience of being magically turned into foxes enables them at last to break through their reserve: "Increasingly, Quentin noticed one scent more than the others. It was a sharp, acrid, skunky musk that probably would have smelled like cat piss to a human being, but to a fox it was like a drug. He tackled the source of the smell, buried his snuffling muzzle in her fur, because he had known all along, with what was left of his consciousness, that what he was smelling was Alice. Vulpine hormones and instincts were powering up, taking over, manhandling what was left of his rational human mind." The next sequence depicts animal sex: "He locked his teeth in the thick fur of her neck. It didn't seem to hurt her any, or at least not in a way that was easily distinguishable from pleasure. He caught a glimpse of Alice's wild, dark fox eyes rolling with terror and then half shutting with pleasure. Their tiny quick breathes puffed white in the air and mingled and disappeared. Her white fox fur was coarse and smooth at the same time, and she made little yipping sounds every time he pushed himself deeper inside her. He never wanted to stop". When resuming their human bodies, Quentin and Alice are initially even more shy and awkward with each other, and only after going through some harrowing magical experiences are they finally able to have human sex. Lois McMaster Bujold explores many areas of sexuality in the multiple award-winning novels and stories of her Vorkosigan Saga (1986-ongoing), which are set in a fictional universe influenced by the availability of uterine replicators and significant genetic engineering. These areas include an all-male society, promiscuity, monastic celibacy, hermaphroditism, and bisexuality. In the Mythopoeic Award-winning novel Unicorn Mountain (1988), Michael Bishop includes a gay male AIDS patient among the carefully drawn central characters who must respond to an irruption of dying unicorns at their Colorado ranch. The death of the hedonistic gay culture, and the safe sex campaign resulting from the AIDS epidemic, are explored, both literally and metaphorically. Sex has a major role in Harry Turtledove's 1990 novel A World of Difference, taking place on the planet Minerva (a more habitable analogue of Mars). Minervan animals (including the sentient Minervans) are hexameristically radially symmetrical. This means that they have six eyes spaced equally all around, see in all directions and have no "back" where somebody could sneak on them unnoticed. Females (referred to as "mates" by the Minervans) give birth to litters that consist of one male and five females, and the "mates" always die after reproducing because of torrential bleeding from the places where the six fetuses were attached; this gives a population multiplication of 5 per generation if all females live to adolescence and reproduce. Females reach puberty while still hardly out of childhood, and typically experience sex only once in the lifetime – leading to pregnancy and death at birth-giving. Thus, in Minervan society male dominance seems truly determined by a biological imperative – though it takes different forms in various Minervan societies: in some females are considered expendable and traded as property, in other they are cherished and their tragic fate mourned – but still, their dependent status is taken for granted. The American women arriving on Minerva and discovering this situation consider it intolerable; a major plot element is their efforts, using the resources of Earth medical science, to find a way of saving the Minervan females and letting them survive birth-giving. At the end, they do manage to save a particularly sympathetic Minervan female – potentially opening the way for a complete upheaval in Minervan society. Sex is also an important ingredient in another of Harry Turtledove's works, the Worldwar Series of Alternative History, based on the premise of reptile extraterrestrials, nicknamed "The Lizards", invading Earth in 1942, forcing humans to terminate the Second World War and unite against this common enemy. As depicted by Turtledove, the "Lizards" have no concept whatever that sex ought to be private, and they engage in it in public as in any other activity. This leads to human beings in areas occupied by them feeling shocked and outraged by the "immorality" of their new masters - especially that the invaders, preferring hot climates, prioritize conquest of the Arab and Islamic countries. For their part, the invaders are genuinely puzzled by the Humans' insistence on having privacy for sex and their outrage when reptile warriors walk in on them when engaged in it. As gradually becomes clear, on their home planet, the "Lizards" have a clearly defined mating season, when normal activity ceases and they engage in a days-long, indiscriminate orgy; as their young can fend for themselves from the moment of hatching from the egg, there is no of parental care and they have no marriages or families, and thus there is no reason to establish paternity. Outside the mating season, sex does not occur among them and does not concern them. However, when arriving on Earth they soon discover that ginger, an innocuous spice to humans, acts as a powerful narcotic on the invaders' physiology - and that it causes their females to become sexually active and emit pheromones, out of the normal season. This causes an unaccustomed disruption of their daily activity, with females who had taken ginger suddenly becoming sexual, males and females then feeling compelled to immediately engage in mating before they could resume their daily work. This also arises the phenomenon of females deliberately taking ginger in return for payment - prostitution having been completely unknown in their society before their arrival on Earth. In the far future human colony of Frederik Pohl's The World at the End of Time, the common way to produce new humans is for a geneticist to take DNA samples from two or more "parents" – regardless of their being male or female. The DNA is then combined in a laboratory, and the parents arrive to pick up the baby nine months later. The few couples who prefer to do it in the old fashioned way, a man sexually impregnating a woman, are considered strange but harmless eccentrics. Glory Season (1993) by David Brin is set on the planet Stratos, inhabited by a strain of human beings designed to conceive clones in winter, and normal children in summer. All clones are female, because males cannot reproduce themselves individually. Further, males and females have opposed seasons of sexual receptivity; women are sexually receptive in winter, and men in summer. (This unusual heterogamous reproductive cycle is known to be evolutionarily advantageous for some species of aphids.) The novel treats themes of separatist feminism and biological determinism. Elizabeth Bear's novel Carnival (2006) revisits the trope of the single-gender world, as a pair of gay male ambassador-spies attempt to infiltrate and subvert the predominately lesbian civilization of New Amazonia, whose matriarchal rulers have all but enslaved their men. The fantasy world of Scott Lynch's 2007 Red Seas Under Red Skies offers a new variation on the long-established genre of pirate literature – depicting a pirate ship which is run on the basis of complete gender equality. The pirate crew is composed of a roughly equal number of men and women, and crew members may freely engage in sex – homosexual or heterosexual, as they choose – when off duty. Since shipboard life offers little chance of privacy, the sound of people having a noisy orgasm is a normal part of night time routine on board the Poison Orchid. However, any attempt at a sexual act without the other person's sexual consent is punished immediately and severely. The formidable Captain Zamira Drakasha is raising her two children aboard, and is well able to combine being a deadly fighter and strict disciplinarian with her role as a loving and doting mother – but having children aboard is a privilege reserved to the Captain alone; other female pirates who get pregnant must leave their children on shore. The plot of The Tamír Triad by Lynn Flewelling has a major transsexual element. To begin with the protagonist, Prince Tobin, is to all appearances a male – both in his own perception and in that of others. Boys who swim naked together with Tobin have no reason to doubt his male anatomy. Yet, due to the magical reasons which are an important part of the plot, in the underlying, essential identity Tobin had always been a disguised girl. In the series' cataclysmic scene of magical change, this becomes an evident physical fact, and Prince Tobin becomes Queen Tamír, shedding the male body and gaining a fully functioning female one. Yet, it takes Tamír a considerable time and effort to come to terms with her female sexuality. In Lateral Magazine, The freedom of a genre: Sexuality in speculative fiction:In another twist of today's society, Nontraditional Love by Rafael Grugman (2008) puts together an upside-down society where heterosexuality is outlawed, and homosexuality is the norm. A 'traditional' family unit consists of two dads with a surrogate mother. Alternatively, two mothers, one of whom bears a child. In a nod to the always-progressive Netherlands, this country is the only country progressive enough to allow opposite sex marriage. This is perhaps the most obvious example of cognitive estrangement. It puts the reader in the shoes of the oppressed by modelling an entire world of opposites around a fairly "normal" everyday heterosexual protagonist. A heterosexual reader would not only be able to identify with the main character but be immersed in a world as oppressive and bigoted as the real world has been for homosexuals and the queer community throughout history.The 2018 Fantasy novel Stone Unturned, set in Lawrence Watt-Evans' magical world of Ethshar, begins with the young wizard Morvash of the Shadows discovering that some of the statues in his uncle's house were real people turned to stone, and sets out to do the right thing. What Morvash considered the most disturbing of these statues "was hidden away in a sort of marble grotto in the garden behind the house, and depicted a young man and a young woman in what might politely be called an intimate embrace, or a compromising position. They were not in the sort of elegant pose that artists use for erotica, with graceful lines displaying the female's curves and the male's muscles. They were in an earthier position. The woman — a girl, really — was on her back, with her knees drawn up to her chest and her head raised as her blank stone eyes stared perpetually at the man's belly. Her mouth was open as if panting. Her partner was kneeling between her legs, leaning forward over her, one hand grabbing her shoulder, the other occupied elsewhere. His eyes were closed, but his mouth was also open; Morvash thought it was more of a moan than a pant. He could almost smell the sweat. Neither wore any clothing whatsoever, nor were there any artfully-placed draperies or fig leaves to obscure the details. Had the wizard responsible for this petrifaction timed it deliberately, or had he caught them in this position by accident?" Eventually, it turns out that the couple were Prince Marek of Melitha and Darissa the Witch's Apprentice, who had fallen deeply in love with each other during a war that threatened their kingdom and who sought to celebrate victory with a bout of intensive love-making in the privacy of the Prince's bedchamber – but were surprised and turned into stone by a wizard in the employ of the Prince's envious sister, who sought to seize the throne. Afterwards, the couple spent forty petrified years, dimly conscious, perpetually caught in their sexual act and forming a prized item in Lord Landessin's sculpture collection. When the wizard Morvash finally manages to bring them back to life, they find themselves lying on the floor in a big hall, surrounded by various other people who were also revived from petrifaction, and hasten to disengage and look for something to cover their nakedness. After various other adventures, they finally get married and fully clothed mount the throne of Melitha as King and Queen. See also Notes References External links Imagined Sexual Futures: reading list Feministsf.org: Feminist SF, Fantasy & Utopias: annotated bibliographies The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: Sex ("This entry is primarily about human sexual relationships and sexual stereotypes as themes in s[cience] f[iction]; i.e., it is primarily about Psychology and Sociology.") Review and cover page of "Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos" by Bobby Derie, 2014 Online excerpts from "Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos" by Bobby Derie, 2014 Sexuality and society Science fiction themes

Sociology of art

The sociology of art is a subfield of sociology that explores the societal dimensions of art and aesthetics. Scholars who have written on the sociology of art include Pierre Bourdieu, Vera Zolberg, Howard S. Becker, Arnold Hauser, and Harrison White. Approaches In her 1970 book Meaning and Expression: Toward a Sociology of Art, Hanna Deinhard gives one approach: "The point of departure of the sociology of art is the question: How is it possible that works of art, which always originate as products of human activity within a particular time and society and for a particular time, society, or function -- even though they are not necessarily produced as 'works of art' -- can live beyond their time and seem expressive and meaningful in completely different epochs and societies? On the other hand, how can the age and society that produced them be recognized in the works"?Other approaches consider the social and economic background to the creation of works of art, which has been a great focus of art history in recent decades. For example, research has examined the role of gender and nationality of artists in museum exhibition and textbook inclusion. The role of patrons and consumers of art, as well as those of the artist(s) themselves, are considered. Work into the role geographic location of art collections/collectors has been shown to affect the prestige and recognition of collectors in the art world. There has also been a great interest in the history of art collecting, and the history of older objects between their creation and their current location, beyond a mere provenance. Recent work has also employed new analysis techniques such as social network analysis to understand how an artist's reputation can be affected by association with other artists in exhibition. See also Sociology of culture Anthropology of art Art world Art market Private collection Curator References Further reading Bourdieu, Pierre. The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. Stanford University Press. 1996. Braden, Laura E. "From the Armory to academia: Careers and reputations of early modern artists in the United States." Poetics 37.5-6 (2009): 439-455. Zolberg, Vera L., Constructing a Sociology of the Arts. Cambridge University Press. 1990. Deinhard, Hanna, Meaning and Expression: Toward a Sociology of Art. Beacon Press, Boston, 1970. Becker, Howard S. Art Worlds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Raymonde Moulin The French Art Market, Rutgers University Press, 1987 John Paul, Art as Weltanschauung: An Overview of Theory in the Sociology of Art. Electronic Journal of Sociology, 2005. Alain Quemin, "Globalization and Mixing in the visual arts. An Empirical Survey of "High Culture" and Globalization", International Sociology, vol. 21, n°4, July 2006, p. 522-550. Braden, L. E. (2016). Collectors and collections: Critical recognition of the world's top art collectors. Social Forces, 94(4), 1483-1507. Harrison C. White and Cynthia A. White (1993), Canvases and Careers: Institutional Change in the French Painting World, University of Chicago Press, Chicago Sociology of art Visual arts Visual anthropology

Identity performance

Identity performance is a concept that holds that "identity" can be a project or a conscious effort or action taken to present oneself in social interactions. This is based on the definition of identity as an ongoing process of self-definition and the definitions of the self by others, which emerge from interaction with others. The idea is that there are identities that are performed to achieve several objectives such as assimilation and acculturation, among others. It draws from the Erving Goffman's theatrical metaphor theory where, in social situations, the others perform the role of the audience, which an individual must perform to impress. Concept In everyday interactions, the body serves as a critical site of identity performance. In conveying who we are to other people, we use our bodies to project information about ourselves. This is done through movement, clothes, speech, and facial expressions. What we put forward is our best effort at what we want to say about who we are. Yet while we intend to convey one impression, our performance is not always interpreted as we might expect. Through learning to make sense of others’ responses to our behavior, we can assess how well we have conveyed what we intended. We can then alter our performance accordingly. This process of performance, interpretation, and adjustment is what Goffman calls impression management. Impression management is a part of a larger process where people seek to define a situation through their behavior. People seek to define social situations by using contextual cues from the environment around them. Social norms emerge from situational definitions, as people learn to read cues from the environment and the people present to understand what is appropriate behavior. Learning how to manage impressions is a critical social skill that is honed through experience. Over time, we learn how to make meaning out of a situation, others’ reactions, and what we are projecting of ourselves. As children, we learn that actions on our part prompt reactions by adults; as we grow older, we learn to interpret these reactions and adjust our behavior. Diverse social environments help people develop these skills because they force individuals to re-evaluate the signals they take for granted. The process of learning to read social cues and react accordingly is core to being socialized into a society. While the process itself begins at home for young children, it is critical for young people to engage in broader social settings to develop these skills. Of course, how children are taught about situations and impression management varies greatly by culture, but these processes are regularly seen as part of coming of age. While no one is ever a true master of impression management, the teenage years are ripe with experiences to develop these skills. In mediated environments, bodies are not immediately visible and the skills people need to interpret situations and manage impressions are different. As Jenny Sundén argues, people must learn to write themselves into being. Doing so makes visible how much we take the body for granted. While text, images, audio, and video all provide valuable means for developing a virtual presence, the act of articulation differs from how we convey meaningful information through our bodies. This process also makes explicit the self-reflexivity that Giddens argues is necessary for identity formation, but the choices individuals make in crafting a digital body highlight the self-monitoring that Foucault so sinisterly notes. In some sense, people have more control online – they are able to carefully choose what information to put forward, thereby eliminating visceral reactions that might have seeped out in everyday communication. At the same time, these digital bodies are fundamentally coarser, making it far easier to misinterpret what someone is expressing. Furthermore, as Amy Bruckman shows, key information about a person's body is often present online, even when that person is trying to act deceptively; for example, people are relatively good at detecting when someone is a man even when they profess to be a woman online. Yet because mediated environments present reveal different signals, the mechanisms of deception differ. Examples There are studies that reveal specific cases of identity performance. These include the investigation on the experiences of Latino students in the American public education system. It was found that within culturally coded classrooms, members of this ethnic group have to perform identity in the form of behavioral signal that they are as worthy of achievement as their white peers. This also underscored that the white identity serves as the standard and that the performances often emulated it so that they form part of the how individuals from different ethnic groups assimilate. The "public performances" enacted by black females such as the assumption of the role of the "black vixen" are also cases in point. Researchers cite that roles are performed to reenact, reimagine and even revise personal and collective history. Bibliography Michelle Duffy. “Performing identity within a multicultural framework”, in Social and Cultural Geography, special issue on 'music and place', VI(2005), no. 4, pp. 677–692. Philip V. Bohlman and Marcello Sorce Keller (eds.), Musical Anthropology of the Mediterranean: Interpretation, Performance, Identity. Bologna: Edizioni Clueb – Cooperativa Libraria Universitaria Editrice, 2009. Linda Barwick and Marcello Sorce Keller (eds.). Out of Place and Time: Italian and Australian Perspectives on Italian Music in Australia. Lyrebird: Melbourne, 2012. Marcello Sorce Keller. “The Swiss-Germans in Melbourne. Some Considerations on Musical Traditions and Identity”, Schweizer Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft, Neue Folge, XXV(2005), pp. 131–154. See also Dignity Workism Self-esteem Social defeat Social mobility Social rejection Division of labour Economic mobility Achievement ideology Winner and loser culture Social comparison theory Keeping up with the Joneses References performance

Pasteur's quadrant

Pasteur's quadrant is a classification of scientific research projects that seek fundamental understanding of scientific problems, while also having immediate use for society. Louis Pasteur's research is thought to exemplify this type of method, which bridges the gap between "basic" and "applied" research. The term was introduced by Donald E. Stokes in his book, Pasteur's Quadrant. Other quadrants As shown in the following table, scientific research can be classified by whether it advances human knowledge by seeking a fundamental understanding of nature, or whether it is primarily motivated by the need to solve immediate problems. The result is three distinct classes of research: Pure basic research, exemplified by the work of Niels Bohr, early 20th century atomic physicist. Pure applied research, exemplified by the work of Thomas Edison, inventor. Use-inspired basic research, described here as "Pasteur's Quadrant". Usage Pasteur's quadrant is useful in distinguishing various perspectives within science, engineering and technology. For example, Daniel A. Vallero and Trevor M. Letcher in their book Unraveling Environmental Disasters applied the device to disaster preparedness and response. University science programs are concerned with knowledge-building, whereas engineering programs at the same university will apply existing and emerging knowledge to address specific technical problems. Governmental agencies employ the knowledge from both to solve societal problems. Thus, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expects its engineers to apply general scientific principles to design and upgrade flood control systems. This entails selecting the best levee designs for the hydrologic conditions. However, the engineer would also be interested in more basic science to enhance designs in terms of water retention and soil strength. The university scientist is much like Bohr, with the major motivation being new knowledge. The governmental engineer is behaving like Edison, with the greatest interest in utility, and considerably less interest in knowledge for knowledge's sake. The university engineering researcher's interests on the other hand, may fall between Bohr and Edison, looking to enhance both knowledge and utility. It is not likely that many single individuals fall within the Pasteur cell, since both basic and applied science are highly specialized. Thus, modern science and technology employ what might be considered a systems engineering approach, where the Pasteur cell consists of numerous researchers, professionals and practitioners to optimize solutions. Note that modifications to the quadrant model to more precisely reflect how research and development interact continue to be suggested. References Scientific method Louis Pasteur

Collingridge dilemma

The Collingridge dilemma is a methodological quandary in which efforts to influence or control the further development of technology face a double-bind problem: An information problem: impacts cannot be easily predicted until the technology is extensively developed and widely used. A power problem: control or change is difficult when the technology has become entrenched. The idea was coined by at the University of Aston Technology Policy Unit in his 1980 book The Social Control of Technology. The dilemma is a basic point of reference in technology assessment debates. Background In "This Explains Everything," edited by John Brockman, technology critic Evgeny Morozov explains Collingridge's idea by quoting Collingridge himself: "When change is easy, the need for it cannot be foreseen; when the need for change is apparent, change has become expensive, difficult, and time-consuming." In "The Pacing Problem, the Collingridge Dilemma & Technological Determinism" by Adam Thierer, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the Collingridge dilemma is related to the "pacing problem" in technology regulation. The "pacing problem" refers to the notion that technological innovation is increasingly outpacing the ability of laws and regulations to keep up, first explained in Larry Downes' 2009 book The Laws of Disruption, in which he states that "technology changes exponentially, but social, economic, and legal systems change incrementally". In Thierer's essay, he tries to correlate these two concepts by saying that "the 'Collingridge dilemma' is simply a restatement of the pacing problem but with greater stress on the social drivers behind the pacing problem and an implicit solution to 'the problem' in the form of preemptive control of new technologies while they are still young and more manageable." One solution to Collingridge dilemma is the "Precautionary Principle." Adam Thierer defines it as the belief that new innovations should not be embraced "until their developers can prove that they will not cause any harm to individuals, groups, specific entities, cultural norms, or various existing laws, norms, or traditions". If they fail to do so, this innovation should be "prohibited, curtailed, modified, junked, or ignored". This definition has been criticized by Kevin Kelly who believe such a principle is ill-defined and is biased against anything new because it drastically elevates the threshold for anything innovative. According to the American philosopher Max More, the Precautionary Principle "is very good for one thing — stopping technological progress...not because it leads in bad directions, but because it leads in no direction at all." But the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development defines the precautionary principle as ""Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation." So rather than conceived as imposing no change until proof of safety is produced, this definition of the precautionary principle is meant to legitimate protective measures, attempting to avoid the desire of a technology's advocates to delay legislation until irrefutable evidence of harm can be produced. Collingridge's solution was not exactly the precautionary principle but rather the application of "Intelligent Trial and Error," a process by which decision making power remains decentralized, changes are manageable, technologies and infrastructures are designed to be flexible, and the overall process is oriented towards learning quickly while keeping the potential costs as low as possible. Collingridge advocated ensuring that innovation occurs more incrementally so as to better match the pace of human learning and avoiding technologies whose design was antithetical to an Intelligent Trial and Error process. Current context The Collingridge Dilemma applies well to a world where Artificial Intelligence and Cloud are gaining ground and developers are consuming new technology at a rapid pace. Governing AI, Cloud or other similar exponential technology without slowing the pace of development of the technology is a big challenge, governments and organizations now face. References Technology assessment Technological change

Convergent validity

Convergent validity in the behavioral sciences refers to the degree to which two measures that theoretically should be related, are in fact related. Convergent validity, along with discriminant validity, is a subtype of construct validity. Convergent validity can be established if two similar constructs correspond with one another, while discriminant validity applies to two dissimilar constructs that are easily differentiated. Campbell and Fiske (1959) developed the Multitrait-Multimethod Matrix to assess the construct validity of a set of measures in a study. The approach stresses the importance of using both discriminant and convergent validation techniques when assessing new tests. In other words, in order to establish construct validity, you have to demonstrate both convergence and discrimination. Evaluation / application To assess the extent of convergent validity, a test of a construct is correlated with other tests designed to measure theoretically similar constructs. For instance, to assess the convergent validity of a test of mathematics skills, the scores on the test are correlated with scores on other tests that are also designed to measure basic mathematics ability. High correlations between the test scores would be evidence of convergent validity. Convergent evidence is best interpreted in conjunction with discriminant evidence. That is, patterns of intercorrelations between two dissimilar measures should be low while correlations with similar measures should be substantially greater. This evidence can be organized as a multitrait-multimethod matrix. For example, in order to test the convergent validity of a measure of self-esteem, a researcher may want to show that measures of similar constructs, such as self-worth, confidence, social skills, and self-appraisal are also related to self-esteem, whereas non-overlapping factors, such as intelligence, should not relate. See also Construct validity Content validity Criterion validity Discriminant validity (divergent validity) Face validity Test validity Validity (statistics) References Validity (statistics)

Ambivalent sexism

Ambivalent sexism is a theoretical framework which posits that sexism has two sub-components: hostile sexism (HS) and benevolent sexism (BS). Hostile sexism reflects overtly negative evaluations and stereotypes about a gender (e.g., the ideas that women are incompetent and inferior to men). Benevolent sexism represents evaluations of gender that may appear subjectively positive (subjective to the person who is evaluating), but are actually damaging to people and gender equality more broadly (e.g., the ideas that women need to be protected by men). For the most part, psychologists have studied hostile forms of sexism. However, theorists using the theoretical framework of ambivalent sexism have found extensive empirical evidence for both varieties. The theory has largely been developed by social psychologists Peter Glick and Susan Fiske. Overview Definition Sexism, like other forms of prejudice, is a type of bias about a group of people. Sexism is founded in conceptualizations of one gender as being superior or having higher status than the other gender in a particular domain, which can lead to discrimination. Research has indicated that stereotypes about socially appropriate gender roles for women and men are a driving factor in the endorsement of sexism. Patriarchy, defined as men's power and "structural control over political, legal, economic, and religious institutions", is a feature of sexism and is related to hostile attitudes toward women. Anthropological research suggests that patriarchy is pervasive among the majority of human societies, such that women have been systematically discriminated against, oppressed, and marginalized by men throughout history. Sexism maintains patriarchal social structures and reinforces prescribed gender roles. Typically, sexism is thought of as hostility toward women, perpetrated by men. However, both women and men can (and often do) endorse sexist beliefs about each other and themselves. In other words, men can express sexist attitudes about women or men, and women can express sexist attitudes about men or women. While sexism has historically disadvantaged women, there are negative consequences of sexism for both men and women. Rigid gender roles can be damaging to women and men alike, restricting opportunities and promoting gender-based prejudice. For the purposes of this article, sexism toward women will be the focus, as it is most relevant to the definition and study of ambivalent sexism. Ambivalent sexism offers a multidimensional reconceptualization of the traditional view of sexism to include both subjectively benevolent and hostile attitudes toward women. The word ambivalent is used to describe the construal of sexism because this type of bias includes both negative and positive evaluations of women. The addition of a benevolent feature to definitions of gender-based prejudice was a major contribution to the study of sexism and field of psychology. Traditional conceptualizations of sexism focused almost entirely on overt hostility toward women. While historians, anthropologists, feminist scholars, and psychologists had previously suggested that sexism involves positive and negative evaluations of women, the majority of empirical research at the time evaluated only hostile expressions of sexism. The introduction of the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI)—a scale which was developed by Glick and Fiske in 1996, and which assesses ambivalently sexist attitudes—marks a shift in how sexism is construed and scientifically measured. Glick and Fiske created the ASI to address a proposed deficiency in the measurement of sexism at the time. They argue that previous scales assessing sexism do not adequately capture the ambivalent nature of gender-based prejudice toward women. Theoretical framework Glick and Fiske assert that hostile and benevolent sexism complement each other in reinforcing traditional gender roles and preserving patriarchal social structures of women as subordinate to men. Both forms of sexism share the assumption that women are inferior and restrict women to a lower social status. Hostile sexism reflects misogyny (i.e., the hatred of women by men) and is expressed through blatant negative evaluations of women. Examples of hostile sexism include beliefs about women as incompetent, unintelligent, overly emotional, and sexually manipulative. Benevolent sexism reflects evaluations of women that are seemingly positive. Examples of benevolently sexist attitudes include the reverence of women in wife, mother, and child caretaker roles, the romanticizing of women as objects of heterosexual affection, and the belief that men have a duty to protect women. While benevolent sexism may not appear to be harmful to women on the surface, these beliefs are extremely caustic to gender equity and restrict women's personal, professional, political, and social opportunities. This is because these seemingly positive evaluations imply that (a) women are weak and need to be protected, (b) women should not deviate from traditional gender roles as mothers and caretakers, and (c) women should be idolized by men for their sexual purity and availability. Because benevolently sexist attitudes appear positive, people often do not identify these beliefs as a form of gender-based prejudice. Furthermore, benevolent sexism may be seen by both men and women as reinforcing of the status quo, which some individuals may find comforting. Social and cultural norms may encourage benevolently sexist beliefs among women and men. A classic illustration of this is the endorsement of modern-day chivalry in interactions between women and men. It can be considered traditional and polite for a man to insist that he holds a door open or carries a heavy object for a woman. However, this tradition is founded in historical representations of women as weaker than men. In these types of circumstances, people may find it difficult to distinguish between kindness, tradition, and benevolent sexism. Men and women often disagree on whether or not a specific incident should be considered sexist. In general, women and men tend to show more agreement in classifying extreme and overt expressions of sexism. Hostile sexism is typically easier for people to identify as an expression of prejudice. Overall, women are rarely perceived by others in an entirely hostile or benevolent manner. In fact, people frequently report high levels of both benevolent and hostile sexism. There are individual differences in people's levels of benevolent and hostile sexism, such that a person can be rated highly on both, one, or neither dimension of the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory. In addition, women are not immune from endorsing sexist beliefs about women. Extensive research supports the idea that it is common for women and men to support ambivalently sexist attitudes about women. Despite this, people find it difficult to believe that others can endorse both benevolent and hostile sexism. Research suggests that, when individuals are shown profiles of a benevolently sexist man and a man who endorses hostile sexism, they feel that it is very unlikely that one person can embody both forms of bias. Sub-components and dimensions Social psychologists have suggested that sexism may be inherently different from other forms of ambivalent prejudice, in that there is interdependency between women and men in social structures. A central argument to the theory of ambivalent sexism is the idea that there is a complicated balance of power between men and women, such that men have structural power and women have dyadic power (stemming from dependence between two people). Dyadic power reflects the notion that men depend on women to fulfill certain goals, such as heterosexual intimacy and childbearing. Glick and Fiske assert that men's dependence on women is what fuels benevolently sexist attitudes, leading to idolization and the placing of women on a pedestal. In other words, power relationships between men and women foster an ambivalent form of bias towards women. Theoretically, each form of sexism is composed of three subcomponents: paternalism, gender differentiation, and heterosexuality. Paternalism reflects views of women as underdeveloped adults, providing justification for men to be authoritative and monitor, protect, and make decisions on women's behalf. Gender differentiation promotes the assumption that biological differences between males and females justify the strict adherence to socially prescribed gender roles. Heterosexuality—described as the most prominent cause of men's ambivalence toward women—reflects a tension between genuine desires for closeness and intimacy and a fear of women attaining power over men through sexual attraction. Within hostile sexism (HS) and benevolent sexism (BS), the three subcomponents serve distinct functions. Dominative paternalism (HS) suggests that men should control women, while protective paternalism (BS) implies that men should protect and care for women. Competitive gender differentiation (HS) bolsters men's self-confidence (e.g., men are superior to women). Complementary gender differentiation (BS) places importance on traditional gender roles for women (e.g., mother and wife) and assumes that men depend on women to fulfill these roles. Lastly, heterosexual hostility (HS) views women as sexual objects for men's pleasure and promotes the fear of women's capacity to manipulate men by engaging in or withholding sexual activity. Intimate heterosexuality (BS) romanticizes women as having sexual purity and views romantic intimacy as necessary to complete a man. Ambivalent Sexism Inventory Researchers typically measure ambivalent sexism at the individual level. The primary method used to measure an individual's endorsement of ambivalent sexism is the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI), created by Glick and Fiske in 1996. The ASI is a 22-item self-report measure of sexism on which respondents indicate their level of agreement with various statements, which are placed on a 6-point Likert scale. It is composed of two sub-scales that may be independently calculated for sub-scale scores or may be averaged for an overall composite sexism score. The first sub-scale is the hostile sexism scale, which is composed of 11 items designed to assess an individual's position on the dimensions of dominative paternalism, competitive gender differentiation, and heterosexual hostility, as previously defined. A sample item from the hostile sexism sub-scale is "Women are too easily offended." The second sub-scale is the benevolent sexism scale, which is composed of 11 items that aim to assess an individual's position on the dimensions of protective paternalism, complementary gender differentiation, and heterosexual intimacy, as previously defined. A sample item from the benevolent sexism sub-scale is "Women should be cherished and protected by men." Over fifteen years of additional research and replications support that this inventory possesses psychometric characteristics indicating that the measure is both empirically reliable and valid. Standard criteria in psychological research can be utilized to evaluate a scale. Using statistics, a Cronbach's alpha coefficient can be calculated to indicate whether items on a scale seem to be measuring the same psychological construct or dimension (demonstrating the retestability of a scale). Generally, researchers agree that a Cronbach's alpha coefficient above 0.80 suggests strong reliability in a scale. The ASI has consistently demonstrated this empirical reliability over time. In addition, empirical evaluations of the ASI provide support for the validity of the scale, such that the inventory seems to effectively measure what it proposes to assess: a polarized attitude towards women, where both dimensions can be activated simultaneously. The utility of the ASI is not limited to English speakers. There is extensive support for the cross-cultural validity of the ASI. A cross-cultural study examining the theory of ambivalent sexism in 19 countries found that hostile and benevolent components of sexism are not culturally specific. Furthermore, research suggests that ambivalently sexist attitudes towards men exist, such that hostile and benevolent attitudes toward men are found cross-culturally. These studies provide additional empirical evidence that support the framework of ambivalent sexism. Critiques While the ASI is widely used and accepted among researchers, one limitation of the ASI is that it is a self-reported measure. Social desirability is a common limitation of self-report measures in survey research; when participants in a research study complete a written self-report questionnaire, respondents are vulnerable to answering the items in a socially desirable manner. For this reason, some researchers employ variations of the ASI in their study designs that do not require self-reports. For example, Dardenne, Dumont, and Bollier (2007) transformed some items from the ASI into scenarios, presenting them to participants to induce conditions of both hostile and benevolent sexism. Hebl, King, Glick, Singletary, and Kazama (2007) designed a field study in which they observed the sexist behaviors of others; they used the theory of ambivalent sexism and the ASI to generate items for their own measure to assess these observed behaviors. Another criticism of the ASI is that the labels of the two sub-constructs, "benevolent" and "hostile", are too abstract, do not generalize to certain languages, and may not be relevant to some cultures. Lastly, findings from the Conn, Hanges, Sipe, and Salvaggio (1999) study suggest that other sexism scales may measure ambivalent attitudes towards women. Glick and Fiske originally proposed the theoretical framework of ambivalent sexism as filling a gap in the psychological literature and providing a novel tool for assessing a new dimension of sexism: benevolent sexism. However, Conn and colleagues (1999), using confirmatory factor analysis, showed that the Modern Sexism Scale (Swim, Aikin, Hall, and Hunter, 1995) captures ambivalent sentiments toward women, such that it identifies individuals that appear nonsexist but actually endorse sexist attitudes. Results from this study suggest that, while both the Modern Sexism Scale and the ASI assess ambivalence toward women, the ASI is unique in its capabilities for separately measuring both hostile and benevolent attitudes. In addition, the ASI captures heterosexual intimacy and benevolent paternalism, whereas the Modern Sexism Scale does not. Research While many individuals endorse both benevolent and hostile sexism simultaneously, research suggests that people rated significantly higher in one of the two sub-components have distinct constellations of beliefs and patterns of behavior. In other words, someone who is high in benevolent sexism tends to show a different profile of attitudes than someone who is high in hostile sexism. The independence of these types of sexism in predicting human behavior indicates that the two are, in fact, discrete forms of bias on separate but related axes. Examples of research findings identifying disparate outcomes between benevolent sexism and hostile sexism are described below. In addition, the relationships between ambivalent sexism and a range of other related attitudes and behaviors are discussed. Attitudes toward sexual harassment, intimate partner violence, and rape Men who are ambivalently sexist (i.e., high in both benevolent and hostile sexism simultaneously) and men who are high in hostile sexism are more likely to tolerate the sexual harassment of women than men who are benevolently sexist. Overall, hostile sexism is associated with acceptance of sexual harassment. In addition, the endorsement of hostile sexism is related to attitudes about intimate partner violence perpetrated by men towards women, such that people that are high in hostile sexism are more tolerant of intimate partner violence. Benevolently sexist attitudes were not found to be a significant predictor of the tolerance of intimate partner violence. However, the endorsement of benevolent sexism was not a protective factor either. Lastly, men high in hostile sexism are more likely to rape women, whereas men that are high in benevolent sexism are more likely to blame a victim of rape for the attack. Close relationships and attraction Research has shown that sexist attitudes relate to preferences for certain characteristics in romantic partners. Evidence suggests that women with higher levels of benevolent sexism have more stereotypical preferences in men as romantic partners, such as financial security and resources. Men with higher levels of hostile sexism are more likely to value physical attractiveness in women as romantic partners. In addition, benevolent sexism tends to predict mate selection, whereas hostile sexism tend to predict subsequent marriage norms after pairing. Women find men high in benevolent sexism attractive, and rate men high in ambivalent sexism as less attractive. Furthermore, in a recent research study on a particular aspect of benevolent sexism, protective paternalistic beliefs, women endorsed more protective paternalistic beliefs for men (toward women) in romantic versus work contexts. The endorsement of these beliefs in romantic contexts is thought to serve to reinforce and maintain such benevolent sexist behaviors. Overall, benevolent sexism and hostile sexism are associated with beliefs that premarital sex is unacceptable for women. Women in the workplace While the consequences of hostile sexism in the workplace are more widely known and accepted, research has shown that benevolent sexism may have a more severe impact on a women's cognitive performance. Dardenne, et al.(2006) suggested that hostile sexism can elicit anger or frustration in the target, which may increase her motivation to succeed or perform. Benevolent sexism, because of its seemingly positive evaluations and implicit attributions, is likely to hinder a woman's confidence and performance. The researchers showed that, in a typical team working environment, hostile sexism as well as benevolent sexism had consequences for the participant's performance. Masser and Abrams (2004) highlighted the fact that previous research has shown that benevolent sexism can have detrimental effects on a woman's performance evaluation if that woman violates social norms associated with certain sexist attitudes. Their study showed that hostile sexism, but not benevolent sexism, hurt women's evaluations and recommendations for promotion. Additionally, studies have shown that benevolent sexist attitudes lead to lower professional evaluations from men and women. Using an experimental design, Masser and Abrams (2004) found that individuals with hostile sexist attitudes rated women lower when applying for a male-dominant position. Additionally, high hostile sexist individuals recommend men to fill the available position more often than women. The authors argue that this is one of the main contributors to the glass ceiling effect. Help-seeking In a recent experimental study on the effects of benevolent sexism on help-seeking behaviors, researchers found that, when stereotypes of women as dependent were made salient, female college students were less willing to seek help. In addition, the more that help was sought, the worse women felt. Therefore, benevolent sexism appears to hold consequences towards women's help-seeking when certain benevolent sexist stereotypes are made salient. Voting behaviour During the 2016 US presidential election, researchers connected ambivalent sexism to voting intentions. In a non-representative sample of US voters, predominantly male, ambivalent sexism was found to be the sole predictor of intending to vote for someone other than Hillary Clinton in the election. For every step up on the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, participants were 3.3 times more likely to be voting for someone other than Hillary Clinton. Of those not voting for Clinton, they were not necessarily being pulled over to the Trump campaign, but rather, many were intending to vote third-party or were still undecided. While higher Islamophobia predicted a vote for Trump, lower Islamophobia and higher ambivalent sexism predicted being undecided or voting for a Third Party. Ambivalent sexism may also be endorsed by the media in the presentation of electoral candidates, consequentially influencing voting behaviour. In the article The Psychology of Voting, Digested a study is noted which revealed that "obesity is a disadvantage for female candidates, but may help male candidates". This is one example of how media coverage of female electoral candidates can prioritise appearance over capability, often using the former to shed a negative light over the latter. It's also important to acknowledge that ambivalent sexism has a disproportionate effect on women of colour, and groups of women who may be more so marginalised because of the physical geography of where, or socio-political condition in which they live. The cost of voting participation may be too high for women; as put in an economic journal on female voting behaviour in Pakistan, this might be because of "cultural stereotypes that discourage the exercise of own preferences". That is to say in an election, for example, the outcome may be a relatively low count of female voters when women are unable to choose to be active political agents alongside other socio-cultural responsibilities. Plan A vs. Plan B Benevolent sexism is sometimes also referred to as Plan A. It can be used to have women act as a subordinate because it aims for the remarks to be perceived as 'good' or 'positive'. This targets a woman's sensitivity and need to be protected by a male, which may not seem as bad to some women. Plan B or hostile sexism is used as a more aggressive approach as it includes more harsh remarks, and can tend to anger women more. Studies show that women are more likely to be defensive and inspired to protest against sexism when exposed to hostile sexist statements. When exposed to benevolently sexist remarks, they are less likely to rally and protest. They take on a more subordinate and passive role. This is why benevolent sexism is Plan A when trying to get women to be subordinate. Women's endorsement Both benevolent and hostile sexism are considered legitimizing ideologies, in that these attitudes provide the justification for social inequalities between men and women. Social dominance orientation (SDO; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) asserts that group-based inequalities are systematically reinforced by the disadvantaged group's adoption of the dominant group's ideology and social stratification. Empirical research has consistently supported the validity of social dominance theory, and the SDO model of structural oppression may be particularly apt to describe how patriarchy is perpetuated. Researchers have explored reasons for why women might internalize ambivalently sexist attitudes towards women. Fischer (2006) found that women may develop benevolently sexist attitudes as a response to experiencing sexism themselves. Cross-cultural research suggests that women's endorsement of benevolent sexism often reflects a culture of extreme hostile sexism among men in a given community. Some researchers argue that, in cultures that are particularly hostile, women may internalize benevolent sexism as a protective mechanism. Some research indicates that women perceived men high in benevolent sexism to possess positive attitudes towards women, while by contrast men low in benevolent sexism were perceived to be misogynistic and possessing high levels of hostile sexism, when in reality men who reject benevolent sexism also tend to reject hostile sexism. If the man stated that his rejection of benevolent sexism was motivated by egalitarian values then the perception that he was a hostile sexist was somewhat mitigated, though not entirely. Political campaign strategies and gendered messaging One analysis focuses on how mixed sexism affected politics, especially during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. It shows how Donald Trump's "woman card" comments against Hillary Clinton demonstrated that sexism shapes political views and actions. This suggests that gender-focused criticisms in campaigns can trigger sexist attitudes, causing divided support among voters based on their views on sexism. This emphasizes the importance for campaigns to rethink using gendered stories and consider the advantages of shifting to more inclusive messages. See also Ambivalent prejudice Internalized sexism Women-are-wonderful effect Aversive racism References Further reading Sexism Gender theories fr:Sexisme ambivalent

Spatialization

Spatialization (or spatialisation) is the spatial forms that social activities and material things, phenomena or processes take on in geography, sociology, urban planning and cultural studies. Generally the term refers to an overall sense of social space typical of a time, place or culture. Cognitive maps are one aspect of spatialization, which also includes everyday practice, institutionalized representations (i.e., maps, see cartography) and the imagination of possible spatial worlds (as in the visual puns of the work of the Surrealist painter, René Magritte). See also geographical space, Henri Lefebvre. The origins of the term are in Rob Shields's 1985 Introduction to a Précis of Henri Lefebvre's La Production de l'espace. where social spatialization is proposed as an English translation of Henri Lefebvre's French term "l'espace". However, Shields embues the concept with a sense of being a general, socio-cultural attribute, as in the work of Michel Foucault who makes one mention of the term but does not theorize it) rather than a spatial regime that is dialectically produced as part of a Marxist mode of production. Social spatializations are virtual but manifestly material, in discourse and as frames through which problems are understood. Following Foucault they are cultural formations relevant at many scales, from gestures and bodily comportment to geopolitical relationships between States (see also Critical geopolitics). On one hand, spatializations are achieved, hegemonic regimes which place and space activities in sites and regions. But on the other hand, spatializations are continually in change as they depend on and reflect peoples' ongoing performative actualizations of these spatial orders or regimes. However they are contested and the focus of struggles over the meaning of places, or manners, or over the reputation of neighbourhoods. Spatializations are therefore both ways of fixing in place cultural values and important social meanings, but also change over time. Globalization is an example of the changing spatialization of the world. Examples might include cases where a region becomes stereotyped and idolized as part of the identity of a nation state or culture: the Canadian North (Arctic) and Canadian identity; Karelia and Finnish identity. These are often taken up in the media, for example the British North and late 20th-century British working class identity portrayed in the long-running television series Coronation Street. These place-images and regional- and place-myths take on meanings through their similarity or difference from other places people know. Spatialization is argued to be a regime of "spacings" and "placings" of people and activities. Given activities or behaviours are related to "places-for-this" and "places-for-that." Several typical spatializations can be detected: centre-margin, mosaics of different identities, binary divisions (black-white, civilized-barbarian, etc.), near-far continua (local-foreign). Spatialization offers a way of talking about how place-images and regional- and place-myths, cognitive mappings and so on are part of wider "formations" and come to have an economic impact by being put into practice, such as through the marketing of tourism destinations, and the way that the reputations of places and regions becomes a conceptual shorthand which lends credibility to claims and beliefs, such as the truthfulness of a scientific finding (e.g., "Cambridge" - whether USA or UK), the believability of a religious claim or an event (e.g., "Mecca"), or the trustworthiness of a product (e.g., "Swiss" watches). For these reasons, the identities of places are durable and city-marketing fails, place-marketing does not work or city-branding is unsuccessful: the entire network of place-myths has to be reworked if one place-myth is to be altered relative to others. Spatializations are important for governance by linking affect and emotion to place and region. They can be referenced in architecture and interior design, for example, in escapist consumer environments such as the West Edmonton Mall References Further reading Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of Space. New York: Blackwell. Originally published as La Production de l'espace (Paris: Anthropos). Shields, Rob. 1991. Places on the Margin: Alternate Geographies of Modernity London: Routledge. Cultural geography Psychogeography

Transmodernism

Transmodernism is a philosophical and cultural movement founded by Argentinian-Mexican philosopher Enrique Dussel. He refers to himself as a transmodernist and wrote a series of essays criticising the postmodern theory and advocating a transmodern way of thinking. Transmodernism is a development in thought following the period of postmodernism. As a movement, it was also developed from modernism and critiques modernity and postmodernity, viewing them as the end of modernism. Transmodernism is influenced by many philosophical movements. Its emphasis on spirituality was influenced by the esoteric movements during the Renaissance. Transmodernism is influenced by transcendentalism and idealises different figures from the mid-19th century United States, most notably Ralph Waldo Emerson. Transmodernism is related to different aspects of Marxist philosophy, having common ground with dissident Roman Catholic liberation theology. Philosophies The philosophical views of the transmodernism movement contain elements of both modernism and postmodernism. Transmodernism has been described as "new modernism" and its proponents admire avant-garde styles. It bases much of its core beliefs on the integral theory of Ken Wilber, those of creating a synthesis of "pre-modern", "modern" and "postmodern" realities. In transmodernism, there is a place for both tradition and modernity, and it seeks as a movement to re-vitalise and modernise tradition rather than destroy or replace it. Unlike modernism or postmodernism, the honouring and reverence of antiquity and traditional lifestyles is important in transmodernism. Transmodernism criticises pessimism, nihilism, relativism and the counter-Enlightenment. It embraces, to a limited extent, optimism, absolutism, foundationalism and universalism. It has an analogical way of thinking, viewing things from the outside rather than the inside. Movement As a movement, transmodernism puts an emphasis on spirituality, alternative religions, and transpersonal psychology. Unlike postmodernism, it disagrees with the secularisation of society, putting an emphasis on religion, and it criticises the rejection of worldviews as false or of no importance. Transmodernism places an emphasis on xenophily and globalism, promoting the importance of different cultures and cultural appreciation. It seeks a worldview on cultural affairs and is anti-Eurocentric and anti-imperialist. Environmentalism, sustainability and ecology are important aspects of the transmodern theory. Transmodernism embraces environmental protection and stresses the importance of neighbourhood life, building communities as well as order and cleanliness. It accepts technological change, yet only when its aim is that of improving life or human conditions. Other aspects of transmodernism include democracy and listening to the poor and suffering. Transmodernism takes strong stances on feminism, health care, family life and relationships. It promotes the emancipation of women and female rights, alongside several traditional moral and ethical family values; in particular, the importance of family is stressed. Leading figures Transmodernism is a minor philosophical movement in comparison to postmodernism and is relatively new to the Northern Hemisphere, but it has a large set of leading figures and philosophers. Enrique Dussel is its founder. Ken Wilber, the inventor of Integral Theory, argues from a transpersonal point of view. Paul Gilroy, a cultural theorist, has also "enthusiastically endorsed" transmodern thinking, and Ziauddin Sardar, an Islamic scholar, is a critic of postmodernism and in many cases adopts a transmodernist way of thinking. Essays and works arguing from a transmodernist point of view have been published throughout the years. See also Alex Katz Criticism of postmodernism Neomodernism Remodernism Transmodernity References External links "Islam and the West in a Transmodern World" — by Ziauddin Sardar. "Critical Muslims, transmodern tradition" — an interview with Ziauddin Sardar. "The Rise of Integral Culture" — by Paul H. Ray. "Transmodernism, Marxism, and Social Change: Some Implications for Teacher Education" — by Mike Cole. Remodernism Modernism Criticism of postmodernism Postmodern theory 21st century in the arts

