Alienation Essays (Examples)

Extreme, obsessive, and ongoing parental alienation can cause terrible psychological damage to children extending well into adulthood. Parental Alienation focuses on the alienating parent's behavior as opposed to the alienated parent's and alienated children's conditions." (PAS Website, 2009)

There are stated to be seven specific stages of grief experienced in the Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) Grief Model. Those seven stages are as follows:

Here is the grief model called "The 7 Stages of Grief":

1. SHOCK & DENIAL- You will probably react to learning of the loss with numbed disbelief. You may deny the reality of the loss at some level, in order to avoid the pain. Shock provides emotional protection from being overwhelmed all at once. This may last for weeks.

2. PAIN & GUILT- as the shock wears off, it is replaced with the suffering of unbelievable pain. Although excruciating and almost unbearable, it is important that you…

Application of the PAS to the myriad cases that include some rejection of a parent by a child involves the eye of the beholder" (Grief, 1997, p. 134). When the rejection of a parent by a child is taken to the extremes that are characteristic of parental alienation syndrome, though, the outcomes will inevitably be harmful for both the targeted parent as well as the children involved and these issues form the purpose of the study proposed herein which is discussed further below.

Purpose of Study

The overall purpose of the study proposed herein is to provide a systemic analysis of the current dynamics of divorces in South Africa and how these affect the children of these failed marriages. This social issues is especially well suited for analysis from a systemic perspective because this analytical approach is designed to examine the operational dynamics of the social and structural dimensions of…

Human Alienation

All human beings at one time or another feel alienated, isolated from the rest of the world, totally alone and misunderstood. Young children feel that way often, as they realize that their parents, loving as they are, enjoy certain privileges and rights that young people do not. Moreover, no child has been spared completely from peer-induced isolation, for no matter how popular or likable, each child will feel like an outsider when thrust into a new social group. However, nothing could imply total human isolation and separateness than for a man to be miraculously transformed into a giant insect, forever removed from his human brethren through his very DNA. Becoming a non-human creature becomes the ultimate symbol of human alienation in Franz Kafka's novella The Metamorphosis. Kafka's novella deftly describes the nature of human isolation: its causes and its ill effects. Gregor Samsa's physical condition is one of…

A boy needs a strong father if he is to grow up as a strong, good man. There are so many lessons I need to teach him and I am being denied the opportunity to do so. Instead of helping him fulfill his best potential, I am forced to sit here, unable to do anything, completely without recourse.

A used to think that divorce and separation from one's child was something that happened to other people. I would hear stories about their pain and for some reason it simply never hit home. But the pain of parental alienation is real - a growing body of evidence shows that it can lead to lost productivity, depression and suicide. The toll it takes on my son must also be enormous. I can only imagine how he must feel. It takes a lot of courage for me to put this experience aside. I…

(O'Hagan, 1999, p. 113)

Marx' Alienation Applied to Project:

Marx conceived of and in many ways developed a blueprint for collectivism. The individual would transcend alienation in an environment where he did not have to possess goods, as everything he needed was provided for him and his work was a demonstrative example of making sure this was so. Marx project therefore became the development of communism, and later the transitional socialism, that was conceived to create in individuals the desire to work for a collective, rather than for cash or possessions. Self-interest was to be left aside, and be replaced by collective interest and social and political health. To build such a place revolution was necessary, and would to Marx become the leveling of the people. The ruling class and the ownership class would step away from or be forced from their pulpits and the people would develop state owned…

Work Alienation

Alienation and Organization behavior

Objective viewpoint

Solutions to Alienation

esults and effectiveness of solutions

The management of the employment relationship has become an area of priority for the managers in organizations as companies and organizations strive to gain better output and productivity. This enhanced output and productivity is now focused on being obtained from increased engagement of the human resources in a company as organizations worldwide understand the need to maximize the potential of an organization's human resources to attain the goals and objectives.

This focus on the extreme utilization of the human resources often entails the situations where a limited workforce is stressed to perform as companies strive to gain maximum profits and often resort to downsizing of workforce. This stress and strain leaves a mental impact on some or a large section of the employees which results in negative mental environment at the workplace. This condition…

Sociology: Karl Marx's Theory Of Alienation

Sociological Theory: The Concept of Alienation

Alienation can be defined simply as the phenomenon whereby people feel like foreigners or aliens in the world or society in which they live (Marx, in Calhoun, 2012; University of California, San Diego, 2006). The concept of alienation is based on the ideology that people were living in harmony at some point in the past before something just happened, creating some form of enmity between humans and nature, and leaving them feeling like aliens in their own society. Karl Marx applied this concept of alienation to the theme of labor and work. He argued that under the capitalist system, which allows for private ownership of property, society is divided into two distinct classes -- the property-owners and those who do not own property and spend their lives working for the property-owners. Under the system, the workers get increasingly…