Sources of the Self

Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity is a work of philosophy by Charles Taylor, published in 1989 by Harvard University Press. It is an attempt to articulate and to write a history of the "modern identity". Summary The book "is an attempt to articulate and write a history of the modern identity ... what it is to be a human agent: the senses of inwardness, freedom, individuality, and being embedded in nature which are at home in the modern West." Part I: Identity and the Good Before considering the sources of the modern identity, Taylor illuminates the inescapable and yet often unarticulated, or unseen, moral frameworks within which contemporary moral values exist. Taylor articulates these moral frameworks in terms of three axes. The first axis refers to beliefs about the value of human life, how people should be treated, the respect we afford to human life and the moral obligations these beliefs demand from us. The second moral axis refers to beliefs about the kind of life that is worth living, beliefs that permeate our choices and actions in our day to day existence. The third axis refers to the dignity we afford to ourselves and others based on how we understand our role and perhaps usefulness in society. Taylor illuminates and emphasizes the moral framework for our values because he feels it is invisible to many in contemporary society. Those, for example, who ascribe either explicitly or unreflectively to a utilitarian moral outlook, rationally calculate the greatest good for the greatest number. Many followers of Immanuel Kant also depend on a rational formula for moral action. In Kantian terms this is calculated in terms of reasoning towards moral maxims that would be universally acceptable. Utilitarians and Kantians, however, neglect to enquire why particular goods constitute the greatest good. Why, Taylor asks, would the greatest good be articulated in terms of benevolence as opposed to hedonism? What are the motives that lead a society, and individuals within that society, to rationally calculate a benevolent formula for mutual existence? Utilitarians and followers of Kant provide an answer to these questions in terms of how we calculate the outcome of our acts and (for Kantians) the motives behind our actions. Taylor describes such moral frameworks as procedural; a framework that emphasizes the process by which we come to act and does not articulate the substantive qualitative distinctions about what constitutes a moral good and how differing goods can be of differing value. Taylor argues that qualitative distinctions about the constitution and value of moral goods are intrinsic to human existence. He positions his thesis in contrast to the naturalist understanding of human life, and first considers a reductive naturalism that holds that all human activity, and hence all human values, can be reduced to laws of nature—laws of nature that preclude qualitative distinctions among moral goods. In response to reductive naturalism, Taylor first notes the ad hominem argument that those who espouse some form of reductive naturalism nonetheless make, and cannot avoid but to make, qualitative distinctions as to the goods by which they live their lives. At the same time, Taylor recognizes that the moral frameworks of past generations, frameworks such as those that understood man as God's creature, have become fractured and that countless other moral frameworks have emerged. The reductive naturalist may object that these frameworks are simply interpretations or re-interpretations of contemporary understandings of the natural world and man's place in it. Moreover, all such moral frameworks are no more than passing modes of interpretation that have no true bearing on man's existence. Taylor responds to this objection by discussing identity. It is not simply an ad hominem argument that the reductive naturalist cannot avoid making qualitative distinctions among moral goods. Rather, the qualitative distinctions that the reductive naturalist, or anyone else, makes are constitutive of that person's identity; an identity that involves one's understandings of self as a person within a particular family, religion, profession, nation and so on. Taylor argues that the qualitative distinctions we make are intrinsic to the way we conduct our lives, they constitute an orientation towards the world. To provide the best account of human life, the identity that orients each of us towards particular kinds of activity and social understandings must be accounted for. Such an orientation is irreducible to any set of laws of nature that does not account for the qualitative distinctions in moral goods that a particular individual or particular cultural community adhere to; distinctions that in differing cultural communities at differing times place differing values upon differing social intuitions. Taylor recognizes another, more sophisticated, form of naturalism that he referred to as projectionist naturalism. The projectionist recognizes the irreducibility of human identity to laws of nature. People orient to the world within moral frameworks that guide their action. However, the projectionist will argue, such orientations are a subjective tint upon a value-neutral universe. The projectionist claim is often highlighted at the cusp of two cultures where one moral claim, say, putting a woman in purdah to protect modesty conflicts with another such as a woman's right to self-determination. In such a case, a moral axis (the dignity of persons) can be understood within very different frameworks. And yet, the projectionist will argue, there is no resolution to the conflict, because there are no universal criteria for resolving the subjective beliefs of different cultural communities. There are no universal criteria because qualitative distinctions of goods cannot be measured against a value-neutral universe. Taylor thinks the projectionist thesis is more coherent than the reductionist thesis. However, he followed the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein by noting that humans occupy a form of life. Within a form of life there are projectable properties that are intrinsic to that form of life. Just as colours such as "red" or shapes such as "square" pick out properties of the world we react to and engage with, so virtue terms such as "courage" or "generosity" pick out essential properties of our form of life. Our best account of the human form of life must determine the properties and entities that are "real, objective or part of the furniture of things". Of course, understanding moral values as intrinsic to the human form of life does not bestow a singular, correct valuation to a particular cultural community or attribute a particular moral framework with universal-truth status. However, in a universe where humans exist, there is a human form of life. Our moral frameworks exist, no matter how fleetingly or diversely. The best account of human life, Taylor argues, must account for the moral sources that orient our lives. Such an account should explain the strong evaluations we make about particular modes of life and seek to identify the constitutive good upon which such strong evaluations about qualitative distinctions in moral value are made. By constitutive good, Taylor refers to a good "the love of which empowers us to do and be good." The constitutive good—whether it be a belief in reason over desire, the inherent benevolence of the natural world, or the intuitively benign nature of human sentiment—orients us towards the evaluations that we make and the goods we aspire towards. Having established that moral sources and the moral frameworks within which they are understood are central to an account of human existence, Taylor focuses on an investigation of modern identities in Western civilization and the moral sources from which these identities are constituted. Taylor emphasizes that his investigation is not a historical investigation. Such an investigation would demand a breadth of scope involving social, economic, political, structural, and philosophical change (to name but a few aspects) that would not be possible within his work. Moreover, he noted, such a historical investigation might presuppose an idealist form of history in which history is shaped by the evolving ideas and ideologies of different times. Rather, Taylor asks what the conditions were within which the sources of the modern identity arose. These conditions involved the changing cultural, economic, political, religious, social, and scientific practices of society. Taylor focuses on the works of philosophers and artists to identify the moral sources, not because they created or determined the moral sources of a given time (although many artists and philosophers may have had some influence), but rather because they were best able to articulate assumptions, beliefs, and theories that constituted the moral sources of a given time and place. The following is a brief outline of some of the moral sources that Taylor discussed. Part II: Inwardness In Homeric times, a central constitutive good was the warrior ethic. A man evaluated the goods available to him in terms of the glory they would bring him in battle and the heroic deeds he would be able to recount. In classical Greece, Taylor notes a shift towards a tempering of the warrior ethic. Plato understood a vaguely apprehendable, yet unchanging, cosmic order within which man existed. Reason, or logos, was a vision of the meaningful cosmic order and this vision was the constitutive good that was the source of moral evaluations. The human soul, which in Homeric times had been seen as the temporal life force of an individual, became an immortal tripartite soul constituted by spirit, desire and reason. Spirit, which, according to Taylor encapsulated the warrior ethic, was subordinated to reason. And reason was understood, not as inward calculation or cognition, but as a vision of cosmic order. Aristotle differed from Plato in that he did not see all order as unchanging and cosmic. According to Aristotle, the order within which people interacted and conducted their lives as social beings could not be understood simply within an unchanging cosmic order. Rather, people engaged in society through the use of a practical wisdom that discerned the goods an individual should strive towards. The constitutive good for Aristotle, the good that underpinned all life goods, was the flourishing happiness (eudaimonia) of both the individual, and of the society. Despite the differences between Plato and Aristotle, both philosophers saw wisdom and reasoning as a vision of meaningful order whether it be cosmically or socially constituted. Taylor argues that an important influence on the modern identity, an influence that eventually eclipsed the Greek vision of reason, was the fourth-century monk and philosopher Augustine of Hippo. Augustine had encountered the philosophy of Plato and was deeply influenced by Plato's ideas. From Plato, Augustine acquired the idea of an intelligible eternal cosmic order; an order that Augustine attributed to God. Following Plato, Augustine also argued for a temporal, sensible existence of material objects. For Augustine, the material world was sensible to us through our senses and our contact with the physical world. The intelligible and spiritual world of God, however, was only made manifest when we attune to the light within us, the light of our God given soul. Taylor notes that the key contrast with the classical Greeks here was that reason and intelligibility were becoming distinct from a vision of meaningful order and reason within the world. Augustinian Christianity altered the orientation within which identity was formed. Rather than understanding the goods of life in terms of a vision of order in the world, Augustine had brought the focus to the light within, an immaterial, yet intelligible soul that was either condemned or saved. Augustine's theories, which were central doctrines throughout Christian civilization for a millennium, were, nonetheless, far removed from the more radical inwardness of enlightenment philosophers such as René Descartes and John Locke. In Descartes' philosophy, the vision of a God given meaningful order involving a spiritual essence or expressive dimension within the world was altogether absent. God, moral value and virtue could not be found within the meaningful order of the world. For Descartes, the world and the human body were mechanisms. The mind was immaterial and rational. Understanding the world, our place in the world and the power of God depended on a rational objectification of the material world and a reflexive mental turn in which an individual came to see the mind as a mental, immaterial object that was autonomous from the material mechanistic world. For Descartes, the mind was free from material control and the mind was capable of rational, instrumental control of the material world. Mind was no longer an integral part of worldly activity. Rather, mind had disengaged from the world. Following Descartes, Taylor notes, Locke's understanding of the mind also involved a radical disengagement from the world. However, unlike Descartes, whose understanding of the mental depended on an inward reasoning that was autonomous from the surrounding world, Locke rejected the possibility of innate ideas. For Locke, understanding the world and mankind’s place in the world depended on the sense impressions that our senses provided. Experience of the world was constituted by simple ideas given by sensual impressions. Reflection combined these ideas into more complex ideas. Understanding of the world was no more than the combination of sense impressions. The mind itself had become a mechanism that constructed and organized understandings through the building blocks of simple ideas. Whereas Plato saw reasoning as inherent in a vision of a meaningful world, Locke saw reasoning as a mechanistic procedure that was able to make sense not only of the surrounding world but also of the mind itself. Taylor refers to the radical reflexivity that allows the mind to objectify itself as a "punctual self". The person can now look at his own reasoning, will and desires as though these were extrinsic and, according to Locke, manipulable objects. The self that looks upon his own mind is extensionless, "it is nowhere but in this power to fix things as objects." Part III: The Affirmation of Ordinary Life Taylor argues that as the scientific revolution exemplified in the work of Nicolaus Copernicus and Sir Isaac Newton took hold in Western civilization, a shift occurred in the hierarchical evaluations placed on many life goods. The warrior ethic had remained in the valuation placed on many life goods and still remains today. Following Aristotle and Plato, being a warrior, aristocrat, or active citizen involved engaging in activities of governance, scholarship, or military prowess that were of higher value than the common day-to-day activities of production. The Protestant movement in religion, however, eschewed the hierarchical governance of religious life. Moreover, there had been a philosophical shift towards an empirical approach to human understanding that had emerged with the scientific revolution and had been articulated by Locke (and Francis Bacon before him). The logical proofs for understanding required by medieval scholars had been displaced by requirements for practical demonstration that valued the work of craftsmen such as watchmakers and lens-grinders. Along with these changes in religious and philosophical practice, there arose an affirmation of ordinary life. The daily life of family and production, along with the value of being a father, a carpenter, or a farmer, was held as a moral good. The transposition of values towards an affirmation of ordinary life emerged within a changing understanding of the cosmic order. The eighteenth-century mechanistic understanding of universe and the human mind did not give rise to an atheist understanding of the cosmos. Rather, the mechanisms discovered through practical, empirical investigation were understood as God's work. A belief in deism emerged, though never uncontested—namely, that miracles and revelation were not required as a proof of God's existence. Rather, the natural order itself was sufficient proof. Mankind lived within a God-given order, and life was determined by that order. Taylor argues that within a deist order, the road to salvation was no longer determined simply by a person's position in the world and his or her actions, but also the manner in which one lives one's life—"worshipfully" according to Protestants or "rationally" according to Locke. Within a deist order, the question arose as to how one chooses the manner in which to lead one's life and why one would value a rational or worshipful manner of living. The answer could no longer be through revelation, nor was it manifest in a mechanistic world. Again the answer was found within the mind, but it could not be found in a capacity to reason, for such an answer would be circular; that is, through reasoning we come to love reason. Rather, as articulated by the philosopher Francis Hutcheson and shortly thereafter by David Hume, our moral evaluations of the good depend on our moral sentiments. There was a natural, and—in the Deist tradition—God-given, inclination towards the good. Part IV: The Voice of Nature Taylor outlines two responses to Lockean deism and the question of moral sources that followed from it. On the one hand, Kant sought to parse moral evaluation from nature by arguing that moral choice and evaluations depended solely on the application of reason. On the other hand, the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau followed the moral sentiment thesis of Hume. Rousseau contrasted the inherent good of nature within mankind to the corrupting influence of society without. Moreover, the application of reason could lead a person away from the good towards the corrupt values of society. Contrary to the belief in original sin that had been prevalent since the time of Augustine, Rousseau saw the natural order as good and the natural sentiments of mankind as embedded within the benign natural order. The self was mysterious and hard to fathom. Only in conscience, the natural sentiments within us, could we apprehend the voice of nature. Within the radical reflexivity of Descartes and Locke, there had been a vision of a rational, calculable, and manipulable self. Rousseau, however, articulated a view in which the natural inclinations of the self were hidden deep within, barely apprehendable, and corrupted by the beliefs and reason of society. Following Rousseau, to understand the self was not simply to describe what was evident in a reflexive analysis of the mind, but a task of discovering and bringing to light what was hidden within. Art became a process of expressing—of making manifest—our hidden nature and, by so doing, creating and completing the discovery within the artistic expression. This expressivist turn was a turn away from the natural order of Lockean deism. Whereas Locke had seen the cosmos in terms of interlocking purposes that could be grasped by disengaged reason, the expressivism that followed Rousseau saw a natural, yet not exoterically available, source of life that could be shaped and given a real form through human expression. Part V: Subtler Languages Following the expressivist turn, Taylor notes, "The moral or spiritual order of things must come to us indexed to a personal vision" (p. 428). Moral evaluations have become mediated by the imagination. The scientific ethos and the naturalist's recognition that moral understandings are created subjectively—a subjectivity that was entirely absent from the logos of Plato and Aristotle—does not allow us to abandon the radical reflexivity; a reflexivity that has become deeply entrenched within the self-understandings of those raised within the Western tradition. Personal experience, the resonance of experience on our feelings and the creation of understanding through expression have become integral aspects of the modern identity. Taylor broadly divides the sources for contemporary Western qualitative evaluations of moral value into three broad strands; (1) the theistic grounding as articulated by Augustine; (2) the naturalism of disengaged reason that is typically associated with the scientific outlook; and (3) the romantic expressivism articulated by Rousseau. The moral frameworks within which we make strong evaluations as to the value of life goods appear irredeemably fractured along these three strands. And yet, the procedural neo-Kantian and utilitarian moral frameworks adopted so readily by Western societies still maintain a general consensus around key goods—such as human rights and dignity of life—along all three of the moral axes discussed earlier. Possibly, Taylor argued, this largely unquestioned consensus originates in the shared moral sources for all three sources of our moral evaluations; sources that can be found in the theistic and deist history of Western civilization. Conclusion: The Conflicts of Modernity There is broad agreement in modern culture about moral standards: "the demand for universal justice and beneficence ... the claims of equality ... freedom and self-rule ... and ... the avoidance of death and suffering." But there is disagreement about moral sources that support the agreement. Taylor explains how these sources are threefold: theism, "a naturalism of disengaged reason", extending to scientism, and Romanticism or its modernist successors. Beyond the disagreement on moral sources is the conflict between disengaged reason and Romanticism/modernism, that instrumental reason empties life of meaning. Then there is disagreement between the Romantics and the modernists on morality, whether an aesthetic life could be spontaneously moral, or whether "the highest spiritual ideals threaten to lay the most crushing burdens on mankind." Taylor criticizes the critics as too narrow, and too blind. Rationalist critics of Romanticism often forget how much they "seek 'fulfillment' and 'expression.'" Opponents of technology often forget how it was disengaged reason that proposed freedom, individual rights, and the affirmation of ordinary life. Radical opponents and repudiators of modern life appeal to a "universal freedom from domination." Against all this blindness and "partisan narrowness" Taylor sees hope "implicit in Judaeo-Christian theism ... and ... its central promise of a divine affirmation of the human". See also Identity (social science) References Footnotes Bibliography Further reading 1989 non-fiction books Analytic philosophy literature Books by Charles Taylor (philosopher) English-language books Harvard University Press books

Sex and Culture

Sex and Culture is a 1934 book by English social anthropologist J. D. Unwin concerning the correlation between a society's level of "cultural achievement" and its level of sexual restraint. The book concluded with the theory that as societies develop, they become more sexually liberal, accelerating the social entropy of the society, thereby diminishing its "creative" and "expansive" energy. According to Unwin, after a nation becomes prosperous, it becomes increasingly liberal concerning sexual morality. It thus loses its cohesion, impetus and purpose, which he claims is irrevocable. Unwin also stated that absolute monogamy required legal equality between men and women. Content Unwin's study of 80 native cultures and 6 civilizations led him to conclude that the operant factor behind the cultural decay of a society is largely due to the loosening of sexual conventions and the lessening of monogamous relationships. He purports that through stricter sexual conventions such as abstinence, nations channel their sexual energy into aggressive expansion, conquering "less energetic" countries, as well as into art, science, reform and other indicators of high cultural achievement. By 'civilized' societies the book refers specifically to the following sixteen historical peoples: Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Hellenes, Persians, Hindus, Chinese, Japanese, Sassanids, Arabs (Moors), Romans, Teutons, and Anglo-Saxons. Unwin divides the civilisations into four groups in order to compare how far along each one is in terms of progress. The categories are, from the lowest level of sexual restraint to the highest, 'zoistic', 'manistic', 'deistic' and 'rationalistic'. Unwin bases his categories on certain social phenomena that he observed in his study of the 86 world cultures, phenomena that he found coincided with varying levels of prenuptial chastity: Zoistic: He describes societies that do not practice any form of prenuptial chastity as being in the zoistic condition. Manistic: He describes societies that did not practice prenuptial chastity or who practiced limited chastity and who paid respects to the dead ('tendance') as being in the manistic cultural condition. Deistic: He describes societies in which prenuptial chastity was practiced and who built temples and who had priests as deistic. Rationalistic: Unwin does not give a precise definition of what constitutes a rationalistic culture but describes it as the cultural condition that emerges when a society has been in the deistic condition for long enough to appreciate "a new conception of the power in the universe, based on the yet unknown" that is the result of a widening scope of understanding of the natural. Unwin writes that "such a society is in the rationalistic condition. The advance to that condition depends not only on the reduction of sexual opportunity but also upon its preservation at a minimum." According to Unwin, among the studied cultures, only three can be considered to have reached the rationalistic cultural state before entering a cultural decline: the Athenians, Romans and English. The book concludes with the assertion that, in order to maintain a rationalistic society, sexual drive should be controlled and shifted to more productive work. Unwin notes that women should enjoy the same legal rights as men and that the condition for a high level of cultural achievement lies in restricting prenuptial sexual opportunity rather than a state of patriarchy, although the two have historically coincided. The books states that the effect of sexual constraints, either pre or post-nuptial, has always led to increased flourishing of a culture. Conversely, increased sexual freedom always led to the collapse of a culture three generations later. The highest flourishing of culture had the most powerful combination: pre-nuptial chastity coupled with “absolute monogamy”. Rationalist cultures that retained this combination for at least three generations exceeded all other cultures in every area, including literature, art, science, furniture, architecture, engineering, and agriculture. Only three out of the eighty-six cultures studied ever attained this level. Reception Aldous Huxley described Sex and Culture as "a work of the highest importance". A contemporary review in 1935 was positive. References External links Sex and Culture on Archive.org 1934 non-fiction books English-language books English non-fiction books Non-fiction books about sexuality

Magnitizdat

Magnitizdat was the process of copying and distributing audio tape recordings that were not commercially available in the Soviet Union. It is analogous to samizdat, the method of disseminating written works that could not be officially published under Soviet political censorship. It is technically similar to bootleg recordings, except it has a political dimension not usually present in the latter term. Terminology The term magnitizdat comes from the Russian words magnitofon and izdatel’stvo. Technology Magnetic tape recorders were rare in the Soviet Union before the 1960s. During the 1960s, the Soviet Union mass-produced reel-to-reel tape recorders for the consumer market. In addition, Western and Japanese tape recorders were sold through secondhand shops and the black market. According to Alexei Yurchak, in contrast to samizdat, “magnitizdat managed to elude state control by virtue of its technological availability and privacy.” While the state controlled the ownership of printing presses, Soviet citizens were allowed to own reel-to-reel tape recorders. Making more than six typewritten copies of a document to distribute was forbidden, but there was no legal limit on copying tapes. In addition, only the performer on the recording was considered responsible for the content. Bard songs Live recordings of bard songs performed at informal gatherings were the first works to be distributed as magnitizdat. Bulat Okudzhava, Alexander Galich, Vladimir Vysotsky, and Yuli Kim were among the bards whose music was distributed as magnitizdat. Their lyrics dealt with political themes and contained criticisms of Stalin, labor camps, and contemporary Soviet life. The recordings were copied and recopied in private and distributed through networks of friends and acquaintances throughout the Soviet Union. Recordings of bard songs were also brought to the West by tourists and emigres and then broadcast on Radio Liberty. Rock music In rock music circles, magnitizdat was initially used for recording short-wave radio broadcasts and copying vinyl records of Western rock music. Reel-to-reel reproductions of Western rock were sold on black market. Recordings of Western artists such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Donna Summer were distributed throughout the Soviet Union as magnitizdat. By the late 1970s, magnitizdat was used to distribute Soviet rock music as well. Soviet rock groups began recording albums, also known as magnitoal'bomy, as opposed to live concert recordings. Andrei Tropillo was the first to set up a studio to record Russian rock bands on a regular basis. The AnTrop logo appeared on recordings from Tropillo's studio. Tropillo’s distribution method usually consisted of handing ten master copies on reel-to-reel tapes to recording cooperatives, which then re-copied and distributed the tapes to other cooperatives and cities. In 1986, Red Wave, a compilation album featuring tracks from several bands associated with the Leningrad Rock Club, was released in the U.S. by Big Time Records. The album contained tracks from magnitoal’bomy originally recorded in Tropillo’s studio and brought out of the Soviet Union by Joanna Stingray. Punk The first punk recording in the Soviet Union has been attributed to the band Avtomaticheskie Udovletvoriteli. One of their performances in Moscow was recorded with a single microphone and released as magnitizdat in 1981. The Siberian punk group Grazhdanskaya Oborona recorded songs on minimal equipment in Egor Letov's home studio. Letov would then send his albums to acquaintances across the country, who made further copies of the tapes. Other Siberian punk bands followed Letov's example by limiting their live performances to apartment concerts and making recordings with reel-to-reel tape recorders and microphones. See also Samizdat Roentgenizdat Notes References Bibliography Underground culture Smuggling Culture of the Soviet Union Music industry Tape recording

Cultural learning

Cultural learning is the way a group of people or animals within a society or culture tend to learn and pass on information. Learning styles can be greatly influenced by how a culture socializes with its children and young people. Cross-cultural research in the past fifty years has primarily focused on differences between Eastern and Western cultures. Some scholars believe that cultural learning differences may be responses to the physical environment in the areas in which a culture was initially founded. These environmental differences include climate, migration patterns, war, agricultural suitability, and endemic pathogens. Cultural evolution, upon which cultural learning is built, is believed to be a product of only the past 10,000 years and to hold little connection to genetics. Overview Cultural learning allows individuals to acquire skills that they would be unable to do independently over the course of their lifetimes. Cultural learning is believed to be particularly important for humans. Humans are weaned at an early age compared to the emergence of adult dentition. The immaturity of dentition and the digestive system, the time required for growth of the brain, and the rapid skeletal growth needed for the young to reach adult height and strength mean that children have special digestive needs and are dependent on adults for a long period of time. This time of dependence also allows time for cultural learning to occur before passage into adulthood. The basis of cultural learning is based on; people create, remember, and deal with ideas. They understand and apply specific systems of symbolic meaning. Cultures have been compared to sets of control mechanisms, plans, recipes, rules, or instructions. Cultural differences have been found in academic motivation, achievement, learning style, conformity, and compliance. Cultural learning is dependent on innovation, or the ability to create new responses to the environment and the ability to communicate or imitate the behaviour of others. Animals that are able to solve problems and imitate the behaviour of others are therefore able to transmit information across generations. Cass Sunstein described in 2007 how Wikipedia moves us past the rigid limits of socialist planning that Friedrich Hayek attacked on the grounds that "no planner could possibly obtain the dispersed bits of information held by individual members of society. Hayek insisted that the knowledge of individuals, taken as a whole, is far greater than that of any commission or board, however diligent and expert." Examples An example of cultural transmission can be seen in post-World War II Japan during the American occupation of the country. There were political, economic, and social changes in Japan influenced by America. Some changes include changes to their constitution, reforms, and the consumption of media, which were influenced by American occupiers. The occupation of Japan by the Japanese turned into a strong link between nations. Over time, Japanese culture began to accept American touchstones like jazz and baseball, while Americans were introduced to Japanese cuisine and entertainment. A modern approach to cultural transmission would be that of the internet. One example would be millennials, who "are both products of their culture as well as influencers." Millennials are often the ones teaching older generations how to navigate the web. The teacher has to accommodate to the learning process of the student, in this case an older generation student, in order to transmit the information fluently and in a manner that is easier to understand. This goes hand in hand with the Communication Accommodation Theory, which "elaborates the human tendency to adjust their behaviour while interacting." The end result would be that, with the help of someone else, people are able to share their newly acquired skills among people in their culture, which was not possible before. Humans also tend to follow "communicative" ways of learning, as seen in a study by Hanna Marno, a researcher at the International School for Advanced Studies. In the study, infants followed an adult's action of pressing a button to light up a lamp based on the adult's "non-verbal (eye contact) and verbal cues." In non-human animals Enculturation can also be used to describe the raising of an animal in which the animal acquires traits and skills that would not otherwise be acquired if it were raised by another of its own species. Cultural learning is dependent on innovation, or the ability to create new responses to the environment and the ability to communicate or imitate the behavior of others. Animals that are able to solve problems and imitate the behavior of others are therefore able to transmit information across generations. A wide variety of social animals learn from other members of their group or pack. Wolves, for example, learn multiple hunting strategies from the other pack members. A large number of bird species also engage in cultural learning; such learning is critical for the survival of some species. Dolphins also pass on knowledge about tool use. See also Educational anthropology Intercultural competence Intercultural communication principles Socialization Dual inheritance theory References Inline General van Shaik, Carel P. & Burkart, Judith M. (2011). "Social learning and evolution: the cultural intelligence hypothesis". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 366(1567), 1008-1016 Chang, Lei; Mak, Miranda C. K.; Li, Tong; Wu, Bao Pei; Chen, Bin Bin; & Lu, Hui Jing (2011). "Cultural Adaptations to Environmental Variability: An Evolutionary Account of East–West Differences" (PDF). Educational Psychology Review, 23(1), 99-129. doi:10.1007/s10648-010-9149-0 Lehmann, L. L., Feldman, M. W., & Kaeuffer, R. R. (2010). "Cumulative cultural dynamics and the co-evolution of cultural innovation and transmission: an ESS model for panmictic and structured populations". Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 23(11), 2356-2369. doi:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2010.02096.x MacDonald, K. (2007). "Cross-cultural Comparison of Learning in Human Hunting". Human Nature, 18(4), 386-402. doi:10.1007/s12110-007-9019-8 "The American Occupation of Japan, 1945-1952 | Asia for Educators | Columbia University". Applied learning Human communication

Bicultural identity

Bicultural identity is the condition of being oneself regarding the combination of two cultures. The term can also be defined as biculturalism, which is the presence of two different cultures in the same country or region. As a general term, culture involves the behaviors and belief characteristics of a particular social, ethnic, or age group. Within culture, we have cultural effects, which are the shared behaviors and customs we learn from the institutions around us. An example of a cultural effect would be how an individual's personality is strongly influenced by the biological and social norms he is exposed to. Another cultural effect would be that in some societies it would be more acceptable to dress or act in a certain way. In regards to bicultural identity, an individual may face conflict assimilating into both cultures or finding a balance between both. An individual may face challenges assimilating into the whole, collective culture. Similarly, an individual may face difficulty balancing their identity within themselves due to the influence of both of their cultures. Being an individual with identity plurality can be hard mentally and emotionally. The different levels of biculturalism can be defined through the way people are able to simultaneously manage their two selves. The more they alternate between them, the more cognitive complexity they face, since they avoid cultural duality and do not practice handling both cultures at the same time. It is through identity integration that they will be able to solve the problem and alleviate the tolls that come with identity plurality. Bicultural identity also may have positive effects on the individual, in terms of the additional knowledge they acquire from belonging to more than one culture. Furthermore, with the growing number of racial minorities in American society, individuals that identify with more than one culture may have more linguistic ability. Biculturalism and personality Culture affects the personality of an individual because the individual may react in a way that is reflective of the knowledge one acquires from one or more culture(s). Problems may arise when ideals in one culture are not connected to another culture, which may cause generalizations about personality. Personality is shaped by both cultures and thus generalizations should not be made based on one single culture. One's culture also influences one's hormonal changes, one's interaction with violence and one's family values. For example, Hispanic culture often requires older children to take care and/or help raise younger siblings, while mainstream American culture interprets parents as the sole caregivers. Another example of this difference would be religious preference and or practice. Cultures other than the American culture may often identify more with certain religions and are often more in tune with their religious beliefs. Measuring bicultural identity Bicultural Identity Integration One construct to measure bicultural identity is the Bicultural Identity Integration (BII) construct. It is a relatively new construct and was proposed in 2002 by Benet-Martínez, Leu, Lee & Morris. The BII looks at how the bicultural individual perceives his bicultural identities and whether they are compatible or oppositional. It also seeks to identify the big five aspects of an individual's personality, including aspects such as sociability, activity and emotionality. The BII seeks to find whether an individual has a cultural distance or conflict within one's cultures, which in turn helps indicate how biculturally competent we are. Low BII bicultural individuals have difficulties in incorporating both cultures into a cohesive identity and tend to see both cultures as highly dissimilar. Bicultural individuals with high BII on the other hand, see their identities as complementary and themselves as part of a “third” culture, which integrates elements from both their cultures. According to Margaret Mead, a cultural anthropologist, individuals respond in a more stable fashion when their cultural contexts are understood. Researchers wanted to examine how these differences could relate to other factors and the results are insightful. BII is significantly associated with the psychological and social adjustments of the bicultural. Low BII bicultural individuals are found to have inferior bilingual proficiency, experience more anxiety, depression and are more neurotic and less open than bicultural individuals with high BII. More importantly, low BII bicultural individuals are not chameleon-like. They resist the frame switching and are more likely to respond in ways inconsistent with the cultural cues. In other words, when low BII Chinese-Americans are presented with American cues, unlike high BII bicultural individuals, they would not behave like Americans but instead, more like a Chinese. However, the identity struggle for bicultural individuals can be made less arduous. It is important to note that like other personality traits, BII is malleable to contextual factors. BII can be increased by asking bicultural individuals to recall positive cross-cultural exchanges or like in another study, make high-level construals. These findings can be useful in for example, helping immigrants to cope with their new environment. Bicultural identity and language Language is an essential aspect of any culture. Individuals are able to maintain key aspects of their culture by maintaining their culture's language. Language is important because it is an oral form of how people interact with other people within a society. Language reinforces the ties among the people who speak the same language, and thus encourages cultural bonding. Thus, by preserving the language within both of one's cultures, one can maintain one's integration within each culture. However, this can result in a difficulty in integrating one's cultures if each has a distinct, different language as it can prevent outsiders from understanding that particular culture. Cultural frame switching The concept of cultural frame switching (CFS) or double consciousness made popular by W.E.B Du Bois addresses how an individual switches between cultural frames or systems in response to their environment. The presence of culture-specific peers can elicit culture-specific values. CFS can be used to describe the switching of different language use depending on the context. Thus, CFS can be connected to cultural accommodation, which is seen when bilinguals respond to situations with the language that applies best to the situation present. It is evident that language can have an effect on an individual's thinking process; this is because the language itself primes the individual's cultural values, attitudes and memory which in turn affects behavior. Thus, language has a powerful effect on the way in which an individual responds to change. Cultural perspectives African American culture African American culture is also known as black culture in the United States and the identity of African American culture is rooted in the historical experience of the African American people. It is rooted in Africa, and is a blend of sub-Saharan African and Sahelean cultures. Due to aspects of African American culture that were accentuated by the slavery period, African American culture is dynamic. Within the African American culture, race or physical differences led to mass murder, and violence against racial groups. These occurrences may affect an individual's perception of their African American culture. In America, Black and White differences are the most significant groupings largely because of American history. The US was founded on the principle of “all men are equal” and yet slavery existed. This is what resulted in the American Dilemma. Thus, due to historical reasons, and because they are often stereotyped, African Americans have difficulty assimilating with their culture and American culture. Asian culture Individuals having origins within the Far East, Southeast Asia or the Indian subcontinent are referred to as Asian under the U.S. Census Bureau. Asians complete 4.8% of the U.S. population alone. Asians have had the highest educational attainment level and median household income of any racial demographic in the USA and attain the highest median personal income overall, . Thus, Asian culture is often depicted as the most similar culture to American Culture. Asians often communicate non-verbally and/or indirectly, and often are not as bold or upfront as other cultures in terms of their communication. The Asian way of life is much more group-oriented or holistic and thus the way in which they interpret the world is systematically different from American Culture in terms of thought process and lifestyle. This may make it difficult for Asian in the USA to assimilate easily into American culture. Hispanic culture Hispanics and Latinos have origins in the countries of Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula consisting of Spain and Portugal. Hispanics are very racially diverse. Hispanics often are very religiously oriented and focus on family values and the importance of intergenerational connections. This may cause difficulty in integration with American culture, as the Hispanic community often emphasizes the importance of helping one's family and advancing as a family rather than simply individual success, which is more prominent within American Culture. Similarly, Hispanics may have difficulty associating with American Culture because of the language culture, as most Hispanics can speak Spanish. The ability to speak Spanish is valued greatly within Hispanic culture, as it is greatly used during social gatherings and amongst extended family. The Spanish language is a significant part of Hispanic culture, and because of the vast amount of racial differences within Hispanics, the way in which Spanish is spoken within the different racial groups is often different. This makes it not only difficult to assimilate into American culture but to often assimilate with the different races in Hispanic communities. European culture Europeans in the United States have a different culture from American culture. For example, Irish culture is different from American culture. Immigrant experience Immigrants particularly find it difficult to assimilate both their cultural contexts. Immigrants need to reconcile both their current host cultures and their culture of origin, which is where they grew up. Immigrants culturally evolve through a process of adaptation and assimilation. Immigrants are usually influenced by more dominant values that they have learned in their native cultures. Immigrants encounter a major upheaval by moving far away from home and sometimes may never find themselves connected to either culture. Immigrants face many stresses, which can raise their risk for substance abuse and other psychological stressors. Developing a bicultural identity involves blending two cultures together and learning to be competent within their two cultures. Immigrants and children of these individuals may be more at risk for victimization, poverty, and the need for assistance from the government. Immigrant parents for example may struggle to find a balance in their new lives and may be so busy keeping up with the demands that may be less involved in the community and in turn less involved with their child's education. With immigrants, language barriers may also bring hardship in terms of communication with natives of their less dominant culture. Immigrants may not adapt fully because of the language barriers holding them back from even simple conversation. Acculturation is the process in which a bicultural individual or immigrant adopts the social norms of the mainstream society. The cultural gap between immigrant parents and their children may widen due to acculturation because younger generations find it easier to adapt to the new culture. Family relations may be strained due to this issue. Children of immigrant parents may enjoy more mainstream culture, but may also want to stick to their families’ roots in order to please their caregivers. Immigrants and bicultural families do have more positive roles as well. They have strong commitments to family and have a dream for a better life. This in turns gives families a sense of purpose and connection and makes the family unit stronger. Native customs such as holidays and religious affiliations may also support the family unit and promote unity all around. Integration Social and workplace interactions Individuals with bicultural identity face issues around stereotype threat. Others may be perceived negatively, or their judgments may in turn alter the way that one behaves in certain situations. For example, with standardized testing, African American students in low-income areas often do worse on a given test due to the expectations for them to do worse. Stereotype threat is so powerful that it may extend on to different areas of life, such as the workplace. It is a multidimensional concept that may affect an individual on many levels. Stereotype threat makes it harder for individuals to integrate successfully with their peers if they feel judged or feel pressures to exceed in certain ways especially if their dual cultural roles may be in conflict with one another. These scenarios are contingent on an individual's success with acculturation strategies. A bicultural individual's integration into a workplace also depends on the cultural makeup of his or her team. A team can be categorized as culturally homogenous, culturally diverse, or possessing a cultural faultline. A bicultural is more likely to integrate with a team, possessing the skills to form a cultural attachment with homogenous or heterogenous teams by traversing cultural barriers. Family dynamics and integration Caregivers also face a dilemma with their children who have bicultural identities; they want to instill pride in their children, but also must prepare their children for prejudice without making them feel inferior to other cultural groups. For example, African-American parents must socialize their children in such a manner where they will be prepared to face discrimination in society, but they also must preserve their culture in such a way that makes them feel prideful. This dilemma that parents face makes it harder for individuals to feel comfortable within social groups and may minimize the different cultures that individuals surround themselves with. Some individuals can develop a more multicultural outlook and feel confident being around many kinds of people, whereas others may have an issue with this and may stick to their own cultural group. Academics and attitudes towards education Academics within individuals with bicultural identity may also be aversely affected in terms of stereotype threat. An individual may lose motivation in a scholastic setting due to the negative expectations placed on them. Attitudes may change within academics if a student feels as though he cannot do well due to societal constraints on his particular culture. Although this may discourage some, specific tests have been made in order to integrate culture within standardized testing. A system created by Jane Mercer, assumes that test results cannot be distanced from the culture and it focuses on comparisons among people within particular culture groups rather than between culture groups. This system has been applied to intelligence and ability examinations in order to combat the concern of disadvantaged minorities doing poorly due to their incapacity to do as well as their counterparts. See also Culture Cultural assimilation Multiculturalism Cultural psychology Cultural identity Identity Identity politics Language Bilingualism Plurilingualism References Further reading "Assimilation and Contrast Effects in Cultural Frame Switching". Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. "Multiracial Identity Integration: Perceptions of Conflict and Distance among Multiracial Individuals". Journal of Social Issues. Personality Cross-cultural psychology Majority–minority relations Interculturalism Cross-cultural studies National identity Sociology of culture

Continuum (measurement)

Continuum (: continua or continuums) theories or models explain variation as involving gradual quantitative transitions without abrupt changes or discontinuities. In contrast, categorical theories or models explain variation using qualitatively different states. In physics In physics, for example, the space-time continuum model describes space and time as part of the same continuum rather than as separate entities. A spectrum in physics, such as the electromagnetic spectrum, is often termed as either continuous (with energy at all wavelengths) or discrete (energy at only certain wavelengths). In contrast, quantum mechanics uses quanta, certain defined amounts (i.e. categorical amounts) which are distinguished from continuous amounts. In mathematics and philosophy A good introduction to the philosophical issues involved is John Lane Bell's essa in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. A significant divide is provided by the law of excluded middle. It determines the divide between intuitionistic continua such as Brouwer's and Lawvere's, and classical ones such as Stevin's and Robinson's. Bell isolates two distinct historical conceptions of infinitesimal, one by Leibniz and one by Nieuwentijdt, and argues that Leibniz's conception was implemented in Robinson's hyperreal continuum, whereas Nieuwentijdt's, in Lawvere's smooth infinitesimal analysis, characterized by the presence of nilsquare infinitesimals: "It may be said that Leibniz recognized the need for the first, but not the second type of infinitesimal and Nieuwentijdt, vice versa. It is of interest to note that Leibnizian infinitesimals (differentials) are realized in nonstandard analysis, and nilsquare infinitesimals in smooth infinitesimal analysis". In social sciences, psychology and psychiatry In social sciences in general, psychology and psychiatry included, data about differences between individuals, like any data, can be collected and measured using different levels of measurement. Those levels include dichotomous (a person either has a personality trait or not) and non-dichotomous approaches. While the non-dichotomous approach allows for understanding that everyone lies somewhere on a particular personality dimension, the dichotomous (nominal categorical and ordinal) approaches only seek to confirm that a particular person either has or does not have a particular mental disorder. Expert witnesses particularly are trained to help courts in translating the data into the legal (e.g. 'guilty' vs. 'not guilty') dichotomy, which apply to law, sociology and ethics. In linguistics In linguistics, the range of dialects spoken over a geographical area that differ slightly between neighboring areas is known as a dialect continuum. A language continuum is a similar description for the merging of neighboring languages without a clear defined boundary. Examples of dialect or language continuums include the varieties of Italian or German; and the Romance languages, Arabic languages, or Bantu languages. References External links Continuity and infinitesimals, John Bell, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Concepts in metaphysics Concepts in physics Concepts in the philosophy of science Mathematical concepts

Economics of the arts and literature

Economics of the arts and literature or cultural economics (used below for convenience) is a branch of economics that studies the economics of creation, distribution, and the consumption of works of art, literature and similar creative and/or cultural products. For a long time, the concept of the "arts" were confined to visual arts (e.g., painting) and performing arts (music, theatre, dance) in the Anglo-Saxon tradition. Usage has widened since the beginning of the 1980s with the study of cultural industry (cinema, television programs, book and periodical publishing and music publishing) and the economy of cultural institutions (museums, libraries, historic buildings). The field is coded as JEL: Z11 in the Journal of Economic Literature classification system used for article searches. Introduction Cultural economics is concerned with the arts in a broad sense. The goods considered have creative content, but that is not enough to qualify as a cultural good. Designer goods such as clothes and drapes are not considered usually to be works of art or culture. Cultural goods are those with a value determined by symbolic content rather than physical characteristics. (For further considerations, see also Cultural Institutions Studies). Economic thinking has been applied in ever more areas in the last decennia, including pollution, corruption and education. Works of art and culture have a specific quality, which is their uniqueness. While other economic goods, such as crude oil or wheat are generic, interchangeable commodities (given a specific grade of the product), there is only one example of a famous painting such as the Mona Lisa, and only one example of Rodin's well-known sculpture The Thinker. While copies or reproductions can be made of these works of art, and while many inexpensive posters of the Mona Lisa and small factory-made replicas of The Thinker are sold, neither full-size copies nor inexpensive reproductions are viewed as substitutes for the real artworks, in the way that a consumer views a pound of Grade A sugar from Cuba as a fully equivalent substitute for a pound of Grade A sugar from United States or Dominican Republic. As there is no equivalent item or substitute for these famous works of art, classical economist Adam Smith held it was impossible to value them. Alfred Marshall noted that the demand for a certain kind of cultural good can depend on its consumption: The more you have listened to a particular kind of music, the more you appreciate. In his economic framework, these goods do not have the usual decreasing marginal utility. Key academic works in cultural economics include those of Baumol and Bowen (Performing Arts, The Economic Dilemma, 1966), of Gary Becker on addictive goods, and of Alan Peacock (public choice). This summary has been divided into sections on the economic study of the performing arts, on the market of individual pieces of art, the art market in cultural industries, the economics of cultural heritage and the labour market in the art sector. Performing arts: Baumol and cultural economics The seminal paper by William Baumol and Bowen introduced the term cost disease for a relative cost growth of live performances. This cost growth explains the increasing dependency of this kind of art on state subsidies. It occurs when the consumable good is labour itself. To understand this phenomenon, compare the change in the cost of performing the Molière play Tartuffe in 1664 and in 2007 with the change in cost of calculating a large number of sums from an accounting ledger. In 1664, you needed two hours and twelve actors to perform Molière's play, and it would take, say, twelve accountants working for two hours to add up all the sums in an accounting ledger. In 2007, a single accountant with a $10 calculator can add the sums in 20 minutes, but you still need two hours and twelve actors for the Molière play. Artists must make a considerable investment in human capital (e.g., training), and needs to be paid accordingly. The artists' pay needs to rise along with that of the population in general. As the latter is following the general productivity in the economy, the cost of a play will rise with general productivity, while the actors' productivity does not rise. There are two lines of thought in subsequent literature on the economics of the performing arts: The first concentrates on the existence of productivity growth in some areas of production, thus contradicting the relevance of cost disease. Staying with the "Tartuffe" example, the same performance can be viewed by an ever-larger audience by improvements in the design of theatres, and by the introduction of microphones, television and recording. The second is concerned with the allocation of subsidies to the cultural sector. While these should be in the general public interest, they may have an income distribution effect, e.g. if they reduce cost to the relatively well-off part of society. This is the case when the well-off are overrepresented in the audiences of subsidized plays, or when subsidies go to a small elitist group of artists. Market for artworks Two segments of the market in the visual arts can be distinguished: works of art that are familiar and have a history, and contemporary works that are more easily influenced by fashion and new discoveries. Both markets, however, are oligopolistic, i.e., there are limited numbers of sellers and buyers (oligopsony). Two central questions on the working of the markets are: How are prices determined, and what is the return on artworks, compared to the return on financial assets. Price determination Components of a work of art, like raw stone, tubes of paint or unpainted canvas, in general have a value much lower than the finished products, such as a sculpture or a finished painting. Also, the amount of labour needed to produce an item does not explain the big price differences between works of art. It seems that the value is much more dependent on potential buyers', and experts' perception of it. This perception has three elements: First, social value, which is the social status the buyer has by owning it. The artist thus has an "artistic capital". Second, the artistic value, compared to contemporary works, or as importance to later generations. Third, the price history of the item, if a buyer uses this for their expectation of a future price at which they might sell the item again (given the oligopolistic market structure). Three kinds of economic agents determine these values. Specific experts like gallery owners or museum directors use the first, social value. Experts like art historians and art professors use the second, artistic value. Buyers who buy works of art as an investment use the third, the price history and expectations for future price increases. Art market and investment Some major financial institutions, banks and insurance companies, have had considerable return rates on investments in art works in the 1990s. These rates have not slowed down at the same time as the rates on stock exchanges, in the early 1990s. This may indicate a diversification opportunity to invest in tangible assets such as art works. Apart from this evidence of successful investment, the amount of data available has stimulated study of the market. Many works are sold at auctions. These transactions are thus very transparent. This has made it possible to establish price databases, with prices of some items going back to 1652. An intangible gain in terms of pleasure of having a work of art could explain this partly. However, before interpreting the figures, it should be borne in mind that art is often exempt of many kinds of taxes. In 1986, Baumol made an estimate of an average yearly rate of return of 0.55 percent for works of art, against a rate of return of 2.5 percent for financial assets, over a 20-year period. Legal criticism Throughout many art auctions, the source of the money of the bidder is often hard to identify or the works are purchased by an anonymous buyer. Law enforcement officials say that the high amount of secrecy has become a drawback, as it leaves the process available to money launderers. According to the FBI and Interpol, “in comparison with other trade sectors, the art market faces a higher risk of exposure to dubious financial practices” because “the volume of legally questionable transactions is noticeably higher than in other global markets.” Cultural industries Some famous artworks such as the Mona Lisa painting are not reproducible (at least in the sense of creating another copy that would be seen as equivalent in value), but there are many cultural goods whose value does not depend on a single, individual copy. Books, recordings, movies get some of their value from the existence of many copies of the original. These are the products of major cultural industries, which are the book industry, the music industry and the film industry. These markets are characterized by: Uncertainty of value. The demand for a good (market success) is hard to predict. For example, with movies, even if a film's plot, themes and selection of actors has been extensively tested using focus groups and polls, and even if the movie uses popular A-list actors, this film may still be a box office bomb (e.g., Gigli, a 2003 American romantic comedy starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez). On the other hand, a low-budget film by an unknown director and an unknown cast, such as The Blair Witch Project can surprise the industry by being a major hit. This uncertainty is a characteristic of an experience good such as films, TV shows, musical theatre shows and music concerts. Infinite variety. You can differentiate between regular consumer products, e.g. cars, on basis of its characteristics. For example, a hatchback can be purchased from a number of manufacturers with a set list of options (e.g., automatic transmission, standard transmission, convertible, etc.), with the different options requiring different charges. Many general products allow classification on a relatively small number of such characteristics. Cultural goods, however, have a very high number of characteristics, which, on top of that, often are subjective. For example, an early 1990s band with loud, distorted electric guitar could be considered to be grunge, punk, heavy metal music or alternative rock by different music critics. This makes cultural products hard to compare. High concentration in the products which are traded or sold. A major part of the sales of cultural goods is concentrated in a very small number of bestsellers (e.g., with books), blockbusters (movies) or hit singles (pop music). In other words, the market for such cultural goods operates as a winner-take-all market. Short life cycle. Most cultural items are sold/traded shortly after their introduction or production. Some cultural goods, such as broadcast news, have little or no market value shortly after the broadcast. Of course, some cultural products may retain saleability for years or even decades, as with the small number of films that become cult movies (e.g., Rocky Horror Picture Show) or certain classic novels or albums that have enduring appeal (the "back catalogue" of a record label). High fixed costs. There is high cost before introduction of a new artwork or cultural product. Making a movie can cost millions of dollars; however the marginal cost of making an additional copy of the DVD may cost less than a dollar. Market structure The important cultural industries tend to have an oligopolistic market structure. The market is dominated by a few major companies, with the rest of the market consisting of many small companies. The latter may act as a filter or as "gatekeepers" for the artistic supply. A small company with a successful artist or good quality roster can be bought by one of the major companies. Big conglomerates, pooling TV and film production, have existed for decades. The 1990s have seen some mergers extending beyond the industry as such, and mergers of hardware producers with content providers. Anticipated gains from synergy and market power have not been realised, and from the early 2000s there has been a trend towards organisation along sector lines. Economics of cultural heritage Cultural heritage is reflected in goods and real estate. Management and regulation of museums has come under study in this area. Museums Museums, which have a conservatory role, and provide exhibitions to the general public, can be commercial, or on a non-profit base. In the second case, as they provide a public good, they pose the problems related to these goods: should they be self-financing, or be subsidized? One of the specific issues is the imbalance between the huge value of the collections in museums, and their budgets. Also, they are often located in places (city centres) where the cost of land is high, which limits their expansion possibilities. American museums exhibit only about half of their collection. Some museums in Europe, like the Pompidou Centre in France, show less than 5 percent of their collection. Apart from providing exhibitions, museums get proceeds from derived products, like catalogues and reproductions. They also produce at a more intangible level: They make collections. Out of so many pieces in the public domain, they make a selection based on their expertise, thus adding value to the mere existence of the items. The dual goal of conservation and providing exhibitions obviously presents a choice. On one hand the museum has, for conservation reasons, an interest in exhibiting as few items as possible, and it would select lesser known works and a specialized audience, to promote knowledge and research. On the other hand, the exhibition argument requires showing the major pieces from different cultures, to satisfy the demands from the public and to attract a large audience. When a government has made a choice about this, application of economic contract theory will help to implement this choice by showing how to use incentives to different managers (on the financial, conservatory side) to obtain the required result. Real estate and buildings Many countries have systems that protect historically significant buildings and structures. These are buildings or other structures that are deemed to have cultural importance or which are deemed to have heritage value. Owners get tax deductions or subsidies for restoration, in return for which they accept restrictions on modifications to the buildings or provide public access. Buildings that are often classified as heritage buildings include former or current Parliament buildings, cathedrals, courthouses, houses built in a recognized historical style, and even fairly regular houses, if the house was formerly the home of a famous politician, artist or inventor. Buildings with heritage status cannot typically be demolished. Depending on the nature of the heritage restrictions, the current owner may or may not be allowed to modify the outside or inside of the building. Such a system poses the same choice problems as museums do. There has been little study of this issue. Artists' labour market The labour market for artists is characterized by: There is an extremely unequal income distribution within the market segment. A very small group of artists earn a high proportion of the total income, while the average income is low. There is a structural excess supply of labour. There are always more people who would like to earn their income as an artist than there is demand for artists and artworks. For example, there are far more young indie rock bands aspiring to careers in music than there are available paid contracts in the recording industry. Due to this excess supply of labour, a nightclub owner has so many local young bands requesting to play at their venue that they can offer the bands little or no payment for their performance. There are intangible returns to labour, also called "nonpecuniary benefits" (this means non-financial, non-wage benefits). For example, a musician is able to spend their days creating beautiful music and working with other creative people, which is very satisfying. Due to these intangible returns, artists are often willing to accept lower wages than their qualifications would earn in a different market. For example, working with a famous musician may provide such great intangible benefits (e.g., it is exciting to meet and work with such a well-known performer) that a record producer may be able to ask musicians to record with the start musician for little or no payment. Non-separation of artist and work. While some workers in the cultural industries do not make a strong connection between their work tasks and their self-identity, for some types of artists, such as painters, sculptors and filmmakers, the image their artwork or creative output gives them is important to artists' sense of self. Whether this phenomenon occurs depends on a number of factors, such as the type of artistic job and individuals' perceptions. In the 2010s, many famous film directors view the movies they direct as directly identified with their artistic vision. However, an assistant director leading scenes in action films may see themself as a worker in a cultural industry, and they may not feel artistically identified with the films they work on. Star system The term "star system", coined by Sherwin Rosen, is used to explain why a small number of the artists and creators in the market, such as the celebrity A-list actors and top pop singers, earn most of the total earnings in a sector. Rosen's 1981 paper examined the economics of superstars to determine why "relatively small numbers of people earn enormous amounts of money and seem to dominate the fields in which they engage". Rosen argues that in superstar markets, "small differences in talent at the top of the distribution will translate into large differences in revenue." Rosen points out that "...sellers of higher talent charge only slightly higher prices than those of lower talent, but sell much larger quantities; their greater earnings come overwhelmingly from selling larger quantities than from charging higher prices". In cultural industries, the uncertainty about the quality of a product plays a key role in this. The consumer does not really know how good the product is, until they have consumed it (think of a movie), and the producer is confronted with the typical uncertainty in a cultural industry. The consumer looks for guidance in the price, reputation, or a famous name on the cover or poster. As the producer understands this using a famous director, actor or singer affects demand, they are prepared to pay a lot for a name considered a sign of quality (a star). Indeed, authors like Adler and Ginsburgh have given evidence that star status is determined by chance: in a musical contest, results were highly correlated with the order of performance. This randomness has been used to explain why the labor supply in the sector remains excessive: given the extreme gains of a star, and an irrational behaviour, or particular preferences, with respect to chance, unsuccessful artists keep trying, even when they are earning their money mostly in a different trade, such as waiting tables. A second argument is the possibility of intangible returns to artists' labour in terms of social status and lifestyle. For example, even a struggling DJ spends most of their time onstage on nightclubs and raves, which for some people is a desirable outcome. Production structure A case has been made for the existence of a different structure in the production of cultural goods . (See Cultural Institutions Studies.) An artist often considers a product to be an expression of themself, while the ordinary craftsperson is only concerned with their product, as far as it affects their pay or salary. For example, a painter who creates artworks that are displayed in museums may view their paintings as their artistic expression. On the other hand, a scene painter for a music theatre company may see themself as a craftsperson who is paid by the hour for doing painting. The artist may thus want restrict the use of their product, and they may object if a museum uses a reproduction of their painting to help sell cars or liquor. On the other hand, the scene painter may not object to commercial re-uses of their set painting, as they may see it just as a regular job. See also Philosophy of copyright Cultural economics The Price of Everything, 2018 documentary on contemporary art valuations The Lost Leonardo, 2021 documentary on the 2017 sale of the Salvador Mundi Notes References Baumol, William J. and William G. Bowen (1966). Performing Arts, The Economic Dilemma. Benhamou, Françoise (2002). L'Économie du Star System, Odile Jacob, Paris (France). Mark Blaug, 2001. "Where Are We Now on Cultural Economics," Journal of Economic Surveys, 15(2), pp. 123–14. Abstract. Caves, Richard E. (2000). Creative Industries, Harvard University Press. Description and preview. Frey, Bruno S. (2003). Arts & Economics: Analysis & Cultural Policy, Springer. Description and chapter-preview links. Ginsburgh, Victor A., & David Throsby (2006). Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, Description and chapter-abstract links. Peacock, Alan T., Ilde Rizzo, and Giorgio Brosio, 1994. Cultural Economics and Cultural Policies, Springer, , . Description and scroll to chapter-preview links. Scherer, Frederic M. (2008). "music markets, economics of," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract. Snowball, Jeanette D. (2008). Measuring the Value of Culture. Description and Arrow-page searchable chapter links. Throsby, David (2001), Economics and Culture, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (UK). (2008). "art, economics of," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract. Towse, Ruth ed. (2003). A Handbook of Cultural Economics, Edward Elgar. 494 pp. Contents. , van der Ploeg, Frederick, Marcel Canoy, and Jan van Ours (2008). "books, economics of," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract. Walls, W. David (2008). "motion pictures, economics of," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract. Journals Journal of Cultural Economics and first-page article links from 1977 on. External links The arts

History of modern Western subcultures

The 20th century saw the rise and fall of many subcultures. 20th century Fin de siècle In the early part of the 20th century, subcultures were mostly informal groupings of like-minded individuals with the same views or lifestyle. The Bloomsbury group in London was one example, providing a place where the diverse talents of people like Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, and E.M. Forster could interact. Other pre-World War I subcultures were smaller social groupings of hobbyists or a matter of style and philosophy amongst artists and bohemian poets. In Germany, from 1896, there developed a movement of young men (and later young women) which focused on freedom and natural environments. Called Wandervogel (translated as "hikers", "ramblers" or, more precisely, "migratory birds"), they wanted to throw off the strict rules of society and be more open and natural. The first known organized club for nudists, Freilichtpark (Free-Light Park), was opened near Hamburg, Germany, in 1903. In Italy, a popular art movement and philosophy called Futurism championed change, speed, violence and machines. World War I After the First World War (1914–18) hair styles changed: the wartime trenches were infested with lice and fleas, so soldiers were forced to shave their heads. Consequently, men with short hair appeared to have been at the front in the war, while men with longer hair might be thought of as pacifists and cowards, even suspected of desertion. Some artists managed to avoid the war by sitting it out in neutral Switzerland. 1920s In the 1920s, American jazz music and motor cars were at the centre of a European subculture which began to break the rules of social etiquette and the class system (See also Swing Kids and Flappers). In America, the same "flaming youth" subculture was "running wild" but with the added complication of alcohol prohibition. Canada had prohibition in some areas, but for the most part, thirsty Americans coming over the border found an oasis. As a result, smuggling escalated as crime gangs became organized. In the southern United States, Mexico and Cuba were popular with drinkers. Thus, a drinking subculture grew in size and a crime subculture grew along with it. Other drugs were used as alternatives to alcohol. When prohibition ended, the subculture of drink, drugs and jazz did not disappear, and neither did the gangsters. 1930s The German nudist movement gained prominence in the 1920s, but was suppressed during the Nazi Gleichschaltung after Adolf Hitler came to power. Social nudism in the form of private clubs and campgrounds first appeared in the United States in the 1930s. In Canada, it first appeared in British Columbia about 1939 and in Ontario nine years later. In the art world, Surrealism was attempting to shock the world with their games and bizarre behavior. The Surrealists were at one and the same time a serious art movement and a parody of other art forms and political movements. Surrealism had been developed by André Breton and others from the Dada movement. Based in several European countries, Surrealism was destined for trouble when the Nazis came to power. Subcultures and "degenerate art" were almost completely stamped out and replaced by the Hitler Youth. In North America, the Great Depression caused widespread unemployment and poverty, and a consequent malaise among adolescents that found its expression in urban youth gangs—the so-called "dead end kids." The dead end kid phenomenon was fictionalized on the stage and screen where it became a popular image with which people could identify. Films featuring the Dead End Kids, East Side Kids, Little Tough Guys etc. were popular from the 1930s to the 1950s. The genre also found its expression in the kid gang comic book stories of Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, including the Boy Commandos and Newsboy Legion features. The Dust Bowl disaster forced large numbers of rural Americans from Oklahoma and elsewhere to move their entire families to survive. They were labeled as "Okies" and treated poorly by the authorities in other states. Their refugee status was recorded in folk songs (including many by Woody Guthrie), as well as John Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath, and the film adaptation starring Henry Fonda. 1940s Avant-garde artists like Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp and Marc Chagall fled Europe following the outbreak of World War II. These artists arrived in the United States, where a subculture of surrealism and avant-garde experimentation developed in New York City, becoming the new centre of the art world. American fashion remained gangster orientated, with gangs gravitating around immigrant and racial cultures. In California, Hispanic youth developed the distinctive zoot suit fashion, such as the black widows, women who dressed in black. The zoot suiters use of language involved rhyming and pig Latin (also known as backslang). This style, collectively known as Swing or Jive talk (see: Dictionary of Swing), included Afro-American, Cuban, Mexican and South American elements, as well as bits introduced by Slim Gaillard (see McVouty oreeney). The entry of the United States into World War II was heralded by new legislation making zoot suits illegal due to the extra cloth required. In June 1943, white American servicemen stationed in Los Angeles rampaged through Mexican American neighborhoods, attacking young people wearing the suits and often stripping them, in what has become known as the Zoot Suit Riots. The riots in Los Angeles were part of a nationwide phenomenon of urban disturbances arising out of wartime tensions exacerbating longstanding racial discrimination in America. The Zoot Suit Riots were unique in that the fashions of the largely Mexican American (and some white and African-American) victims made them the target of white servicemen stationed in the city, many of whom were from southern white towns. In Europe, black-marketeers prospered under rationing. Clothing styles depended on what could be begged or acquired by some means, not necessarily legal; There were restrictions everywhere. When the Americans arrived in Britain, black-marketeers, (called Wide boys or Spivs) made deals with GIs for stockings, chocolate, etc. Inevitably, subculture continued to have an image of criminality and the brave, the daring, the milieu, the resistance, etc. The black market in drugs thrived just about anywhere. After the second war, the zoot suit craze spread to France in the form of the Zazou youths. Meanwhile, the intellectuals in France were forming an existentialist subculture around Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus in Paris cafe culture. In post-war America, folk songs and cowboy songs (also known, in those days, as hillbilly music) were beginning to be more popular with a wider audience. A subculture of rural jazz and blues fans had mixed elements of jazz and blues into traditional cowboy and folk song styles to produce a crossover called western swing. Thanks to the prevalence of radio, this music spread across the United States in the 1940s. Radio was the first almost instantaneous mass media with the power to create large subcultures by spreading the ideas of small subcultures across a wide area. Bebop, a new jazz subculture, formed from the rebellion against the melodic stylings of swing; Notable players included Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. In turn, bebop spawned the hipster and beat generation subculture. In 1947, Jack Kerouac made an epic journey across America, which he would later describe in his novel, On the Road. In the same year, there was an incident involving a motorcycle gang at Hollister, California, and Harper's Magazine, published a story about it. In 1948, the Hells Angels formed in Fontana, California. The Hells Angels began as a motorcycle club looking for excitement in the dull times after the end of the war and became notorious as time passed. Motorcycle gangs in general began to hit the headlines. In 1953, the film, The Wild One, was released starring Marlon Brando. 1950s The Existentialists had a profound influence upon subcultural development. Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus transferred their French resistance underground campaign to the context of a cultural revolution and the American beat scene joined the movement. The emphasis on freedom of the individual influenced the beats in America and Britain and this version of existential bohemianism continued through the 1950s and into the 1960s under the guise of the beat generation. Beards and longer hair returned in another attempt at returning to the image of peacetime man and the normality which had existed before the two wars. At the same time, as a result of American post-war prosperity, a new identity emerged for youth subculture: the teenager. Jazz culture was transformed, by way of rhythm and blues into rock and roll culture. There are various suggested candidates for which record might have been the First rock and roll record. At the same time, jazz culture itself continued but changed into a more respected form, no longer necessarily associated with wild behaviour and criminality. From the 1950s onward society noticed an increase in street gang culture, random vandalism and graffiti. Sociologists, psychologists, social workers and judges all had theories as to what was causing the increase to urban trouble, but it was later accepted that it developed in protest to the older generation's pro-white supremacy views. The consensus has generally tended to be that the modern urban environment offers all the bright lights and benefits of the modern world but often provides working class youths with little in reality. This theory and others were parodied in the musical West Side Story (based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet) in song lyrics such as Jet Song, America, and Gee, Officer Krupke. Moral panics surrounding the advent of teenager subcultures and a perceived rise in adolescent criminality led to several attempts to investigate and legislate youth behavior, such as the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. One of the many subcultures that was based around street violence was the greaser, a working class subculture that was a part of and influenced the biker subculture. As American rock and roll arrived in the United Kingdom, a subculture grew around it. Some of the British post-war street youths hanging around bombsites in urban areas and getting drawn into petty crime began to dress in a variation of the zoot suit style called a drape suit, with a country style bootlace tie, winklepicker shoes, drainpipe trousers, and Elvis Presley style slicked hair. These youths were called Teddy boys. For a night out dancing at the palais, their girlfriends would usually wear the same sort of poodle skirts and crinolines their counterparts in America would wear. For day-to-day wear there was a trend toward girls wearing slacks or jeans. At the time, the idea of girls wearing trousers and boys taking time over their hairstyles was socially shocking to many people. British youth divided into factions. There were the modern jazz kids, the trad jazz kids, the rock and roll teenagers and the skiffle craze. Coffee bars were a meeting place for all the types of youth and the coolest ones were said to be in Soho, London. In Britain, the political side of the Beat Generation was the anti-nuclear movement led by CND. Ban the Bomb marches became a very successful British social phenomenon. Teenage music and subculture was parodied in the 1957 play (and 1962 movie) The Music Man, particularly in the song "Ya Got Trouble". In the United States and Australia, Hawaiian-influenced surfing was the new youth sport. A whole subculture grew around the sport and the associated parties, clothes, speech patterns and music. During the same time-frame skateboard riding developed as a parallel lifestyle to wave riding. Both forms of board riding continued throughout the remainder of the century and into the next. From these two sports young people learned to provide their own social structure within which they could display skills and excellence. In the Congo Free State (now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo), a youth subculture known as the Bills flourished, taking Western movies and cowboys as their main influence. In the Netherlands, two youth groups evolved in big cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht. One group, the Nozems, similar to the British Teds, and another called the Artistiekelingen, who can be compared to the bohemian artists of pre-world-war France. The Nozems spent their time listening to rock and roll music, driving motorcycles through town and picking up ladies while the Artistiekelingen would discuss philosophy, paint, draw and listen to jazz music. 1960s In the 1960s, the beats (AKA beatniks) grew to be an even larger subculture, spreading around the world. Other 1960s subcultures included radicals, mods, rockers, bikers, hippies and the freak scene. One of the main transitional features between the beat scene and the hippies was the Merry Pranksters' journey across the United States with Neal Cassady and Ken Kesey, in a psychedelically painted school bus named Further. In the US, the hippies' big year was 1967, the so-called summer of love. The rude boy culture originated in the ghettos of Jamaica, coinciding with the popular rise of rocksteady music, dancehall celebrations and sound system dances. Rude boys dressed in the latest fashions, and many were involved with gangs and violence. This subculture then spread to the United Kingdom and other countries. The mod subculture began with a few cliques of trendy teenage boys in London, England in the late 1950s, but was at its most popular during the early 1960s. Mods were obsessed with new fashions such as slim-cut suits; and music styles such as modern jazz, rhythm and blues, soul, ska, and some beat music. Many of them rode scooters. The mod and rude boy cultures both influenced the skinhead subculture of the late 1960s. The skinheads were a harder, more working class version of mods who wore basic clean-cut clothing styles and favoured ska, rocksteady, soul and early reggae music. The disco scene originated in the 1960s, with discothèques such as the Whisky a Go Go and Studio 54. Subcultures were often based on socializing and wild behaviour, but some of them were centred around politics. In the United States, these included the Black Panthers and the Yippies. Allen Ginsberg took part in several protest movements, including those for gay rights and those against the Vietnam War and nuclear weapons. In Paris, France in May 1968, there was a university student uprising, supported by Jean-Paul Sartre and 121 other intellectuals who signed a statement asserting "the right to disobedience." The uprising brought the country to a standstill, and caused the government to call a general election rather than run the risk of being toppled from power. The Hacker culture was beginning to form in the 1960s, due to the increased usage of computers at colleges and universities. Students who were fascinated by the possible uses of computers and other technologies began figuring out ways to make technology more freely accessible. The international Happening and Fluxus movements also had its beginnings in the 1960s, evolving out of the Beat subculture. 1970s In the 1970s, the hippie, mod and rocker subcultures were in a process of transformation, which temporarily took on the name of freaks (openly embracing the image of strangeness). A growing awareness of identity politics combined with the legalisation of homosexuality and a huge amount of interest in science fiction and fantasy forms of speculative writing produced the freak scene. Bands on the freak circuit cultivated an anti-capitalist, communal lifestyle. Freak bands like The Edgar Broughton Band or The Pink Fairies played at free festivals, spurning mainstream venues. The music/fashion subculture that became a commercial alternative to the freaks was glam rock. It was a continuation of the trendies of the 1960s mod culture, appealing to the androgynous trend of the 1970s. At some point, some in the hacker/computer subculture took on the derogatory word geek with pride, in the same way the freaks had done. Computer usage was still a very inaccessible secret world to most people in those days, but many people were interested in computers because of their appearance in science fiction. The dream of one day owning a computer was a popular fantasy amongst science fiction fandom, which had grown from a minor subculture in the first half of the 20th century to a quite large contingent by the 1970s, along with horror fandom, comics fandom and fantasy freaks. The skinhead subculture from the late 1960s continued into the 1970s, and some skinheads became influenced by the punk subculture. These skinheads became associated with the Oi! genre, and some skinheads became involved with far right politics, creating the white power skinhead scene (despite the fact that the original 1960s skinheads were influenced by black culture). Disco, which had begun in gay dance clubs, became a significant from about 1975 onward. In some sectors, particularly in the New York City area, where disco had seemingly "taken over" all aspects of youth life, an aggressive counter-disco movement was born. New York area rock radio stations such as WPLJ and WPIX encouraged their listeners to destroy disco records and embrace rock and roll. Musically and lyrically, punk rock was the intentional antithesis of the disco scene, the progressive rock genre and the hippie subculture. Early punks played aggressive, quick-paced three-chord rock and roll songs. Within the decay of the hippie subculture, some of the remaining branches of bikers progressively turned in metalheads with succeeding aesthetics of horror and violence of late 1960s that influenced progressive rock (hard rock) in the more obscure form of early heavy metal. Metalheads preserved the instituted use of long hair, took garments from leather culture of late 1970s and formed a culture on separatism and orthodoxy against mainstream. In 1976, a hit song "Convoy" by C.W. McCall arrived in the pop charts and romanticised the Trucker and CB radio subculture. In 1978, the song inspired a film "Convoy" directed by Sam Peckinpah, and starring Kris Kristofferson, Ali MacGraw, Ernest Borgnine, and Burt Young. The word "convoy" and quotes from the song lyrics became part of a popular cultural image of people standing up for their freedom. Gradually, from the 1960s, 1970s and through into the 1980s, the cultural influences of the Merry Pranksters, the freak scene, the New Age movement and the Convoy idea seem to have coalesced into what became new age travellers. Beginning around 1976, the anarcho-punk scene in the UK developed the band Crass and related bands, including The Poison Girls. The Crass Records label was an independent operation, enabling bands with an extremely raw sound to put out records when the major labels might not have bothered with them. Crass also organised gigs around the country for themselves and other bands, and campaigned politically for the anti-nuclear movement other causes. Mods made a comeback in the late 1970s as a post-punk mod revival, inspired by The Jam and the British film Quadrophenia. In 1979, Usenet was created as a medium of communication over the, still very primitive, Internet of the time. The Usenet and the Bulletin board system (BBS) subculture would become increasingly significant over the next few decades. Also in 1979, Papa Wemba, a Rumba star in Zaire/Democratic Republic of the Congo, Africa began to be the leader of the Sapeur ('Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes d'Élégance' thus 'SAPE' for short), which he promoted as a youth cult. Papa Wemba's music has been influenced by previous stars of Rumba music in Zaire (such as Papa Wendo) and also by his visits to Europe and by the appearance, in 1974, of James Brown at the Rumble in the Jungle. Wemba said:The Sapeur cult promoted high standards of personal cleanliness, hygiene and smart dress, to a whole generation of youth across Zaire. When I say well-groomed, well-shaven, well-perfumed, it's a propriety that I am insisting on among the young. I don't care about their education, since education always comes first of all from the family. 1980s At the beginning of the 1980s, some of the followers of punk rock became bored with it and wanted to make it more stylish and introduce elements of glam. By 1981, this trend resulted in the development of the New Romantics, a group whose preferred music was synthesiser electropop. New Romantics tended to be slightly campy and fey, and visually there was an androgynous vibe to the subculture, regardless of the individual's sexual orientation. Clothing styles demonstrated a return to the freak scene's roleplay of fashions from previous eras or imagined future ones in order to use fashion to create a time warp. According to the music press at the time, the New Romantics identified themselves using a number of alternative terms including "Futurists" and "the cult with no name." Other punk rock followers took the genre and culture further underground, where it evolved into a faster, harder genre coined as hardcore punk. Along with the hardcore scene came the straight edge subculture. Straight edge is a lifestyle that advocates abstinence in relation to tobacco, alcohol and recreational drug use (especially psychoactive and stimulant drug use), and for some people, in relation to promiscuous sexual behavior. Other former punks searching for a new direction around 1979 eventually developed into the nucleus of what became the goth subculture. The goths are a subculture of dark dress and gloomy romanticism. Unlike the New Romantics, goth has lasted into the 21st century. In the UK, goth reached its popular peak in the late 1980s. In American urban environments, a form of street culture using freeform and semi-staccato poetry, combined with athletic break dancing, was developing as the hip hop and rap subculture. In jazz jargon, the word rap had always meant speech and conversation. The new meaning signified a change in the status of poetry from an elitist artform to a community sport. Rappers could attempt to outdo each other with their skillful rhymes. Rapping is also known as MCing, which is one of the four main elements of Hip hop: MCing, DJing, graffiti art, and breakdancing. From the early to mid-1980s, poetry culture in a broader sense caught the same kind of energy as rap and so began the first of the poetry slams. Poetry slamming became an irregular focus for the latest wave of poetry aficionados. In 1985, Stonehenge Free Festival was disrupted by a massive police presence attempting to prevent the festival and break up the Peace Convoy. The resulting Battle of the Beanfield was the largest mass civil arrest in English history. Free parties and raves began from the mid-80s and became a flourishing subculture. The music embraced by this subculture was electronic dance music which developed from techno, pioneered in Detroit and Chicago by people like Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson, as well as electronic music, pioneered by Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage and others, taken by way of progressive rock bands like Hawkwind, filtered through the sounds of dub-reggae and the electropop bands like Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode and given a different twist via Art of Noise and early hip hop and recycled psychedelia. Towards the end of the 80s rave culture had diversified into different forms connected to music such as Acid House and Acid Jazz and would continue to diversify into the 90s. Rave culture thrived from the mid-80s to the end of the century and beyond. The Usenet and BBS subculture had developed a subculture which involved its own forms of etiquette and behaviour patterns both social and anti-social and the phenomena of trolling, spamming, flaming etc. The computer subculture was also influenced by fictional subcultures in cyberpunk literature. 1990s The term Generation X or Gen X, popularized by Douglas Coupland's novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, was used to describe the generation that followed the Baby Boom Generation, or those who came to adulthood in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the UK, the Britpop scene arose in the 1990s, influenced by the 1960s mods, the 1970s/1980s mod revival, and other British rock music and subcultural styles. On the West Coast of the United States became popular a style of alternative rock known as Grunge, pioneered by bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden and Mudhoney, which developed his associated subculture. One of the main technological developments of the 1990s was the World Wide Web. Running on the older infrastructure of the Internet, the web allowed small subcultures to grow into large global online communities. Online game communities, forums, chat rooms and Internet cafes became popular. The 1990s saw the rise of the anti-globalization movement. This was a response to the increased impact of globalisation and global capitalism. The anti-globalisation protest movement was accompanied by the fair trade movement. 21st century Named in relation to Generation X, Generation Y or "Echo Boomers" (a reference to the fact that many of the parents of this generation had belonged to the Baby boomer generation) consisted of individuals that had come to adulthood during the 2000s. Subcultures that emerged or became popular in the first decade of the 21st century included Emo, Scene and Chav. The Emo subculture, rooted in the Post Hardcore genre of hardcore punk, changed over the years becoming more mainstream, following the commercial success in early '2000s. The contemporary hipster became prominent in the 2010s. On March 20, 2014, Alexis Petridis, a journalist for the British newspaper The Guardian, claimed that subcultures were rapidly declining, with only Emos and metalheads having any visual significance. Throughout the mid to late 2010s, subcultures splintered and merged due to the widespread accessibility of the internet and social media platforms. Many 2010s subcultures drew from previously existing groups - the popular 'e-girl' subculture is seen as a modern spin on mid-2000s scene fashion. As part of their retrospective series on the 2010s, Dazed magazine described the impact of technology on subcultures; "But [the internet] also gave us more; it gave us dozens upon dozens of scenes and movements, only recognisable to the highly trained eye. And the rules became less rigid: you could dress one way, and listen to totally different music." Modern subcultures include e-girls, Koreaboos, art hoes, hypebeasts, Instagram baddies, soft boys, skaters, and revivals of 1970s-1990s subcultures such as hippies, goths, punks, and grunge. See also History of sexuality Music history Post-industrial society Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures Subculture & List of subcultures Far-right subcultures References Further reading This is the Beat Generation by James Campbell We are the people our parents warned us against by Nicholas Von Hoffman Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga by Hunter S. Thompson The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe Mod: A Very British Phenomenon, Rawlings, Terry (2000). London: Omnibus Press. . Mods!, Barnes, Richard (1979). London: Eel Pie Publishing Ltd. . Spirit of '69 - A Skinhead Bible, Marshall, George (1991). Dunoon, Scotland: S.T. Publishing. . Western subcultures in the 20th-century Subcultures 20th century Western subcultures in the 20th-century Western culture

LGBTQ themes in anime and manga

In anime and manga, the term "LGBTQ themes" includes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender material. Outside Japan, anime generally refers to a specific Japanese-style of animation, but the word anime is used by the Japanese themselves to broadly describe all forms of animated media there. According to Harry Benshoff and Sean Griffin, the fluid state of animation allows flexibility of animated characters to perform multiple roles at once. Manga genres that focus on same-sex intimacy and relationships resulted from fan work that depicted relationships between two same-sex characters. This includes characters who express their gender and sexuality outside of hetero-normative boundaries. There are also multiple sub genres that target specific consumers and themes: yaoi, yuri, shoujo-ai, shonen-ai, bara, etc. LGBT-related manga found its origins from fans who created an "alternative universe" in which they paired their favorite characters together. Many of the earliest works that contained LGBT themes were found in works by dōjinshi who has specifically written content outside the regular industry. The rise of yaoi and yuri was also slowed due to censorship laws in Japan that make it extremely hard for Japanese manga artists ("mangakas") and others to create work that is LGBT themed. Anime that contained LGBTQ content was changed to meet international standards. However, publishing companies continued to expand their repertoire to include yuri and yaoi, and conventions were created to form a community and culture for fans of this work. History Pre-1960s Scholars and manga artists generally agree that Osamu Tezuka greatly influenced manga. Yukari Fujimoto mentioned how in Tezuka's work, Princess Knight, the main character fluctuated between feminine and masculine identities. Sapphire, the main character of Princess Knight, was born female but was raised as a male to prevent the antagonist, Duke Durlamin, from inheriting the throne. Tezuka was inspired by Takarazuka Revue, a Japanese all-female musical troupe that performs both feminine and masculine roles. Osamu Tezuka grew up in Takarazuka where the troupe is based. 1960s–today Media and related materials depicting young men in same-sex relationships started to materialize in the 1970s. These stories were primarily created and consumed by adolescent girls and women reading shoujo genre tales. Over time work that focused primarily on male to male intimacy was referred to as "shonen-ai", "yaoi" and "boy's love" (BL). In the 1960s, a group of women mangaka called the Magnificent 24 or the Year 24 group heavily influenced the genre of shoujo manga by introducing philosophical and radical ideas, including themes focusing on gender and sexuality. The Magnificent 24 group referred to women mangaka who were born in the Year 24 Shōwa (1949) according to numerous scholars, and the exact membership is not defined. A few artists who were associated this group were Moto Hagio, Yumiko Ōshima and Keiko Takemiya. The mangaka in this period transformed the writing and drawing style within the genre, thereby creating a space for women artists in manga. The artists broadened the content of shoujo manga, adding science fiction, historical, and dramatic elements that changed how readers consumed the genre. Works from these groups contained the earliest examples of same-sex intimacy and relationships found in manga. Ryoko Yamagishi's Shiroi Heya no Futari (白い部屋のふたり) was credited as the first manga to portray a lesbian couple. Conversely, Keiko Takemiya's work, In the Sunroom (サンルームにて) is said to depict the first male-to-male kiss in shojo manga. The popularity of Year 24's works spurred interest in male-male romance narratives from the 1960s onward. Amateurs as well as professional manga artists shared their works in a public hall called Comic Market (コミックマーケット Komikku Māketto), a channel for distributing and sharing work outside publisher restrictions. The market primarily focused on buying and selling of doujinshi (self-published works), and in its early years some artists from the shoujo circle displayed work containing fictionalized same-sex relationships between their favorite musicians. On September 25, 1970, Cleopatra, an anime fantasy film directed by Osamu Tezuka and Eiichi Yamamoto, was released. The film would feature various LGBTQ characters: Apollodoria, who is attracted to Cleopatra, and Octavian, who is attracted to a man named Ionius. Tezuka had previously written the Princess Knight manga, while Yamamoto had previously directed Astro Boy. Tezuka would later work on the anime based on the Princess Knight manga he had written. From September 1979 to September 1980, Rose of Versailles, directed by Tadao Nagahama (episodes 1–18), and Osamu Dezaki (episodes 19–40), aired on Nippon TV. The manga, which ran from 1972 to 1973, was famous for having the first "bed scene" in manga that was depicted by a woman, which has had a "profound impact" on female readers, including fan criticism of the adaptation of this scene to the anime. Yukari Fujimoto has said that "for us junior and senior high school girls at that time, our concept of sex was fixed by that manga". The anime series earned high popularity on Japanese television and later in other parts of the world. Influenced by Princess Knight, which aired on Fuji TV from 1967 to 1968, In the anime, Princess Sapphire, would be introduced as a genderqueer character. She would be raised as a boy by their father since women are not eligible to inherit the throne, but would be born with both a male and female heart, and later fall in love with and marry Prince Frank. CBR would praise the anime for achieving the "cinematic extravagance and form that the lavish former Queen of France would approve of." This anime would also influence Revolutionary Girl Utena and Sailor Moon as noted by Erica Friedman of Yuricon. In the 1980s the term yaoi was primarily used to describe homoerotic works. The word is a shortening of "yama nashi ochi nashi imi nashi," or "no climax, no ending, no meaning" and was primarily focused on male-to-male relationships between two favorite characters. It is now an umbrella term in Japan that describes male to male homoeroticism. Conversely, the term yuri described Japanese works featuring female-to-female intimacy. The actual term yuri is translated to "lily" which was symbolized as spiritual beauty and sexual purity. Yuri was first used to describe female-to-female intimacy by one of Japan's first gay magazines, Barazoku. The magazine featured a regular column called Yurizoku no heya (Room for the lily tribe) to address lesbian readership. Within the artist circles, the term Yurizoku was shortened to yuri to describe female to female intimacy. Anime distribution, censorship and changes The Japanese government uses censorship laws to regulate published content in the country. Article 175 of the Criminal Code (1907) prohibits the distribution, sale, or possession of materials that contain "obscene" (waisetsu) content. This included any depiction of pubic hair, adult genitalia, and sexual acts. However, manga creators developed ways to depict naked bodies and sex without showing pubic hair. Works that contained erotic content obscured character's genitals with blurring or black dots. The law was only sparingly applied and the number of creators and publishers fined were minimal. Sharon Kinsella states, "In general pornography has not been strongly compartmentalized in post-war Japan" and pornographic content has appeared throughout Japanese media and in pornographic productions. BL (Boy's Love) comics can often be found in large bookstores in Japan, and there is a large commercial market for same-sex intimacy. In 1998, manga and anime received negative attention following the arrest of Tsutomu Miyazaki the so-called "Otaku Serial Killer." Miyazaki possessed large amounts of sexually explicit anime and was a frequent participant of Comic Market. In the aftermath of the killings thousands of doujinshis were confiscated and several shop owners were arrested. Censorship in the United States Anime reached the United States in the 1960s on the back of strong interest from fans and college students. Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy (1963) and Speed Racer were the earliest anime series shown to American audiences. Accordingly, collaborations among American and Japanese companies to market titles to American consumers increased. In order to broadcast anime on American television, production companies had to cut scenes that were deemed too "violent." Plot lines and direct translations of dubbing were also modified for Western audiences. Scholars have noted several anime that were edited specifically to fit Western sensibilities. When Sailor Moon was released in the United States, elements of the story were removed because Optimum Productions, the Canadian company in charge of the English language product, claimed that some of the content "is not suitable for children." Under standards set by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, Sailor Moon was altered to fit within those guidelines. Following are examples of material censored to fit North American requisites. Zoisite, a homosexual man finds himself in a homosexual relationship with Kunzite in the series. In the English dubbed version, Zoisite is made into a woman, thereby making the relationship heterosexual. The relationship between Sailor Uranus/Haruka Tenoh and Neptune/Michiru Kaioh was depicted as 'cousins' who are simply 'very close.' In the original Japanese version, they are lovers. Fisheye who presented femininely is changed into a woman in the English version of the anime. Scenes that highlighted Fisheye's masculinity were deleted. When Cardcaptor Sakura broadcast in North America, many scenes featuring same-sex intimacy and/or relationships were removed or altered. Rejected material included Tomoyo's crush on Sakura and same-sex intimacy between Touya, Sakura's older brother, and Yukito. Mainstream anime and manga CLAMP Numerous works of CLAMP, a Japanese manga artists group, explore relationships with no regard for gender or sex. Many of their manga consequently explore same-sex relationships. Works such as Miyuki-chan in Wonderland and Tokyo Babylon feature same-sex intimacy as central themes. This also includes series such as Cardcaptor Sakura. Other series, based on CLAMP manga, would also feature LGBTQ characters. For instance, a 1991 OVA, RG Veda, with a lesbian woman named Kendappa-ō and Ashura, who as born neither as a man or a woman. Additionally, two gay characters in the original manga, Subaru Sumeragi and Seishirō Sakurazuka, would appear in X anime series, based on a manga by CLAMP, which was broadcast on Wowow from 2002. Cardcaptor Sakura In Cardcaptor Sakura, the main protagonist Sakura Kinomoto and Syaoran Li share a mutual infatuation with androgynous-looking Yukito Tsukishiro. Tomoyo Daidouji, who is best friends with Sakura, is also shown to hold sexual feelings for Sakura, even loving what she wears. However, Sakura does not return her feelings. At one point, Tomoyo confesses her love to Sakura, but Sakura misunderstands her, thinking she means "love" means she thinks of her a best friend, with Tomoyo saying that she will explain it when Sakura is older. The creators have stated that Sakura, the protagonist of this anime who has a "desire to befriend everyone she meets," and that does not see gender as barrier for her romantic attraction. Some have argued she is bisexual. Furthermore, Sakura has a crush on a female teacher and had feelings with Li, who also had feelings for her, but does not admit them. As such, some argued arguing that Syaoran is bisexual based on his sexual attractions. Cardcaptor also depicts same-sex intimacy between Touya Kinomoto, Sakura's older brother and Yukito. In episode 65, when Yukito's health is weakening due to a weakening in Yue's power (his alter-form), Touyo decides to give up his power to save Yukito from disappearing. Yukito and Touya have been confirmed as a couple, with Yukito rejecting Sakura's feelings because he is in love with Touya. Before meeting Yukito, Touya dated Kaho Mizuki when she was his junior high school teacher, and she broke up with him later. Some argued that Touya was either bisexual or pansexual. Additionally, a recurring character, Ruby Moon has no biological sex. and is always seen presenting as female, with Moon stating that their gender does not matter because they are not actually human. At the time the series aired, networks, chopped out the "gay content" and other similar themes, in the dubbed version of the series. A storyboarder and episode director for Cardcaptor Sakura, Shigehito Takayanagi, would later be a storyboarder on Azumanga Daioh: The Animation, which would have a character, Kaorin, who is implied to be a closeted lesbian. He would also later direct Kanamemo. The latter series would have strong yuri overtones, and would be described as a romance between two openly lesbian protagonists: Yuuki Minami and Yume Kitaoka. Another storyboarder and episode director of Cardcaptor Sakura, Nobuaki Nakanishi, would also have his own show: Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl. The anime would focus on the conflict between "gender identity, gender performance, and sexual orientation" of the characters, with their characteristics threatening "the regulatory norms found within Western society and possibly Japanese society." Hazumu Osaragi, the series protagonist, begins the series as a boy, and is inadvertently killed due to an alien spacecraft crash-landing on them, and is resurrected, but their physical sex is changed to male, and learns how to "perform" the female gender with the help of Tomari Kurusu, a bisexual girl. She is later attracted to Kurusu and her other childhood friend, Yasuna, but does not want to be "identified based upon the traditional notions of gender," but rather as a person like anyone else. The series was positively reviewed by Erica Friedman, who argued the anime had normal ending reminiscent of something "that might have actually happened in real life." Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, the sequel to Cardcaptor Sakura and based on an ongoing manga of the same name by CLAMP, would air on NHK January to June 2018. Some criticized the series. For instance, Geordi Demorest argued that while the original Cardcaptor Sakura is beloved for its "LGBTQ-inclusiveness," this sequel seems "less actively progressive" and is missing the original focus on "explicitly representing LGBTQ characters," criticizing the lack of character development for Tomoyo, only having a brief reference to the romance "between Sakura's brother Touya and his friend Yukito." Demorest called for the series to do more to "explore sexual orientation and the gender spectrum" of the characters and called the show nostalgic while coasting on "broad characterizations" of the original cast. In contrast, Tim Jones and Stig Høgset of THEM Anime Reviews were more positive. Jones said he had some hesitation to start the series, as it was three years after Sailor Moon Crystal, and Høgset called the show like "a fun family reunion." Both noted that while the plot is typical, it is "pure feel-good fun" and Jones concluded that the series has "some of the charm" of the original series, but felt "more like a trip down memory lane than a brand-new series." Lynzee Loveridge of Anime News Network wrote that she was unsure whether the series added "anything worthwhile to characters' stories," writing that it is a "facsimile of the previous series," with no traditional villains. Charles Solomon of Animation Scoop praised the series for its animation quality, but said that the series "faltered" by coping the original series "too closely", had an ending that was too abrupt, and stated that elements like Tomoyo's love for Sakura, the crush of Sakura on Yuki and acceptance of him as the lover of Toya "fell by the wayside." Jack Eaton of Gamerant noted that the series did not receive "the same critical and commercial success" as the original, and called for a "a second chance at a sequel" which is more fitting than this series, or a remastering of the original. Shamus Kelley, in his review of the final three episodes of the series for Den of Geek, criticizing the ending as a "convoluted mess", called the plot "heavy-handed", noted the series focus on Tomoyo's "endless obsession with Sakura", and praised the series as "really fun" but fighting "against itself." In reviewing volumes 1 and 2 of the manga, Erica Friedman, founder of Yuricon called the sequel "honest-to-goodness", and said that those who enjoy the original series will enjoy this manga, and said she was happy with "this kiddy ride full of pretty art and nice kids", but gave low-ratings for yuri themes. Sailor Moon Lesbian characters are introduced halfway through the series Sailor Moon, and their relationships are treated the same way as other heterosexual relationships. Haruka and Michiru, who are Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, are a couple who live with each other. The author has confirmed that they are a couple. They would become one of the most iconic lesbian couples in anime, with the dubbed version on US and European television networks portraying them as cousins. The character Haruka displays masculine characteristics and she is portrayed in the video wearing the male version of her school's uniform. She is often mistaken for a man, but she does not mind. However, Haruka becomes more feminized when she transforms into her Sailor Uranus character. Her partner, Michiru, is meant to be the more feminine of the two and they are often seen with each other. The relationship between Haruka and Michiru would be expressed in two 1990s films: Sailor Moon S: The Movie (1994) and Sailor Moon Super S: The Movie (1995). Some have described the relationship between Michiru and Haruka as butch-femme. Other than Haruka and Michiru, Zoisite and Kunzite, two powerful generals who work under Queen Beryl from the Dark Kingdom, are an openly gay couple, However, in some dubs in other countries, Zoisite's gender was changed to female for his feminine appearance and to make them a heterosexual couple instead, but in other dubs, they are changed into brotherly figures because of the closeness of their relationship. The 1993 film, Sailor Moon R: The Movie would introduce Fiore, an alien who lands on Earth and met Mamoru Chiba / Tuxedo Mask when they were both children. It is strongly implied that Fiore's feelings for Mamoru are romantic. In 1995, Fish-Eye, an effeminate cross-dressing man romantically interested in men as first shown in the series. He was changed into a woman in the English dub. In 1996, the genderqueer Sailor Starlights would be introduced. In the anime, the Sailor Starlights (Sailor Star Fighter, Sailor Star Maker, and Sailor Star Healer) were assigned female at birth, but transform to present as male and refer to themselves as males when not fighting, as shown in the episode, "Holy War in the Galaxy! Sailor Wars Legend." Neptune and Uranus were some of the Sailor Starlights, and would act like in their civilian forms but transform into women when they battled villains. Some scholars argued that the gender of the characters in Sailor Moon was irrelevant to their personalities, attitudes, or behaviors, with oft-blurring of gender characteristics, "traditional roles," and identity itself. The show gained a following among male university students, spreading in popularity thanks to the Internet. Some praised the show for empowering its viewers while others saw it as expressing characters who acted in a "traditionally male" manner, or less than feminist in the case of Sailor Moon herself. This representation came at a time that anime was beginning to establish a strong foothold in "American geek fandom," even as they still reflected the values of Japanese society. On June 3, 2021, the two part animated film, Sailor Moon Eternal, a continuation of the Sailor Moon Crystal series, premiered on Netflix. It featured Haruka Tenoh (Sailor Uranus) and Michiru Kaioh (Sailor Neptune), two characters in a same-sex relationship. The film also featured Fish-Eye, an effeminate man who cross-dresses as a woman due to his romantic affections towards other men. In the film, he is voiced by Shouta Aoi. Revolutionary Girl Utena The approach to gender in the Revolutionary Girl Utena series is flexible, and according to Catherine Bailey, "The categorical definition of masculinity and femininity are limiting and unnecessary." Utena is a character who subverts assumptions about her sex. She should be "jumping" at the chance of marrying a prince, but she looks up to him as a role model. At school, she wears a quasi male uniform and competes alongside male peers in a variety of athletic activities. According to Bailey, Utena does not want to "become" a prince literally, and when she claims that she wants to become a prince she is actually referring to princely qualities like courage, compassion, and strength. Rebecca Silverman of Anime News Network would argue that Anthy and Utena function as "each other's external shadow selves," saying that the series holds a place in the history of anime for themes about sexuality and gender, communicating a message about adolescence that still resonates. The series was also described as one of the most important anime of the 1990s by ANN's Mike Toole. The show contained many LGBTQ+ characters since Kunihiko Ikuhara, who directed many episodes of Sailor Moon and the show's second season, tried to express queer and feminist themes in the series, leading some to call the series "groundbreaking." While some believe that Ikuhara was inspired by The Rose of Versailles, he stated that the show's concepts came from Sailor Moon Super S: The Movie. The show would be a major influence on Steven Universe, Steven Universe Future, and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. In 1999, Ikuhara's film Adolescence of Utena, which featured all the characters of Revolutionary Girl Utena, would begin showing in theaters. The film would feature Utena and Anthy flirt and kiss, more overt than in the anime and the associated manga. A kiss was included due to a decision from Ikuhara. Like in the anime, Utena and Anthy, who are in love with each other, are both bisexual. Juri Arisugawa is explicitly in love with her female classmate, Shiori, in both the TV series and movie. She is described as "homosexual" by the creators in the DVD booklet. The commentary in the booklet indicated that Shiori also had feelings for her, but was too troubled and insecure to act on them in a healthy way. The film become popular among fans of yuri (lesbian manga and anime), and is often categorized as LGBT cinema with some critics saying the film seeks "a rejection of dominant discourses of gender and sexuality" with the joining of the masculine Utena and the feminine Anthy being "an acknowledgement of the need for an integrate psyche, regardless of gender or sexual orientation." Ikuhara would later create the openings of Nodame Cantabile and Sweet Blue Flowers which featured LGBTQ characters, while creating a series, Sarazanmai, which featured includes an iconic duo of male cops who are in love with each other. Dear Brother Osamu Dezaki, who directed episodes 19-40 of the Rose of Versailles, directed Dear Brother, which aired on NHK from 1991 to 1992. The series, described as a classic shōjo manga, included a sorority of the best at an elite school which is "relentless in their expectations." It was described by Erica Friedman as an "extraordinarily dark series" with a "pinnacle of Yuri" in the second half. Carlos Ross of THEM Anime Reviews said that while the series is little known in the United States, it is beautifully animated, has a score of traditional Japanese music, and has a reputation for "lesbian overtones." Other scholars said that the manga, by Riyoko Ikeda, developed the gender-bending “dansō no reijin” concept, originally illustrayed in The Rose of Versailles manga, which depicted a beautiful woman in "masculine" clothes. The concept later became a key element of many yuri animations and manga such as Strawberry Panic! and Sweet Blue Flowers. Wandering Son Ei Aoki's Wandering Son aired on Fuji TV from January to March 2011 as part of the station's Noitamina programming block. The anime would be praised as a "breakout show in the transgender drama genre" for its delicate art, empathetic story, and focus on characters. Others would describe it as artful and gorgeous series, with intricate characters, which fairly treats transgender identity, recognizing the challenges characters like Shuichi Nitori, Makoto "Mako" Ariga, and Yoshino Takatsuki have to face. One reviewer argued that the show showed characters like Nitori trying to wade through a "cissexist school environment." Another person pointed out that while the series as an important "piece of transgender literature within manga, anime and Japanese popular culture," Takatsuki assimilates "into a cis female identity" by the end of the anime, and asks whether the series has held back transgender fiction. They also argue that the series reinforces the gender binary. This series also included a bisexual woman (Anne Suehiro) and a trans woman (Hiroyuki Yoshida). In March 2020, The Daily Dot published an article talking about a Gender and Anime at Anime Boston, noting that manga and anime have "a dearth of gender representation," with issues within Japanese culture itself, with crossdressing and genderqueer identity often made out to be a joke or a "trap" for the protagonist. They further argued that Hourou Musako in Wandering Son is one of the "few sensitive portrayals of transgender characters out there," with one panelist calling it the "only true transgender anime in existence" and saying listeners should be "sensitive when discussing gender identity." Yurikuma Arashi In 2015, Kunihiko Ikuhara's Yurikuma Arashi aired on Tokyo MX. In the series, the main female protagonists, Kureha Tsubaki, Sumika Izumino, Ginko Yurishiro, Lulu Yurigasaki, and Yurika Hakonaka, have various sexual encounters and romantic relationships with each other, as they learn more about their connections with each other and those in the world who do not accept their feelings, deeming relationships between humans and bears as "dangerous." The manga adaptation was co-written by Ikuhara and Takayo Ikami, and illustrated by Akiko Morishima, who is known for "queer sexual exploration and unclear relationship boundaries" in her works. She handled the manga's character designs and had creative control over the two-volume series. The series has been praised as tackling the "prejudice facing gay people in Japan" while simultaneously being a "moving tale of prejudice and fear and love" which focuses on cultural treatment of all women, especially those who are lesbians, criticizes the "idealization of female innocence and purity," and serves as a study of bigotry. Further reviews praised as a well-written drama which is densely packed with "social commentary, multivalent symbolism, and references to historical events, [and] literature," LGBT-friendly, critiquing the "harmful tropes present in some yuri fiction", a yuri anime about "love between a girl and a female bear", and exploring questions of "queer desire and societal belonging." Writers for Anime Feminist argued that the series used various elements to deliver a message "about the prejudice that queer women face," but said is problematic for using predatory animals as a metaphor "for queer sexuality", that reminds viewers how institutions "hurt women and LGBTQ+ people and drive them to hurt one another", and that the show's characters "negotiate their position within the systems of heteronormativity" while relating these themes to transphobia in real-life. Fandom culture and demographics Motivations for consuming Yaoi and Yuri anime Pagliassotti conducted the first research Anglophone readers' motivations for consuming yaoi. According to her research, she found 10 distinct motivations: "Pure" love without gender focus, pro-gay attitude/ forbidden and transgressive love, identification (self-analysis), melodramatic (emotional elements), dislike for standard shōjo romances, a female-oriented romantic/erotic genre, pure escapism/lack of reality, art/ aesthetics, pure entertainment, and arousing, sexually titillating content. However, there are other motivations for consuming yaoi manga complicated by cultural and legal differences. For instance, yaoi manga is media that challenges patriarchal norms and gender binarism. Accessibility to yaoi and yuri material is also dependent on international laws. For example, introduction of BL (Boy's Love) to the United States market was less likely to happen because depictions of male-to-male eroticism and sex would be considered contrary to children's material there. Many yaoi readers are teenage girls or young women. Fujoshi is a term often used to describe fans of works depicting romantic relationships among men. In Japanese, the term translates to "rotten girls." Japanese women who read yaoi manga are most often heterosexual, and they consume the content for entertainment rather than for political or social reasons. Women also form the majority of yaoi readers in the West, accounting for 89% of total readership, with 55% of those falling into the 18-24 age range. Among yuri readers in the West, about 46% identify themselves as heterosexual women. Among yuri readers, there is a divide between men and women according to intended target audience. The popularity of anime continued to rise in the 1990s, with the early 90s known as an "anime boom." At the time, huge conventions were hosted while the yuri, BL, and related genres began attracting fans outside Japan, including in Hong Kong and mainland China. At the same time was a so-called gay boom, with homosexuality becoming a "standard topic in television shows and in tabloid magazines." A devoted fan base blossomed in the West as channels such as Cartoon Network airing anime in program blocks. Although anime programs began declining after the "collapse of the bubble economy" in 1992 and an economic slump during the 1990s, anime continued to explore complex concepts. By 2010, the yaoi industry had an estimated annual value of 21.3 billion yen (over US$180 million). In the 2010s, LGBT issues became increasingly visible in Japan with an increased interest in LGBT issues across Japanese society, with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party trying to promote Japan as "LGBT friendly." This aligned with the estimated market size of 21.3 billion yen for the yaoi genre in 2010, which is aimed at young women, who are the main consumers of the content itself, even though some heterosexual men read it. By 2016, domestic market size of the Boy's Love genre had reached over $190 million, See also List of bisexual characters in anime List of gay characters in anime List of lesbian characters in anime LGBT themes in comics Editing of anime in distribution List of animated series with LGBT characters History of anime List of yaoi anime and manga List of yuri anime and manga List of yuri works List of anime by release date (1946–1959) :Category:LGBTQ characters in anime and manga LGBTQ themes in Western animation Notes References Citations Sources Further reading