Capitalism creates alienation, claimed Marx more than a century ago. Since then, Marx's sociological theories have led to remarkable changes in the ways people think about labor, social hierarchies, and systems of power in social institutions. There is nowhere better to think critically about Marx's theories than through the lens of someone who works as a wage laborer for a capitalist enterprise: in my case, literally the Enterprise ent-A-Car company. My work at Enterprise has been fruitful and rewarding in some ways, but mainly I need the job in order to pay the bills. The work is not deeply fulfilling on any level. Therefore, I can easily see how a person who views this job as their career might become alienated from themselves on a psychological level, by failing to fulfill deeper desires and dreams. Marx did not care as much about humanistic hierarchies of needs as he did for…

Marx's Philosophy On Labor And Alienation

Marxist philosophy against capitalism and its proponent variables towards communism is faulted in its inherent arguments regarding labor, the worker, and society. In this argument, a worker's humanity gradually decreases in reverse proportion to the amount of capital garnered. Thus there is alienation between the laborer and the production of said labor, a spiritual failing in and of itself. Capitalism becomes a system of dehumanization, whereas the author moves toward a more "humanistic" outlook, one that borders on the ideas of communism. There are, however, flaws to this, as the arguments that attempt to take on a less capitalistic viewpoint provides an argument for said capitalism.

Labor and Human Existence

Labor is diversified into two categories with relation to human existence: (1) labor in which one produces less and thus the laborer becomes a higher commodity; (2) labor in which one produces more and…

Strong welfare states protect workers against economic vulnerability through generous unemployment benefits and training programs" (Beckfield, 2006). The expansion of markets to the regional level from the national level-should increase income inequality as workers are exposed to the wage competition of a larger labor pool, but this effect may be dampened or even reversed at very high levels of regional economic integration, because those economies are stabilized by strong welfare states and corporatist institutions (Beckfield, 2006).

It appears that this phenomenon of income inequality has begun to level off in recent years. Firebaugh (2007) was among the first to note that income inequality for the world as a whole levelled off in the last decades of the 20th century, after rising for more than two centuries. While global income inequality is immense, it has continued to be fairly steady or has even declined somewhat in recent years. This is thought…

As novel progress, each one of the characters is used to show how these areas are defining who they are and the different ways they seeking out a sense of closeness. For instance, Nilgun is utilizing her leftist leaning views to alienate anyone around her (who is not of the same political percussion). On one of her return trips from the beech, she is met by a right wing extremist who likes her. During a conversation, he is looking out for her safety and tells her of a plot to harm her. She immediately calls him a fascist and is subsequently beaten by this person. The next morning, she does not feel well and decides to lie down. She becomes worse and dies from a cerebral hemorrhage. Her brothers do not know what to do and are in shock about these events. They subsequently disappear and cannot be seen by…

Alienation

In Stevie Smith's poem "Not aving but Drowning," a man drowns and no one helps him because they think he is just waving at them. He cries out for help, too, but "nobody heard him," (line 1). Because he loved to joke around, too, no one believed that his moaning meant anything. No one cares enough to take the man seriously. The poem is therefore as much a comment on the spectators as it is on the dead man. The narrator of the poem has a detached tone, and refers to the man not by name but as "poor chap." The detached narrator helps to promote the theme of alienation that is central to "Not aving but Drowning."

The act of drowning, and floating away at sea, is a symbol of alienation. By floating away by himself, the man makes himself a genuine island. He is cut off from…

Alienation in Kafka's "Metamorphosis"

Gregor Samsa, the protagonist of Franz Kafka's short story "The Metamorphosis," becomes increasingly alienated physically, economically, and emotionally from his surroundings over the course of the tale. But while Samsa's transformation into a gigantic insect is true on a literal level, it also comes to symbolize the deeper alienation that Gregor must have been experiencing, even before the metamorphosis took place. Gregor's transformation lays bare the hypocrisies of his society and family life.

When Gregor is transformed into a cockroach, he is unable to go to work or to feed himself. He is repulsive to others, and out of compassion he conceals himself from his sister Grete when she feeds him. Even his old, wholesome food is repulsive to him and he prefers rotten food. His old routine is destroyed, although he makes an effort to go to work. When later in the story he listens…

The image of the fog is significant because the protagonist is comparing himself to the fog in that he skirts along the outside of what is happening. If he is like fog, moving slowly and quietly, he does not have to become involved but can still see what is going on. hen he writes that there will be time to "prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet" (27), he is simply avoiding the issue by putting off the inevitable. The protagonist convinces himself that there will be time to do all that he wants to do, such as "murder and create" (28), and "drop a question on your plate" (30). Allan Burns suggests that the images are important to the reader in that they "underscore Prufrock's low self-esteem: he identifies with the lonely working class men" (Burns 47) and the image of his dead being chopped off…