Personal, social, health and economic education

Personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) is the school curriculum subject in England that teaches young people, through all key stages, knowledge and skills for life during and after education. PSHE education covers education on personal and health related matters — such as Relationship and Sex Education — as well as preparation for post-education life, such as economic sustainability and careers advice. The PSHE education curriculum incorporates statutory relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) content that must be taught. This content is set by the Department for Education, and became compulsory in 2020. Reviews conducted by the Department for Education into PSHE education provision have found a range of positive outcomes, including improved attitudes to health, better abilities to deal with personal difficulties and improved behaviour, though criticism has been directed at its provisions of sex education, such as the treatment of gender identity in schools and a lack of attention in Ofsted inspections. PSHE themes and topics The PSHE education programme of study is organised into three core themes: health and well-being relationships living in the wider world (covering economic well-being and careers) These themes include numerous topics linked to physical and mental health, alcohol and drug culture, sex, and relationships, education, economic well-being, and careers. History The term PSHE was first introduced in the 2000 edition of the national curriculum, as a non-compulsory element that was encouraged to be taught in schools. Whilst this was the first official introduction of the subject to the national curriculum, it had already existed in an informal context since the 1960s. The first formal introduction of a PSHE component was Relationship and Sex Education, then known simply as sex education, as a non-statutory subject. A framework for PSHE was introduced in the 1990s, though its non-statutory status once again meant that it was not taught in some schools. In its earlier forms, the vagueness of the themes to be taught in PSHE was the subject of much criticism, with its "uncertain nature" making it difficult to teach. Until 2020, PSHE education was a non-statutory (and therefore non-compulsory) curriculum subject. However, as Ofsted stated in its 2013 PSHE report "the great majority of schools choose to teach it because it makes a major contribution to their statutory responsibilities to promote children and young people's personal and economic wellbeing; offer sex and relationships education; prepare pupils for adult life and provide a broad and balanced curriculum". Not all content on the curriculum is statutory, and there have been concerns raised about the consistency of provision due to this non-statutory status. The aforementioned 2013 Ofsted PSHE report found that 40% of schools’ PSHE education was "not yet good enough". There has also been more of an expectation on independent schools to provide PSHE education than maintained schools and academies up to now due to greater emphasis on PSHE in the Independent Schools Standards. Concerns over consistency and quality and provision prompted a national campaign to raise the status of PSHE education in all schools. This was supported by over 100 organisations (including the NSPCC, British Heart Foundation, Teenage Cancer Trust and Barnardo's), 85% of business leaders, 88% of teachers, 92% of parents and 92% of young people. In 2017 the government committed to introducing compulsory relationships and sex education (RSE) in all secondary schools, and compulsory 'relationships education' in all primary schools. An additional commitment to the health education (mental and physical) aspect of PSHE education was announced in July 2018. The majority of PSHE education will therefore be compulsory in all schools from September 2020. Though not yet compulsory, schools are still expected to cover the economic wellbeing (and careers) of PSHE education. The PSHE Association and the Sex Education Forum jointly published a 'Roadmap to Statutory RSE education' in November 2018 to support schools in preparing their relationships and sex education for statutory changes. In February 2019, the Department of Education enacted a statutory guidance policy which will assist schools in England with PSHE when it becomes compulsory in 2020. A measure to make PSHE compulsory in primary and secondary schools in England received approval from the House of Lords in April 2019. The Department for Education (DfE) published final statutory guidance for teaching Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education in June 2019. The consultation closed in November 2018. This guidance will replace existing government "Sex and Relationship Education Guidance", which were last updated in 2000. The guidelines, which were also published by the House of Commons, require, among other things, acknowledgement of England's laws concerning gay rights, including the legalization of same-sex marriage and the protection of the "physical and mental wellbeing" of gay children. National body for PSHE education The PSHE Association is the national body for PSHE education in England, providing advice and support to a network of over 50,000 teachers and other professionals working in schools nationwide. The Association is an independent charity and membership organisation, established as the official national PSHE subject association by the Department for Education in 2007. Devolved administrations Scotland PSHE is known as "health and wellbeing", is governed by guidance published by the Scottish Government and covers the following themes: mental, emotional, social and physical wellbeing, PE, food and health, substance misuse. Wales PSHE is known as "Personal and Social Education", is governed by guidance published by the Welsh Government and covers the following themes: Active citizenship Health and emotional well-being Moral and spiritual development Preparing for lifelong learning Sustainable development and global citizenship. Northern Ireland In Northern Ireland, the equivalent of PSHE in primary schools is "Personal Development and Mutual Understanding" (PDMU). It is governed by guidance published by CCEA and covers: Understanding and Health; Mutual Understanding in the Local and Wider Community. In Northern Ireland, the equivalent of PSHE in Key Stage 3 is "Personal Development and Mutual Understanding" (PDMU). It is governed by guidance published by CCEA and covers: Education for Employability; Home Economics; Local and Global Citizenship; Personal Development. The equivalent of PSHE in secondary school is "Learning for Life and Work" (LLW). It is governed by guidance published by CCEA and is designed to help young people develop the fundamental skills, knowledge, qualities and dispositions that are prerequisites for life and work. There are differences in the subjects that make up LLW between key stage 3 and key stage 4. Crown Dependencies' administrations Guernsey In Guernsey, PSHE is known as "personal, social and health education" (PSHCE), is included in the "Healthy Schools" programme of the States of Guernsey, and has the aims of developing healthy behaviours, raising pupil achievement, reducing health inequalities and promoting social inclusion. Jersey In Jersey, PSHE is included in the health education provided by the States of Jersey, and has the aims of developing healthy behaviours, raising pupil achievement, reducing health inequalities and promoting social inclusion. Isle of Man On the Isle of Man, PSHE has the aims of developing healthy behaviours, raising pupil achievement, reducing health inequalities and promoting social inclusion. See also Stand Against Violence Relationship and Sex Education References Notes Sources External links PSHE Association Subject association for professionals working in PSHE education. Coram Life Education PSHE resources for schools. Health education in the United Kingdom Education in England Medical education in the United Kingdom

Kinesis (biology)

Kinesis, like a taxis or tropism, is a movement or activity of a cell or an organism in response to a stimulus (such as gas exposure, light intensity or ambient temperature). Unlike taxis, the response to the stimulus provided is non-directional. The animal does not move toward or away from the stimulus but moves at either a slow or fast rate depending on its "comfort zone." In this case, a fast movement (non-random) means that the animal is searching for its comfort zone while a slow movement indicates that it has found it. Types There are two main types of kineses, both resulting in aggregations. However, the stimulus does not act to attract or repel individuals. Orthokinesis: in which the speed of movement of the individual is dependent upon the stimulus intensity. For example, the locomotion of the collembola, Orchesella cincta, in relation to water. With increased water saturation in the soil there is an increase in the direction of its movement towards the aimed place. Klinokinesis: in which the frequency or rate of turning is proportional to stimulus intensity. For example, the behaviour of the flatworm (Dendrocoelum lacteum) which turns more frequently in response to increasing light thus ensuring that it spends more time in dark areas. Basic model of kinesis The kinesis strategy controlled by the locally and instantly evaluated well-being (fitness) can be described in simple words: Animals stay longer in good conditions and leave bad conditions more quickly. If the well-being is measured by the local reproduction coefficient then the minimal reaction-diffusion model of kinesis can be written as follows: For each population in the biological community, where: is the population density of ith species, represents the abiotic characteristics of the living conditions (can be multidimensional), is the reproduction coefficient, which depends on all and on s, is the equilibrium diffusion coefficient (defined for equilibrium ). The coefficient characterises dependence of the diffusion coefficient on the reproduction coefficient. The models of kinesis were tested with typical situations. It was demonstrated that kinesis is beneficial for assimilation of both patches and fluctuations of food distribution. Kinesis may delay invasion and spreading of species with the Allee effect. See also Brownian motion Chemokinesis Cranial kinesis Cytokinesis Diffusion Nastic movements Photokinesis Rapid plant movement Taxis References Kendeigh, S. Charles. 1961. Animal Ecology. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 468 p. External links Host-plant finding by insects: orientation, sensory input and search patterns Physiology Perception Signal transduction

Spirit of place

Spirit of place (or soul) refers to the unique, distinctive and cherished aspects of a place; often those celebrated by artists and writers, but also those cherished in folk tales, festivals and celebrations. It is thus as much in the invisible weave of culture (stories, art, memories, beliefs, histories, etc.) as it is the tangible physical aspects of a place (monuments, boundaries, rivers, woods, architectural style, rural crafts styles, pathways, views, and so on) or its interpersonal aspects (the presence of relatives, friends and kindred spirits, and the like). Often the term is applied to a rural or a relatively unspoiled or regenerated place — whereas the very similar term sense of place would tend to be more domestic, urban, or suburban in tone. For instance, one could logically apply 'sense of place' to an urban high street; noting the architecture, the width of the roads and pavements, the plantings, the style of the shop-fronts, the street furniture, and so on, but one could not really talk about the 'spirit of place' of such an essentially urban and commercial environment. However, an urban area that looks faceless or neglected to an adult may have deep meaning in children's street culture. The Roman term for spirit of place was Genius loci, by which it is sometimes still referred. This has often been historically envisaged as a guardian animal or a small supernatural being (puck, fairy, elf, and the like) or a ghost. In the developed world these beliefs have been, for the most part, discarded. A new layer of less-embodied superstition on the subject, however, has arisen around ley lines, feng shui and similar concepts, on the one hand, and urban leftover spaces, such as back alleys or gaps between buildings in some North-American downtown areas, on the other hand. The western cultural movements of Romanticism and Neo-romanticism are often deeply concerned with creating cultural forms that 're-enchant the land', in order to establish or re-establish a spirit of place. Modern earth art (sometimes called environment art) artists such as Andy Goldsworthy have explored the contribution of natural/ephemeral sculpture to spirit of place. Many indigenous and tribal cultures around the world are deeply concerned with spirits of place in their landscape. Spirits of place are explicitly recognized by some of the world's main religions: Shinto has its Kami which may incorporate spirits of place; and the Dvarapalas and Lokapalas in Hinduism, Vajrayana and Bonpo traditions. See also Bioregionalism Common Ground (United Kingdom) Cultural landscape Cultural region Deep map Genius loci Landvættir Nature writing Parochialism Psychogeography Topophilia References External links Common Ground (UK) The arts Cultural geography Psychogeography Landscape design history Gardening Landscape architecture Environmental design

Cultural framework

Cultural framework is a term used in social science to explain traditions, value systems, myths and symbols that are common in a given society. A given society may have multiple cultural frameworks (for example, United States society has different cultural frameworks for its white and African American populations). Usually cultural frameworks are mixed; as certain individuals or entire groups can be familiar with many cultural frameworks. There is an important relation between cultural frameworks and ideologies, as most successful ideologies are closely connected to cultural frameworks of societies they spread in. Cultural framework should not, however, be confused with ideology, as those concepts are separate. For example, in Nazi Germany, Nazism was an ideology, while religious beliefs, patriotism and traditions dating back to Germanic and Frankish tribes were part of the German cultural framework. References Todd Landman, Neil Robinson, The SAGE handbook of comparative politics, SAGE Publications Ltd, 2009, , p. 329 Culture

Olympism

Olympism refers to the philosophy of the Olympic Games. The fundamental principles of Olympism are outlined in the Olympic Charter. Olympism is a philosophy that seeks to blend sport with culture, education, and international cooperation. It emphasizes the joy of effort, the educational value of good examples, social responsibility, and respect for universal ethical principles. The ultimate goal is to use sport as a means of promoting the development of humankind and preserving human dignity. The principles of Olympism include the idea that the ability to participate in sports is a basic human right. Olympism emphasizes that individuals should have equal access to sports without discrimination and that these activities should be done in a spirit of fairness and camaraderie. Non-discrimination is a fundamental aspect of Olympism. It holds that individuals should be able to participate in sports without facing discrimination based on factors such as race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and socioeconomic status. Individuals who follow or support Olympism may refer to their actions as "fostering personal development." Some individuals have expressed skepticism towards Olympism, stating that fully achieving its ideals may not be possible. They also point to examples where the games have failed to meet their stated goals. Olympism in action Six activities are currently included within Olympism in Action. Activities include Development through Sport, Education through Sport, Peace through Sport, Sport and the Environment, Sport for All, and Women and Sport. These activities are endorsed by the Olympic Movement. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) supports Development through Sport by working with the United Nations (UN) and other governmental agencies to help people perceive, gain, and understand the world around them through athletics. For Education through Sports, the IOC created the Olympic Values Education Programme (OVEP) to teach its participants about the advantages of being physically active and playing sports. IOC President Thomas Bach has shown his support for Peace through Sport by stating "The Olympic athletes show the whole world that it is possible to compete with each other while living peacefully together. In this world of uncertainty that we are living in today, the Olympic Games are even more relevant than ever." To support its idea for Sport and the Environment, the IOC is a principal support partner for the Sustainable Sport and Events (SSE) Toolkit created by great organizations. The toolkit focuses on how National Olympic Committees should go about choosing a city or cities to host, as well as construction for the venue, transportation, and accommodation for athletes and visitors. The IOC works towards Sport for All to offer access to sports to everyone, no matter their gender, race, or social class. Women in Sport is the IOC's way to continue to support and improve gender equality. They do this by creating “leadership development, advocacy and awareness campaigns” and putting more women in leadership roles in the committee. However, some recent policy decisions of the IOC have been the source of some controversy. For example, during the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis, the IOC EB recommended the non-participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials, and urged International Sports Federations and organizers of sports events worldwide to do everything in their power to ensure that no athlete or sports official from Russia or Belarus be allowed to take part under the name of Russia or Belarus. References Olympic culture

Democratization of technology

Democratization of technology refers to the process by which access to technology rapidly continues to become more accessible to more people, especially from a select group of people to the average public. New technologies and improved user experiences have empowered those outside of the technical industry to access and use technological products and services. At an increasing scale, consumers have greater access to use and purchase technologically sophisticated products, as well as to participate meaningfully in the development of these products. Industry innovation and user demand have been associated with more affordable, user-friendly products. This is an ongoing process, beginning with the development of mass production and increasing dramatically as digitization became commonplace. Thomas Friedman argued that the era of globalization has been characterized by the democratization of technology, democratization of finance, and democratization of information. Technology has been critical in the latter two processes, facilitating the rapid expansion of access to specialized knowledge and tools, as well as changing the way that people view and demand such access. A counter argument is that this is just a process of 'massification' - more people can use banks, technology, have access to information, but it does not mean there is any more democratic influence over its production, or that this massification promotes Democracy. History Scholars and social critics often cite the invention of the printing press as a major invention that changed the course of history. The force of the printing press rested not in its impact on the printing industry or inventors, but on its ability to transmit information to a broader public by way of mass production. This event is so widely recognized because of its social impact – as a democratizing force. The printing press is often seen as the historical counterpart to the Internet. After the development of the Internet in 1969, its use remained limited to communications between scientists and within government, although use of email and boards gained popularity among those with access. It did not become a popular means of communication until the 1990s. In 1993 the US federal government opened the Internet to commerce and the creation of HTML formed the basis for universal accessibility. Major innovations The Internet has played a critical role in modern life as a typical feature of most Western households, and has been key in the democratization of knowledge. It not only constitutes arguably the most critical innovation in this trend thus far; it has also allowed users to gain knowledge of and access to other technologies. Users can learn of new developments more quickly, and purchase high-tech products otherwise only actively marketed to recognized experts. Some have argued that cloud computing is having a major effect by allowing users greater access through mobility and pay-as-you-use capacity. Social media has also empowered and emboldened users to become contributors and critics of technological developments. Generative artificial intelligence tools have the potential to democratize the process of innovation by improving the ability of individuals to specify and visualize ideas. The open-source model allows users to participate directly in development of software, rather than indirect participation, through contributing opinions. By being shaped by the user, development is directly responsive to user demand and can be obtained for free or at a low cost. In a comparable trend, arduino and littleBits have made electronics more accessible to users of all backgrounds and ages. The development of 3D printers has the potential to increasingly democratize production. Cultural impact This trend is linked to the spread of knowledge of and ability to perform high-tech tasks, challenging previous conceptions of expertise. Widespread access to technology, including lower costs, was critical to the transition to the new economy. Similarly, democratization of technology was also fuelled by this economic transition, which produced demands for technological innovation and optimism in technology-driven progress. Since the 1980s, a spreading constructivist conception of technology has emphasized that the social and technical domains are critically intertwined. Scholars have argued that technology is non-neutral, defined contextually and locally by a certain relationship with society. Andrew Feenberg, a central thinker in the philosophy of technology, argued that democratizing technology means expanding technological design to include alternative interests and values. When successful in doing so, this can be a tool for increasing inclusiveness. This also suggests an important participatory role for consumers if technology is to be truly democratic. Feenberg asserts that this must be achieved by consumer intervention in a liberated design process. Improved access to specialized knowledge and tools has been associated with an increase in the "do it yourself" (DIY) trend. This has also been associated with consumerization, whereby personal or privately owned devices and software are also used for business purposes. Some have argued that this is linked to reduced dependence on traditional information technology departments. Astra Taylor, the author of the book The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, argues, "The promotion of Internet-enabled amateurism is a lazy substitute for real equality of opportunity." Industry impact In some ways, democratization of technology has strengthened this industry. Markets have broadened and diversified. Consumer feedback and input is available at a very low or no cost. However, related industries are experiencing decreased demand for qualified professionals as consumers are able to fill more of their demands themselves. Users of a range of types and status have access to increasingly similar technology. Because of the decreased costs and expertise necessary to use products and software, professionals (e.g. in the audio industry) may experience loss of work. In some cases, technology is accessible but sufficiently complex that most users without specialized training are able to operate it without necessarily understanding how it works. Additionally, the process of consumerization has led to an influx in the number of devices in businesses and accessing private networks that IT departments cannot control or access. While this can lead to lowered operating costs and increased innovation, it is also associated with security concerns that most businesses are unable to address at the pace of the spread of technology. Political impact Some scholars have argued that technological change will bring about a third wave of democracy. The Internet has been recognized for its role in promoting increased citizen advocacy and government transparency. Jesse Chen, a leading thinker in democratic engagement technologies, distinguishes the democratizing effects of technology from democracy itself. Chen has argued that, while the Internet may have democratizing effects, the Internet alone cannot deliver democracy at all levels of society unless technologies are purposely designed for the nuances of democracy, specifically the engagement of large groups of people in between elections in and beyond government. The spread of the Internet and other forms of technology has led to increased global connectivity. Many scholars believe that it has been associated in the developing world not only with increased Western influence, but also with the spread of democracy through increased communication, efficiency, and access to information. Scholars have drawn associations between the level of technological connectedness and democracy in many nations. Technology can enhance democracy in the developed world as well. In addition to increased communication and transparency, some electorates have implemented online voting to accommodate an increased number of citizens. References External links Leadbeater and Miller: The Pro-Am Revolution National Democratic Institute The Open Source Initiative Cultural globalization Digital media Digital technology Internet culture Technological change

Tertulia

A tertulia (, ; ; ) is a social gathering with literary or artistic overtones, especially in Iberia or in Spanish America. Tertulia also means an informal meeting of people to talk about current affairs, arts, etc. The word is originally Spanish (borrowed by Catalan and Portuguese), but it has only moderate currency in English, used mainly in describing Latin cultural contexts. Occasionally, a tertulia may also describe a television magazine or chat show programme in a similar (albeit perhaps more sensationalist) format to its older counterpart. Format A tertulia is rather similar to a salon, but a typical tertulia in recent centuries has been a regularly scheduled event in a public place such as a bar, although some tertulias are held in more private spaces, such as someone's living room. Participants, known as contertulios or tertulianos, may share their recent creations such as poetry, short stories, other writings, and even artwork or songs. Usually, but not always, the participants in a regularly scheduled tertulia are in some respects like-minded, with similar political or literary tastes. Etymology The Diccionario de la lengua española states that the etymology of the word tertulia is uncertain, though it may be derived from the name of the early Christian apologist Tertullian. In Spanish America At tertulias before 1810 in at the houses of Buenos Aires society women such as Mercedes de Lasalde Riglos, Mariquita Sánchez de Thompson and Flora Azcuénaga the discussions led up to the May Revolution, the first stage in the struggle for Argentine independence from Spain. "Madame Riglos" could be seen as the chief lady of the Tory (conservative) faction in Buenos Aires. She was sparkling and familiar, although highly aristocratic. Doña Melchora de Sarratea, queen of fashion and of the Buenos Aires salons, was so well aware of public and private affairs that she was held to be an enthusiastic supporter of Whig (liberal) principles. Mariquita Sánchez de Thompson's forte was foreign relations. Similar tertulias were being held during this period in Lima, Peru, by women such as Manuela Rábago de Avellafuertes de Riglos and Narcisa Arias de Saavaedra. (1813–1887) described Buenos Aires in the period immediately following independence. He wrote that it was a widespread custom among the more notable and well-to-do families, and also with many decent families, to give tertulias at least once a week. Usually the guests danced only from 8:00 to 12:00 at night, in which case only mate was served, but if it went on later chocolate would be added. Dress was not elaborate, and dancing, music and conversation were the only entertainment, so the cost was low. A piano player might be hired, or the young people might play dance pieces, or some old and complacent aunt might play some contradanza. Even if it was old, the thing was to dance. List Tertulia de Nava See also : such as the Café de las Salesas, the Café Gijón, and the Café Comercial, popular cafés de tertulia in Madrid Pulqueria Stammtisch Tertullian Viennese café References Sources External links Culture of Spain Culture of Latin America Spanish words and phrases Meetings

Appeal to novelty

The appeal to novelty (also called appeal to modernity or argumentum ad novitatem) is a fallacy in which one prematurely claims that an idea or proposal is correct or superior, exclusively because it is new and modern. In a controversy between status quo and new inventions, an appeal to novelty argument is not in itself a valid argument. The fallacy may take two forms: overestimating the new and modern, prematurely and without investigation assuming it to be best-case, or underestimating status quo, prematurely and without investigation assuming it to be worst-case. Investigation may prove these claims to be true, but it is a fallacy to prematurely conclude this only from the general claim that all novelty is good. Chronological snobbery is a form of appeal to novelty, in which one argues that the only relevant knowledge and practices are those established in the last decades. The opposite of an appeal to novelty is an appeal to tradition, in which one argues that the "old ways" are always superior to new ideas. Appeals to novelty are often successful in a modern world where everyone is eager to be on the "cutting edge" of technology. The dot-com bubble of the early 2000s could easily be interpreted as a sign of the dangers of naïvely embracing new ideas without first viewing them with a critical eye. Also, advertisers frequently extoll the newness of their products as a reason to buy. Conversely, this is satirised by skeptics as bleeding edge technology, which may itself be an example of an appeal to tradition. Explanation The appeal to novelty is based on the reasoning that in general people will tend to try to improve the outputs resulting from their efforts. Thus, for example, a company producing a product might be assumed to know about existing flaws and to be seeking to correct them in a future revision. This line of reasoning is obviously flawed for many reasons, most notably that it ignores: motive (a new product may be released that is functionally identical to previous products but which is cheaper to produce, or with modifications that have nothing to do with its core use, e.g. aesthetic modifications on a technological product); cyclicality (the fashion industry continually rediscovers old styles and markets them as the next new thing); (the previous product may have been created by an expert who has since been replaced by a neophyte); fallibility (while building the new product defects or negative side effects can be introduced undetected, effectively rendering it inferior); difference between local and general improvement (a new product may be superior to its previous counterpart in its core function but made lacking in other aspects, leading to a general inferior state, e.g. a product dropping some features, or becoming restricted geographically); cost (the new product may be better in terms of performance but have low or no return on investment if used to replace the older one). Examples "If you want to lose weight, your best bet is to follow the latest diet." "The department will become more profitable because it has been reorganized." "Upgrading all your software to the most recent versions will make your system more reliable." "Things are bad with party A in charge, thus party B will bring an improvement if they're elected." "If you want to make friends, you have to wear the latest fashion and the trendiest gadgets." "Do X because it is (current year)." "You believe in X and actually believe that he did X in the 21st Century?" Appeal to novelty fallacy: designation pitfalls In some cases, there may exist one or more unnamed – but still universally acknowledged – correlations between novelty and positive traits. For example, newer technology has a tendency to be more complex and advanced than older. A correlation may, for example, exist between the newness of a virus definition file and the security of a computer, or between the newness of a computer and its speed and performance. In these precise cases, something may be more likely to be superior whenever it is new and modern, though not exclusively because it is new and modern. In some restricted cases, it may even be proven. Thus, what may seem like Appeal to novelty is not a fallacy in every case. It is only a fallacy if the invoked correlations are disputed if no correlation has been examined, or if the correlations are claimed as proofs. Whenever something undergoes some sort of continuous decay, valuing novelty is justified as long as novelty restores some status quo with an anterior state (or improves on it). For instance, new clothes are arguably superior to their identical worn out counterparts, as are newly produced body parts to the old in the case of moulting. Much the same way, in aesthetics, for example in some arts and music, the value can be held not by the actual product or its performance, but rather by the sentiment of freshness and amazement that it causes; for example, many radio stations play only that music which is currently selling well (or is predicted to sell well following its imminent release), not that which has sold equally well only a few months before. The implication is that it is the currency of the popularity that confers value, rather than any intrinsic quality of the music itself, or of popularity at previous times. If it is the case, a novelty in itself – though not necessarily all forms of novelty – is a key aspect of evaluation. In those cases, if a statement comparing two art forms does mention their respective states of novelty, there is no fallacy (e.g. "Song A is currently a much better bet for your party than song B."). See also Historian's fallacy Myth of progress Shiny object syndrome References Novelty Genetic fallacies

Global regionalization

Global regionalization is a process parallel to globalization, in which large regions are divided into smaller regions, areas, or districts. A feature of the global community is the globalization of many processes and the development of international relations and interdependence of modern states in the second half of the 20th century. Globalization is evident not only globally, but also regionally. A component of international relations in the 21st century is regional development and cooperation. In this regard, the importance of regional factors are significant to international relations. Most of the changes which are observed in today's world are associated with the development of the information sphere. There were predictable transformations that gave rise to the beginning of the entry of humanity into a global information society. There are five definitions of information society-related parameters identification of newness of the world which are technological, economic, concerning employment, and spatial or cultural nature. The significance of the information society in terms of its impact on the system are consisting of international relations. In 2000 G-8 Summit in Okinawa adopted a Charter on Global Information Society, which reflected the changes in world information. The same issues a lot of attention were paid to the Millennium Summit. Regionalization as a trend of global development The driving forces of regionalization are the state and non-governmental structures (the economic "interest groups", NGOs, political parties, etc.). World regionalism is qualified as one of the manifestations of globalization while also participating in the opposite trend. Many developing countries use regionalization as an attempt to confront global competition. In the context of globalization, acquires special relevance selective protectionism - gradual global economic integration, combining openness to the outside world with the protection of national interests. The following theoretical concepts reflect the processes of regionalism, which is a consequence of globalization. The multipolar world theory, the theory of large spaces, the theory of convergence, and the regional joint doctrine. The study of regionalism analyzed the regionalization emerging in response to the challenges of globalization, and regionalization, such as institutional integration of the process of interpenetration merging national productions which combine the social and political institutional structure of the state. There are different forms and types of integration. They are characterized by the degree of freedom of movement within groups and factors of production. Currently, there are mentioned forms of regional economic integration such as free trade area (FTA); Customs Union (CU); single or common market (BP); Economic Union (EU); Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), and others. Information society and international relations Increased exposure to information changes on international relations caused several features of the information. The first feature - information not only decreases or disappears in its large-scale use but is the starting point for the formation of new species and new qualities. The second feature - information is a fundamental principle for the development and decision-making at all levels of government, including the level of global governance. Third - feature information is the "Oedipus effect", which is the ability to influence the mind and behavior of individuals and society in general. Developing of the global information society are influenced by the progress of new information and communication technologies (ICT) in conjunction with the globalization of markets, both within individual countries and internationally. As a result, the harmonious joining of the information society and respecting the necessary balance required coordinating efforts by the state as a body that can fully express the interests of society. Creating a global information society requires overcoming informational imbalances that exist in the world between different countries and regions, as well as information imbalances existing within themselves, for example, between different social groups. Because of these disparities, the task of building the information society acquires varying degrees of importance for different countries. Due to the intensification of information exchange and its interplay with economic imbalances interaction available information provided to the growing influence of politics, economics, and culture. In 1993 the Vice President of US - Al Gore used the term "information superhighway." In the field of information, the states like Singapore, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, Switzerland, Norway, Australia and Iceland are according to the United States. In the information technology ratings Russia is in the sixth place in the top ten. Below - Morocco, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Bulgaria, Vietnam, the Philippines, Peru, Tanzania. In 1996 was adopted the programme "Participation in international cultural exchange" by the Federal Law. To stay among the countries that affect global politics and largely define it, needs to strengthen active in shaping the global information society. At the end of 2001, Russia issued to the First Committee of the UN General Assembly resolution "Developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security". However, according to the Institute of the Information Society, 64% of the population of Russia does not feel the need to use the Internet. This figure was the result of adding Methodology Center for International Development at Harvard University "Ready for the networked world" (Readiness for the Networked World) and Russian realities which is relevant to the assessment: human capital, business climate and using of ICT in culture. It appears to the "effect resource economy." It is most clearly seen when comparing the two global markets: the global oil market which is estimated at 650 billion dollars, (Russia's share in it - 16%); ICT world market - about $1 trillion share in it represents the hundredths of a percent (Vaganov, 2004). The impact which formed of global information society on international relations has not only positive but also negative effects. Thus, the importance of international cooperation is often less important for the media industry, which allows for requests of the audience. Everywhere we are seeing a decline in international news programs, very costly and have a constant audience for stories related to the consumption and criminal chronicle (Atlas Monde diplomatique, 2007). Media increasingly contribute to the formation of world opinion, laying patterns to assess the achievements of globalization as well as risks and challenges of globalization. For example, growth media publications about the terrorist threat is much ahead of terrorist activity in the world (Chernikov, 2002). However, there is no sufficient information on such global issues as water crisis, or human trafficking. All these points are needed for the transformation of information policy. Unrecognized states The list of current unrecognized states in scientific publications is large. It includes the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Often can be added the Republic of Somaliland, Tamil Eelam (Ceylon), and more recently - the Islamic State of Waziristan, whose independence was proclaimed in February 2006. Occasionally this context refers to South Sudan, Kashmir, Western Sahara, Palestine, Kurdistan, and some other areas. Consequently, the unrecognized state - is the common name of public entities who are possessing all the attributes of statehood (control of territory, control system, the actual sovereignty) at the same time deprived of full or partial international diplomatic recognition and thus cannot de jure act as in international relations. Some authors believe that the term "unrecognized state" - is incorrect and prefer the term "State de facto". International legal conflict between the right of nations and self-determination is enshrined in the famous decision of the UN General Assembly on decolonization in 1960. The principle of territorial integrity of States - is the principle of inviolability of borders which is officially recognized by all European countries, USA and Canada in the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in Helsinki in 1975. Uncertainty stated by the international community negatively affects its legal status and operational capabilities. Such a state can not be in active economic activities and can not conclude trade contracts and implement multilateral investment and infrastructure projects. The area relies only on the international community for humanitarian aid, social and cultural projects, and cooperation with various countries and regions in its infancy. Thus the political and legal recognition of any territory depends on its existence and development. The top prospects in terms of possible transformations are the current status of Kosovo. It is about independence in some form, as this concerned the United States and the European Union. Serbia will only be able to postpone such a decision or to bargain for themselves some political and economic concessions (integration of Serbia into the EU or Kosovo section). On the other hand, if the recognition of Kosovo is qualified as a unique case (a unique case) it could provoke a serious precedent in countries where the problem of ethnic separatism. Abkhazia, Transnistria, and South Ossetia can rely on partial, incomplete recognition of Russia, but their prospects are far from obvious. This "half independence" will not be recognized by the United States, European Union, India, China, and many other countries. There is the slightest chance of changing the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. This situation is mainly determined by the position of the US, EU, Russia, Iran, and Turkey. To effectively address the problem of unrecognized states is likely to develop clear international legal criteria under which after a certain period unrecognized state formation can count on international recognition. With all the reservations can be stated that unrecognized independent state players are the regional and international politics. Their influence on political processes is quite noticeable. Globalization has created additional opportunities for the long-term existence of unrecognized states without their formal recognition by other countries. It is gradually becoming the norm. References Global Regionalization as a Way to Counteraction the Global Financial Threats Dr. Victor Reutov (Crimean economic institute SHEE «Vadym Hetman Kyiv National Economic University» Simferopol) Globalization

Interactive design

Interactive design is a user-oriented field of study that focuses on meaningful communication using media to create products through cyclical and collaborative processes between people and technology. Successful interactive designs have simple, clearly defined goals, a strong purpose and intuitive screen interface. Interactive design compared to interaction design In some cases interactive design is equated to interaction design; however, in the specialized study of interactive design there are defined differences. To assist in this distinction, interaction design can be thought of as: Making devices usable, useful, and fun, focusing on the efficiency and intuitive hardware A fusion of product design, computer science, and communication design A process of solving specific problems under a specific set of contextual circumstances The creation of form for the behavior of products, services, environments, and systems Making dialogue between technology and user invisible, i.e. reducing the limitations of communication through and with technology. About connecting people through various products and services, Whereas interactive design can be thought of as: Giving purpose to interaction design through meaningful experiences Consisting of six main components including User control, Responsiveness, Real-Time Interactions, Connectedness, Personalization, and Playfulness Focuses on the use and experience of the software Retrieving and processing information through on-demand responsiveness Acting upon information to transform it The constant changing of information and media, regardless of changes in the device Providing interactivity through a focus on the capabilities and constraints of human cognitive processing While both definitions indicate a strong focus on the user, the difference arises from the purposes of interactive design and interaction design. In essence interactive design involves the creation of interactive products and services, while interaction design focuses on the design of those products and services. Interaction design without interactive design provides only design concepts. Interactive design without interaction design may not built products good enough for the user. History Fluxus Interactive Design is heavily influenced by the Fluxus movement, which focuses on a "do-it-yourself" aesthetic, anti-commercialism and an anti-art sensibility. Fluxus is different from Dada in its richer set of aspirations. Fluxus is not a modern-art movement or an art style, rather it is a loose international organization which consists of many artists from different countries. There are 12 core ideas that form Fluxus. Globalism Unity of Art and Life Intermedia Experimentalism Chance Playfulness Simplicity Implicativeness Exemplativism Specificity Presence in time Musicality Computers The birth of the personal computer gave users the ability to become more interactive with what they were able to input into the machine. This was mostly due to the invention of the mouse. With an early prototype created in 1963 by Douglas Engelbart, the mouse was conceptualized as a tool to make the computer more interactive. The Internet and Interactive Design With the tendency of increasing use to the Internet, the advent of interactive media and computing, and eventually the emergence of digital interactive consumer products, the two cultures of design and engineering gravitated towards a common interest in flexible use and user experience. The most important characteristic of the Internet is its openness to communication between people and people. In other words, everyone can readily communicate and interact with what they want on the Internet. Recent century, the notion of interactive design started popularity with Internet environment. Stuart Moulthrop was shown interactive media by using hypertext, and made genre of hypertext fiction on the Internet. Stuart philosophies could be helpful to the hypertext improvements and media revolution with developing of the Internet. This is a short history of Hypertext. In 1945, the first concept of Hypertext had originated by Vannevar Bush as he wrote in his article As We May Think. And a computer game called Adventure was invented as responding users' needs via the first hypertextual narrative in the early 1960s. And then Douglas Engelbart and Theodor Holm Nelson who made Xanadu collaborated to make a system called FRESS in the 1970's. Their efforts brought immense political ramifications. By 1987, Computer Lib and Dream Machine were published by Microsoft Press. And Nelson joined Autodesk, which announced plans to support Xanadu as a commercial. The definition of Xanadu is a project that has declared an improvement over the World Wide Web, with mission statement that today's popular software simulates paper. The World Wide Web trivializes our original hypertext model with one-way ever-breaking links and no management of version or contents. In the late 1980s, Apple computer began giving away Hypercard. Hypercard is relatively cheap and simple to operate. In the early 1990s, the hypertext concept has finally received some attention from humanist academics. We can see the acceptance through Jay David Bolters ' Writing Space (1991)', and George Landow's Hypertext. Advertising Upon the transition from analogue to digital technology, one sees a further transition from digital technology to interactive media in advertising agencies. This transition caused many of the agencies to reexamine their business and try to stay ahead of the curve. Although it is a challenging transition, the creative potential of interactive design lies in combining almost all forms of media and information delivery: text, images, film, video and sound, and that in turn negates many boundaries for advertising agencies, making it a creative haven. Hence, with this constant motion forward, agencies such as R/GA have established a routine to keep up. Founded in 1977 by Richard and Robert Greenberg, the company has reconstructed its business model every nine years. Starting from computer-assisted animation camera, it is now an "Agency for the Digital World". Robert Greenberg explains: "the process of changing models is painful because you have to be ready to move on from the things that you're good at". This is one example of how to adapt to such a fast-paced industry, and one major conference that stays on top of things is the How Interactive Design Conference, which helps designers make the leap towards the digital age. Interactive new media art Nowadays, following the development of science and technology, various new media appear in different areas, like art, industry and science. Most technologies described as "new media" are digital, often having characteristics of being manipulated, networkable, dense, compressible, and interactive (like the internet, video games and mobiles). In the industry field, companies no longer focus on products itself, they focus more on human-centered design. Therefore, "interactive" become an important element in the new media. Interactivity is not only computer and video signal presenting with each other, but it should be more referred to communication and respondence among viewers and works. According to Selnow's (1988) theory, interactivity has three levels: Communicative Recognition: This communication is specific to the partner. Feedback is based on recognition of the partner. When a learner inputs information into a computer and the computer responds specifically to that input, there is mutual recognition. The menu format allows mutual recognition. Feedback: The responses are based on previous feedback. As the communication continues, the feedback progresses to reflect understanding. When a learner refines a search query and the computer responds with a refined list, message exchange is progressing. Information Flow: There is an opportunity for a two-way flow of information. It is necessary both the learner and the computer have means of exchanging information. The search engine tool allows for learner input via use of the keyboard and the computer responds with written information. New media has been described as the "mixture between existing cultural conventions and the conventions of software. For instance newspapers and television, they have been produced from traditional outlets to forms of interactive multimedia." New media can allow audiences access to content anytime, anywhere, on any digital device. It also promotes interactive feedback, participation, and community creation around the media content. New media is a vague term to mean a whole slew of things. The Internet and social media are both forms of new media. Any type of technology that enables digital interactivity is a form of new media. Video games, as well as Facebook, would be a great example of a type of new media. New media art is simply art that utilizes these new media technologies, such as digital art, computer graphics, computer animation, virtual art, Internet art, and interactive art. New media art is very focused on the interactivity between the artist and the spectator. Many new media art works, such as Jonah Brucker-Cohen and Katherine Moriwaki's UMBRELLA.net and Golan Levin et al.'s Dialtones: A Telesymphony, involve audience participation. Other works of new media art require audience members to interact with the work but not to participate in its production. In interactive new media art, the work responds to audience input but is not altered by it. Audience members may click on a screen to navigate through a web of linked pages, or activate motion sensors that trigger computer programs, but their actions leave no trace on the work itself. Each member of the audience experiences the piece differently based on the choices he or she makes as while interacting with the work. In Olia Lialina's My Boyfriend Came Back From The War, for example, visitors click through a series of frames on a Web page to reveal images and fragments of text. Although the elements of the story never change, the way the story unfolds is determined by each visitor's own actions. References Further reading Iuppa, Nicholas. (2001) Interactive Design for New Media and the Web Boston, Focal Print. Software design zh:互動設計

Impression formation

Impression formation in social psychology refers to the processes by which different pieces of knowledge about another are combined into a global or summary impression. Social psychologist Solomon Asch is credited with the seminal research on impression formation and conducted research on how individuals integrate information about personality traits. Two major theories have been proposed to explain how this process of integration takes place. The Gestalt approach views the formation of a general impression as the sum of several interrelated impressions. As an individual seeks to form a coherent and meaningful impression of another individual, previous impressions significantly influence the interpretation of subsequent information. In contrast to the Gestalt approach, the cognitive algebra approach asserts that individuals' experiences are combined with previous evaluations to form a constantly changing impression of a person. A related area to impression formation is the study of person perception, making dispositional attributions, and then adjusting those inferences based on the information available. Methods Impression formation has traditionally been studied using three methods pioneered by Asch: free response, free association, and a check-list form. In addition, a fourth method based on a Likert scale with anchors such as “very favorable” and “very unfavorable”, has also been used in recent research. A combination of some or all of these techniques is often employed to produce the most accurate assessment of impression formation. Free response Free response is an experimental method frequently used in impression formation research. The participant (or perceiver) is presented with a stimulus (usually a short vignette or a list of personality descriptors such as assured, talkative, cold, etc.) and then instructed to briefly sketch his or her impressions of the type of person described. This is a useful technique for gathering detailed and concrete evidence on the nature of the impression formed. However, the difficulty of accurately coding responses often necessitates the use of additional quantitative measures. Free association Free association is another commonly used experimental method in which the perceiver creates a list of personality adjectives that immediately come to mind when asked to think about the type of person described by a particular set of descriptor adjectives. Check-list A check-list consisting of assorted personality descriptors is often used to supplement free response or free association data and to compare group trends. After presenting character-qualities of an imagined individual, perceivers are instructed to select the character adjectives from a preset list that best describe the resulting impression. While this produces an easily quantifiable assessment of an impression, it forces participants' answers into a limited, and often extreme, response set. However, when used in conjunction with the above-mentioned techniques, check-list data provides useful information about the character of impressions. Likert-type rating scales With Likert scales, perceivers are responding to a presentation of discrete personality characteristics. Common presentation methods include lists of adjectives, photos or videos depicting a scene, or written scenarios. For example, a participant might be asked to answer the question "Would an honest (trait) person ever search for the owner of a lost package (behavior)?" by answering on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 "very unlikely" to 5 "very likely." Specific results Primacy-recency effect Asch stressed the important influence of an individual's initial impressions of a person's personality traits on the interpretation of all subsequent impressions. Asch argued that these early impressions often shaped or colored an individual's perception of other trait-related details. A considerable body of research exists supporting this hypothesis. For example, when individuals were asked to rate their impression of another person after being presented a list of words progressing from either low favorability to high favorability (L - H) or from high favorability to low favorability (H - L), strong primacy effects were found. In other words, impressions formed from initial descriptor adjectives persisted over time and influenced global impressions. In general, primacy can have three main effects: initial trait-information can be integrated into an individual's global impression of a person in a process of assimilation effects, it can lead to a durable impression against which other information is compared in a process of anchoring, and it can cause people to actively change their perception of others in a process of correction. Valence The emotionality of certain personality traits, such as "warm" versus "cold" characteristics, can influence how subsequent traits are interpreted and ultimately the type of impression formed. Information inconsistent with a person's global impression of another individual is especially prominent in memory. The process of assimilation can lead to causal attributions of personality as this inconsistent information is integrated into the whole. This effect is especially influential when the behavior is perceived as negative. Consistent with negativity bias, negative behaviors are seen as more indicative of an individual's behavior in situations involving moral issues. Extreme negative behavior is also considered more predictive of personality traits than less extreme behavior. History Classic experiments In a classic experiment, Solomon Asch's principal theoretical concern revolved around understanding the mechanisms influencing a person's overall impression of others, principally trait centrality and trait valence of various personality characteristics. His research illustrated the influential roles of the primacy effect, valence, and causal attribution on the part of the individual. Based on the findings of ten experiments studying the effect of various personality adjectives on the resulting quality and character of impressions, several key principles of impression formation have been identified: Individuals have a natural inclination to make global dispositional inferences about the nature of another person's personality. Individuals expect observed behaviors to reflect stable personality traits. Individuals attempt to fit information about different traits and behaviors into a meaningful and coherent whole. Individuals attempt to explain and rationalize inconsistencies when the available information does not fit with the global perception. Theoretical development In psychology Fritz Heider's writings on balance theory emphasized that liking or disliking a person depends on how the person is positively or negatively linked to other liked or disliked entities. Heider's later essay on social cognition, along with the development of "psycho-logic" by Robert P. Abelson and Milton J. Rosenberg, embedded evaluative processes in verbal descriptions of actions, with the verb of a descriptive sentence establishing the kind of linkage existing between the actor and object of the sentence. Harry Gollob expanded these insights with his subject-verb-object approach to social cognition, and he showed that evaluations of sentence subjects could be calculated with high precision from out-of-context evaluations of the subject, verb, and object, with part of the evaluative outcome coming from multiplicative interactions among the input evaluations. In a later work, Gollob and Betty Rossman extended the framework to predicting an actor's power and influence. Reid Hastie wrote that "Gollob's extension of the balance model to inferences concerning subject-verb-object sentences is the most important methodological and theoretical development of Heider's principle since its original statement." Gollob's regression equations for predicting impressions of sentence subjects consisted of weighted summations of out-of-context ratings of the subject, verb, and object, and of multiplicative interactions of the ratings. The equations essentially supported the cognitive algebra approach of Norman H. Anderson's Information integration theory. Anderson, however, initiated a heated technical exchange between himself and Gollob, in which Anderson argued that Gollob's use of the general linear model led to indeterminate theory because it could not completely account for any particular case in the set of cases used to estimate the models. The recondite exchange typified a continuing debate between proponents of contextualism who argue that impressions result from situationally specific influences (e.g., from semantics and nonverbal communication as well as affective factors), and modelers who follow the pragmatic maxim, seeking approximations revealing core mental processes. Another issue in using least-squares estimations is the compounding of measurement error problems with multiplicative variables. In sociology David R. Heise relabeled Gollob's framework from subject-verb-object to actor-behavior-object in order to allow for impression formation from perceived events as well as from verbal stimuli, and showed that actions produce impressions of behaviors and objects as well as of actors on all three dimensions of Charles E. Osgood's semantic differential—Evaluation, Potency, and Activity. Heise used equations describing impression-formation processes as the empirical basis for his cybernetic theory of action, Affect control theory. Erving Goffman's book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and his essay "On Face-work" in the book Interaction Ritual focused on how individuals engage in impression management. Using the notion of face as identity is used now, Goffman proposed that individuals maintain face expressively. "By entering a situation in which he is given a face to maintain, a person takes on the responsibility of standing guard over the flow of events as they pass before him. He must ensure that a particular expressive order is sustained-an order that regulates the flow of events, large or small, so that anything that appears to be expressed by them will be consistent with his face." In other words, individuals control events so as to create desired impressions of themselves. Goffman emphasized that individuals in a group operate as a team with everyone committed to helping others maintain their identities. Impression-formation processes in the US Ratings of 515 action descriptions by American respondents yielded estimations of a statistical model consisting of nine impression-formation equations, predicting outcome Evaluation, Potency, and Activity of actor, behavior, and object from pre-event ratings of the evaluation, potency, and activity of actor, behavior, and object. The results were reported as maximum-likelihood estimations. Stability was a factor in every equation, with some pre-action feeling toward an action element transferred to post-action feeling about the same element. Evaluation, Potency, and Activity of behaviors suffused to actors so impressions of actors were determined in part by the behaviors they performed. In general objects of action lost Potency. Interactions among variables included consistency effects, such as receiving Evaluative credit for performing a bad behavior toward a bad object person, and congruency effects, such as receiving evaluative credit for nice behaviors toward weak objects or bad behaviors toward powerful objects. Third-order interactions included a balance effect in which actors received a boost in evaluation if two or none of the elements in the action were negative, otherwise a decrement. Across all nine prediction equations, more than half of the 64 possible predictors (first-order variables plus second- and third-order interactions) contributed to outcomes. Studies of event descriptions that explicitly specified behavior settings found that impression-formation processes are largely the same when settings are salient, but the setting becomes an additional contributor to impression formation regarding actor, behavior, and object; and the action changes the impression of the setting. Actor and object are the same person in self-directed actions such as "the lawyer praised himself" or various kinds of self-harm. Impression-formation research indicates that self-directed actions reduce the positivity of actors on the Evaluation, Potency, and Activity dimensions. Self-directed actions therefore are not an optimal way to confirm the good, potent, lively identities that people normally want to maintain. Rather self-directed actions are a likely mode of expression for individuals who want to manifest their low self-esteem and self-efficacy. Early work on impression formation used action sentences like, "The kind man praises communists," and "Bill helped the corrupt senator," assuming that modifier-noun combinations amalgamate into a functional unit. A later study found that a modifier-noun combination does form an overall impression that works in action descriptions like a noun alone. The action sentences in that study combined identities with status characteristics, traits, moods, and emotions. Another study in 1989 focused specifically on emotion descriptors combined with identities (e.g., an angry child) and again found that emotion terms amalgamate with identities, and equations describing this kind of amalgamation are of the same form as equations describing trait-identity amalgamation. Cross-cultural studies Studies of various kinds of impression formation have been conducted in Canada, Japan, and Germany. Core processes are similar cross-culturally. For example, in every culture that has been studied, Evaluation of an actor was determined by-among other things-a stability effect, a suffusion from the behavior Evaluation, and an interaction that rewarded an actor for performing a behavior whose Evaluation was consistent with the Evaluation of the object person. On the other hand, each culture weighted the core effects distinctively. For example, the impact of behavior-object Evaluation consistency was much smaller in Germany than in the United States, Canada, or Japan, suggesting that moral judgments of actors have a somewhat different basis in Germany than in the other cultures. Additionally, impression-formation processes involved some unique interactions in each culture. For example, attribute-identity amalgamations in Germany involved some Potency and Activity interactions that did not appear in other cultures. The 2010 book Surveying Cultures reviewed cross-cultural research on impression-formation processes, and provided guidelines for conducting impression-formation studies in cultures where the processes are unexplored currently. Recent studies Impression formation is based on the characteristics of both the perceivers and targets. However, research has not been able to quantify the extent to which these two groups contribute to impression. The research was conducted to determine the extent of how impressions originate from ‘our mind’ and ‘target face’. Results demonstrated that perceiver characteristics contribute more than target appearance. Impressions can be made from facial appearance alone and assessments on attributes such as nice, strong, and smart based on variations of the targets’ face. The results show that subtle facial traits have meaningful consequences on impressions, which is true even for young children of 3 years old. Studies have been conducted to study impression formation in social situations rather than situations involving threat. Research reveals that social goals can drive the formation of impressions and that there is flexibility in the possible impressions formed on target faces. See also First impression (psychology) Notes References Interpersonal relationships

Backward design

Backward design is a method of designing an educational curriculum by setting goals before choosing instructional methods and forms of assessment. Backward design of curriculum typically involves three stages: Identify the results desired (big ideas and skills) What the students should know, understand, and be able to do Consider the goals and curriculum expectations Focus on the "big ideas" (principles, theories, concepts, point of views, or themes) Determine acceptable levels of evidence that support that the desired results have occurred (culminating assessment tasks) What teachers will accept as evidence that student understanding took place Consider culminating assessment tasks and a range of assessment methods (observations, tests, projects, etc.) Design activities that will make desired results happen (learning events) What knowledge and skills students will need to achieve the desired results Consider teaching methods, sequence of lessons, and resource materials Backward design challenges "traditional" methods of curriculum planning. In traditional curriculum planning, a list of content that will be taught is created and/or selected. In backward design, the educator starts with goals, creates or plans out assessments and finally makes lesson plans. Supporters of backward design liken the process to using a "road map". In this case, the destination is chosen first and then the road map is used to plan the trip to the desired destination. In contrast, in traditional curriculum planning there is no formal destination identified before the journey begins. The idea in backward design is to teach toward the "end point" or learning goals, which typically ensures that content taught remains focused and organized. This, in turn, aims at promoting better understanding of the content or processes to be learned for students. The educator is able to focus on addressing what the students need to learn, what data can be collected to show that the students have learned the desired outcomes (or learning standards) and how to ensure the students will learn. Although backward design is based on the same components of the ADDIE model, backward design is a condensed version of these components with far less flexibility. Curriculum design, and instructional design Backward design is often used in conjunction with two other terms: curriculum design and instructional design. Curriculum design is the act of designing or developing curricula for students. Curricula may differ from country to country and further still between provinces or states within a country. A curriculum is based on benchmark standards deemed important by the government. Typically, the time frame of attainment of these outcomes or standards is set by physical age. Instructional design is the design of learning experiences and instructions for the acquisition of knowledge and skill by students. In addition, instructional design models or theories may be thought of as frameworks for developing courses, modules and lessons that increase and enhance learning and encourage engagement . There are numerous instructional design models available to instructors that hold significant importance when planning and implementing curriculum. Many of the models are quite similar in that they essentially all address the same four components in some form or another: the learners; the learning objectives; the method of instruction; and some form of assessment or evaluation. Based around those components, the instructor then has the opportunity to choose the design model and stages that work best for them in their specific situation. This way they can achieve the appropriate learning outcomes or create a plan or strategy for improvement. As learners and instructors may vary, instructional design must be a good fit for both and therefore different models can have behavioral, cognitive or constructivist roots. History Ralph W. Tyler introduced the idea of "backward design" (without using this particular term) in 1949 when referring to a statement of objectives. A statement of objectives is used to indicate the kinds of changes in the student to be brought about so that instructional activities can be planned and developed in a way likely to attain these objectives. The term "backward design" was introduced to curriculum design in 1998/99 by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins (Understanding by Design). The somewhat idiosyncratic term is ultimately due to James S. Coleman, who in his Foundations of Social Theory (1990) used it to parallel the term "backward policing" which he coined for a policy which he found in the production process in Honda factories. Advantages According to Doug Buehl (2000), advantages of backward design include: Students are not as likely to become so lost in the factual detail of a unit that they miss the point of studying the original topic. Instruction looks toward global understandings and not just daily activities; daily lessons are constructed with a focus on what the overall "gain" from the unit is to be. Assessment is designed before lesson planning, so that instruction drives students toward exactly what they need to know. The importance of assessment The primary starting point for backward design is to become familiar with the standards/outcomes for the grade level and curriculum being taught. The second part of curriculum planning with backward design is finding appropriate assessments. It can be difficult for "traditional" educators to switch to this model because it is hard to conceptualize an assessment before deciding on lessons and instruction. The idea is that the assessments (formative or summative) should meet the initial goals identified. Wiggins and McTighe (2008) also utilize the "WHERE" approach during the assessment stage of the process. W stands for students knowing where they are heading, why they are heading there, what they know, where they might go wrong in the process, and what is required of them. H stands for hooking the students on the topic of study. E stands for students exploring and experiencing ideas and being equipped with the necessary understanding to master the standard or outcome being taught. R stands for providing opportunities for students to rehearse, revise, and refine their work. E stands for student evaluation. Other models of instructional design ADDIE model of design Most models of instructional design follow the core elements found in the ADDIE model of design: analyze (designer develops an understanding of the desired outcomes and the learner's knowledge and skills); design (documents learning outcomes, assessment tools, exercise and content); develop (creating the learning materials); implement (the created learning materials are distributed to the learners); and evaluate (the effectiveness of the learning materials is assessed and documented). Many instructional designers and training developers use the ADDIE model as a generic process for creating other models. This model is purposely not designed to be followed in a linear step-by-step fashion, but rather is circular so that it is possible to re-trace steps once data have been collected and analyzed. Dick and Carey model (also known as the systems approach model) The Dick and Carey model is made up of nine different stages which are meant to be executed in parallel, rather than linear, fashion, but this model still follows the same basic instructional design pattern of the ADDIE model, as does backward design. The Dick and Carey model focuses on the interrelationship between context, content, learning and instruction, and addresses instruction as an entire system. In this model, all of the components of this model work together to enable learners to meet the desired learning outcomes. The model includes the following components: Identify instructional goals Conduct instructional analysis Identify entry behaviors and learner characteristics Write performance objectives Develop assessment instruments Develop instructional strategy Develop and select instructional materials Design and conduct formative evaluation of instruction Design and conduct summative evaluation. Both the Dick and Carey model and the backward design model are goal and objective oriented; assessment is created based on learning objectives and goals, and instruction is created based on evaluation and assessment. The Dick and Carey model, however, is a more systemic model in that making changes to components affects other components and, therefore, the changes occur in parallel. In the more linear backward design model, the steps are non-flexible which means that skipping or changing steps is not an option. Kemp instructional design model (also known as the Morrison, Ross and Kemp model) The Kemp instructional design model is a holistic form of instructional design, taking into account all factors of the learning environment. It is very systemic and also follows the same basic design pattern of the ADDIE model. The Kemp model is much more focused on the individual learner needs and goals by following nine components: Identify instructional problems, and specify goals for designing an instructional program Examine learner characteristics that should receive attention during planning Identify subject content, and analyze task components related to stated goals and purposes State instructional objectives for the learner Sequence content within each instructional unit for logical learning Design instructional strategies so that each learner can master the objectives Plan the instructional message and delivery Develop evaluation instruments to assess objectives Select resources to support instruction and learning activities. The largest difference between backward design and the Kemp model is that the Kemp model is meant to be used on a smaller scale. This allows for easier adaptations to be made for individual lessons and individual learners. It also places more emphasis on support and service for learners and instruction. Supporting research using backward design Shumway and Barrett (2004) used the backward design model to strengthen pre-service teachers' attitudes towards teaching. The experience appears to have allowed the pre-service teachers to do exactly that after using both the backward design model and a modified backward design. These pre-service teachers became more excited about their teaching profession and became better prepared as student teachers through the backward design that they had experienced. In the article, Essential Questions — Inclusive Answers (C.M. Jorgenson, 1995), Souhegan High School followed the steps of a backwards design model to reach all levels of student ability and create a school that promoted full inclusion. They concluded that all involved had experienced a richer experience because of the implementation of the backward design model. In An Integration of "Backwards Planning" Unit Design with the "Two Step" Lesson Planning Framework (Jones et al., 2009), a framework for employing backward planning in designing individual lessons is provided. Educators are provided with an integrated framework and more importantly a case study of the backward lesson planning in action. In the article, Backward Design (Childre, Sands, and Pope, 2009), examples of backward design are shown improving learning at both the elementary and high school levels. The research targets the depth of understanding for all learners. The fact that much research avoids the inclusion of special needs students is noted. The traditional instructional approaches that fail to engage disabled students were not an issue when backward design was implemented. The backward design was found to provide meaning and relevance to all levels of students. Application Here is a practical example of a 5th grade teacher developing a three-week unit on nutrition: Stage 1: Identify desired results Based on three curriculum expectations about nutrition (concepts about nutrition, elements of a balanced diet, and understanding eating patterns), the take-away message that the teacher wants his/her students to understand is "Students will use an understanding of the element of good nutrition to plan a balanced diet for themselves and others". Stage 2: Determine acceptable evidence The teacher has created an authentic task in which students will design a 3-day meal plan for a camp that uses food pyramid guidelines. The goal is a tasty and nutritionally balanced menu. Stage 3: Plan learning experiences and instruction The teacher first considers the knowledge and skills that students will need in order to complete the authentic assessment. Specifically, students will need to know about different food groups, human nutritional needs (carbohydrates, proteins, sugars, vitamins, minerals etc.), and about what foods provide these needs. They will need to know how to read nutrition labels. Resources will be a pamphlet from the UDSA on food groups, the health textbook, and a video "Nutrition for You". Teaching methods will include direct instruction, inductive methods, cooperative learning, and group activities. Criticisms Although this approach is widely accepted, the following are criticisms of the backward design approach: Difficulties in dealing with issues of validity and reliability Textbooks and content standards do not always explicitly highlight the key concepts that students should learn This approach provides teachers with little support about how to enhance understanding of their students and the way people learn Teachers may misunderstand and misinterpret what their students should learn and what the big ideas are Teacher effectiveness is measured more on the success of the students based on formulated assessments rather than ability to connect knowledge and skills to the needs and interests of students. Thus, lack of concern with social and cultural differences within the classroom This process promotes lesson design through deductive reasoning. It does not fit in well in a constructivist ontology where the multifaceted nature of each student warrants consideration in planning. Similarly, it leaves little room for improvisation. Teachers who know their curriculum and lesson trajectory that was led by Backwards Design may find that over adherence depletes their ability to focus on the learning experience and, with students or colleagues, induce new routes towards learning goals. A focus on principles of creative development such as contextual probing, improvisation, and juxtaposition may lead students to discover and know that which was unanticipated by the teacher or curriculum developers. In this, BD is incomplete or a potential recipe for student boredom. Desired results may fall short of student potential. This model assumes the relative level of students, yet students may have the capacity to go beyond desired results. In assuming an end goal, students are not empowered to reach for their own goals or to follow a process that may lead to results that surprise both the student and the teacher. For the master teacher, it would be worthwhile to move past fixed goals and establish processes and student choices that lead them to relevant yet indeterminate locations. See also Understanding by Design Notes References Buehl, D. (2000, October). Backward design; Forward thinking. Education News. Retrieved 10 June 2012 from https://web.archive.org/web/20130327141424/http://www.weac.org/news_and_publications/education_news/2000-2001/read_backwards.aspx. Childre, A., Sands, J.R., Pope, S.T. (2009). Backward design. Teaching Exceptional Children, 41(5), 6-14. Cho, J., & Trent, A. (2005). "Backward" Curriculum Design and Assessment: What Goes Around Comes Around, or Haven't We Seen This Before?. Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education, 9(2), 105–122. Gustafson, K.L. & Branch, R.M. (2002). What is instructional design. In R.A. Reiser & J.V. Dempsey (Eds.), Trends and issues in instructional design and technology. Retrieved 10 June 2012 from https://web.archive.org/web/20120617093220/http://courses.ceit.metu.edu.tr/ceit626/week7/gustafson-branch.pdf. Instructional design models and theories. (n.d.). Retrieved 10 June 2012 from http://www.instructionaldesigncentral.com/htm/IDC_instructionaldesignmodels.htm. Instructional technology/Instructional design. (2011, January 22). In Wikibooks. Retrieved 10 June 2012 from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Instructional_Technology/Instructional_Design#Dick_.26_Carey. Jones, K.A., Vermette, P.J., Jones, J.L. (2009). An integration of "backwards planning" unit design with the "two step" lesson planning framework. Education, 130(2), 357–360. Jorgensen, C.M. (1995). Essential questions - Inclusive answers. Educational Leadership, 52(4), 52–55. Kemp design model. (2007, June 4). In Edutech Wiki. Retrieved 10 June 2012 from http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Kemp_design_model. McTighe, J., & Thomas, R.S. (2003). Backward design for forward action. Educational Leadership, 60(5), 52–55. McTighe, J., & Wiggins, G. (2004). Understanding by design: Professional development workbook. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Merrill, M.D., Drake, L., Lacy, M.J., Pratt, J. (1996). Reclaiming instructional design. Educational Technology, 36(5), 5–7. Shumway, S. & Berrett, J. (2004). Standards-based curriculum for pre-service and in-service: A partnering approach using modified backward design. Technology Teacher. 26–29. Tyler, R.W. (1949). Basic principles of curriculum and instruction. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. What is Backward Design? (n.d.) Retrieved 13 June 2012 from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-curriculum-design.htm Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (1998). "What is backward design?" In Understanding by Design. (1 ed., pp. 7–19). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20160721163755/http://www.fitnyc.edu/files/pdfs/Backward_design.pdf. Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2008). Put understanding first. Educational Leadership, 65(8), 36–41. Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2011). What is backward design?. Understanding by design, 7-19. External links Jay McTighe - Jay McTighe's Website Grant Wiggins - Authentic Education's Website Backward Design; Forward Thinking - Wisconsin Education Association Council Curricula

Tropical Modernism

Tropical Modernism, or Tropical Modern is a style of architecture that merges modernist architecture principles with tropical vernacular traditions, emerging in the mid-20th century. This movement responded to the unique climatic and cultural conditions of tropical regions, primarily in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific Islands. Pioneering architects like Geoffrey Bawa in Sri Lanka, and Charles Correa in India balanced modern architectural techniques with traditional building practices of their respective regions. Tropical Modernism's legacy continues to influence contemporary architectural practices, especially in the quest for sustainable design solutions in tropical climates. Historical development Tropical Modernism originated in the mid-20th century, a period marked by post-war modernization and decolonization, which saw emerging national identities across the Global South. The movement was a response to the modernist architectural approaches of the time, aiming to adapt them to the unique environmental and cultural contexts of tropical regions. Origins and early pioneers The early pioneers of Tropical Modernism include architects like Geoffrey Bawa in Sri Lanka, whose work demonstrated a profound understanding of the local climate and culture, blending modernist principles with traditional vernacular architecture. Similarly, architects like Charles Correa in India contributed to the movement by integrating modern architectural forms with traditional Indian architectural elements. Post-war modernization The post-war era saw a surge in modernization efforts across many tropical countries. The need for new infrastructure and urban development provided a fertile ground for the adaptation and evolution of modernist architectural principles in tropical contexts. Decolonization and national identity The period of decolonization in many tropical regions contributed to the rise of Tropical Modernism, as emerging nations sought to express their newly found national identities through architecture. The movement became a means to reflect a blend of modernity and tradition in architectural designs. Regional variations and evolution Tropical Modernism manifested differently across various regions, reflecting the unique cultural, political, and environmental conditions of each area. In West Africa, for instance, the movement was intertwined with political power and national identity. Similarly, in regions like Latin America and Southeast Asia, Tropical Modernism evolved to reflect the distinct vernacular traditions and modernization agendas. Characteristics Tropical Modernism is characterized by its seamless integration of modernist principles with tropical vernacular architectures. The style places a significant emphasis on environmental responsiveness, often characterized by extensive use of local materials, passive cooling strategies, and a strong indoor-outdoor connection. Environmental responsiveness A defining characteristic of Tropical Modernism is its responsiveness to the local climate. The design approach often incorporates passive cooling strategies, such as natural ventilation, shading, and water features, to mitigate the harsh tropical climate. Buildings designed in this style are typically oriented to maximize natural ventilation and minimize solar heat gain, thereby reducing the reliance on mechanical cooling systems. Use of local materials The use of local materials is a hallmark of Tropical Modernism, reflecting a commitment to sustainability and a respect for local traditions. Materials such as timber, stone, and thatch are commonly used, often in innovative ways that reflect both modernist and traditional craftsmanship. Indoor-outdoor connection One of the quintessential features of Tropical Modernism is the blurring of indoor and outdoor spaces to promote natural ventilation and a sense of openness. This is often achieved through the use of large openings, verandas, courtyards, and other transitional spaces, which encourage the flow of air and the extension of living spaces into the landscape. Architectural elements Tropical Modernism often incorporates architectural elements that are characteristic of the local vernacular, such as pitched roofs, wide eaves, and raised floor levels, which are adapted to modernist sensibilities. The juxtaposition of modern and traditional elements creates a distinctive architectural language that reflects a synthesis of global modernist trends with local building traditions. Notable practitioners Tropical Modernism has been significantly shaped by a number of architects who melded modern architectural principles with tropical vernacular designs. Some notable practitioners include: Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew. This couple of British architects were active in British West Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, Gambia and Sierra Leone), where they used new construction methods and innovative techniques of climate control (e.g., adjustable louvers, wide eaves and brises soleils). They drew international attention to the principles of modernism as applied to the tropical context through the establishment of the Department of Tropical Architecture at the Architectural Association in 1954 and through their influntial book Tropical Architecture in the Humid Zone (1956). Geoffrey Bawa: A Sri Lankan architect known for pioneering Tropical Modernism. His work exemplifies the integration of modernist design principles with the traditional architectural elements of Sri Lanka, creating a unique, locally adapted style of modern architecture. Vladimir Ossipoff: Known as the “master of Hawaiian architecture,” Ossipoff’s work prominently features the elements of Tropical Modernism. His designs emphasize natural ventilation, indoor-outdoor integration, and the use of local materials to create buildings suited for Hawaii’s climate. Charles Correa: An Indian architect who significantly contributed to Tropical Modernism by integrating modern architectural forms with traditional Indian architectural elements. His design for the Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya in Ahmedabad is a notable example. Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer: These Brazilian architects were instrumental in the development of Tropical Modernism in Brazil, with their design for the city of Brasília showcasing modernist architectural principles adapted to the tropical climate. Exemplary projects Tropical Modernism is epitomized in various projects that showcase the movement's key characteristics of environmental responsiveness, use of local materials, and indoor-outdoor connectivity. Here are some exemplary projects: Kandalama Hotel, Sri Lanka: Designed by Geoffrey Bawa, this hotel is a quintessential example of Tropical Modernism. Its design incorporates the natural landscape, local materials, and modern architectural principles. Liljestrand House, Hawaii: Designed by Vladimir Ossipoff, this house exemplifies the seamless integration of indoor and outdoor spaces, a hallmark of Tropical Modernism. Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya, Ahmedabad, India: This museum, designed by Charles Correa, reflects the principles of Tropical Modernism with its use of local materials, passive cooling techniques, and integration of indoor and outdoor spaces. Palácio do Planalto, Brasília, Brazil: Designed by Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer, this presidential palace showcases Tropical Modernism with its modernist design adapted to the tropical climate. The Salk Institute, La Jolla, California: Although not located in a tropical region, the design by Louis Kahn incorporates key principles of Tropical Modernism. Pearl Bank Apartments, Singapore: Designed by Tan Cheng Siong, this residential high-rise is a hallmark of Tropical Modernism in Southeast Asia. * Faculty of Architecture Building, Khon Kaen University, Thailand: This building is a fine example of how Tropical Modernism can be integrated into educational infrastructure. Regional variations Tropical Modernism, though rooted in modernist architectural principles, has been diversified and enlivened by its interaction with various regional vernacular traditions. Below are some regional variations: Hawaii: In Hawaii, the style became prominent through the works of architects like Vladimir Ossipoff, who blended Modernism with local vernacular styles. His designs highlighted the importance of environmental responsiveness and cultural sensitivity, which are now considered as seminal examples of Tropical Modernism in the Pacific region. West Africa: The style was also adapted in West Africa where it was used as a tool to assert a modern identity post-independence. Architects such as Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew utilized Tropical Modern principles to design buildings suited to the local climate while embodying a modern aesthetic. Brazil: In Brazil, architects like Paulo Mendes da Rocha gained international recognition for sustainable designs embodying Tropical Modernism. This regional variant emphasized functionality, aesthetic appeal, and incorporation of natural elements, reflecting a synthesis of Modernism and "Brasilidade" or Brazilian-ness. Criticism and colonial legacy Tropical Modernism has faced criticism for its colonial roots, particularly in regions such as West Africa. Initially, this architectural style was employed by colonial powers, representing a form of colonial imposition, especially in British West Africa. The design principles of Tropical Modernism were largely tailored to cater to the comfort of colonial administrators, fostering a notion of a more productive colonial subject to counter calls for independence. Despite its Eurocentric beginnings, post-independence leaders like Kwame Nkrumah recognized the potential of Tropical Modernism for nation-building, intertwining it with Pan-African ideologies to foster a sense of national identity and progress. Perspectives surrounding Vladimir Ossipoff and Tropical Modernism in Hawaii are nuanced. Ossipoff, often dubbed as the "master of Hawaiian architecture," played a pivotal role in bringing the essence of Tropical Modernism to the Hawaiian Islands. His work is known for its environmental sensitivity, cultural contextualization, and appropriateness to Hawaii's unique landscape characteristics, portraying a harmonious blend between modern architectural principles and local cultural and geographic contexts. He was known for his conviction-driven, no-nonsense approach towards architecture, waging what he called a "war on ugliness," which was brought on by dismal architectural design and rampant over-development in the Hawaiian Islands. However, it's essential to note that the term "Tropical Modernism" itself, as a broader movement beyond Ossipoff's work, has faced criticisms for potentially carrying colonial or Eurocentric undertones, especially when applied in non-Western contexts like Africa. Critics argue that the movement, while aiming to blend modernist and local vernacular architectures, might inadvertently perpetuate a form of architectural colonialism or exhibit a Eurocentric bias, often by dismissing or undervaluing local architectural traditions in favor of modernist principles. Contemporary relevance The contemporary relevance of Tropical Modernism lies in its ability to address climate-related challenges inherent to tropical regions. Several aspects underscore its modern-day significance: Sustainable development: Approximately 50% of the world's population resides in the tropical belt, where the fastest-growing cities are located, along with 70% of the forests that help contain CO2 emissions. The principles of Tropical Modernism are crucial for designing coherent and adapted architecture in these regions, recognizing the values of tropicality along with its specificities. Environmental responsiveness: The style emphasizes passive design elements to achieve thermal comfort, an approach that is critical in tropical climates characterized by high temperatures and humidity. Features such as sunshades, overhangs, and the use of local materials contribute to energy efficiency and environmental sustainability. Regional architectural expressions: The resurgence of regional architectures, including Tropical Modernism, is noted in international architectural discourse. This style allows for the exploration of regionalized aesthetics, encouraging reflective design practices that contemplate environmental and human contingencies. It challenges the globalized mainstream architectural aesthetics, promoting a more contextual and thoughtful architectural practice. See also Modern architecture Vernacular architecture Sustainable architecture New Khmer Architecture References 1950s architecture 20th-century architectural styles Modernist architecture Sustainable architecture Low-energy building Sustainable development Postcolonialism

Historicization

Historicization (becoming history) is commonly referred to the transition of an item from an object of current events to an object of historical interest or to the process of gradual change in perception and interpretation of an object or idea over time. The principle of historicization is a fundamental part of the aesthetic developed by the German modernist theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht. In his poem "Speech to Danish working-class actors on the art of observation", Brecht offers a vivid portrait of the attitude he suggested an actor should cultivate: Imagine all that is going on around you, all those struggles Picturing them just like historical incidents For this is how you should go on to portray them on the stage: The fight for a job, sweet and bitter conversations Between the man and his woman, arguments about books Resignation and revolt, attempt and failure All these you will go on to portray as historical incidents. (Even what is happening here, at this moment, with us, is something you Can regard as a picture in this way). For the actor, "historicization" constitutes a fundamental interpretative attitude (what Brecht calls a "grund-gestus"). Notes See also Periodization References Brecht, Bertolt. 1964. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. Ed. and trans. John Willett. British edition. London: Methuen. . USA edition. New York: Hill and Wang. . Brecht, Bertolt. 2000. Poems: 1913–1956. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry, Prose Ser. London: Methuen. . Bertolt Brecht theories and techniques

Punk visual art

Punk visual art is artwork associated with the punk subculture and the no wave movement. It is prevalent in punk rock album covers, flyers for punk concerts and punk zines, but has also been prolific in other mediums, such as the visual arts, the performing arts, literature and cinema. Punk manifested itself "differently but consistently" in different cultural spheres. Punk also led to the birth of several movements: new wave, no wave, dark wave, industrial, hardcore, queercore, etc., which are sometimes showcased in art galleries and exhibition spaces. The punk aesthetic was a dominant strand from 1982 to 1986 in the many art galleries of the East Village of Manhattan. History In his book, Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century, cultural critic Greil Marcus expands upon the historical influence of Dada, Lettrism and Situationism on punk aesthetics in the art and music of the 1980s and early 1990s. Marcus argues that artists in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly those surrounding the Situationist International artist and theorist Guy Debord spearheaded a movement fueled by alienation and "angry, absolute demands" on society and art that gave rise to the punk sensibility. At its core was a subculture of artistic rebellion. Aesthetics Characteristics associated with punk visual art is the usage of black or gray colors, and letters cut out from newspapers and magazines: a device previously associated with Dada collage and kidnap ransom notes. A prominent example of that style is the cover of the Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks album designed by Jamie Reid. Images and figures are also sometimes cut and pasted from magazines and newspapers to create collages, album covers and paste-ups for posters that were often reproduced using copy machines. Punk visual art often conveys a rejection of traditionalist values with self-derision that can be compared to Dada. In New York City In New York City in the mid-1970s, there was much overlap between the punk music and the No wave downtown art scene. In 1978, many of the visual artists who were regulars at Tier 3, CBGB and other punk-related music venues participated in punk art exhibitions in New York. Early punk art exhibits included the Colab organized The Times Square Show (1980) and New York New Wave at PS1 (1981). Punk art found an ongoing home on the New York's lower east side with the establishment of several artist-run galleries such as ABC No Rio, FUN Gallery, Civilian Warfare, Nature Morte and Gracie Mansion Gallery. The art critic Carlo McCormick reviewed numerous exhibitions from this time in the East Village Eye. In the early 1980s, New York was on the verge of bankruptcy; the punk protest of the mid-1970s was transformed into a new artistic sensibility. It is in this context that Richard Hambleton arrives in New York. Drawing on the most visceral aspects of punk, he created "urban art" with the aim of constructing real experiences that provoke sensations of fear. Drawing on the poetic terrorism conceptualized by the Situationist movement, the creation of over 450 life-size black male figures in half-lit doorways and on the walls of dilapidated Manhattan buildings sought to provoke fear in passersby. Hambleton worked in the middle of the night and was never caught red-handed. His approach sought to confront preconceived notions of what art is and where it should be presented. "People expect to see balls in galleries (they do, sometimes). The work I do outside is somewhere between art and life," Notable artists See also No wave cinema Noise music Postmodern art Punk subculture Solarpunk Just Another Asshole References Further reading Alan Moore and Marc Miller, eds., ABC No Rio Dinero: The Story of a Lower East Side Art Gallery, NY, Colab, 1985 Masters, Marc (2007). No Wave. London: Black Dog Publishing. . External links 98 Bowery: 1969-1989 - catalogue for a 1978 exhibition at the Washington Project for the Arts Everything's Punk in This Pop-Up Art Show - review of the 2016 exhibition at the Invisible Dog Artist groups and collectives Contemporary art movements Visual arts genres Punk es:Movimiento punk

Data orientation

Data orientation refers to how tabular data is represented in a linear memory model such as in-disk or in-memory.The two most common representations are column-oriented (columnar format) and row-oriented (row format). The choice of data orientation is a trade-off and a architectural decision in databases, query engines, and numerical simulations. As a result of these tradeoffs, row-oriented formats are more commonly used in Online transaction processing (OLTP) and column-oriented formats are more commonly used in Online analytical processing (OLAP). Examples of column-oriented formats include Apache ORC, Apache Parquet, Apache Arrow, formats used by BigQuery, Amazon Redshift and Snowflake. Predominant examples of row-oriented formats include CSV, formats used in most relational databases, in-memory format of Apache Spark, and Apache Avro. Description Tabular data is two dimensional in nature - data is represented in rows and columns. However, modern operating systems logically represent data in a linear memory model, both in-disk and in-memory. Therefore, a table in a linear memory model requires projecting its two-dimensional items in a one-dimensional space. Data orientation refers to the decision taken in this projection. There are two prominent choices of orientation: row-oriented and column-oriented. Row-oriented In row-oriented, the elements of the table are stored linearly as I.e. each row of the table is located one after the other. In this orientation, values on the same row are close in space (e.g. similar address in an addressable space). Examples CSV Postgres in-disk and in-memory formats Apache Spark in-memory format Apache Avro Column-oriented In column-oriented, the elements of the table are stored linearly as I.e. each column of the table is located one after the other. In this orientation, values on the same column are close in space (e.g. similar address in an addressable space). Examples BigQuery's in-memory and storage formats Apache Parquet Apache ORC Apache Arrow DuckDB in-memory format Pandas in-memory format See list of column-oriented DBMSes for more examples. Tradeoff The data orientation is an important architectural decision of systems handling data because it results in important tradeoffs in performance and storage. Below are selected dimensions of this tradeoff. Random access Row-oriented benefits from fast random access of rows. Column-oriented benefits from fast random access of columns. In both cases, this is the result of fewer page or cache misses when accessing the data. Insert Row-oriented benefits from fast insertion of a new row. Column-oriented benefits from fast insertion of a new column. This dimension is an important reason why row-oriented formats are more commonly used in Online transaction processing (OLTP), as it results in faster transactions in comparison to column-oriented. Conditional access Row-oriented benefits from fast access under a filter. Column-oriented benefits from fast access under a projection. Compute performance Column-oriented benefits from fast analytics operations. This is the result of being able to leverage SIMD instructions. Uncompressed size Column-oriented benefits from smaller uncompressed size. This is the result of the possibility that this orientation offers to represent certain data types with dedicated encodings. For example, a table of 128 rows with a boolean column requires 128 bytes a row-oriented format (one byte per Boolean) but 128 bits (16 bytes) in a column-oriented format (via a bitmap). Another example is the use of run-length encoding to encode a column. Compressed size Column-oriented benefits from smaller compressed size. This is the result of a higher homogeneity within a column than within multiple rows. Conversion and interchange Because both orientations represent the same data, it is possible to convert a row-oriented dataset to a column-oriented dataset and vice-versa at the expense of compute. In particular, advanced query engines often leverage each orientation's advantages, and convert from one orientation to the other as part of their execution. As an example, an Apache Spark query may read data from Apache Parquet (column-oriented) load it into Spark internal in-memory format (row-oriented) convert it to Apache Arrow for a specific computation (column-oriented) write it to Apache Avro for streaming (row-oriented) References Database models

Evolutionary anthropology

Evolutionary anthropology, the interdisciplinary study of the evolution of human physiology and human behaviour and of the relation between hominids and non-hominid primates, builds on natural science and on social science. Various fields and disciplines of evolutionary anthropology include: human evolution and anthropogeny paleoanthropology and paleontology of both human and non-human primates primatology and primate ethology the sociocultural evolution of human behavior, including phylogenetic approaches to historical linguistics the cultural anthropology and sociology of humans the archaeological study of human technology and of its changes over time and space human evolutionary genetics and changes in the human genome over time the neuroscience, endocrinology, and neuroanthropology of human and primate cognition, culture, actions and abilities human behavioural ecology and the interaction between humans and the environment studies of human anatomy, physiology, molecular biology, biochemistry, and differences and changes between species, variation between human groups, and relationships to cultural factors Evolutionary anthropology studies both the biological and the cultural evolution of humans, past and present. Based on a scientific approach, it brings together fields such as archaeology, behavioral ecology, psychology, primatology, and genetics. As a dynamic and interdisciplinary field, it draws on many lines of evidence to understand the human experience, past and present. Studies of human biological evolution generally focus on the evolution of the human form. Cultural evolution involves the study of cultural change over time and space and frequently incorporates cultural-transmission models. Cultural evolution is not the same as biological evolution: human culture involves the transmission of cultural information (compare memetics), and such transmission can behave in ways quite distinct from human biology and genetics. The study of cultural change increasingly takes place through cladistics and genetic models. See also References Anthropology Anthropology