Alienation in Different orks of Literature

Alienation is a common theme in many works of literature -- in many genres, across many periods, and of many different forms. The idea that one individual cannot truly know or understand another, or that the rules of society necessarily force those that question those rules to somehow be outside of that society, has been around since the time of Homer and certain of his characters. It can also be seen in more modern works of poetry, short stories, and dramatic texts, from a variety of authors writing in different times and with very different perspectives.

illiam Blake's poem late eighteenth century poem "The Tyger" does not deal with humanity's alienation from itself, or individuals' alienation from each other, but rather addresses the alienation of humanity from the divine. Describing the tiger as "fearful" and asking what "distant deeps or skies" the tiger's maker…

Both Krebs and Daru are also alienated because they are unable to adopt the philosophy of the cultures in which they exist. Krebs comes from a religious household and a country that promotes ambition from men, yet he cannot accept God's existence, nor can he work up the enthusiasm to seek a job and make money. Similarly, Daru is forced to turn in an Arab prisoner-of-war, yet he does not have the heart to force the Arab to do anything. Instead, he lets the Arab decide whether to turn himself in or to hide with rebels. The actions of Krebs and Daru are unusual because in most stories, the characters are ambitious and try to change their surroundings if they are unhappy within them. However, Krebs and Daru show no motivation for escaping their environments, and their lack of motivation reflects their alienation.

The narration of both stories is another…

Guest & a Soldier's Home

Definitions of Alienation

According to Karl Marx, alienation is "…the process whereby the worker is made to feel foreign to the products of his/her own labor" (Purdue.edu). Marx asserts that the worker laboring for a capitalist corporation or a business is alienated because he does not own that product, someone else does, and his sweat and tears go into the production of items that another entity benefits from (Purdue.edu). The Merriam-ebster definition: "…a withdrawing or separation of a person or a person's affections from an object or position of former attachment" (www.merriam-ebster.com).

Self Alienation in The Guest and A Soldier's Home

A Soldier's Home: Since Krebs felt he had to lie to get anyone to listen to him he was technically alienated from the truth, and that removed him from the mainstream in society. It was his own doing of course. Krebs likes to look…

Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison. Specifically, it will contain a brief biography of the author; address the topic of alienation as it pertains to the work, and include some critical reviews of the novel. Many critics consider novelist Ralph Ellison's "The Invisible Man" a classic in American literature, and a treatise on how blacks have been treated by white society throughout the decades. His story is a tale of alienation, prejudice, and the strength one man has to rise above these obstacles to become the best man he can be.

The Invisible Man - The Author, Ralph Ellison

Ralph Ellison was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on March 1, 1914. His parents, Lewis and Ida Ellison, were from the South, but had moved to Oklahoma searching for racial equality they could not find at home (Watts 33). His father died when Ellison was three, and his mother raised her two…

Old Man and Sea

The 1958 film The Old Man and the Sea is based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway. The film stars Spencer Tracy, who was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his performance. Tracy plays the Old Man, a fisherman from Cuba who has gone several months without a catch. His lack of productivity calls into question the Old Man's masculinity and virility; as fishing symbolizes his potency as a man. Thus, the Old Man fights furiously for days when his reel finally finds a marlin. In addition to raising questions about masculine normativity, Old Man and the Sea also addresses sociological and psychological issues related to intimacy vs. alienation. The Old Man comes to terms with his age via his interactions with the young boy. The contrast between the Old Man and the boy serves as a poignant reminder of how human beings alienate themselves…

Anomie and Alienation

Lost, With No Possibility of Being Found

Running through the literature of classical late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century sociology are themes of isolation, of the poverty of life lived in isolated cells, of the fragility of a life in which we can almost never make authentic connections with other people, in which we are lost even to ourselves. We have -- and this "we" includes the entire population of the industrialized world, or at least most of it -- have raised the act of rationalism to an art form, but along the way we have lost so much of our humanity that we can no longer form or maintain a community. Four of the major social critics of the twentieth century took up these themes for essentially the same reason: To argue that while ailing human society could be transformed in ways that would give it meaning…

In such a system, "the worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he produces. The devaluation of the human world grows in direct proportion to the increase in value of the world of things. Labor not only produces commodities; it also produces itself and the workers as a commodity," as workers sell their labor on the marketplace. (Marx, 1844)

The more money the factory owner makes, the more workers he can hire and thus the more command he can have over an increasingly alienated workforce. According to Marx, "this alienation has a profound psychological effect upon the worker. For it is clear that, according to this premise, the more the worker exerts himself in his work, the more powerful the alien, objective world becomes which he brings into being over against himself, the poorer he and his inner world become, and the less they belong to him." (Marx,…