Polyethnicity

Polyethnicity, also known as pluri-ethnicity or multi-ethnicity, refers to specific cultural phenomena that are characterized by social proximity and mutual interaction of people from different ethnic backgrounds, within a country or other specific geographic region. Same terms may also relate to the ability and willingness of individuals to identify themselves with multiple ethnicities. It occurs when multiple ethnicities inhabit a given area, specifically through means of immigration, intermarriage, trade, conquest and post-war land-divisions. This has had many political and social implications on countries and regions. Many, if not all, countries have some degree of polyethnicity, with countries like Nigeria and Canada having high levels and countries like Japan and Poland having very low levels (and more specifically, a sense of homogeneity). The amount of polyethnicity prevalent in some Western countries has spurred some arguments against it, which include a belief that it leads to the weakening of each society's strengths, and also a belief that political-ethnic issues in countries with polyethnic populations are better handled with different laws for certain ethnicities. Conceptual history In 1985, Canadian historian William H. McNeill gave a series of three lectures on polyethnicity in ancient and modern cultures at the University of Toronto. The main thesis throughout his lectures was the argument that it has been the cultural norm for societies to be composed of different ethnic groups. McNeill argued that the ideal of homogeneous societies may have grown between 1750 and 1920 in Western Europe because of the growth in the belief in a single nationalistic base for the political organization of society. McNeill believed that during World War I, the desire for homogeneous nations began to weaken. Impact on politics Polyethnicity divides nations, complicating the politics as local and national governments attempt to satisfy all ethnic groups. Many politicians in countries attempt to find the balance between ethnic identities within their country and the identity of the nation as a whole. Nationalism also plays a large part in these political debates, as cultural pluralism and consociationalism are the democratic alternatives to nationalism for the polyethnic state. The idea of nationalism being social instead of ethnic entails a variety of culture, a shared sense of identity and a community not based on descent. Culturally-plural states vary constitutionally between a decentralized and unitary state (such as the United Kingdom) and a federal state (such as Belgium, Switzerland, and Canada). Ethnic parties in these polyethnic regions are not anti-state but instead seek maximum power within this state. Many polyethnic countries face that dilemma with their policy decisions. The following nations and regions are just a few specific examples of this dilemma and its effects: United States The United States is a nation founded by different ethnicities frequently described as coming together in a "melting pot," a term used to emphasize the degree to which constituent groups influence and are influenced by each other, or a "salad bowl," a term more recently coined in contrast to the "melting pot" metaphor and emphasizing those groups' retention of fundamentally distinct identities despite their proximity to each other and their influence on the overall culture that all of those groups inhabit. A controversial political issue in recent years has been the question of bilingualism. Many immigrants have come from Hispanic America, who are native Spanish speakers, in the past centuries and have become a significant minority and even a majority in many areas of the Southwest. In New Mexico the Spanish speaking population exceeds 40%. Disputes have emerged over language policy, since a sizeable part of the population, and in many areas the majority of the population, speak Spanish as a native language. The biggest debates are over bilingual education for language minority students, the availability of non-English ballots and election materials and whether or not English is the official language. It has evolved into an ethnic conflict between the pluralists who support bilingualism and linguistic access and the assimilationists who strongly oppose this and lead the official English movement. The United States does not have an official language, but English is the de facto national language and is spoken by the overwhelming majority of the country's population. Canada Canada has had many political debates between the French speakers and English speakers, particularly in the province of Quebec. Canada holds both French and English as official languages. The politics in Quebec are largely defined by nationalism as French Québécois wish to gain independence from Canada as a whole, based on ethnic and linguistic boundaries. The main separatist party, Parti Québécois, attempted to gain sovereignty twice (once in 1980 and again in 1995) and failed by a narrow margin of 1.2% in 1995. Since then, in order to remain united, Canada granted Quebec statut particulier, recognizing Quebec as a nation within the united nation of Canada. Belgium The divide between the Dutch-speaking north (Flanders) and the French-speaking South (Wallonia) has caused the parliamentary democracy to become ethnically polarized. Though an equal number of seats in the Chamber of Representatives are prescribed to the Flemish and Walloons, Belgian political parties have all divided into two ideologically identical but linguistically and ethnically different parties. The political crisis has grown so bad in recent years that the partition of Belgium has been feared. Ethiopia Ethiopia is a polyethnic nation consisting of 80 different ethnic groups and 84 indigenous languages. The diverse population and the rural areas throughout the nation made it nearly impossible to create a strong centralized state, but it was eventually accomplished through political evolution. Prior to 1974, nationalism was discussed only within radical student groups, but by the late 20th century, the issue had come to the forefront of political debate. Ethiopia was forced to modernize their political system to properly handle nationalism debates. The Derg military government took control with a Marxist–Leninist ideology, urging self-determination and rejecting compromise over any nationality issues. In the 1980s, Ethiopia suffered a series of famines and, after the Soviet Union broke apart, lost its aid from the Soviets; the Derg government later collapsed. Eventually, Ethiopia restabilized and adopted a modern political system that models a federal parliamentary republic. It was still impossible to create a central government holding all power and so the central government was torn. It now presides over ethnically-based regional states, and each ethnic state is granted the right to establish its own government with democracy. Spain In Spain from 1808 to 1814, the Spanish War of Independence took place in a multicultural Spain. Spain, at the time, was then under the control of King Joseph Bonaparte, who was Napoleon Bonaparte's brother. Because they were under the control of French rule, the Spanish formed coalitions of ethnic groups to reclaim their own political representation to replace the French political system, which had lost power. Southeast Asia In Southeast Asia the continental area (Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam) generally practices Theravada or Mahayana Buddhism. Most of insular Southeast Asia (namely Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia) practices mostly Sunni Islam. The rest of the insular region (Philippines and East Timor) practices mostly Roman Catholic Christianity and Singapore practises mostly Mahayana Buddhism. Significant long-distance labor migration that occurred during the late 19th century and the early 20th century provided many different types of ethnic diversity. Relations between the indigenous population of the region arose from regional variations of cultural and linguistic groups. Immigrant minorities, especially the Chinese, then developed as well. Although there were extreme political differences for each minority and religion, they were still legitimate members of political communities, and there has been a significant amount of unity throughout history. This differs from both nearby East and South Asia. Impact on society Polyethnicity, over time, can change the way societies practice cultural norms. Marriage An increase in intermarriage in the United States has led to the blurring of ethnic lines. Anti-miscegenation laws (laws banning interracial marriages) were abolished in the United States in 1967 and now it is estimated that one-fifth of the population in the United States by 2050 will be part of the polyethnic population. In 2000, self-identified Multiracial Americans numbered 6.8 million or 2.4% of the population. While the number of interethnic marriages is on the rise, there are certain ethnic groups that have been found more likely to become polyethnic and recognize themselves with more than one ethnic background. Bhavani Arabandi states in his article on polyethnicity that:Asians and Latinos have much higher rates of interethnic marriages than do blacks, and they are more likely to report polyethnicity than blacks who more often claim a single ethnicity and racial identity. This is the case, the authors [Lee, J & Bean, F.D] argue, because blacks have a "legacy of slavery," a history of discrimination, and have been victimized by the "one-drop rule" (where having any black blood automatically labeled one as black) in the US. Military Presently, most armed forces are composed of people from different ethnic backgrounds. They are considered to be polyethnic due to the differences in race, ethnicity, language or background. While there are many examples of polyethnic forces, the most prominent are among the largest armed forces in the world, including those of the United States, the former Soviet Union, and China. Polyethnic armed forces are not a new phenomenon since multi-ethnic forces existed during the Roman Empire, the Middle Eastern Empires, and even the Mongol Khans. The US military was one of the first modern militaries to begin ethnic integration, by order of President Harry Truman in 1945. Criticisms There are also arguments against polyethnicity, as well as the assimilation of ethnicities in polyethnic regions. Wilmot Robertson in The Ethnostate and Dennis L. Thomson in The Political Demands of Isolated Indian Bands in British Columbia, argue for some level of separatism. In The Ethnostate, Robertson declares polyethnicity as an ideal that only lessens each culture. He believes that, within a polyethnic culture, the nation or region as a whole is less capable of cultural culmination than each of the individual ethnicities that make it up. Essentially, polyethnicity promotes the dilution of ethnicity and thus hinders each ethnicity in all aspects of culture. In The Political Demands of Isolated Indian Bands in British Columbia, Thomson points out the benefits in some level (albeit small) of separatist policies. He argues the benefits of allowing ethnic groups, like the Amish and the Hutterites in the United States and Canada or the Sami in Norway, to live on the edges of governance. These are ethnic groups that would prefer to retain their ethnic identity and thus prefer separatist policies for themselves, as they do not require them to conform to policies for all ethnicities of the nation. See also Notes References Ethnicity Multiculturalism

Eclectic paganism

Eclectic paganism, also occasionally termed universalist or non-denominational paganism, is a form of modern paganism where practitioners blend paganism with aspects of other religions or philosophies, including the blending of separate pagan traditions. In the book Handbook of New Age, Melissa Harrington states that "Eclectic Pagans do not follow any particular Paganism, but follow a Pagan religious path, that includes the overall Pagan ethos of reverence for the ancient Gods, participation in a magical world view, stewardship and caring for the Earth, and 'nature religion. The practice of eclectic paganism is particularly popular with pagans in North America and the British Isles. Eclectic paganism contrasts with reconstructionist paganism: whereas reconstructionists strive for authenticity to historical religious traditions of specific groups or time periods, the eclectic approach borrows from several different cultures, philosophies, and time periods. Some see benefits and drawbacks to the eclectic pagan label. It is broad and allows for various practices and beliefs and without concrete rules, practitioners can explore various religions, philosophies, practices, and cultures while remaining within the bounds of the label. Some also create their own beliefs, philosophies, and rules. Use of social media The use of social media within eclectic paganism is very common. Within cultures where pagan or occult beliefs and practices are a minority, social media can provide a safe haven for learning and discussion; and social media allows for the creation of pagan communities. With the advent of social media, information can be reached by nearly anyone, rather than being passed down through oral traditions and within families or covens, as was traditionally common. These communities are vast and can incorporate multiple religions, traditions, and cultures. The use of social media and the internet by eclectic pagans is not an isolated phenomena, and reflects wider trends of religious expression and communities online. See also Neopaganism in the United Kingdom Neopaganism in the United States References External links Eclectic Pagans Eclectic Traditions Modern pagan traditions

Internet metaphors

Internet metaphors provide users and researchers of the Internet a structure for understanding and communicating its various functions, uses, and experiences. An advantage of employing metaphors is that they permit individuals to visualize an abstract concept or phenomenon with which they have limited experience by comparing it with a concrete, well-understood concept such as physical movement through space. Metaphors to describe the Internet have been utilized since its creation and developed out of the need for the Internet to be understood by everyone when the goals and parameters of the Internet were still unclear. Metaphors helped to overcome the problems of the invisibility and intangibility of the Internet's infrastructure and to fill linguistic gaps where no literal expressions existed. "Highways, webs, clouds, matrices, frontiers, railroads, tidal waves, libraries, shopping malls, and village squares are all examples of metaphors that have been used in discussions of the Internet." Over time these metaphors have become embedded in cultural communications, subconsciously shaping the cognitive frameworks and perceptions of users who guide the Internet's future development. Popular metaphors may also reflect the intentions of Internet designers or the views of government officials. Internet researchers tend to agree that popular metaphors should be re-examined often to determine if they accurately reflect the realities of the Internet, but many disagree on which metaphors are worth keeping and which ones should be left behind. Overview Internet metaphors guide future action and perception of the Internet's capabilities on an individual and societal level. Internet metaphors are contestable and sometimes may present political, educational, and cognitive issues. Tensions between producer and user, commercial and non-commercial interests, and uncertainty regarding privacy all influence the shape these metaphors take. Common Internet metaphors such as the information superhighway are often criticized for failing to adequately reflect the reality of the Internet as they emphasize the speed of information transmission over the communal and relationship building aspects of the Internet. Internet researchers from a variety of disciplines are engaged in the analysis of metaphors across many domains in order to reveal their impact on user perception and determine which metaphors are best suited for conceptualizing the Internet. Results of this research have become the focus of a popular debate on which metaphors should be applied in political, educational, and commercial settings as well as which aspects of the Internet remain unaccounted for with current metaphors, limiting the scope of users understanding. Metaphors of the Internet often reveal the intentions of designers and industry spokespeople. "For instance, those who use metaphors of consumption and shopping malls will devote resources to developing secure exchange mechanisms. Broadcasting metaphors carry with them assumptions about the nature of interactions between audiences and content providers that are more passive than those suggested by interactive game metaphors and applications. Computer security experts deploy metaphors that invoke fear, anxiety, and apocalyptic threat" (Wyatt, 2004, p. 244). The extent to which the Internet is understood across individuals and groups determines their ability to navigate and build Web sites and social networks, attend online school, send e-mail, and a variety of other functions. Internet metaphors provide a comprehensive picture of the Internet as a whole as well as describe and explain the various tools, purposes, and protocols that regulate the use of these communication technologies. Without the use of metaphors the concept of the Internet is abstract and its infrastructure difficult to comprehend. When it was introduced, the Internet created a linguistic gap as no literal expressions existed to define its functions and properties. Internet metaphors arose out of this predicament so that it could be adequately described and explained to the public. Essentially all language now used to communicate about the Internet is of a metaphorical nature, although users are often unaware of this reality because it is embedded in a cultural context that is widely accepted. There are several types of metaphors that serve various purposes and can range from describing the nature of online relationships, modeling the Internet visually, to the specific functions of the Internet as a tool. Each metaphor has implications for the experience and understanding of the Internet by its users and tends to emphasize some aspects of the Internet over others. Some metaphors emphasize space (Matlock, Castro, Fleming, Gann, & Maglio, 2014). Popular culture Common recurring themes regarding the Internet appear in popular media and reflect pervasive cultural attitudes and perceptions. Although other models and constructed metaphors of the Internet found in scholarly research and theoretical frameworks may be more accurate sources on the effects of the Internet, mass media messages in popular culture are more likely to influence how people think about and interact with the Internet. The very first metaphor to describe the Internet was the World Wide Web, proposed in 1989. However, uncertainty surrounding the structure and properties of the Internet was apparent in the newspapers of the 1990s that presented a vast array of contradicting visual models to explain the Internet. Spatial constructs were utilized to make the Internet appear as a tangible entity placed within a familiar geographical context. A popular metaphor adopted around the same time was cyberspace, coined by William Gibson in his novel Neuromancer to describe the world of computers and the society that gathers around them. Howard Rheingold, an Internet enthusiast of the 1990s, propagated the metaphor of virtual communities and offered a vivid description of the Internet as "...a place for conversation or publication, like a giant coffee-house with a thousand rooms; it is also a world-wide digital version of the Speaker's Corner in London's Hyde Park, an unedited collection of letters to the editor, a floating flea market, a huge vanity publisher, and a collection of every odd-special interest group in the world" (Rheingold 1993, p. 130). In 1991, Al Gore's choice to use the information superhighway as a metaphor shifted perceptions of the Internet as a communal enterprise to an economic model that emphasized the speed of information transmission. While this metaphor can still be found in popular culture, it has generally been dropped in favor of other metaphors due to its limited interpretation of other aspects of the Internet such as social networks. The most common types of metaphors in usage today relate to either social or functional aspects of the Internet or representations of its infrastructure through visual metaphors and models. Social metaphors Internet metaphors frequently arise from social exchanges and processes that occur online and incorporate common terms that describe offline social activities and realities. These metaphors often point to the fundamental elements that make up social interactions, even though online interactions differ in significant ways from face-to-face communication. Therefore, social metaphors tend to communicate more about the values of society rather than the technology of the Internet itself. Metaphors such as the electronic neighborhood and virtual community point to ways in which individuals connect to others and build relationships by joining a social network. Global village is another metaphor that evokes the imagery of closeness and interconnectedness that might be found in a small village, but is applied to the worldwide community of Internet users. However, the global village metaphor has been criticized for suggesting that the entire world is connected by the Internet as the continued existence of social divides prevent many individuals from accessing the Internet. The electronic frontier metaphor conceptualizes the Internet as a vast unexplored territory, a source of new resources, and a place to forge new social and business connections. Similar to the American ideology of the Western Frontier, the electronic frontier invokes the image of a better future to come through new opportunities afforded by the Internet. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a non-profit digital rights group that adopted the use of this metaphor to denote their dedication to the protection of personal freedoms and fair use within the digital landscape. Social metaphors and their pervasive influence indicate the increasing importance placed on social interaction on the Internet. Functional metaphors Functional metaphors of the Internet shape our understanding of the medium itself and give us clues as to how we should actually use the Internet and interpret its infrastructure for design and policy making. These exist at the level of the Internet as a whole, at the level of a website, and the level of individual pages. The majority of these types of metaphors are based on the concept of various spaces and physical places; therefore, most are considered spatial metaphors. However, this aspect should not be considered the only defining feature of a functional metaphor as social metaphors are often spatial in nature. Cyberspace is the most widely used spatial metaphor of the Internet and the implications of its use can be seen in the Oxford English Dictionary definition, which denotes cyberspace as a space within whose boundaries digital communications take place. The implications of this spatial metaphor in discourse on law can be seen in instances where the application of traditional laws governing real property are applied to Internet spaces. However, arguments against this type of ruling have claimed that the Internet is a borderless space, which should not be subject to the laws applied to places. Others have argued that the Internet is in fact a real space not sealed from the real world and can be zoned, trespassed upon, or divided up into holdings like real property. Other functional metaphors are based on travel within space, such as surfing the Net, which suggests that the Internet is similar to an ocean. Mark McCahill coined 'surfing the internet' in an analogy with browsing a library shelf as an information space. Websites indicate components of a space, which are static and fixed, whereas webpages suggest pages of a book. Similarly, focal points of the Internet structure are called nodes. Home pages, chat rooms, windows, and the idea that one can jump from one page to the next also invoke spatial imagery that guide the functions that users perform on the Internet. Other metaphors refer to the Internet as another dimension beyond typical spaces, such as portals and gateways, which refer to access and communication functions. Firewalls invoke the image of physically blocking the incoming of information such as viruses and pop-up ads. Designers of computer systems often use spatial metaphors as a way of controlling the complexity of interfaces. Designers create actions, procedures, and concepts of systems based on similar actions, procedures, and concepts of other domains such as physical spaces so that they will be familiar to users. In designing hypertext, a system that links topics on a screen to related information, navigational metaphors such as landmarks, routes, and way-finding have often been implemented for users' ease of understanding how hypertext functions. Visual metaphors Visual metaphors are popular in conceptualizing the Internet and are often deployed in commercial promotions through visual media and imagery. The most common visual metaphor is a network of wires with nodes and route lines plotted on a geographically based map. However, maps of Internet infrastructure produced for network marketing are rarely based on actual pathways of wires and cable on the ground, but are instead based on circuit diagrams similar to those seen on subway maps. The globe, or the Earth viewed from space, with network arcs of data flow wrapped around it, is another dominant metaphor for the Internet in Western contexts and is connected with the metaphor of the global village. Many abstract visual metaphors based on organic structures and patterns are found in literature on the Internet's infrastructure. Often, these metaphors are used as a visual shorthand in explanations as they allow one to refer to the Internet as a definite object without having to explain the intricate details of its functioning. Clouds are the most common of abstract metaphors employed for this purpose in cloud computing and have been used since the creation of the Internet. Other abstract metaphors of the Internet draw on the fractal branching of trees and leaves, and the lattices of coral and webs, while others are based on the aesthetics of astronomy such as gas nebulas, and star clusters. Technical methods such as algorithms are often used to create huge, complex graphs or maps of raw data from networks and the topology of connections. The typical result of this process are visual representations of the Internet that are elaborate and visually striking, resembling organic structures. These artistic, abstract representations of the Internet have been featured in art galleries, sold as wall posters, used on book covers, and have been claimed to be a picture of the whole Internet by many fans. However, there are no instructions on how these images may be interpreted. The main function of these representations has sometimes been explained as a metaphor for the complexity of the Internet. See also Series of tubes References Cognitive linguistics Internet culture Internet terminology Metaphors Metaphors by type Social constructionism

Transactionalism

Transactionalism is a pragmatic philosophical approach to questions such as: what is the nature of reality; how we know and are known; and how we motivate, maintain, and satisfy our goals for health, money, career, relationships, and a multitude of conditions of life through mutually cooperative social exchange and ecologies. It involves the study and accurate thinking required to plan and utilize one's limited resources in the fundamental mechanics of social exchange or trans-action. To transact is learning to beat the odds or mitigate the common pitfalls involved with living a good and comfortable life by always factoring in the surrounding circumstances of people, places, things and the thinking behind any exchange from work to play. In our complex, ever-changing society with its indifferent marketplace, we cannot thrive without requesting or inviting the help of others and offering help to those around us. To co-create a healthy exchange of value for all involved, we must understand and apply the fundamental mechanics of transaction. [This is not to be confused with the favor or advantage of quid pro quo.] Without cooperative exchange, we resist transacting to survive the unavoidable biological, societal, and environmental threats that can prevent us from comfort and ease in any of the multiple conditions of life we labor to maintain (cf. Hannah Arendt's philosophy of labor, work, and action). In this philosophy, human interactions are best understood as a set of simple to complex transactions. A transaction is a reciprocal and co-constitutive cycle of moves (what to do) and phases (or implemented tactics) aimed at satisfying (or at learning to become fit) in the multiple and interlocking conditions of life including health, work, money, knowledge, education, career, ethics, and more. If we work ourselves to death or ignore accurate thinking about our relationships, without help those conditions of life will eventually threaten our health, career, and money, for example. We must transact to maintain multiple and unavoidable conditions of our lives. A transactionalist approach demands an "un-fractured observation" of life as an organism that is influenced by and is influencing its environment or ecology. By considering the self as an organism inseparable from its environment, hyphenated as "organism-environment," we begin to recognize that any outcome is "determined by prior causes and articulated ends" not merely the intention or the end goal of an individual. This philosophical approach has correlation to Hannah Arendt's notion of human being as "political animal" ("Zoon Politikon") that should attend to the "labor, work, and action" beyond merely articulating an aspiration or a goal. It is critical that an organism-environment keep in mind how "consequences and outcomes" determine the satisfaction of any human endeavor. We must take into account that we, as a human being in transaction, are embedded in and constituted by not only our intentions, but simultaneously by the specific circumstances of our biology, our narratives in exchange, and the social situation that includes tangible resources like tools and settings, intangible resources like time and meaning, and the human resources of other people and their personalities and roles within a transaction or social exchange. Beyond our conscious awareness, three aspects of experience — the observer, the process of observing, and the thing observed in a situation— are all "affected by whatever merits or defects [the organism or environment] may prove to have when it is judged". A transactionalist holds that all human acts, including learning, are best understood as "entities" within a larger, often under-examined, transactional whole. The transactional whole is shaped by our health as an organism as well as the health of others (e.g., our biology as a living organisms), for example. Transactional competence is shaped by language and communication with others (e.g.,linguistic narratives). It is shaped and affected by one's fitness in satisfying an ethical exchange of business or education in certain conditions of life, such as reputation, politics (small and large), and ethics—how we treat one another or regulate our behavior and feelings. Human satisfaction is shaped first and foremost by our body's state of wellness or disease, which is inescapably linked to the ecology, shared and/or invented norms and values, and the fitness of our ability to understand the mechanics of trans-acting. We must make real the conditions and accept the consequences of what it takes to live a satisfying life in an ever-changing body and world. Transactionalism functions as a means of "controlled inquiry" into the complex nature and interactions of daily life. Overview In their 1949 book Knowing and the Known, transactionalists John Dewey and Arthur Bentley explained that they were "willing under hypothesis to treat all [human] behavings, including [their] most advanced knowings, as activities not of [them]self alone, nor even as primarily [theirs], but as processes of the full situation of organism-environment." John Dewey used the term "trans-action" to "describe the process of knowing as something that involves the full situation of organism-environment, not a mere inter-action between two independent entities, e.g., the observer and the object observed." A "trans-action" (or simply a "transaction") rests upon the recognition that subject (the observer) and object (the observed) are inseparable; "Instead, observer and observed are held in close organization. Nor is there any radical separation between that which is named and the naming." A knower (as "subject") and what they know (as "object" that may be human, tangible, or intangible) are inseparable and must be understood as inseparable to live a truly satisfying life. Dewey and Bentley distinguished the "trans-actional" point of view (as opposed to a "self-actional" or "inter-actional" one) in their preface: The transactional is in fact that point of view which systematically proceeds upon the ground that knowing is co-operative and as such is integral with communication. By its own processes it is allied with the postulational. It demands that statements be made as descriptions of events in terms of durations in time and areas in space. It excludes assertions of fixity and attempts to impose them. It installs openness and flexibility in the very process of knowing. It treats knowledge as itself inquiry—as a goal within inquiry, not as a terminus outside or beyond inquiry.The metaphysics and epistemology of living a satisfactory life begins with the hypothesis that man is an "organism-environment" solving problems in and, through a necessary exchange with others. Therefore, attention must always be paid to organizing acts as aspects or entities within a reciprocal, co-constitutive, and ethical exchange, whether it be in co-operative buying and selling; teaching and learning; marital trans-actions; or in any social situation where human beings engage one another. Definition Stemming from the Latin transigere ("to drive through", "to accomplish"), the root word "transaction" is not restricted to (or to be collapsed with) the economic sense of buying and selling or merely associated with a financial transaction. A much larger field of exchange is employed and summoned up here; such as, "any sort of social interaction, such as verbal communication, eye contact, or touch. A 'stroke' [of one's hand] is an act of recognition of a transaction" as described in psychological transactional analysis It not only examines exchanges, or "transactions," between borrower and lender, but encompasses any transaction involving people and objects including "borrowing-lending, buying-selling, writing-reading, parent-child, and husband-wife [or partners in a civil or marital union]." A transaction, then is "a creative act, engaged in by one who, by virtue of [their] participation in the act – of which [they are] always an aspect, never an entity – together with the other participants, be they human or otherwise environmental, becomes in the process modified" by and through exchange with others. Background Main contributors While John Dewey is viewed by many transactionalists as its principal architect, social anthropologist Fredrik Barth was among the first to articulate the concept as it is understood in contemporary study. Political scientists Karl W. Deutsch and Ben Rosamond have also written on the subject. In 1949, Dewey and Bentley offered that their sophisticated pragmatic approach starts from the perception of "man" as an organism that is always transacting within its environment; that it is sensible to think of our selves as an organism-environment seeking to fulfill multiple necessary conditions of life "together-at-once". It is a philosophy purposefully designed to correct the "fragmentation of experience" found in the segmented approaches of Subjectivism, Constructivism, Objectivism (Ayn Rand), and Skepticism.[1] Each of these approaches are aspects of problem-solving used by the transactionalist to examine the invention, construction of a narrative presentation, the objective work or activity that must happen, and the deconstruction of a transaction to fully observe and assess the consequences and outcomes of any transaction—from simply to complex—in the process of living a good and satisfying life. Dewey asserted that human life is not actually organized into separate entities, as if the mind (its sense of emotion, feeling, invention, imagination, or judgment) and the world outside it (natural and manufactured goods, social roles and institutions including the family, government, or media) are irreconcilable, leading to the question "How does the mind know the world?" Transactionalist analysis is a core paradigm advanced by social psychologist Eric Berne in his book Games People Play, in which an analyst seeks to understand an individual as "embedded and integrated" in an ever-evolving world of situations, actors, and exchange. The situational orientation of transactionalist problem-solving has been applied to a vast array of academic and professional discourses including educational philosophy in the humanities; social psychology, political science, and political anthropology in the social sciences; and occupational science in the health sciences; cognitive science, zoology, and quantum mechanics in the natural sciences; as well as the development of a transactional competence in leadership-as-practice in business management. Historical antecedents Galileo refused to seek the causes of the behavior of physical phenomena in the phenomena alone and sought the causes in the conditions under which the phenomena occur.The evolution of philosophy from aristotelian thought to galilean thinking shifts the focus from behavior to the context of the behavior in problem-solving. The writing of John Dewey and Arthur Bentley in Knowing and the Known offers a dense primer into transactionalism, but its historical antecedents date back to Polybius and Galileo. Trevor J. Phillips (1927–2016), American professor emeritus in educational foundations and inquiry at Bowling Green State University from 1963 to 1996, wrote a comprehensive thesis documenting the historical, philosophical, psychological, and educational development of transactionalism in his 1966 dissertation "Transactionalism: An Historical and Interpretive Study" published in 2013 by business education called Influence Ecology. Phillips traced transactionalism's philosophical roots to Greek historians such as Polybius and Plato as well as 17th century polymath Galileo—considered the architect of the scientific revolution and René Descartes—considered the architect of modern western philosophy. Galileo's contributions to the scientific revolution rested on a transactionalist understanding from which he argued Aristotelian physics was in error, as he wrote in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632):"[I]f it is denied that circular motion is peculiar to celestial bodies, and affirmed to belong to all naturally movable bodies, then one must choose one of two necessary consequences. Either the attributes of generable-ingenerable, alterable-inalterable, divisible-indivisible, etc., suit equally and commonly all world bodies – as much the celestial as the elemental – or Aristotle has wrongly and erroneously deduced, from circular motion, those attributes which he has assigned to celestial bodiesTransactionalism abandons self-actional and inter-actional beliefs or suppositions that lead to incomplete problem-solving. In a world of subjective and objective information, co-operative exchange creates value in learning and becomes the foundation of a transactional competence based on recurrent inquiry into how objects (including people) behave as situations constantly evolve. Galileo deviated from the then-current Aristotelian thinking, which was defined by mere interactions rather than co-constitutive transacting among persons with different interests or among persons who may be solving competing intentions or conditions of life. Modern antecedents Trevor Phillips also outlined the philosophy's more recent developments found in the American philosophical works of Charles Sanders Peirce, sociologist George Herbert Mead (symbolic interactionism), pragmatist philosophers William James and John Dewey, and political scientist Arthur Bentley. Several sources credit anthropologist Fredrik Barth as the scholar first to apply the term 'transactionalism" in 1959. In a critique of structural functionalism, Barth offered a new interpretation of culture that did not portray an overly cohesive picture of society without attending to the "roles, relationships, decisions, and innovations of the individual." Humans are transacting with one another at the multiple levels of individual, group, and environment. Barth's study appears to not fully articulate how this is happening all-at-once as opposed to as-if they were separate entities interacting independently ("interactional"):[T]he "environment" of any ethnic group is not only defined by natural conditions, but also by the presence and activities of other ethnic groups on which it depends. Each group exploits only a section of the total environment, and leaves large parts of it open for other groups to exploit.Using examples from the people of the Swat district of North Pakistan and, later, in 1966, organization taking place among Norwegian fishermen, Barth set out to demonstrate that social forms like kinship groups, economic institutions, and political alliances are generated by the actions and strategies of the individuals who deploy organized acts against (or within) a context of social constraints. "By observing how people interact with each other [through experience], an insight could be gained into the nature of the competition, values[,] and principles that govern individuals' choices." Utilized as a "theoretical orientation" in Norwegian anthropology, describes transactionalism as "process analysis" (prosessanalyse) categorized as a sociological theory or method. Though criticized for paying insufficient attention to cultural constraints on individualism, Barth's orientation influenced the qualitative method of symbolic interactionism applied throughout the social sciences. Process analysis considers the gradual unfolding of the course of interactions and events as key to understanding social situations. In other words, the transactional whole of a situation is not readily apparent at the level of individuals. At that level, an individual operates in a self-actional manner when much larger forces of sociality, history, biology, and culture are, all-at-once, at work on an individual as part of a global dynamic. Humans can never exist outside this dynamic current, as if they are operating the system in some self-actional or interactional way. Barth's approach reflects the co-constitutive nature of living in ever-evolving circumstances. 21st century applications Transactional leadership (LAP) In a new model of organizational management known as "leadership-as-practice" (LAP), Dewey and Bentley's Knowing and the Known categories of action—namely, self-action, inter-action, and trans-action–brings transactionalism into the corporate culture. A transactional leadership practice is defined by its "trans-actors" who "enact new and unfolding meanings in on-going trans-actions." Actors operating "together-at-once" in a transaction is contrasted with the older model of leadership defined by the practices of actors operating in self-actional or inter-actional way. In the former models, often the actors and situations remain unchanged by leadership interventions over time because the actors and situations remain unchanged. In leadership-as-practice, Joseph A. Raelin distinguishes between a "practice" that extends and amplifies the meaning of work and its value vs. "practices" that are habitual and sequential activities evoked to simplify everyday routines. A transactional approach—leadership-as-practice—focuses attention on "existing entanglements, complexities, processes, [while also] distinguishing problems in order to coordinate roles, acts, and practices within a group or organization." Said another way, "trans-action attends to emergent becoming"—a kind of seeing together--"rather than substantive being" among the actors involved. Transactional competence Modern architects of the philosophy, John Patterson and Kirkland Tibbels, co-founders of Influence Ecology, acquired, edited, and published Phillips' dissertation (as is) in 2013. With a foreword written by Tibbels, a hardback and Kindle version was published under the title Transactionalism: An Historical and Interpretive Study (2013). The monograph is an account of how human phenomena came to be viewed less as the behavior of static and/or mutually isolated entities, and more as dynamic aspects of events in the process of problem-solving, and thereby becoming or satisfying, the unavoidable and inescapable conditions of human life. Philosophy Metaphysics: transactional (vs. self-actional or interactional) The transactional view of metaphysics—studying the nature of reality or what is real—deals with the inseparability of what is known and how humans inquire into what is known—both knowing and the known. Since the age of Aristotle, humans have shifted from one paradigm or system of "logic" to another before a transactional metaphysics evolved with a focus that examines and inquires into solving problems first and foremost based on the relationship of man as a biological organism (with a brain and a body) shaped by its environment. In the book Transactionalism (2015), the nature of reality is traced historically from self-action to interaction to transactional competence each as its own age of knowing or episteme. The pre-Galilean age of knowing is defined by self-action "where things [and thereby people] are viewed as acting on their own powers." In Knowing and the Known, Dewey and Bentley wrote, "The epistemologies, logics, psychologies and sociologies [of our day] are still largely [understood] on a self-actional basis." The result of Newtonian physics, interaction marks the second age of knowing; a system marked especially by the "third 'law of motion'—that action and reaction are equal and opposite". The third episteme is transactional competence. With origins in the contributions of Darwin, "man's understandings are finite as opposed to infinite. In the same way, his views, goals, commitments, and beliefs have relative status as opposed to absolute." John Dewey and Arthur Bentley asserted this competence as "the right to see together, extensionally and durationally, much that is talked about conventionally as if it were composed of irreconcilable separates." We tend to avoid considering our actions as part of a dynamic and transactional whole, whether in mundane or complex activities; whether in making an invitation, request, or offer or in the complex management of a program or company. We tend to avoid studying, thinking, and planning our moves and moods for a comprehensive, reciprocal, and co-constitutive—in other words, transactional—whole. A transactional whole includes the organized acts including ideas, narratives, people as resources implementing ideas, services, and products, the things involved, settings, and personalities, all considered in and over time. With this competence, that which acts and is acted upon become united for a moment in a mutual or ethical exchange, where both are reciprocally transformed contradicting "any absolute separation or isolation" often found in the dualistic thinking and categorization of Western thought. Dualistic thinking and categorization often lead to over-simplification of the transactional whole found in the convenient but ineffective resorting to "exclusive classifications." Such classifications tend to exclude and reify man as if he has dominion over his nature or the environment. In his seminal 20th century work Physics and Philosophy, Werner Heisenberg reflects this kind of transactionalist thinking: "What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning." The together-at-once reality of man as organism-environment is often overlooked in the dualistic thinking of even major philosophers like Descartes who is often referenced for his "I think, therefore I am" philosophy. Of a transactionalist approach, Heisenberg writes, "This was a possibility of which Descartes could not have thought, but it makes the sharp separation of the world and I impossible." Dualistic thinking prevents man from thinking. "In the spirit of [Charles Sanders] Peirce, transactionalism substitutes continuity for discontinuity, change and interdependence for separateness." For example, in problem solving, whenever we "insert a name instead of a problem," when words like "soul," "mind," "need," "I.Q." or "trait" are expressed as if real, they have the power to block and distort free inquiry into what is known in fact or as fact in the transactional whole. In the nature of change and being, "that which acts and that which is acted upon" always undergo a reciprocal relationship that is affected by the presence and influence of the other. We as human beings, as part of nature as an organism "integral to (as opposed to separate from, above or outside of) any investigation and inquiry may use a transactionalist approach to expand our personal knowledge so as to solve life's complex problems. The purpose of transactionalism is not to discover what is already there, but for a person to seek and interpret senses, objects, places, positions, or any aspect of transactions between one's Self and one's environment (including objects, other people, and their symbolic interactions) in terms of the aims and desires each one needs and wants to satisfy and fulfill. It is essential that one simultaneously take into account the needs and desires of others in one's environment or ecology to avoid the self-actional or self-empowerment ideology of a rugged and competitive individualism. While other philosophies may discuss similar ethical concerns, this co-constitutive and reciprocal element of problem-solving is central to transactionalism. To put it simply, "to experience is to transact; in point of fact, experience is a transaction of organism-environment." In other words, what is "known" by the knower (or organism) is always filtered and shaped by both internal and external moods and narratives, mirrored in and through our relationships to the physical affordances and constraints in our environment or in specific ecologies. The metaphysics of transactional inquiry is characterized in the pragmatic writing of William James who insists that "single barreled terms," terms like "thought" and "thing," actually stop or block inquiries into what is known and how we know it. Instead, a transactional orientation of 'double-barreledness' or the "interdependence of aspects of experience" must always be considered. James offers his readers insight into the "double-barreledness" of experience with an apt proposition:Is the preciousness of a diamond a quality of the gem [the thing] or is it a feeling in our mind [the thought]? Practically we treat it as both or as either, according to the temporary direction of our thought. The 'experienced' and the 'experiencing,' the 'seen' and the 'seeing,' are, in actuality, only names for a single fact. What is real then, from a transactionist perspective, must be constantly reevaluated relative to man as organism-environment in a co-constitutive and reciprocal dynamic with people, personalities, situations, aims, and given the needs each party seeks to satisfy. Epistemology: truth from inquiry Transactionalists are firmly intolerant of "anything resembling an 'ultimate' truth – or 'absolute' knowledge." Humankind has the propensity to treat the mind and thought or the mind and body as abstractions and this tendency to deny the interrelatedness or coordinated continuity results in misconceptions in learning and inaccurate thinking as humans move and thrive with an ecology. Accurate thinking and learning begins and is constantly developed through action resulting from thought as a repetitive circuit of experience known in psychology as deliberate practice. Educational philosopher Trevor Phillips, now deceased, frames this tendency to falsely organize our perception: "[W]e fail to realize that we can know nothing about things [or ourselves] beyond their significance to us," otherwise we distort our "reality" and treat things we perceive within it, including our bodies or mind, as if concrete thereby "denying the interconnectedness of realities" (plural). Transactionalists suggest that accurate (or inaccurate) thinking is rarely considered an unintended consequence of our propensity for abstractions. When an individual transacts through intelligent or consequential actions circumscribed within the constraints and conditions of her/his environment in a reflexive, repetitive arc of learned experience, there is a "transaction between means and ends" (see reference below). This transactional approach features twin aspects of a larger event rather than merely manipulating the means to an end in our circumstances and situations. For instance, a goal can never be produced by abstraction, by simply thinking about or declaring a promise to produce a result. Nor can it be anticipated or foreseen (an abstraction at best) without a significant "pattern of inquiry," as John Dewey later defined and articulated, into the constraints and conditions that happen and are happening given the interdependence of all the people and objects involved in a simple or complex transaction. The nature of our environment affects all these entities within a transaction. Thus, revealing the limiting and reductive notion of manipulating a psychology around stimulus and response found in Aristotilian or Cartesian thought. A transaction is recognized here as one that occurs between the "means and ends;" in other words, transactional competence is derived from the "distinctions between the how, the what (or subject-matter), and the why (or what for)." This transactional whole constitutes a reciprocal connection and a reflexive arc of learned and lived experience. From a transactional approach one can derive a certain kind of value from one's social exchange. Value in knowing how, what, and why the work done with your mind and body fulfill on the kinds of transactions needed to live a good and satisfying life that functions well with others. Truth from actual inquiry is foundational for organism-environment to define and live by a set of workable ethical values that functions with others. Due to the evolution of psychology about the nature of man, transactionalists also reject the notion of a mind-body split or anything resembling the bifurcation of what they perceive as the circuitry in which our biological stimulus-response exists. Examples transactionalists reject include the self-acting notions of Aristotle who posited that "the soul – the psyche – realized itself in and through the body, and that matter and form were two aspects involved in all existence." Later, the claims of French philosopher René Descartes, recognized as the father of modern Western philosophy, were examined and defined as "interactional". Descartes suggested stimulus-response as the realm where the mind controls the body and the body may influence the rational mind out of the passion of our emotions. Transactionalists recognize Cartesian dualism as a form of disintegrating the transactional whole of man "into two complete substances, joined to another no one knows how." The body as a physical entity, on the one hand, and the soul or thought, on the other, was regarded in a Cartesian mindset as "an angel inhabiting a machine and directing it by means of the pineal gland" This tranactionalists reject. Ethics: reciprocal and co-constitutive While self-interest governs the ethical principles of Objectivism, here the principle is that man as an organism is in a reciprocal, constitutive relationship with her/his environment. Disabusing the psychological supposition of our "skin-boundedness" (discussed further below), transactionalism rejects the notion that we are apart from our environment or that man has dominion over it. Man, woman, and child must view life and be viewed in the undifferentiated whole of organism-environment. This reciprocal and co-constitutive relationship is what sets Transactionalism apart from other philosophies. What John Dewey meant by "reciprocal" was that:... consequences have to be determined on the grounds of what is selected and handled as means in exactly the same sense in which the converse holds and demands constant attention if activities are to be intelligently conducted.In order for a human being to know, in order for a human being to acquire intelligence, it must learn to relate to its Self as part of, not separate from the internal and/or external environments in which it lives as an organism-environment. Whether the environment is natural or human-made, whether discussing biology, sociology, culture, linguistics, history and memory, or economics and physics, every organism-environment is reciprocal, constitutive, socially-conditioned and constantly in flux demanding our ethical attention to conditions and consequences as we live life. John Dewey and Arthur Bentley, like Charles Sanders Peirce before them, were out to distinguish an ethical "living" logic rather than a static one. Both rejected the supposition that man had dominion over or governed behavior in his/her environment embracing a presupposition of transactionalism; we are reciprocal, co-constitutive, socially-conditioned, and motivated "together-at-once" as we seek solutions to living a good life. Transactionalists reject the "localization" of our psychology as if "skin-bound." Bentley wrote, "No creature lives merely under its skin." In other words, we should not define and distinguish experience in and from the subjective mind and feelings. Conversely, we cannot rely solely on external circumstances or some static or inherited logic. Galileo said of followers of Aristotle in seeking ethical knowledge that one should "come with arguments and demonstrations of your own...but bring us no more texts and naked authorities, for our disputes are about the sensible world and not a paper one." Humans are always transacting, "together-at-once," part of, shaped by, and shap-ing the experience we call "knowledge" as an organism-environment. Dewey and Bentley were intrigued by, and ultimately questioned, "the significance of the concept 'skin' and its role in philosophical and psychological thought." They offered a biological or natural justification that came to define a transactionalist approach. The known and what is known are both a function of man having "evolved among other organisms" within natural selection or evolution. Man's most intellectual and advanced "knowings" are not merely outgrowths of his own doing or being. The natural evolution of things outside our knowingness creates the very context in which our known and knowings arise. We are not inventing what is known outside or, in a vacuum beyond, who we are and who we are is an organism-environment together-at-once. We are not creatures separated by skin with an internal world of the mind and body "in here" separate from an environment of objects and people "out there". Human beings intelligently live, adapt to, and organize life in a reciprocal, co-constitutive experience that is what Dewey and Bentley term "trans-dermal". A "trans-dermal" experience demands knowledgeable and accurate inquiry into the conditions and consequences of each transaction where the organizing of ideas and acts (knowledge), is itself a transaction which grows out of the problem-solving and creative exploring within the universe of social situations in which we exist. Dewey and Bentley wrote, "truth, or for that matter falsity, is a function of the deliberately striven for consequences arising out of inquiry." Our behavior and acts in knowing, or transacting, must be considered "together" and "at-once" with its conditions and consequences for any ambitious movement or fulfillment to occur alone and among other people in any setting with objects and constructed inherited from others known and unknown over time. Transacting demands study, a slowing down of our movement, and the development of a transactional competence in order to fulfill certain needs or solve problems while functioning among others. In Dewey's final days, wrote Phillips, he emphasized the twin aspects of attending to both the means and the ends of any transaction: "It is…impossible to have an end-in-view or to anticipate the consequences of any proposed line of action." A "trans-dermal" consciousness is, therefore, key to moving ethically. To move, experience life, or transact in a principled manner, considering the reciprocal and co-constituitive nature of organism-environment becomes an object lesson governing both social behavior as well as in transacting from a trans-dermal view with objects or other bodies. Trans-dermal experience The work of Australian educational philosopher Vicki L. Lee further elucidates and breaks down what is "trans-dermal" experience—how it works and why it matters—based on her work in the philosophy of cognitive science, educational philosophy, and radical behaviorism about which she has published extensively. This complex paradigm is clearly evidenced by Lee in this thickly described example:Acts are more than movements. ...Our discriminations depend on movements and their contexts seen together-at-once or as an undifferentiated whole. In discriminating watering the garden from hosing the driveway, we see the bodily movements and their occasion and results. We see the garden, the watering implement, and so forth, as much as we see the body's activities. The notion of together-at-once emphasizes that we do not see movements and contexts separately and then infer the action. Rather the context is internal to the action, because without the context, the action would not be the action it is.A basic presupposition of the philosophy of transactionalism is to always consider that that which is known about the world (extra-dermal) is "directly concerned with the activity of the knower" which is merely from some sense of "skin-boundedness" (intra-dermal). The known and the knower, as Dewey and Bentley examined in detail in their collaborative publication, must always be considered "'twin aspects of common fact." Behavior, movement, and acts are not merely a function of the mind, of wishful or positive thinking or belief in external forces, nor can it be determined ethically from the philosophers of the past or knowledge written in a book. It is our ability to transact trans-dermally—to be and become ecologically-fit as an organism-environment—that begets truthful inquiry into living a good and satisfying life, functioning well among others. Philosophy and Women's Studies Professor Shannon Sullivan explores and applies "transactional knowing through embodied and relational lived experience" as a feminist epistemology developed out of the pragmatist tradition. Politics: cooperation and knowing-as-inquiry The branch of philosophy recognized as "politics" concerns the governance of community and group interaction, not merely the governing over a state or group as conventionally conceived in thoughts about local or national government. Transactionalists view politics as a cooperative, genuine interaction between all participating parties whether buyer-seller, student-teacher, or worker-boss; we are biological as well as social subjects involved not merely in "transacting" for our own advantage or gain but connected to other entities. "[S]ocial phenomena cannot be understood except as there is prior understanding of physical conditions and the laws of their [socio-biological] interactions," wrote John Dewey in Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. Furthermore, he added, "inquiry into [social phenomena], with respect both to data that are significant and to their relations or proper ordering, is conditioned upon extensive prior knowledge of physical phenomena and their laws. This fact accounts in part for the retarded and immature state of social subjects." Thus, cooperation and knowing as inquiry is foundational to governing communal affairs of any kind including economic trade and our educative process. In Laws of Motion (1920), physicist James Clerk Maxwell articulated the modern conception of "transaction" (or trans-action) used here. His conception is not exclusive to an economic context or limited to the opposition of a buyer-seller in trade or some analogous situation. Unlike commercial affairs, there is a radical departure from any tendency to perceive buyer-seller (in an organism-environment paradigm) as if they are opposing or separate forces. Transactionalists like Maxwell view the buyer and seller as "two parts [or aspects] of the same phenomenon." Dewey and Bentley apply this 'transactional' view to the domain of learning more than any other context. Referred to as the educative process, acting without knowing (described below) often sets up the separation or fracturing of the enjoined phenomenon (e.g., knowing is doing, organizing the mental or physical acts in a pragmatic way). Without knowing-as-inquiry, blindly acting as an organism in an environment often does not work with the exception of beginner's luck. Acting to understand knowing elicits pragmatic knowledge of functioning as an organism-environment; both knowing and acting must essentially involve inquiry into things that have happened and are happening in order to challenge assumptions and expectations which may be wrong in some context: Knowledge – if the term is to be employed at all – is a name for the product of competent inquiries, and is constituted only as the outcome of a particular inquiry.From the constitutive process of knowing and doing, knowledge is more than "a process taking place" or some "status" located in an organism's [of person's] mind. Knowledge arises from inquiry. It arises out of a kind of testing, an iterative process of inquiry into what we know and expect, that ensures a suitable fitness not only in solving problems (finding a solution). It ensures the fitness of the organism-environment, which may vary depending on the situation, the time and place, or the culture. While a person is central (or "nuclear" as in a nucleus) to a conception of organism-environment, human beings as organisms must abdicate any sense of dominion over their social-biological cosmos. Being human is but a part, and never outside, that cosmos or environment which they need to survive and they need to adapt to, to thrive. Each situation and assumptions about it—and this transactionalists assert is radical way of thinking—must be tested, examined, and determined by a series of iterative moves and activity based on the capacity of that organism's ability to fulfill its desired intentions to eventually thrive (or not). Dewey and Bentley later insisted that knowing "as inquiry, [is therefore] a way, or distinct form, of behavior," out of which a transactional competence is achieved. In our existing models of formal education, we bifurcate what Dewey viewed as indispensable. We, as a rule, segregate "utility and culture, absorption and expression, theory and practice....in any educational scheme" In 1952, progressive educator Elsie Ripley Clapp distinguished a similar commitment to a "cooperative transaction of inquiry" in a vision of education that enjoined those in a community and those inside a school. Intelligence—that which is acquired through knowledgeable inquiry and mental testing—allows man to analyze and foresee consequences derived from the past experiences shaping our biases and expectations. Without intelligence of this kind, one is unlikely to control his/her actions without preconceived dogma, rites, or beliefs that might be wrong without a proper inquiry. If the philosophical study of politics were actually considered a "study of force," transactionalists would assert that knowing "what actions are permissible" (or not) given the condition of being an organism-environment, then co-operation and knowing-as-inquiry into one's bodily condition and conditioning and the situation one is transacting in that conditions one's body, all this is vital to functioning successfully among others in any social situation or environment. In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, it is noted that John Dewey was critical of the classical neoliberal stance that abstracts the individual from environment as if the individual precedes or lords from outside of a conception of society or social institutions. Dewey maintained that social institutions were not a "means for obtaining something for individuals. They are means for 'creating' individuals in a co-operative inquiry into knowing how to live a satisfying life (Reconstruction in Philosophy, MW12, 190–192)." [C]lassical liberalism treats the individual as 'something given.' Instead, Dewey argues, 'liberalism knows that an individual is nothing fixed, given ready-made. It is something achieved, and achieved not in isolation but with the aid and support of conditions, cultural and physical: — including in "cultural", economic, legal and political institutions as well as science and art' ('The Future of Liberalism', LW11: 291).For Dewey, such treatment is 'the most pervasive fallacy of philosophical thinking' ('Context and Thought', LW5, 5). Transactionalism is a radical form of governing one's self in one's environment(s). Transactionalism resists a political tendency to "divide up experienced phenomena, and to take the distinct analysed elements to be separate existences, independent both of the analysis and of each other." Intelligent thinking is anti-dualistic, accurate, forethought. It takes into account other people, communities, and cultures. It stems from a "deliberate control of what is done with reference to making what happens to us and what we do to things as fertile as possible of suggestions (of suggested meanings)." [emphasis added] Furthermore, intelligent thinking is a means for trying out the validity of those suggestions and other assumptions. The political governing of thinking towards dualisms and bifurcation as well as the "false conception of the individual" (apart from their environment) is what Dewey argued actually limits man's free (meaning "liberal") thought and action. All of this served as the core reasoning behind Dewey's development of an experimental philosophy that offset elite distortions of public education and learning. Individual as co-constitutive, organism-environment Transactionalist psychologists and educational philosophers reject the ideologies precipitated from Western ideologies of do-it-yourself or the phrase If it is to be, it's up to me! Such mentalities tend to lead to entitlement. The naiveté of slogans like "follow your passion" often deny any consideration of our trans-dermal condition—our internal fitness and the external fitness of who we are as organism-environment. Transactionalists assert that the "advancing conformity and coercive competition so characteristic of our times" demands reassessment. A new "philosophical-psychological complex" is offered that confronts the "ever increasing growth of bureaucratic rule and the attendant rise of a complacent citizenry." Given the intensification of globalization and migration, a trans-dermal consciousness allows for a transactional emphasis on "human dignity and uniqueness" despite "a matrix of anxiety and despair [and] feelings of alienation." Transactionalist psychologists and philosophers replace a once sought-after existentialism as a remedy to feelings of alienation with a trans-dermal, organism-environment orientation to living. Rather than applying a theory or approach that emphasizes the individual as a "free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will," subjects are invited to co-create functioning among all other organism-environments, including the specific conditions and consequences of any objects and personalities involved, in order to intelligently structure existence in and among it all. The very act of participating in co-creation, according to transactionalists, gives and allows each person her/his unique status and dignity in their environment. Aesthetics: value-satisfaction from an assumptive world Distinct from an aesthetic theory of taste or a rationale for the beauty in an object of art, a transactionalist theory of aesthetics concerns the perceptual judgments we use to define value, purposeful activity or satisfaction in any experience. Based on studies by transactionalist psychologists Adelbert Ames, Jr. (known for The Ames Demonstrations), William Howard Ittelson, Hadley Cantril, along with John Dewey, the biological role of perception is key to understanding transactionalism. Perceiving is viewed as "part of the process of living by which each one of us, from his own particular point of view, creates for himself the world within which he has his life's experiences and through which he strives to gain his satisfactions." The sum total of these assumptions was recognized as the "assumptive world." The assumptive world stems from all that we experience, all the things and events we assess and assign meaning to, which function as a contextual whole also known as a transactional whole. Dewey also referred to the assumptive world as a "situation" (where organism and environment are inseparable) or as a "field" in which behavior, stimulus, and response are framed as if a reflexive circuit. Trevor Phillips noted, "To the modern transactionalist, experiences alter perceptual processes, and in the act of altering them, the purposing aspect of perception is either furthered or its fulfillment interfered with." It is through action, through movement, that man is capable of bringing forth a value-satisfaction—the perception of satisfying an aim or outcome—to her or his experience. Man's capacity to "sense value in the quality of his experience" was registered through his serial expectations and standards stemming from previous transactions throughout life. A theory of value is therefore derived from one's behavioral inquiry within an assumptive world. "Knowledge is a transaction that develops out of man's explorations within [that] cosmos." Transactionalists reject the notion that any truth is inherently settled or beyond question. The consequences of any inquiry will be dependent on the situation or transactional whole in which man as an organism-environment finds him- or her-self. Since our body and the physical environments and social ecologies in which it trans-acts are continually in flux across time and space, a singular or repetitive assumption carried over in an unthinking manner may not be valuable or satisfactory. To clarify the theory of valuation, John Dewey wrote: To declare something satisfactory [vs. satisfying] is to assert that it meets specifiable conditions. It is, in effect, a judgment that the thing 'will do'. It involves a prediction; it contemplates a future in which the thing will continue to serve; it will do. It asserts a consequence the thing will actively institute, it will do." Ultimately, transactionalism is a move away from the conclusion that knowledge depends on an independent knower and something to be known. The reality of a particular situation depends, transactionally speaking, on the interpretation place[d] upon the situation by a particular person. Interpretation is possible only through the accumulation of experience which, in effect, is what is meant by "assumptive world". Without the hitches and mistakes one encounters in the welter of daily living, the nature of the assumptive world would never arise into consciousness. The assumptive world, initially highlighted in the 25 experiments in perception known as "The Ames demonstrations," becomes the seeming reality of our world. Man's transactions of living involve, in sum, capacities and aspects of his nature operating together. To transact is to participate in the process of translating the ongoing energies of the environment into one's own perceptual awareness, and to transform the environment through the perceptual act. Value-satisfaction arises when the inadequacies of man's assumptive world are revealed or invalidated. Thereby, the consequences of any transactional experience determines what is valuable or what will do vs. that which is satisfying but will not do. The good life, for the transactionalist, consists of a unity of values, achieved by means of reflective thought, and accepted in the full light of their conditions and consequences. To transact is to act intelligently with an aim in mind while avoiding the tendency to surrender one's awareness to complacency or indifference that stems from mere information or untested knowledge. Without action, a person can fool herself, distort her sense of satisfaction or value on behalf of consequences she or others prefer. Through action, the individual perceptions as well as the shared perceptual common sense of an assumptive world are validated and modified. We predict and refine our conditions of life yet "any standard set for these value qualities is influenced by the individual's personal biological and life history." Transactionalism is a creative process that takes into account the unique biology and biography of persons involved. Generational significance The importance of the study of transactionalism arose in the late 1960s in response to an "alienation syndrome" among youth of that generation. As the counter-culture challenged and reassessed society's "philosophical-psychological complex, its Weltanschauung," their political and social alienation sparked protests against the war and the draft as well as historic racial rebellions in various U.S. cities. The Long hot summer of 1967 and the counterculture movement named the Summer of Love also in 1967 reflected the antipathy of young people who questioned everything. American society's norms and values were perceived as denying dignity to all. Riots of the period were studied in a report by the U.S. Kerner Commission and scholars began to study the patterns of alienation expressed by youth in the sixties. Youth sought a kind of existentialism expressed by a need to be "true to oneself." This current of alienation unfortunately veered away from a relevant understanding of the transactional whole taking into account the reciprocal and co-constitutive nature of man as an organism-environment fulfilling important conditions of life with others all the time. It resembles the famous line from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, written by English poet John Donne – "No man is an island". Transactionalism presented an alternative to the limitation and unintended outcomes of the alienation syndrome. Benefits and applications Designed to account for all aspects of experience—subjective and objective—transactionalism requires a slowing down in assessing all the facts involved with the how, what, when, where, and why as we move to transact with others. It demands and requires always considering how a transaction with another and one's self (e.g., a parent or spouse spending additional hours socializing at the gym) is or is not beneficial to all involved in a transaction (e.g., other members of the family). The costs may be in time, attention, or money or in a condition of life (e.g., family, career, sleep). Transactionalism requires an interdependence of thought, study, and action. A transactionalist must account for one's biology and cognition (metaphysics); the ways knowing reality (epistemology); the reciprocal, co-constitutive, relationship (or ethics) between our social self and the interactions constrained by both our natural and human-made environment. We as human beings live in distinct sociological patterns with people, material and immaterial culture shaped by specific and ever-changing times and places further articulated by increasing migration and globalization. Transactionalism insists that one attend to the political distribution of goods and services along with the ways its value has and is exchanged and changing among people and groups (politics) as well as how persons are socialized to understand what it means to live a good life as well as fulfill those conditions over time (aesthetics). Transactionalism offers more than existentialism offered with its aim of being "true to oneself." The alienation that results from its orientation to the self at the expense of societal norms and values, even in small groups, often leads to naiveté, despair, frustration, agitation, and even indifference, at the expense of consciously organizing one's acts, while functioning among others, to fulfill one's unique and necessary interests in living a good and satisfying life. Transactionalism counters the naive "do as I see fit" mentality of authenticity regardless of other's needs and concerns, which inevitably leads to negative consequences and outcomes over time. Transactionalism depends upon the "integration of man and his surroundings." Phillips' dissertation documented the evolution of a "transactional approach;" one that rests on the fact that we are biological, linguistic, and that we must transact considering a trans-dermal experience of our thoughts, behavior, and exchange on every level imagined while ethically functioning with others well. A series of podcasts exemplify the application of a transactional approach to a diverse array of professionals from various countries. See also Hilary Putnam References Philosophical theories Education theory

Circle–ellipse problem

The circle–ellipse problem in software development (sometimes called the square–rectangle problem) illustrates several pitfalls which can arise when using subtype polymorphism in object modelling. The issues are most commonly encountered when using object-oriented programming (OOP). By definition, this problem is a violation of the Liskov substitution principle, one of the SOLID principles. The problem concerns which subtyping or inheritance relationship should exist between classes which represent circles and ellipses (or, similarly, squares and rectangles). More generally, the problem illustrates the difficulties which can occur when a base class contains methods which mutate an object in a manner which may invalidate a (stronger) invariant found in a derived class, causing the Liskov substitution principle to be violated. The existence of the circle–ellipse problem is sometimes used to criticize object-oriented programming. It may also imply that hierarchical taxonomies are difficult to make universal, implying that situational classification systems may be more practical. Description It is a central tenet of object-oriented analysis and design that subtype polymorphism, which is implemented in most object-oriented languages via inheritance, should be used to model object types that are subsets of each other; this is commonly referred to as the is-a relationship. In the present example, the set of circles is a subset of the set of ellipses; circles can be defined as ellipses whose major and minor axes are the same length. Thus, code written in an object-oriented language that models shapes will frequently choose to make a subclass of , i.e. inheriting from it. A subclass must provide support for all behaviour supported by the super-class; subclasses must implement any mutator methods defined in a base class. In the present case, the method alters the length of one of its axes in place. If inherits from , it must also have a method , but the result of this method would be to change a circle into something that is no longer a circle. The class cannot simultaneously satisfy its own invariant and the behavioural requirements of the method. A related problem with this inheritance arises when considering the implementation. An ellipse requires more states to be described than a circle, because the former needs attributes to specify the length and rotation of the major and minor axes whereas a circle needs only a radius. It may be possible to avoid this if the language (such as Eiffel) makes constant values of a class, functions without arguments, and data members interchangeable. Some authors have suggested reversing the relationship between circle and ellipse, on the grounds that an ellipse is a circle with more abilities. Unfortunately, ellipses fail to satisfy many of the invariants of circles; if has a method , must now provide it, too. Possible solutions One may solve the problem by: changing the model using a different language (or an existing or custom-written extension of some existing language) using a different paradigm Exactly which option is appropriate will depend on who wrote and who wrote . If the same author is designing them both from scratch, then the author will be able to define the interface to handle this situation. If the object was already written, and cannot be changed, then the options are more limited. Change the model Return success or failure value Allow the objects to return a "success" or "failure" value for each modifier or raise an exception on failure. This is usually done in the case of file I/O, but can also be helpful here. Now, works, and returns "true", while simply returns "false". This is in general good practice, but may require that the original author of anticipated such a problem, and defined the mutators as returning a value. Also, it requires the client code to test the return value for support of the stretch function, which in effect is like testing if the referenced object is either a circle or an ellipse. Another way to look at this is that it is like putting in the contract that the contract may or may not be fulfilled depending on the object implementing the interface. Eventually, it is only a clever way to bypass the Liskov constraint by stating up-front that the post condition may or may not be valid. Alternately, could throw an exception (but depending on the language, this may also require that the original author of declare that it may throw an exception). Return the new value of X This is a similar solution to the above, but is slightly more powerful. now returns the new value of its X dimension. Now, can simply return its current radius. All modifications must be done through , which preserves the circle invariant. Allow for a weaker contract on Ellipse If the interface contract for states only that "stretchX modifies the X axis", and does not state "and nothing else will change", then could simply force the X and Y dimensions to be the same. and both modify both the X and Y size. Convert the Circle into an Ellipse If is called, then changes itself into an . For example, in Common Lisp, this can be done via the method. This may be dangerous, however, if some other function is expecting it to be a . Some languages preclude this type of change, and others impose restrictions on the class to be an acceptable replacement for . For languages that allow implicit conversion like C++, this may only be a partial solution solving the problem on call-by-copy, but not on call-by-reference. Make all instances constant One can change the model so that instances of the classes represent constant values (i.e., they are immutable). This is the implementation that is used in purely functional programming. In this case, methods such as must be changed to yield a new instance, rather than modifying the instance they act on. This means that it is no longer a problem to define , and the inheritance reflects the mathematical relationship between circles and ellipses. A disadvantage is that changing the value of an instance then requires an assignment, which is inconvenient and prone to programming errors, e.g., A second disadvantage is that such an assignment conceptually involves a temporary value, which could reduce performance and be difficult to optimise. Factor out modifiers One can define a new class , and put the modifiers from in it. The only inherits queries from . This has a disadvantage of introducing an extra class where all that is desired is specify that does not inherit modifiers from . Impose preconditions on modifiers One can specify that is only allowed on instances satisfying , and will otherwise throw an exception. This requires anticipation of the problem when Ellipse is defined. Factor out common functionality into an abstract base class Create an abstract base class called and put methods that work with both s and s in this class. Functions that can deal with either type of object will expect an , and functions that use - or -specific requirements will use the descendant classes. However, is then no longer an subclass, leading to the "a is not a sort of " situation described above. Drop all inheritance relationships This solves the problem at a stroke. Any common operations desired for both a Circle and Ellipse can be abstracted out to a common interface that each class implements, or into mixins. Also, one may provide conversion methods like , which returns a mutable Ellipse object initialized using the circle's radius. From that point on, it is a separate object and can be mutated separately from the original circle without issue. Methods converting the other way need not commit to one strategy. For instance, there can be both and , and any other strategy desired. Combine class Circle into class Ellipse Then, wherever a circle was used before, use an ellipse. A circle can already be represented by an ellipse. There is no reason to have class unless it needs some circle-specific methods that can't be applied to an ellipse, or unless the programmer wishes to benefit from conceptual and/or performance advantages of the circle's simpler model. Inverse inheritance Majorinc proposed a model that divides methods on modifiers, selectors and general methods. Only selectors can be automatically inherited from superclass, while modifiers should be inherited from subclass to superclass. In general case, the methods must be explicitly inherited. The model can be emulated in languages with multiple inheritance, using abstract classes. Change the programming language This problem has straightforward solutions in a sufficiently powerful OO programming system. Essentially, the circle–ellipse problem is one of synchronizing two representations of type: the de facto type based on the properties of the object, and the formal type associated with the object by the object system. If these two pieces of information, which are ultimately only bits in the machine, are kept synchronized so that they say the same thing, everything is fine. It is clear that a circle cannot satisfy the invariants required of it while its base ellipse methods allow mutation of parameters. However, the possibility exists that when a circle cannot meet the circle invariants, its type can be updated so that it becomes an ellipse. If a circle which has become a de facto ellipse doesn't change type, then its type is a piece of information which is now out of date, reflecting the history of the object (how it was once constructed) and not its present reality (what it has since mutated into). Many object systems in popular use are based on a design which takes it for granted that an object carries the same type over its entire lifetime, from construction to finalization. This is not a limitation of OOP, but rather of particular implementations only. The following example uses the Common Lisp Object System (CLOS) in which objects can change class without losing their identity. All variables or other storage locations which hold a reference to an object continue to hold a reference to that same object after it changes class. The circle and ellipse models are deliberately simplified to avoid distracting details which are not relevant to the circle–ellipse problem. An ellipse has two semi-axes called and in the code. Being an ellipse, a circle inherits these, and also has a property, which value is equal to that of the axes (which must, of course, be equal to each other). (defgeneric check-constraints (shape)) ;; The accessors on shape objects. Constraints on objects ;; need to be checked after either axis value is set. (defgeneric h-axis (shape)) (defgeneric (setf h-axis) (new-value shape) (:method :after (new-value shape) (check-constraints shape))) (defgeneric v-axis (shape)) (defgeneric (setf v-axis) (new-value shape) (:method :after (new-value shape) (check-constraints shape))) (defclass ellipse ((h-axis :type real :accessor h-axis :initarg :h-axis) (v-axis :type real :accessor v-axis :initarg :v-axis))) (defclass circle (ellipse) ((radius :type real :accessor radius :initarg :radius))) ;;; ;;; A circle has a radius, but also a h-axis and v-axis that ;;; it inherits from an ellipse. These must be kept in sync ;;; with the radius when the object is initialized and ;;; when those values change. ;;; (defmethod initialize-instance :after ((c circle) &key radius) (setf (radius c) radius)) ;; via the setf method below (defmethod (setf radius) :after ((new-value real) (c circle)) ;; We use SLOT-VALUE, rather than the accessors, to avoid changing ;; class unnecessarily between the two assignments; as the circle ;; will have different h-axis and v-axis values between the ;; assignments, and then the same values after assignments. (setf (slot-value c 'h-axis) new-value (slot-value c 'v-axis) new-value)) ;;; ;;; After an assignment is made to the circle's ;;; h-axis or v-axis, a change of type is necessary, ;;; unless the new value is the same as the radius. ;;; (defmethod check-constraints ((c circle)) (unless (= (radius c) (h-axis c) (v-axis c)) (change-class c 'ellipse))) ;;; ;;; Ellipse changes to a circle if accessors ;;; mutate it such that the axes are equal, ;;; or if an attempt is made to construct it that way. ;;; (defmethod initialize-instance :after ((e ellipse) &key) (check-constraints e)) (defmethod check-constraints ((e ellipse)) (when (= (h-axis e) (v-axis e)) (change-class e 'circle))) ;;; ;;; Method for an ellipse becoming a circle. In this metamorphosis, ;;; the object acquires a radius, which must be initialized. ;;; There is a "sanity check" here to signal an error if an attempt ;;; is made to convert an ellipse which axes are unequal ;;; with an explicit change-class call. ;;; The handling strategy here is to base the radius off the ;;; h-axis and signal an error. ;;; This doesn't prevent the class change; the damage is already done. ;;; (defmethod update-instance-for-different-class :after ((old-e ellipse) (new-c circle) &key) (setf (radius new-c) (h-axis old-e)) (unless (= (h-axis old-e) (v-axis old-e)) (error "ellipse ~s can't change into a circle because it's not one!" old-e))) This code can be demonstrated with an interactive session, using the CLISP implementation of Common Lisp. $ clisp -q -i circle-ellipse.lisp [1]> (make-instance 'ellipse :v-axis 3 :h-axis 3) #<CIRCLE #x218AB566> [2]> (make-instance 'ellipse :v-axis 3 :h-axis 4) #<ELLIPSE #x218BF56E> [3]> (defvar obj (make-instance 'ellipse :v-axis 3 :h-axis 4)) OBJ [4]> (class-of obj) #<STANDARD-CLASS ELLIPSE> [5]> (radius obj) *** - NO-APPLICABLE-METHOD: When calling #<STANDARD-GENERIC-FUNCTION RADIUS> with arguments (#<ELLIPSE #x2188C5F6>), no method is applicable. The following restarts are available: RETRY :R1 try calling RADIUS again RETURN :R2 specify return values ABORT :R3 Abort main loop Break 1 [6]> :a [7]> (setf (v-axis obj) 4) 4 [8]> (radius obj) 4 [9]> (class-of obj) #<STANDARD-CLASS CIRCLE> [10]> (setf (radius obj) 9) 9 [11]> (v-axis obj) 9 [12]> (h-axis obj) 9 [13]> (setf (h-axis obj) 8) 8 [14]> (class-of obj) #<STANDARD-CLASS ELLIPSE> [15]> (radius obj) *** - NO-APPLICABLE-METHOD: When calling #<STANDARD-GENERIC-FUNCTION RADIUS> with arguments (#<ELLIPSE #x2188C5F6>), no method is applicable. The following restarts are available: RETRY :R1 try calling RADIUS again RETURN :R2 specify return values ABORT :R3 Abort main loop Break 1 [16]> :a [17]> Challenge the premise of the problem While at first glance it may seem obvious that a Circle is-an Ellipse, consider the following analogous code. class Person { void walkNorth(int meters) {...} void walkEast(int meters) {...} } Now, a prisoner is obviously a person. So logically, a sub-class can be created: class Prisoner extends Person { void walkNorth(int meters) {...} void walkEast(int meters) {...} } Also obviously, this leads to trouble, since a prisoner is not free to move an arbitrary distance in any direction, yet the contract of the class states that a Person can. Thus, the class could better be named . If that were the case, then the idea that is clearly wrong. By analogy, then, a Circle is an Ellipse, because it lacks the same degrees of freedom as an Ellipse. Applying better naming, then, a Circle could instead be named and an ellipse could be named . With such names it is now more obvious that should extend , since it adds another property to it; whereas has a single diameter property, has two such properties (i.e., a major and a minor axis length). This strongly suggests that inheritance should never be used when the sub-class restricts the freedom implicit in the base class, but should only be used when the sub-class adds extra detail to the concept represented by the base class as in 'Monkey' is-an 'Animal'. However, stating that a prisoner can not move an arbitrary distance in any direction and a person can is a wrong premise once again. Any object which is moving to any direction can encounter obstacles. The right way to model this problem would be to have a contract. Now, when implementing walkToDirection for the subclass Prisoner, you can check the boundaries and return proper walk results. Invariance One may, conceptually, consider a and to both be mutable container types, aliases of and respectively. In this case, may be considered a subtype of . The type in can be both written to and read from, implying that it is neither covariant nor contravariant, and is instead invariant. Therefore, is not a subtype of , nor vice versa. References Robert C. Martin, The Liskov Substitution Principle, C++ Report, March 1996. External links https://web.archive.org/web/20150409211739/http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/proper-inheritance.html#faq-21.6 A popular C++ FAQ site by Marshall Cline. States and explains the problem. Constructive Deconstruction of Subtyping by Alistair Cockburn on his own web-site. Technical/mathematical discussion of typing and subtyping, with applications to this problem. http://orafaq.com/usenet/comp.databases.theory/2001/10/01/0001.htm Beginning of a long thread (follow the Maybe reply: links) on Oracle FAQ discussing the issue. Refers to writings of C.J. Date. Some bias towards Smalltalk. LiskovSubstitutionPrinciple at WikiWikiWeb Subtyping, Subclassing, and Trouble with OOP, an essay discussing a related problem: should sets inherit from bags? Subtyping by Constraints in Object-Oriented Databases, an essay discussing an extended version of the circle–ellipse problem in the environment of object-oriented databases. Object-oriented programming

Artistic integrity

Artistic integrity is generally defined as the ability to omit an acceptable level of opposing, disrupting, and corrupting values that would otherwise alter an artist's or entities’ original vision in a manner that violates their own preconceived aesthetic standards and personal values. It is someone's (the one who has artistic integrity) high artistic standards or standards of doing their job, and that person's determination not to lower those standards. This does not necessitate that an artist needs to ignore external influences in the creation process. It is often academically studied under the greater umbrella of personal integrity, but recent papers have shown the need for its own standards and studies given the wide usage of the concept in critique of contemporary art alongside the continued governmental investment. The definition itself can take on many forms and has been argued about academically due to the nuanced nature of Artistic Integrity's overlap with non-artistic forms of integrity and the differing values in philosophical frameworks both by artists and the larger community. Despite the widespread use of the concept in mass media and the creative industry; artistic integrity has often been philosophically ignored in comparison to personal and mechanical integrity. An important factor to consider in discussion of artistic integrity is context in terms of not only the historical zeitgeist but more prominently the community and artists’ respective cultural and personal understanding of the term. If an individual is said to possess artistic integrity it does not equate to that person also possessing personal integrity; correspondingly, the absence of personal integrity does not equate to the absence of artistic integrity. History The philosophical concept of artistic integrity can be traced back to the development of the Romantic Movement of the late 17th and early 18th century alongside a link to the increased idealization of artists. This is argued to be the jumping point for the concept itself and showed that it is applied differently depending on which artistic movement it is mentioned. The romantic movement also brought about differentiation of artists from other tradespersons into revered byronic geniuses; this ‘artistic genius’ concept is closely related to the said artist maintaining artistic integrity in the eyes of his contemporaries to protect his/her genius status in front of increased public scrutiny that comes with the recognition. At the same time as the romantic movement; there was an economic shift to capitalism, the economic impact altered the way artists earned a living that ultimately resulted in the emergence of art markets and subsequent industrialization. In the 1940s theorists began discussion of these art markets in context of an umbrella term coined “Culture Industries”. Their approach has been critiqued for focusing too much on art's economic value while overlooking artistic and social values. The prevalence of these theories and the continued impact of mass commercialization lead to a clash between the romantic perception of artists and their economic principles. This is perhaps is where the ‘myth of the tortured artist’ conflicted with the economics of capitalism resulting in the widespread idea that artists can have integrity if they do not commercialize their art or are financially successful. This conflict within academia about artistic integrity continued throughout the 1960s where the Soviet graphic artist Vladimir Favorsky measured and defined artistic integrity according to how much a work of art showcased the time investment an artist dedicated to a piece. He argued that to do so would require artists to forgo their persona entirely and be undistractedly immersed in the artwork itself. Thus, linking time investment as a primary measure of artistic integrity. To resolve some of the issues of ‘industrializing’ art; the art marketing discipline emerged philosophically and practically. Eventually leading to the development of the first model of creative orientations by Elizabeth Hirschman which assisted in providing a framework for academics to view artistic integrity. Over time the art markets saw a shift from old elitist views of `high` art to more accessible niche forms like the ‘underground’ music scene which are viewed to be purer representations of artistic integrity than popular music due to its relative lack of profitability.  This is also exemplified in film as well where contemporaries view directors who participate in niche film festivals as being more authentic resulting in a view that they have more artistic integrity than those who create for a mainstream audience. The last two to three decades showed increased public and art community interest in artistic integrity due to the increasing commercial success of certain artforms like film and music alongside additional questioning of aesthetic value due to the politicization and investment of the art industry with this lucrative expectation of monetary benefits. Frameworks Elizabeth Hirschman (Creative Orientations) Her ‘’creative orientations’’ model has been used to help contextualize Artistic Integrity in academia There are three main creative orientations that cohabit the art industry: Economic benefits may inadvertently arise for the first two orientations; however, it is not the reason for creation. Participants may work in any combination of the three orientations; where they can create for themselves, other artists, or purely for commercial reasons Self-orientated creators set their own internal standards of their art above everyone else's even if it means risking potential monetary loss and social backlash. Peer-oriented creators also value artistic integrity over financial gain, but creative industry peer opinion is the focus. Hirschman comments that these creative enterprises advocate artistic integrity as the industry norm; the methodology of ensuring that these expectations are met is through peer evaluation. Commercial-oriented creators focus on monetary gains throughout the creative process. This financial orientation has led to this orientation being the most controversial as it reflects the creative industry through critiques of damaging artistic integrity due to its marketing focused nature. The expectation of this market centric approach is that profitability and widespread exposure will follow through marketing principles; however, this is believed among artists and consumers alike to rely heavily on an exchange of artistic integrity for exposure. This is known as ‘selling out’ and is usually considered to hold a negative connotation of the artist's quality of work. Autonomism Under autonomism it is presumed that art itself has no association to other forms of reality and thus cannot be judged as anything other than freedom of expression which in turn omits art from being morally and even cognitively evaluated making artistic integrity a void concept. Claudia Mill’s Spectrum The artist makes no conscious effort to profit or receive recognition off his/her works both during creation and after completion. This is the clearest case of an artist having artistic integrity The artist desires to meet basic monetary requirements and some level of recognition, but it has no effect on the creative process and creation. The artist initially makes conscious effort in choice of genre hoping to achieve monetary and social benefits. After making this initial decision the artist then works exclusively to the selected work with disregard to anything unrelated The artist not only considers the monetary and social benefits while choosing the medium in which to create but also during the creative process. The artist either chooses the medium or produces the artwork in a manner that he/she consciously tarnishes its artistic qualities. This is the clearest case of an artist lacking artistic integrity Artist perception The complex history and lack of variety in study of artistic integrity is reflected by the multifurcation of artist perception on artistic integrity. From interviews conducted under academia common features emerged that involved the importance of artistic integrity to creators and the presence of an internal framework in which they defined it; contextually, to their perception of what they expected of themselves and what the public perception was within their personal ideology. Interpretations and general definitions of artistic integrity however differed radically from artist to artist and sometimes were considered contradictory. These findings brought into question the validity of the modern usage of the term itself; arguing for more representation of artists to define the legitimacy and connotations of their own integrity. In literary translation Artistic Integrity pertains to the end translation being “a version that presents, in the target-language environment, a message to the reader as close as possible to the original message in the eyes of the source-language reader”. As word for word translation is seldom applicable it is expected that the translator attempts to maintain each feature of the initial text (within mathematical limits of perfect translation) through factual adjustments to maintain the artistic integrity of the original text. It's heavily stressed that this does not equate to the translator disregarding literary facts in translation but rather that these omissions are only made to preserve artistic integrity when necessary as otherwise the whole original message would be lost in translation. Artistic Integrity is not only concerned with the words alone but the soul of the text in that it considers meaning on more levels than just literal; it also considers imagery, logos of target text, and overtones that could contribute as much as literal wordings of the source language. The artistic integrity approach to translation revolves around four processes: penetration, acquisition, transition, and presentation. Penetration into the setting in which the original text was made for the source language audience. The linguistic and cultural milieu where the message was meant to be received. Acquisition of the message, including the spirit, the substance and the flavor which can only be fully comprehended and appreciated by readers who share the language and culture of the original. Transition from what has taken shape in the translator's mind as the original message in the source-language environment is transformed into a new message in the target-language environment. Presentation of the newly formed message in terms that preserve the artistic integrity of the text and produce on target-language readers an effect that approximates as closely as possible the effect that the original message produces on source language readers. Politics Many first world countries have identified the importance of art involvement in the wellbeing of its economy and communities; prompting public funding of art initiatives and policies. These include investment into higher arts education in hopes to boost financial viability of the arts industry while maintaining the ‘culturally specific’ nature of the artforms. Some examples of countries that employ taxpayer investment into these creative industries are Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and Finland Controversies Adventures of Huckleberry Finn The 1884 novel has been subject of controversy due to its mention of the N-word 219 times and being written by a Caucasian man. The primary discourse revolves around its use in the American education system where one side argues that it should be taught using a censored version or not at all while the other side thinks that censoring the work leads to the loss of its artistic integrity as some literary interpretations show the use of the word was not to promote racism but rather to discredit it. The edited versions of the novel that use the word slave instead are seen to have lost artistic integrity of the original text; however, some teachers and students feel burdened by saying such a derogatory word. Jane Austen In an 1816 letter by James Stanier Clarke; the librarian at His Royal Highness's Coburg House, it was suggested that Jane writes a historical romance set in that house as it would have been politically advantageous to the Prince and profitable to Jane herself. Her memoir later revealed that she rejected his suggestion as she acknowledged it would be popular and profitable but that it would clash with her style to the point that she would theoretically hang herself before writing a chapter of the suggested book. Sex Pistols The 2006 article Sex Pistols sell out discussed the controversy around punk band Sex Pistols signing away ownership of their music to Universal Music Publishing Group which will exploit their music through advertisements and other commercial venues. The writer of the article expressed disgust at the lack of artistic integrity brought about by this decision. Comments around this article also argued that the Sex Pistols discography has always built them as artists who care about nothing but themselves and that maybe their followers should not be shocked at this action as it seems that it is in line with the band's own sense of artistic integrity. This is a contemporary example of artists having a different sense of artistic integrity than the public's and that contextually ‘selling out’ is entirely within the confounds of their artistic integrity. References Value (ethics) Social impact

Discovery (observation)

Discovery is the act of detecting something new, or something previously unrecognized as meaningful. Concerning sciences and academic disciplines, discovery is the observation of new phenomena, new actions, or new events and providing new reasoning to explain the knowledge gathered through such observations with previously acquired knowledge from abstract thought and everyday experiences. A discovery may sometimes be based on earlier discoveries, collaborations, or ideas. Some discoveries represent a radical breakthrough in knowledge or technology. New discoveries are acquired through various senses and are usually assimilated, merging with pre-existing knowledge and actions. Questioning is a major form of human thought and interpersonal communication, and plays a key role in discovery. Discoveries are often made due to questions. Some discoveries lead to the invention of objects, processes, or techniques. A discovery may sometimes be based on earlier discoveries, collaborations or ideas, and the process of discovery requires at least the awareness that an existing concept or method can be modified or transformed. However, some discoveries also represent a radical breakthrough in knowledge. Science Within scientific disciplines, discovery is the observation of new phenomena, actions, or events which help explain the knowledge gathered through previously acquired scientific evidence. In science, exploration is one of three purposes of research, the other two being description and explanation. Discovery is made by providing observational evidence and attempts to develop an initial, rough understanding of some phenomenon. Discovery within the field of particle physics has an accepted definition for what constitutes a discovery: a five-sigma level of certainty. Such a level defines statistically how unlikely it is that an experimental result is due to chance. The combination of a five-sigma level of certainty, and independent confirmation by other experiments, turn findings into accepted discoveries. Education Within the field of education, discovery occurs through observations. These observations are common and come in various forms. Observations can occur as observations of students done by the teacher or observations of teachers done by other professionals. Student observations help teachers identify where the students are developmentally and cognitively in the realm of their studies. Teacher observations are used by administrators to hold teachers accountable as they stay on target with their learning goals and treat the students with respect. Observations of students completed by teachers Teachers observe students throughout the day in the classroom. These observations can be informal or formal. Teachers often use checklists, anecdotal notes, videos, interviews, written work or assessments, etc. By completing these observations, teachers can evaluate at what 'level' the student is understanding the lessons. Observations allow teachers to make the necessary adaptations for the students in the classroom. These observations can also provide the foundation for strong relationships between teachers and students. When students have these relationships, they feel safer, more comfortable in the classroom and are more willing and eager to learn. Through observations teachers discover the most developmentally appropriate practices to implement in their classrooms. These encourage and promote healthier learning styles and positive classroom atmospheres. Observations of teachers completed by other professionals There are a set of standards set in the education system by government officials. Teachers are responsible for following these academic standards as a guideline for developmentally appropriate instruction. In addition to following those academic goals, teachers are also observed by administrators to ensure positive classroom environments. One of the tools that teachers could use is the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) tool. After using this tool, "over 150 research studies prove that students in classrooms with high-CLASS scores have better academic and social outcomes." The tool itself is known for encouraging positive classroom environments, regard for the students' perspectives, behavior management skills, quality of feedback, and language modeling. The administrators rate each of the ten categories on a scale of one to seven. One being the lowest score and seven being the highest score that the teacher may receive. Exploration Western culture has used the term "discovery" in their histories to lay claims over lands and people as "discovery" through discovery doctrines and subtly emphasize the importance of "exploration" in the history of the world, such as in the "Age of Discovery", the New World and any frontierist endeavour even into space as the "New Frontier". In the course of this discovery, it has been used to describe the first incursions of peoples from one culture into the geographical and cultural environment of others. However, calling it "discovery" has been rejected by many indigenous peoples, from whose perspective it was not a discovery but a first contact, and consider the term "discovery" to perpetuate colonialism, as for the discovery doctrine and frontierist concepts like terra nullius. Discovery and the age of discovery have been alternatively, particularly regionally, referred to through the terms contact, Age of Contact or Contact Period. See also Bold hypothesis :Category:Discoverers :Category:Lists of inventions or discoveries Creativity techniques Contact zone List of German inventions and discoveries List of multiple discoveries Logology (science) Multiple discovery Revelation Rights of nature Role of chance in scientific discoveries Scientific priority Serendipity Timeline of scientific discoveries References Specific references General references (preprint) External links A Science Odyssey: People and discoveries from PBS. TED-Education video - How simple ideas lead to scientific discoveries. A Guide to Inventions and Discoveries: From Adrenaline to the Zipper from Infoplease. Learning Observation Cognition

Adolescent egocentrism

Adolescent egocentrism is a term that child psychologist David Elkind used to describe the phenomenon of adolescents' inability to distinguish between their perception of what others think about them and what people actually think in reality. Elkind's theory on adolescent egocentrism is drawn from Piaget's theory on cognitive developmental stages, which argues that formal operations enable adolescents to construct imaginary situations and abstract thinking. Accordingly, adolescents are able to conceptualize their own thoughts and conceive of others perception of their self-image. However, Elkind pointed out that adolescents tend to focus mostly on their own perceptions – especially on their behaviors and appearance – because of the "physiological metamorphosis" they experience during this period. This leads to adolescents' belief that society is just as attentive to their actions and semblance as they are of themselves. According to Elkind, adolescent egocentrism results in two consequential mental constructions, namely imaginary audience and personal fable. Mental constructions Imaginary audience Elkind used the term imaginary audience to describe the phenomenon that an adolescent anticipates the reactions of other people to them in actual or impending social situations. Elkind argued that this kind of anticipation could be explained by the adolescent's preoccupation that others are as admiring or as critical of them as they are of themself. As a result, an audience is created, as the adolescent believes that they will be the focus of attention. However, more often than not the audience is imaginary because in actual social situations always being the focus of public attention is not usually the case. Elkind believed that the construction of imaginary audiences would partially account for a wide variety of typical adolescent behaviors and experiences; and imaginary audiences played a role in the self-consciousness that emerges in early adolescence. However, since the audience is usually the adolescent's own construction, it is privy to their own knowledge of themself. According to Elkind, the notion of imaginary audience helps to explain why adolescents usually seek privacy and feel reluctant to reveal themselves – it is a reaction to the feeling that one is constantly under the critical scrutiny of others. Personal fable Elkind addressed that adolescents have a complex set of beliefs that their own feelings are unique and they are special and immortal. He used the term Personal fable to describe this notion, which is the complement of the construction of imaginary audience. Since an adolescent usually fails to differentiate their focus on their own perceptions and that of others, they tend to believe that they are of great importance to those around them (the imaginary audience), and consequently come to regard their feelings as something special and unique. This belief of personal uniqueness and invincibility contributes to an illusion that they are above the rules, disciplines and laws that apply to other people; isolation can be a way to show individuality in this mindset. Due to the existence of personal fable at some point, adolescents tend to substitute the roles of an idol, a hero or even a god with their own image. Passing Elkind believed that adolescent egocentrism was a temporary phenomenon that will gradually diminish as adolescents grow older. The reason for this, Elkind argued, was because after entering the formal operational stage, no new mental systems would develop. Therefore, the mental structures formed during adolescence would continue to function for the rest of the life span. Accordingly, the two mental constructions that result from egocentrism, imaginary audience and personal fable, will gradually be overcome and disappear as formal operations become mature and stable. Passing of imaginary audience The imaginary audience, Elkind said, could be regarded as "a series of hypotheses" that an adolescent "tests against reality". Because the imaginary audience is usually constructed based on an adolescent's attention on his own perception, it will be gradually modified through communicating and reacting with real audiences. Eventually, adolescents will be able to recognize the difference between their own preoccupations and concerns of others. Passing of personal fable As to the passing of personal fable, Elkind's idea was drawn from Erikson's (1959) stages of psychosocial development. An establishment of what Erikson called "intimacy" could account for the elimination of personal fable, because during the process of establishing "intimacy", adolescents have to constantly adjust their imaginary audiences to the real ones. As a result, adolescents are able to see themselves in a more realistic way and to establish meaningful interpersonal relationships. Discussions A lot of research has examined different dimensions of Elkind's concept of adolescent egocentrism, however, the findings have not well supported the concept. According to this research, the manifestation of adolescent egocentrism is not a normative developmental phenomenon that occurs only during adolescence, but varies across different contexts. Main discussions from current literature focus on three aspects: whether adolescent egocentrism is age-related; whether adolescent egocentrism has association with formal operations; whether adolescent egocentrism weigh equally across genders. Not being age-related In his 1967 work, Elkind claimed that adolescent egocentrism emerges during early adolescence (age 11–12) and gradually dissipates throughout middle and late adolescence. However, some findings from later studies indicate that this statement is not necessarily to be accurate. In 1986, Lapsley and his colleagues conducted two studies to examine the theoretical assumptions brought up by Elkind. In their first study they collected data from a sample that included 45 sixth graders, 39 eighth graders, 50 tenth graders and 49 twelfth graders. They used the Adolescent Egocentrism Scale (AES) developed by Enright et al. (1979, 1980) and paper-and-pencil battery of formal operations tasks developed by Lunzer (1965) as measuring instruments to examine the correlation between adolescent egocentrism and formal operational thought. If Elkind's assumption were right, the correlation was supposed to change from positive to negative as the grade increased and the magnitude of the correlation should decrease with age. The results of the study obtained only significant negative correlation in late adolescence and non-significant change in the magnitude of the correlation. The results didn't support the Elkind's claim that adolescent egocentrism emerges in early adolescence and decreases linearly throughout middle and late adolescence. In other words, adolescents aged 11 or 12 could experience adolescent egocentrism of the same magnitude as those aged 15 or 16 do. Another study by Frankenberger (2000) also provides evidence that adolescent egocentrism is not age-related. In this study, a survey was conducted for data collection from 223 adolescents and 131 adults. The survey contained measures of three aspects: adolescent egocentrism, self-consciousness, and interpersonal reactivity. The result revealed that scores of egocentrism were not, on average, significantly different between adolescents and young adults (19-30), which indicates that egocentrism in adolescence may continue into adulthood. Little association with formal operations An important theoretical assumption in Elkind's theory is that the emergence of adolescence egocentrism is a result of the development of formal operational thoughts. Nevertheless, some studies had findings that were contrast to Elkind's position. Lapsley and his colleagues conducted two studies to examine the theoretical assumptions in 1986. In the second study, they analyzed the data obtained from two samples: a sample of 7th-, 9th-and 11th-graders and another sample of college undergraduate students. They used Adolescent Egocentrism Scale (AES) (Enright et al., 1979, 1980), Lunzer (1965) formal operations measure and Imaginary Audience Scale (IAS) (Elkind & Bowen, 1979) as the instruments. The result of a grade-by-grade analysis of inter-correlations between adolescence egocentrism and formal operational thoughts showed modest to non-significant differences among all the measures, which implies that there is little association between adolescent egocentrism and formal operations. Some more recent studies got similar findings. Heather et al. (1993) found that formal operations were not an effective indicator of both imaginary audience and personal fable. Galanaki (2012) performed a research to investigate the association of adolescent egocentrism with age, gender, pubertal development and formal operational thoughts. Gender differences A considerable number of studies have found gender differences in egocentrism (Smetana, J.G.&VillaLobos M., 2010). Kimberly A Schonert-Reichl's (1994) study on the relationship between depressive symptomatology and adolescent egocentrism recruited 62 adolescents (30 males, 32 females) aged from 12 to 17. The study used Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale (RADS), Imaginary Audience Scale (IAS) and the New Personal Fable Scale (NPFS) as measuring tools. The results revealed significantly higher scores obtained by females compared with males in the Transient Self subscale in IAS. Transient Self, as defined by Elkind and Bowen in 1979, refers to impermanent image of self that is mainly relative to one-time behaviors and temporary appearance. Thus, adolescent females have a higher tendency to consider themselves to be different from others, and tend to be more self-conscious in situations that involve momentary embarrassments (e.g. going to a party with a bad haircut), than their male peers. Another study conducted by Goossens and Beyers (1992) using similar measuring instruments found that boys have stronger beliefs that they are unique, invulnerable and sometimes omnipotent, which are typical characteristics of personal fable. See also Imaginary audience Personal fable References Adolescence Developmental psychology Educational psychology Ego psychology Narcissism

Coloniality of power

The coloniality of power is a concept interrelating the practices and legacies of European colonialism in social orders and forms of knowledge, advanced in postcolonial studies, decoloniality, and Latin American subaltern studies, most prominently by Anibal Quijano. It identifies and describes the living legacy of colonialism in contemporary societies in the form of social discrimination that outlived formal colonialism and became integrated in succeeding social orders. The concept identifies the racial, political and social hierarchical orders imposed by European colonialism in Latin America that prescribed value to certain peoples/societies while disenfranchising others. Quijano argues that the colonial structure of power resulted in a caste system, where Spaniards were ranked at the top and those that they conquered at the bottom due to their different phenotypic traits and a culture presumed to be inferior. This categorization resulted in a persistent categorical and discriminatory discourse that was reflected in the social and economic structure of the colony, and that continues to be reflected in the structure of modern postcolonial societies. Maria Lugones expands the definition of coloniality of power by noting that it imposes values and expectations on gender as well, in particular related to the European ranking of women as inferior to men. The concept was also expanded upon by Ramón Grosfoguel, Walter Mignolo, Sylvia Wynter, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, Santiago Castro-Gómez, Catherine Walsh, Roberto Hernández, and María Lugones. Quijano's work on the subject "had wide repercussions among Latin American decolonial scholars in the North American academy." The modernity/coloniality group is an active network of intellectuals spanning generations and disciplines that are expanding on this work. Organization of the concept in coloniality of the power Coloniality of power takes three forms: systems of hierarchies, systems of knowledge, and cultural systems. The important distinction in the concept of coloniality of power is the ways that this heterogeneous structural process shaped the modern world. While modernity is certainly a European phenomenon, it was forged through and is constitutive of what Enrique Dussel has called "the invention of the Americas," or the colonization of the Americas beginning in 1492. Coloniality of power reveals the hidden side of modernity and the modern/colonial/capitalist-world system which is entangled with and constitutive of an international division of labor between Europeans and non-Europeans. Systems of hierarchies The systems of hierarchies posited by Quijano are systems based on racial classification and difference. Quijano writes that the creation of race was a calculated creation by European and American colonialists. In this racial structure inferiority and superiority was ascribed based on phenotypes and skin colors, which colonialists claimed to be innate biological traits. This system was the outcome of a Eurocentric view that reinforced the justification for the domination of Europeans, overriding the previously used gender-based domination systems. As Lugones points out, however, the gender-based domination system did not disappear, but was integrated into the race-based hierarchical domination system. The importance of the systems of hierarchies was not merely symbolic, but was instead economic. A racial division of labor was built around the hierarchies created, resulting in a system of serfdom for the majority of native people. Existing differences were exploited in the formation of these hierarchies. Quijano (p. 536) notes that: "In some cases, the Indian nobility, a reduced minority, was exempted from serfdom and received special treatment owing to their roles as intermediaries with the dominant race... However, blacks were reduced to slavery." Systems of knowledge Coloniality of power is based on a Eurocentric system of knowledge, in which race is seen as "naturalization of colonial relations between Europeans and non-Europeans. The Eurocentric system of knowledge assigned production of knowledge to Europeans and prioritized the use of European ways of knowledge production. Quijano writes, "Europe’s hegemony over the new model of global power concentrated all forms of the control of subjectivity, culture, and especially knowledge and the production of knowledge under its hegemony." This resulted in a simultaneous denial of knowledge production to the conquered peoples and repression of traditional modes of knowledge production, on the basis of the superiority/inferiority relationship enforced by the hierarchical structure. Cultural systems The third element of coloniality of power is the creation of cultural systems that revolve around a Eurocentric hierarchy and that enforce Eurocentric economic and knowledge production systems. The concept of coloniality of power as illustrated by Quijano, Grosfuguel and others describes the existing global neoliberal system of capital and labor and locates its roots in the racist, patriarchal logic of the colonial system. The cultural systems created under coloniality of power presume that European cultures are the only truly modern cultures, based on characteristics of modernity like capitalist economic systems, rationality, neoliberalism, and science. These cultural systems enforce Eurocentric norms through the use of the state and the economic system. One example of this type of repression is the Chilean Mapuche culture, in which genders are interchangeable and combinable, not static and prescribed like in Chilean mainstream culture The enforcement of the gender binary by the state, which correlates the masculine with the political sphere and the feminine with the private sphere, has had the effect of repressing the Machi gender expression. Many Mapuche men now refuse to identify themselves using their native gender identity as a way to adapt to a heterosexual binary. Thus, a cultural system has been created by forced imposition of outside values that in opposition to existing values. Applications and modulations of the concept Coloniality of power is one of a set of related concepts of coloniality, which according to Arturo Escobar describe a fundamental element of modernity and which can be applied to describe a global condition of coloniality. The concept has been expanded outside Latin America and used in understanding the construction of the American Latino ethnic category as a racialized minority in the case of Puerto Rican and Dominican ethnic groups in New York. Sonia Tascón uses the concept of coloniality of power to discuss Australian immigration and detention policy, referring specifically to the systems of knowledge and racialized hierarchy involved in constructing categories of difference between immigrants. Anthropologist Brian Noble offers a modulation on the coloniality of power, when applied to the context of historic and ongoing Canadian settler colonialism and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples of that part of North America. Noble points to two entwined dimensions of action associated with the coloniality of power, one aligned "with colonial encounters across cultural difference inscribed upon persons", after the foundational work of Mary Louise Pratt, and the second with colonialism as both milieu and apparatus, after Agamben, Deleuze, Stengers. Discussing research relations in an Environmental Resource Inventory project in the Inuit territory of Nunavut, Noble illustrates how coloniality as encounter is based on the "modern opposition of the relation between a self and an other", where this colonizing "self" tends "to impose boundary coordinates—such as those of territory, knowledges, categories, normative practices—on the domains of land, knowledge, ways of life of an other who have had prior, principal relations with those lands, etc." This colonizing, often liberal self then rationalizes its actions to assure its impulse toward accumulation by dispossession. Noble then describes how coloniality, as a key working of modernity, also works as the embracing milieu or apparatus for coloniality as encounter. Following the enrolments of Inuit knowledges into dominant scientific practices, Noble demonstrates how this milieu sustains the other by maintaining a dialogue between the self and the other, so "always ensuring by whatever flexible means, that the other remains other, partially welcomed into the arrangement but necessarily in a subordinate position, subjugated, inscribed as other by self, thereby securing the power position of self" in a culturally resilient, yet continuously oppressive way. A decolonial solution to this "double bind" of coloniality, Noble contends and referring especially to the work of Michael Asch, is a robust "praxis of treaty" in action, which simultaneously redresses domination through encounter, and domination through political relations between peoples, undoing the usual relations of power. Media and digital culture scholar Paola Ricaurte presents a theoretical lens through which to interrogate the coloniality of power, specifically as it pertains to the data epistemologies of digital technology. According to Ricaurte, the colonial rationality of these data relations represents a “complex evolution of the post-positivist paradigm” and thus acts in continuity with historical forms of colonization, manufacturing and colonizing social relations in ways that “crowd out alternative forms of being, thinking, and sensing." See also Coloniality of gender Colonisation Decoloniality Decolonization of knowledge Gender Gender binary Indigeneity Third World References Postcolonialism

Synthetism

Synthetism is a term used by Post-Impressionist artists like Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard and Louis Anquetin to distinguish their work from Impressionism. Earlier, Synthetism has been connected to the term Cloisonnism, and later to Symbolism. The term is derived from the French verb synthétiser (to synthesize or to combine so as to form a new, complex product). History Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard, Louis Anquetin, and others pioneered the style during the late 1880s and early 1890s. Synthetist artists aimed to synthesize three features: The outward appearance of natural forms. The artist's feelings about their subject. The purity of the aesthetic considerations of line, colour and form. In 1890, Maurice Denis summarized the goals for synthetism as, It is well to remember that a picture before being a battle horse, a nude woman, or some anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order. The term was first used in 1877 to distinguish between scientific and naturalistic Impressionism, and in 1889 when Gauguin and Emile Schuffenecker organized an Exposition de peintures du groupe impressioniste et synthétiste in the Café Volpini at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. The confusing title has been mistakenly associated with Impressionism. Synthetism emphasized two-dimensional flat patterns, thus differing from Impressionist art and theory. Synthetist paintings Paul Sérusier - Talisman (Bois d'amour) (1888) Paul Gauguin - Vision After The Sermon (1888), La Belle Angele (1889), The Loss of Innocence (1890) Émile Bernard - Buckwheat Harvest (1888) Charles Laval - Going to Market (1888) Cuno Amiet - Breton Spinner (1893) Gallery References Post-Impressionism Symbolism (arts)

Neo-eclectic architecture

Neo-eclectic architecture is a name for an architectural style that has influenced residential building construction in North America in the latter part of the 20th century and early part of the 21st. It is a contemporary version of Revivalism that has perennially occurred since Neoclassical architecture developed in the mid 18th century. In contrast to the occasionally faux and low-budget Neo-Eclectic detached homesteads, the term New Classical architecture identifies contemporary buildings that stick to the basic ideals, proportions, materials and craftsmanship of traditional architecture. Characteristics Neo-eclectic architecture combines a wide array of decorative techniques taken from an assortment of different house styles. It can be considered a devolution from the clean and unadorned modernist styles and principles behind the Mid-Century modern and Ranch-style houses that dominated North American residential design and construction in the first decades after the Second World War. It is an outgrowth of postmodern architecture, yet differs from postmodernism in that it is not creatively experimental. Applications Some Neo-Eclectic buildings will combine an array of different historical styles in a single building. A house so designed may have Cape Cod, Mission Revival, Tudor Revival, or Châteauesque and French Provincial elements all at the same time. Often houses, or whole subdivisions, will focus on one revival style. Different historical styles predominated in different regions. In California elements from the Mediterranean Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival Style continue to be a regional vernacular and popular. In New England and the Mid-Atlantic the Colonial Revival Style and Georgian Revival architecture combinations are common. In Neo-Eclectic architecture the revival elements are almost always decorative, consisting of surface elements such as claddings and windows. Details such as heavy moldings and/or trim (that would be cut stone or plaster in traditional architecture) are usually extruded foam with a stucco veneer. Aside from specifications adjusted for lower quality, newer growth lumber, the basic construction of Neo-Eclectic houses is unchanged from previous house styles such as the ranch-style house. An important development leading to the modern Neo-Eclectic style is the popularity of EIFS, a form of external insulation that is easy to apply and can be coloured and shaped to appear like an array of different materials such as stucco and stone. Critiques Neo-eclectic architecture is most prominent in what are pejoratively known as McMansions, but it has been embraced by almost all residential builders. Across North America most suburbs built in the last three decades can largely be described as Neo-Eclectic . Critics of Neo-Eclectic architecture see the style as pretentious, wasteful and/or garish, and unoriginal. Typically and somewhat deceptively, the Neo-Eclectic style plays an instrumental role in making cheaply built, over-sized tract homes on comparatively small parcels of land appear as something far greater than the sum of their parts. See also New Classical Architecture, a more accurate reference style to historical architecture. Neomodern architecture, a current modernist response. Sustainable architecture Sustainable development Sustainable design Snout house Mar del Plata style, an Argentine 20th century eclectic style References External links Humanities Web - Neo-Eclectic Style House styles American architectural styles Revival architectural styles +

Nature connectedness

Nature connectedness is the extent to which individuals include nature as part of their identity. It includes an understanding of nature and everything it is made up of, even the parts that are not pleasing. Characteristics of nature connectedness are similar to those of a personality trait: nature connectedness is stable over time and across various situations. Schultz describes three components that make up the nature connectedness construct: The cognitive component is the core of nature connectedness and refers to how integrated one feels with nature. The affective component is an individual's sense of care for nature. The behavioral component is an individual's commitment to protect the natural environment. These three components make up nature connectedness and are required for a healthy relationship with nature. If an individual feels connected to nature (possibly by spending time in it), they may be more inclined to care about nature, and protect the environment. Recent research has found that nature exposure (and feeling connected to nature at a trait level) provides many benefits to humans such as well-being. Other researchers describe the nature connectedness construct in a simpler manner. For instance, nature connectedness can be thought of as a love of nature (also referred to as emotional affinity toward nature). Similarly, nature connectedness can be defined as how much a person believes they are the same as nature (more specifically, a person's connectivity with nature) or it can be thought of as simply feeling emotionally connected with nature. Nature connectedness (as a construct) is also known as nature relatedness, connectivity with nature, emotional affinity toward nature, or inclusion of nature in self. Although nature relatedness is a stable individual trait, it can change based on one's experience with nature, meaning the more time an individual spends in nature, the more connected they feel to nature and the more concern they may feel for nature. Feeling connected to nature at a state level has many benefits as well such as more positive moods and less negative moods. Even though humans derive many benefits from nature, our modern lifestyles have created a disconnect from the natural environment wherein we spend significantly more time indoors. Some researchers estimate that humans spend up to 90% of their lives indoors. Particularly in developed countries and countries with a high rate of urbanization, the level of connection to nature is significantly lower. This disconnection from nature can have a negative impact on humans because we are missing out on the beneficial effects of nature. As a result, we are less connected to nature and feel less responsibility to protect this environment. Theory and biophilia Our relationship with the natural environment can be understood through the concept of biophilia and the biophilia hypothesis. This term is defined as humans' innate need to affiliate with other life such as plants and animals. This essentially means that humans have a desire to be near nature. This built in desire may be the result of spending the majority of our evolutionary history (over 99%) closely connected to nature. Biophilia is genetic meaning those humans who were closely connected to nature throughout history would, presumably, have had better access to food and fresh water. For example, someone who lived close to water, near vegetation, or with a pet as a protector (e.g. dog) would have had survival advantages. Although evolutionary theory is difficult to test, the popularity of camping, hiking, and visiting the zoo, provide support for this theory. In his 1997 book, Kellert proposed that biophilia (or being close to nature) also provides us benefits such as an increase in well-being. Thus, being disconnected from the natural environment should have negative effects on humans' well-being. The construct of nature connectedness is also related to a branch of psychology called ecopsychology. This branch seeks to examine how human well-being is related to the well-being of the natural environment. This theory is based on the idea that the needs of humans and nature are interdependent so human health will suffer if nature does as well. Restoration Many daily activities in contemporary society demand directed attention. In order to sustain such, effort is required to gate competing stimuli or thoughts so that one can pay attention. The constant demand of the inhibitory control may cause that directed attention to become depleted and result in attention fatigue. Research in environmental psychology suggests that people's desire for contact with nature serves an important adaptive function, namely, psychological restoration. As yet, it remains to be empirically demonstrated that physical and psychological problems of urban living can arouse restoration needs that continuously maintain and reinforce nature-oriented preferences. One of the important aspects that environment can lead to restoration is that it has the potential to generate fascination to people; it is able to captivate so that the demand for involuntary attention of the person is lowered and the restoration can be performed . In addition to this, it should generate the feeling of being away as an escape from a certain environment or situation; extension , referring to the connection properties and environmental accessibility and compatibility between the characteristics of the environment with the goals and preferences of the individual. As a measurement tool There are at least seventeen scales which measure how connected an individual feels to nature. The three most commonly used scales are: Nature Relatedness, Nature Connectedness, and Inclusion of Nature in Self Scale. The Nature Relatedness measure is a 21-item scale that measures how connected to nature participants feel at a trait level. Participants indicate their agreement with each statement using a Likert scale. There are 3 subscales to this measure; NR- self, NR- perspective, and NR- experience. NR-self measures how much individuals identify with nature (e.g., “I feel very connected to all living things and the earth”), NR-perspective measures how concerned individuals may feel about the effect of human actions on the environment (e.g., “Humans have the right to use natural resources any way we want”), and NR- Experience measures how comfortable individuals are in nature and their desire to be involved with nature (e.g., “I enjoy being outdoors, even in unpleasant weather”). This scale shows good reliability, alpha = .87 and test-retest stability six months later, alpha = .85. There is also a brief Nature Relatedness Scale made up of 6 items from the original 21 items. The purpose of this scale is to measure how connected an individual feels to nature but in a shorter way. This scale shows good reliability, alpha = .87 and test-retest stability six months later, alpha = .88. The Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS). This scale measures how emotionally connected people feel to the natural world, animals, and plants. It also assesses people's perceived equality between nature and themselves. An example of an item is "I recognize and appreciate the intelligence of other living organisms." These items are rated on a Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) where higher scores demonstrate a higher connection to nature. This scale can be used both at the trait and state level. The state version is 13-items and shows acceptable reliability (α = .91,). The trait version is 14-items and also demonstrates good reliability (α = .82). This scale's validity is demonstrated by its positive associations with other environmental scales (such as the New Ecological Paradigm Scale) but is not associated with verbal ability or social desirability. See also Connectedness to nature scale. Inclusion of Nature in Self Scale (INS) This single item question was designed to measure the extent that individuals include nature as part of their identity. This measure uses a pair of circles with one circle labeled self and the other circle labeled nature. Participants are asked to choose the pair of circles that best describes their relationship with the natural environment. There are seven pairs of circles that differ on the extent that they overlap. Individuals who are very connected to nature choose the pair of circles that completely overlap (scored as a 7) while individuals who are not connected to nature choose circles that are non-overlapping (scored as a 1). This scale has been shown to correlate positively with the New Ecological Paradigm Revised Scale, nature relatedness and simply walking in nature. This scale can also be used to measure how connected to nature people feel in the moment (or at a state level) by changing the wording to "how interconnected are you with nature RIGHT NOW. " Below is the INS scale. Other ways to measure an individual's connection to nature include the Allo-Inclusive Scale and the Implicit Associates Test-Nature. The Allo-Inclusive Scale is adapted from the Inclusion of Others in the Self (IOS) Scale by Aron et al. (1992). The Allo-Inclusive Scale contains seven pairs of Venn diagrams that range in how far apart the circles are. In the first pair, there is no overlap but as you get to the second, or third pair, the circles begin to overlap more and more. In the last pair (the seventh pair) the circles completely overlap. Participants respond to eight items by choosing the pair of circles that best denotes their connection with that particular item. A sample item is “The connection between you and a wild animal (such as a squirrel, deer, or wolf).” There are also eight other items to this scale that assess how connected participants feel to people. This scale shows acceptable reliability (Cronbach's α = 0.75) and validity (correlations with concern for environment). This scale is not contaminated with social desirability biases. The NR scale, the Allo-Inclusive scale, and the CN scale are highly correlated with one another suggesting they are all part of the nature connectedness construct. Implicit Associates Test-Nature (IAT) seeks to measure participant's implicit attitudes towards the two targets of self and nature (although the IAT can also measure other associations). This measure is completed on a computer by working with 150 stimulus words. The stimulus words contain 25 insect names, 25 flower names, 25 musical instrument names, 25 weapon names, 25 pleasant-meaning words, and 25 unpleasant-meaning words. The participants are shown a set of words and then press a key in response to the words. The participants' reaction times represent their connection between themselves and nature (faster times mean higher connection). The Illustrated Inclusion of Nature in Self Scale (IINS) is a graphical extension of the Inclusion of Nature in Self Scale. As with the original scale, it is a single item question that measures nature connectedness with seven circle pairs that overlap to varying degrees. The IINS was developed to measure the nature connectedness of young students or people with special cognitive needs. For this purpose, the original circle pairs were extended by graphical elements created on the basis of children's perception of nature. The scale shows a high positive correlation with the Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS) and the Nature Relatedness Scale (NR). As a personality trait In personality psychology, researchers have generally agreed on a five-factor model of personality. The five factors are extraversion (i.e. social, outgoing), agreeableness (i.e. trusting, helpful), neuroticism (i.e. worried, anxious), openness to experience (i.e. imaginative, creative), and conscientiousness (i.e. organized, careful). Nature relatedness (overall) is significantly related to extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. In addition, a subscale of nature relatedness (nature relatedness-experience) is negatively related with neuroticism. These authors describe the nature relatedness person as someone who is more adventurous, easy going, and gregarious. It may also be that highly nature related people are more environmental friendly because of the positive (albeit weak) relationship with conscientiousness. Evidence suggests that people vary in their subjective sense of connectedness with nature much like any of the five factors listed above. Supportive of these results, a recent study has found that environmental engagement (protecting the environment, electricity conservation and environmental values) is related to agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience. Another study found that nature connectedness accounted for (mediated) the relationship between openness and pro-environmental behaviours. Relationship with well-being Nature connectedness is related to subjective well-being and other indicators of positive functioning such as solving a problem in one's life. Subjective well-being is defined as feeling pleasant emotions or having pleasant experiences. To assess well-being, participants complete measures of how often they feel positive emotions (an affective measure), how often they feel negative emotions (an affective measure), and how satisfied they are with their lives (a cognitive measure). Individuals with higher levels of well-being typically indicate that they are satisfied with their lives, feel more positive emotions, and less negative emotions. At a broad level, the construct of trait nature connectedness is associated with well-being. This means that individuals who are highly connected to nature also report higher psychological well-being (i.e. greater acceptance of self), and social well-being (i.e. socially integrated). Emotional well-being (i.e. positive emotions and life satisfaction), is related to nature connectedness but less consistently However, psychological and social well-being are consistently related to nature connectedness suggesting that feeling connected to nature is related to participant's well-being in their personal and social lives. Trait nature relatedness is significantly correlated with psychological well-being and its 6 dimensions (autonomy, environmental mastery, positive relations with others, self-acceptance, purpose in life, and personal growth). More specifically, nature relatedness relates to all six dimensions (in a sample with undergraduate students), and relates with autonomy, purpose in life, and personal growth (in a sample with business people). It also significantly relates to positive affect in both populations. Finally, nature connectedness is associated with mindfulness. In recent years, a great deal of research has examined the benefits of mindfulness such as increased self-awareness, self-esteem, resilience and reduced maladaptive rumination. The awareness subscale (of mindfulness) correlates with nature connectedness but the other subscale of mindfulness (the acceptance subscale) does not consistently correlate. As the authors state, this suggests that mindfulness is related to a person's awareness in nature and their experiences in nature but not with whether they accept these experiences or not. There are also many benefits from feeling connected to nature at the state level. Simply walking in nature for fifteen minutes (in comparison to walking in an urban environment) increases an individual's subjective connectedness to nature, positive affect, attentional capacity (as measured by the number of errors they made in a cognitive task) and their ability to reflect on a life problem. A life problem could be anything from finding enough time to study to resolving a fight participants had with close friends, significant others, or family members. These relationships were mediated by state nature connectedness (not attentional capacity or self-awareness as previously suggested). State nature connectedness has also been found to relate to vitality. Vitality is defined as having both physical and mental energy and it increases positive affect. In five studies, researchers found that nature exposure relates to vitality at a state level. Nature exposure is also related to other indicators of positive functioning such as aspirations and goals. Nature exposure increases intrinsic aspirations (personal growth, intimacy, and community) and decreases extrinsic aspirations (money, image, fame) at a state level. The achievement of intrinsic goals relates to well-being whereas, the achievement of extrinsic aspirations relates to ill-being. Nature connectedness and autonomy were found to mediate the relation between nature exposure and intrinsic/extrinsic aspirations. Nature exposure also increased participants' generosity as measured by the amount of money they chose to donate to another student. As participants' immersion increased in the nature slides, their intrinsic aspirations and generosity did as well. However, as participants' immersion increased in the non-nature (or built) slides, their extrinsic aspirations increased while their generosity decreased. Finally, even subtle nature manipulations can increase well-being or other indicators of well-being. For instance, simply having plants in a lab can increase intrinsic aspirations, decrease extrinsic aspirations, and encourage more generous decision making. These effects were also mediated by nature connectedness and autonomy. Also, virtual nature has been found to provide some psychological benefits (but not as much as real nature). These studies demonstrate the positive relationship between nature exposure, feeling connected to nature, and subjective well-being. Relationship with mental health Environmental relationship Researchers believe that if humans feel a part of nature and are more connected to nature, they will feel a responsibility to care for nature and protect it. As Stephen Jay Gould said: "We cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond between ourselves and nature as well – for we will not fight to save what we do not love." (p.425) So far research has provided support for the assertion that nature connectedness (at a subjective level) is a reliable predictor of environmental behaviors. For instance, nature relatedness was found to relate to concern for the environment, as people who scored high on nature relatedness were also more likely to belong to environmental organizations, and declare themselves environmentalists. High nature related people at the trait level (or individuals scoring high on one of the subscales of nature relatedness) were also more likely to self-report: buying organic foods and products buying fair-trade products loving animals and having a pet being a vegan participating in nature activities actually spending more time in nature considering future consequences Research has shown that individuals who think ahead and consider future events (individuals with a high consideration of future consequences) are more environmentally friendly. These individuals also show more concern for the environment and are more critical of environmental damage. More research has also found that trait nature connectedness is related to: perspective taking biospheric attitudes environmentalism negatively related with consumerism concern for nature Thus the research mentioned suggests that feeling connected to nature, decreases the likelihood that people will harm it because harming nature would be similar to harming oneself Nature experiences A global review summarized the scarce data on a likely largely declining "experience of nature" (EoN) and nature-disconnection which prior studies suggest have impacts on health and proenvironmental behavior. 18 included studies measured temporal trends in EoN. Data on the presence of nature in cultural products, such as movies or books was used as well. As "an initial proxy for understudied regions", data on locations where humans live (away from the natural world, becoming more urban), and forest cover in cities (decreasing) was used. The researchers conclude that "existing evidence is insufficient to assess the magnitude and generality of this phenomenon". Another review concluded that "[w]ithin a generation, children's lives have largely moved indoors" and that "research indicates that direct experiences of nature in childhood contribute to care for nature across the life span." Implications of feeling connected to nature Although nature relatedness is a stable individual trait, it can change based on one's experience with nature, so that people feel more connected to nature (and are more concerned about nature) after exposure to nature Spending time in nature (and feeling connected to nature) may be one way to motivate environmentally friendly behaviours. As these authors and Kaplan explain, motivating ecological behaviours by increasing the connection to the natural environment may be more effective than establishing laws and rules that people have to follow. Feeling connected to nature may also be of benefit to the following people and organizations: The benefits of nature and feeling connected to nature may be beneficial to keep in mind when creating settings for patients at a hospital, or in therapy sessions. Also, because virtual nature can provide benefits to people (but in a less dramatic way), this may be one way for people who cannot get out in nature to reap some of its benefits. Increasing nature exposure and the accessibility to green space in cities may increase the well-being and ecological behaviors of individuals. This highlights the importance of green space for policy makers and city planners. Promote programs that value nature and wildlife to get individuals more involved in with the environment. One way to accomplish this may be to encourage researchers, practitioners, and government agencies to emphasize environmental behaviours from a more intrinsic point of view. For instance, positively framing environmental messages may be more effective than fearful messages Through nature connectedness and relatedness, we may be able to further understand the destruction of our planet. Nature connectedness could be used as a measurement tool to evaluate whether architectural variables (windows, view of nature, plants in the workplace) are effective for increasing human's connection to the environment and motivating more pro-environmental behaviours Exposure to nature can have "humanizing effects, fostering greater authenticity and connectedness and, in turn, other versus self-orientations that enhance valuing of and generosity toward others" (p. 1328). Nature-based settings could enhance some aspects of the preparation and integration phases of psychedelic therapy, and the psychedelic sessions themselves. A positive association between psychedelic use and nature relatedness has been studied. Limitations Although the topic of nature connectedness is a flourishing area of research today, there are still limitations such as: Many of the studies referenced used correlational designs. Correlation does not mean causation so it is important to note that just because two variables are related, this does not imply one causes another. A meta-analysis examining the role of nature connectedness on pro-environmental behavior (such as recycling) confirmed the strong correlation between the two measures, however found nature connectedness had a weaker causal role on pro-environmental behaviour than what was assumed from the correlational evidence. Future research has yet to examine the causal role between nature connectedness and well-being. Many of the environmental scales measure an individual's intent to participate in environmental behaviours which does not always translate into behaviour. Studies may also use self-report measures that may or may not fully represent their actual behaviours. Future research should examine how environmentally friendly intents transfer into behaviours and further investigate the validity of self-reports. Much of the research has used an undergraduate population in their studies which may or may not transfer to the general population. See also Attention restoration theory Earth Day Ecopsychology Environmental psychology Pantheism Place identity References Environmental psychology Biophilia hypothesis

Social media and the effects on American adolescents

Introduction Social media has grown in popularity, and many people around the world now use it. People use social media to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos). Around 95% of young people between the ages of 13–17 use at least one social media platform, making it a major influence on young adolescents. Research Social media may positively affect adolescents by promoting a feeling of inclusion, providing greater access to more friends, and enhancing romantic relationships. Social media allows people to communicate with other people using social media, no matter the distance between them. Some adolescents with social and emotional issues feel more included with social media and online activities. Social media can give people a sense of belonging which can lead to an increase in identity development. Adolescents that post pictures on social media can look back on their memories, and their positive emotions can be related to a sense of their true identity. Additionally, social media can provide a way to communicate with friends and family when alone. Adolescents who use social media tend to be more outgoing and interact more with others online and in person. According to Newport Academy, teens who spend more time on non-screen activities, such as sports, exercise, in-person social interaction, or any other in-person activities are less likely to report any mental issues, such as anxiety or depression. Social media provide adolescents within the United States the ability to connect with people from other countries. Being involved in social media typically improves communication skills, social connections, and technical skills. Furthermore, adolescents who are students can use social media to seek academic help. The appropriate usage of social media has developed favorable academic environments for both, the students and the teaching faculty, offering the potential benefits in the process of learning information. According to research conducted by Dr. John Gilmour and his coauthors, social media exposure, specifically Facebook, has allowed the general population to have positive interactions and gain social support from their family and friends, which in turn benefits their overall well-being. Social support is defined as the extent to which an individual feels a sense of value and belongingness to a social group. Although several studies have found that general Facebook use has a negative impact on mental health, Facebook use has a variety of positive mental health outcomes when used to seek and provide social support. Gilmour and his research team used academic databases and located 27 articles related to individuals’ use of Facebook as a mechanism for social support. The articles did not consider adolescents and adults separately, but rather focused on the general population of Facebook users. After analyzing all 27 articles, the researchers concluded that the more active a person is on Facebook, the greater the opportunities for receiving social support. Furthermore, higher levels of Facebook-based social support predicted greater positive mental health outcomes. These outcomes include, but are not limited to, a decrease in depression, anxiety, and loneliness, as well as an increase in general psychological well-being. Focusing on adolescents, J. Pouwels and her coauthors conducted a 3-week study to determine whether social media has a positive impact on adolescents’ close friendships, characterized by supportiveness, responsiveness, and accessibility. A total of 387 adolescents who were active on Instagram, WhatsApp, and Snapchat completed a 2-minute survey six times per day. They reported the amount of time they spent on these three social media platforms, as well as their momentary experiences of friendship closeness. Findings suggested that the more time spent on Instagram and WhatsApp, the higher degree of friendship closeness as reported on the surveys. Similar results were found in a study conducted by Dr. Lauren Shapiro and Dr. Gayla Margolin. Their study found that social media has a positive impact on the development of adolescents’ social relationships. The researchers administered self-report questionnaires to gather these findings. Their results suggest that social networking sites make it easier for adolescents to communicate and share feelings and experiences because it is less threatening than face-to-face interactions. In addition, online communications were found to lead to closer, high-quality friendships among adolescents. As discovered by this study, social networking sites can also foster identity development for adolescents. Specifically, social media provides many opportunities for self-disclosure, which researchers believe plays a role in identity development. Adolescents that participated in the study reported being able to learn more about themselves through using social media. Although social media offers positives to teenagers, there are also negatives that come with it. These types of content may be even more risky for teens who already have a mental health condition. Being exposed to discrimination, hate or cyberbullying on social media also can raise the risk of anxiety or depression. What teens share about themselves on social media also matters. With the teenage brain, it's common to make a choice before thinking it through. So, teens might post something when they're angry or upset, and regret it later. That's known as stress posting. How the addiction to technology begins According to Living Skills in Schools, Addiction is based on dopamine dependence. Dopamine is the brain's chemical signal for pleasure, excitement, and motivation. The addiction process begins through the hacking of the dopamine system by an outside source. The dopamine becomes spiked, dysregulated, and the brain is flooded with this chemical. This outside source of technology addiction can impact dopamine receptors long term affecting attention span, critical thinking and problem solving. In the article, "Unveiling the Dark Side of Social Networking Sites: Personal and Work-related Consequences of Social Networking Site Addiction" by Murad Moqbel and Ned Kock, they expand on Social Networking Sites (SNS), and the negative effects it causes among people have excessive use. Moqbel; et al. say that: "Although SNS addiction is not formally recognized as a diagnosis, it can be broadly defined as a psychological dependence on the use of SNSs that interferes with other important activities and yields negative consequences". The article discusses how excessive use of SNS causes people to perform poorly at work and how it causes distractions, like not doing their jobs correctly. This article is based on a survey of 276 corporate employees. The authors explain that: "However, excessive use of these SNSs may also promote negative outcomes, such as addiction, distraction, reduced positive emotions, low performance, and poor health". SNS can have positive effects on work such as communication, but excessive use makes it affect you at work and may cause different mental disorders such as anxiety and depression. Also, in this article, it is discussed who is more likely to suffer from SNS addiction and the reason. Anyone can suffer from SNS addiction, however, there is a specific group that is more vulnerable to suffering from SNS. The authors explain that: "One of the earliest studies on SNS addiction reported that young people are more vulnerable to falling into SNS addiction". Young people use SNS more because they want to see what other friends are doing in addition to following the public lives of celebrities, for example. The problem gets worse when they become obsessed and it becomes a competition to show "who has a better life". That is when depression begins and young people compare themselves to other people's lives. This is called social cognition, and that is when a person wants to imitate or follow what they learn from seeing another person. The study concludes by showing that, of the 276 people who participated in the survey, the majority suffer from depression and mental disorders due to excessive use of SNS since they were young, and that it affects them in their daily life and work. SNS causes them to have distractions and perform poorly. If they had positive emotions, they could have better performances and better health. Sadly, the results of this survey show negative effects such as bad performances at work due to distractions and depression. Researches about Negative Impacts on the Excessive use of Social media by Adolescents Many research studies have also analyzed the negative effects of social media on adolescents’ mental health, however. In the same study conducted by Dr. Shapiro and Dr. Margolin, they discovered that social networking sites, such as Facebook, make it easier for adolescents to compare themselves to their peers. Based on the results of this research study, social comparison can have a strong negative impact on adolescents’ self-esteem. Self-report surveys revealed that the more time adolescents spent on Facebook, the more they believed others were better off or happier than themselves. Along with accomplishments and happiness, physical attractiveness is also a significant aspect of social comparison. Preadolescence is a period when children start to become exposed to social media and is also a period when they start to develop body image concerns and depression. Since individuals posting on social media tend to only present the best version of themselves online, research has shown that this can cause adolescents to perceive others as more attractive than themselves. In the study administered by Dr. Shapiro and Dr. Margolin, female adolescents reported having a more negative body image after looking at beautiful photos of other women versus looking at less attractive photos on social media. While online, teens can be exposed to content revolving around self-harm, body shaming, bullying, unrealistic beauty standards and eating disorders. Young adults also seem to experience higher symptoms of anxiety because of attempting to keep up with social media's warped beauty standards. Hawes et al. (2020) found that increased social media usage, along with trying to stay up-to-date with beauty and fashion trends, could be damaging to those who already struggle with body image issues. This study researched the relationship between social media use and maladjustment, focusing on appearance-related content and symptoms of anxiety. They had two hypotheses, one being that appearance-related (AR) social media preoccupation would correlate with more symptoms of depression and social anxiety, and the other being that AR social media preoccupation use intensifies the use of social media with appearance anxiety. They used 763 adolescents of mixed genders from ages 12–17. They also tested college students from ages 16–25. The participants completed surveys that inquired about social media use, symptoms of general anxiety, appearance anxiety, and depression. They found that social media use can be associated with worse emotional adjustment in adolescents and young adults as well as that appearance-related social media preoccupation elevated symptoms of appearance anxiety. Further investigation has suggested that spending an excessive amount of time on social media can lead to depressive symptoms, which in turn may increase the risk for social isolation or even suicidal ideation. In a recent survey of teens, it was discovered that 35% of teens use at least one of five social media platforms multiple times throughout the day. Many policymakers have expressed concerns regarding the potential negative impact of social media on mental health because of its relation to suicidal thoughts and ideation. A study conducted by Dr. Chloe Berryman and her coauthors looked into the phenomenon called "vague booking," which refers to individuals intentionally wording their social media posts in a way that they believe will obtain concern from others. These posts may even function as a cry for help. This study found that young adults who partook in vague booking and relied on social media as their emotional outlet reported greater loneliness and suicidal thoughts than those who were not vague booking. Social comparison theory examines how people establish their personal value by comparing themselves to others. These social comparisons and related feelings of jealousy, when made on social media platforms, can lead to the development of symptoms of depression in users. Depression is common also for children and adolescents who have been cyberbullied. According to Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance – United States, 2015, nationwide, 15.5% of students had been electronically bullied, counting being bullied through e-mail, chat rooms, instant messaging, websites, or texting, during the 12 months before the survey. Using 7 or more social media platforms has been correlated with a higher risk of anxiety and depression in adolescents. One important aspect that is a huge factor in how teens react to media is the social learning theory. In Banduras experiment, "Bobo Dolls experiment on Social Learning," demonstrates how kids learn from social environments. In his experiment he has kids observe adults being exceedingly kind to the bobo dolls, when left in the room with just the kid and the bobo doll, the kids treated it nicely just as the adult did. In contrast that when the kids observed the adults punching and hurting the bobo doll, children did the same when alone with the bobo doll. As teens learn from their peers or idols online, they tend to duplicate that behavior just like the kids did with the bobo dolls in Bandura's experiment. If teens are viewing people with a social media platform online demonstrating certain inappropriate behaviors, they may learn from this and recreate the behavior. Social media can significantly influence body image concerns in female adolescents. Young women who are easily influenced by the images of others on social media may hold themselves to an unrealistic standard for their bodies because of the prevalence of digital image alteration. Social media can be a gateway to Body dysmorphic disorder. Dana Johns, MD, a plastic surgeon at the University of Utah Health says, "Selfie' or 'Snapchat' dysmorphia is essentially the new age social media upgrade to a long-standing disorder." According to the APA, these unrealistic beauty standards are detrimental to the developing mind and can cause serious mental health issues. Engaging with social media platforms two hours before falling asleep can affect sleep quality, and a longer duration of digital media use is associated with reduced total sleep time. The phenomena of "Facebook depression" is a condition which comes to surface when young adults have a higher usage of Facebook and tend to manifest the actual symptoms of depression. Youths who frequently use social media increase their risk of depression by 27 percent, while those who dedicate themselves to outdoor activities don't have that much risk. Sleep deprivation may also be another common factor in teens. According to the Mayo Clinic, a 2016 study that was conducted on more than 450 teens found that greater social media use, nighttime social media use, and emotional investment in social media, such as feeling upset when prevented from logging on, were each linked with worse sleep quality that could increase the levels of anxiety and depression. In the article, "Adolescent Social Media Use and Mental Health from Adolescent and Parent Perspectives" by Christopher T. Barry, Chloe L. Sidoti, Shanelle M. Briggs, Shari R. Reiter, and Rebecca A. Lindsey, there is a sample survey conducted with 226 participants (113 parent-adolescent days) from throughout the United States, with adolescents (55 males, 51 females, 7 unreported) ranging from ages 14 to 17. In this study, both adolescents and parents provide social media use of adolescents' social networks. The hypothesis question of this survey is: "Are parent-reported symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity/impulsivity, conduct problems (i.e. symptoms of Oppositional Defiant Disorder [ODD] and Conduct Disorder [CD]), depression, and anxiety related to the reported number of adolescents' social media accounts and the frequency with which adolescents report checking their social media accounts?" Something very important that the authors of this survey say is that: "The present study represents an area of ever-growing importance, as approximately 24% of U.S. teens report being online ‘almost constantly’ with much of that time being spent on social media applications". Nowadays, young people spend a large part of their day on social networks in different applications. The study concluded by saying that due to young people's excessive use of social media, they have high levels of anxiety, stress, fear of missing out, and hyperactivity. The more time they spend on social media, the higher the levels. Furthermore, due to time on social media, teenagers tend to feel more lonely and sad. This may be due to comparing themselves with other people on social networks, or cyberbullying. The authors explain that: "These latter findings are particularly noteworthy in that they cannot be explained by shared source variance, as adolescent-reported social media activity was associated with externalizing and internalizing symptoms as reported by parents" The results show that these mental problems are individual, not hereditary. The authors conclude that there should be more limitations to protect young people from the excessive use of social media since, due to its excessive use, the levels of mental problems or depressive symptoms increase. Parents should guide young people on this complicated topic, and have limitations on the use of social media to prevent young people from having high levels of depression or other mental problems. In the article, "Associations Between Time Spent Using Social Media and Internalizing and Externalizing Problems Among US Youth" by Kira E. Riehm, Kenneth A. Feder, Kayla N. Tormohlen, et al., they report the results of a cohort study of 6,595 US adolescents on the use of social networks. They divided the study into 3 waves; waves 1 (September 12, 2013, to December 14, 2014), 2 (October 23, 2014, to October 30, 2015), and 3 (October 18, 2015, to October 23, 2016). Young people today are using social networks intensely and much more frequently, causing depression and anxiety among them. The question for the Self-reported time spent on social media during a typical day was divided by (none, ≤30 minutes, >30 minutes to ≤3 hours, >3 hours to ≤6 hours, and >6 hours) during the waves. The study shows that “Adolescents who spend more than 3 hours per day on social media may be at heightened risk for mental health problems, including internalizing problems”. By using social media excessively they begin to compare themselves and create complexities and insecurities. Adolescents who use social media for more than 3 hours a day could suffer from insomnia or other mental disorders such as low self-esteem. The study shows that young people aged 12–15 tend to use their phones between 3 and 6 hours a day, although many of them spend the entire 6 hours. The authors believe that the use of social media could be limited and there could be more guidance to young people on this topic, as well as more research should be done on limiting social media. Policymaking Although a large aspect of policymaking is creating or changing laws, this is not always the case. Policymaking can also include other types of established standards, for example, parents’ rules or policies restricting their child's social media exposure. Since social media is easily accessible to nearly everyone, there are few laws regarding adolescents’ exposure to social media. However, there is substantial evidence that parents’ policies regarding the time their child spends on social media has an impact on their child's mental health. One particular study, conducted by Dr. Jasmine Fardouly and her coauthors, involved a sample of 528 preadolescent social media users between the ages of 10 and 12 and one of their parents. Both children and their parents completed online surveys. Some of the parents involved in the study enforced social media policies for their children, such as setting rules that limit the amount of time their child spent on social media. Results from this study showed that preadolescents with parents who had greater control over their child's time on social media reported better overall mental health. The researchers found that parents who reduced the amount of time their child spent on social media resulted in their child being less exposed to content harmful to their emotional health. More parental control over time spent on social media was also found to be associated with preadolescents making fewer appearance comparisons online. The authors of this study concluded that fewer social media appearance comparisons were associated with higher adolescent appearance satisfaction and life satisfaction, as well as lower depressive symptoms. The article, "No More FOMO: Limiting Social Media Decreases Loneliness and Depression" by Melissa G. Hunt, Rachel Marx, Courtney Lipson, and Jordyn Young, reports a research study of 143 undegraded students at the University of Pennsylvania who were randomly assigned to limit Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat use to 10 minutes a day per app. The results are incredibly positive. The authors explain that: "As of March 2018, 68% of adults in the United States had a Facebook account, and 75% of these people reported using Facebook on a daily basis. Furthermore, 78% of young adults (ages 18– 24) used Snapchat, while 71% of young adults used Instagram" Here we can see a large number of young people between 18 and 24 years old use social networks. The survey also served to see the levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness of the participants. The authors explain that: "Both loneliness and depressive symptoms declined in the experimental group". Studies show that participants lowered their levels of depression and anxiety due to limiting their time on social media. One of the excuses that young people use is that they use social media to connect and talk to their family or friends, but the authors explain that: "It is ironic, but perhaps not surprising, that reducing social media, which promised to help us connect with others, actually helps people feel less lonely and depressed" The authors conclude by saying that this survey was a success by limiting social media use to only 30 minutes a day. The level of depression and loneliness in the participants decreased and they were able to communicate better in person, something they had not done at all before. This article because it proves my argument that if there were a social media limit, people's self-esteem would improve. In June 2024, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for social media platforms to contain a warning about the impact they have on the mental health of young people. Conclusion In conclusion, there is a social problem with social networks and their excessive use. This social problem affects everyone, but it affects young Americans the most. If there are no measures or laws, this problem will continue to grow. Something that would help combat this problem is to create limits on the time spent on social media, and this is something as individuals we could do. Little by little, we will help this problem reach the ears of our governments and new measures or laws may be passed that limit time on social media. Due to the excessive use of social media, young people create different mental problems and high levels of depression, loneliness, anxiety, and stress. This affects them in their daily lives, limits them to doing things they normally do, and affects their academic or work performance. It is in our hands to educate our young people and raise awareness about this social problem so that they are not affected and have strengthened mental health. The purpose of this wiki post was to show information about the effects caused by excessive use of social media on young people and to demonstrate possible solutions to it. See also Instagram's impact on people References External links Social media