The popular media's negative coverage of the insanity defense in contested cases when a defendant claims not to have the rational capacity to commit a crime or has a diminished capacity to conceptualize a criminal intent has caused the public to dismiss forensic psychiatry as providing rationalizations or excuses for bad behavior, rather than possessing a real scientific method. The use of the insanity defense is clearly subject to sociological and societal factors, such as the statistically greater willingness to believe a man who kills his child is competent vs. A woman. However, the authors contend that this ignores the many cases where the defense and the prosecution both agree that the criminal in question was not competent and was operating upon a different schema of 'reality' that affected his or her ability to judge circumstances in the same fashion as a sane person. (It might be argued, in the…

Bureaucratic structures become "iron cages" because as society becomes more rational thus more just and fair, there is also a greater sense of specialization and impersonalization. The individual is no longer a viable entity and emotion and sentiment are not part of the decision making process (itzer 2004). In highly bureaucratic organizations there is no room for "custom made" decision making. All parties are trapped in this unfeeling, uncaring set of rules and regulations that determine how and what decisions should be made. It is an iron cage because the system is cold, unfeeling and uncaring. The main question is; what does the policy say? Effectively we cease to be human and function in a mechanical, logical manner.

Bureaucracies are highly efficient because systems are they are goal oriented. Everything within the system is structured to achieving the outlined goals. Additionally, processes are streamlined so that deviations that would introduce…

Mark and Rawls

Karl Marx: Capitalist Society is Exploitative and Alienating

The Communist Manifesto characterizes capitalism as exploitative and alienating by pointing to three primary features. The Manifesto identifies the role of industrialization and technological advances, the commodification of the individual laborer, and the profit derived by some members of society not from their own labor but that of others. (Marx, 68-72) Capitalist society's tendency to produces classes of people who are either members of the bourgeoisie or proletariat, and the remnants of the aristocracy is itself seen as problematic. In Marx's attack of the bourgeoisie, he links the capitalist process itself to their own downfall. He writes "what the bourgeoisie therefore produces above all is their own grave diggers." (Marx, 79). This overly dramatic sentence and indeed the chapter can be viewed as a bit of propaganda or an act of psychological warfare against Marx's critics, but what it…

Wheen (1999), in his biography of Marx's life, argued that Engels had greater knowledge and understanding of capitalism and its dynamics than Marx, thereby making the very concept of alienation as an idea that originated from and was put forth by Engels, and was only expounded upon theoretically by Marx (75):

Though he had already decided that abstract idealism was so much hot air, and that the engine of history was driven by economic and social forces, Marx's practical knowledge of capitalism was nil. He had been so engaged by his dialectical tussle with German philosophers that the condition of England -- the first industrialised country, the birthplace of the proletariat -- had escaped his notice. Engels, from his vantage point in the cotton mills of Lancashire, was well placed to enlighten him.

In the preceding passage, Wheen brought into light how, despite Marx's authority on the issues of oppression…

Hawthorne

Hooper suddenly dons a mysterious black veil "which entirely concealed his features, except the mouth and chin, but probably did not intercept his sight, further than to give a darkened aspect to all living and inanimate things," (Hawthorne). This "gloomy" veil is the central symbol of Hawthorne's short story, "The Minister's Black Veil." As with other Hawthorne stories, "The Minister's Black Veil" offers a poignant critique against hyper-religiosity in ultra-Puritan New England. Hawthorne shows that a Christian obsession with the theme of sin has been taken to an extreme, evident in Hooper's mentally deranged methodology. By wearing the veil continuously in her personal and public affairs, Hooper alienates himself from those who care about him, including the community members who used to count on him. On the other hand, guilt-ridden members of the community view Hooper's veil as a sign that the minister is ultra-pious and therefore capable of…

As the roles and functions of religions and their leaders changed according to the changing needs of the communities they served, they provided both stability in times of change as well as the leadership to effect changes as necessary.

Of the three theorists, Marx appears to include the most negative elements in his considerations of religion. It must also be noted however that Marx places more focus on elements other than religion, whereas the other two theorists study religion in itself as it connects with society and its needs. Marx instead viewed religion as one of the elements that could be detrimental in effecting social change when necessary. Durkheim in turn places greater emphasis on the spiritual and esoteric quality of religion than the others, but nevertheless also places it within the context of a society that creates their gods as reflections of themselves. Weber is the most practical of…

Sangster, DeLillo, Nature and God

hat is the opposite of Nature? There are a number of different answers we could give in playing the game of finding an antonym. e are accustomed to speaking of "nature vs. nurture," but "nature" here is a shorthand for the phrase "human nature." In referring to Nature in its environmental sense, we are more likely to speak of "nature vs. culture" or "nature vs. art" -- environment is defined as something which stands apart from human habitation or cultivation. In this sense, it is paradoxical to approach the subject of nature in a work of art -- the fact of its being art serves to remove us in some way from the realm of Nature. I would like to examine the treatment of Nature as a concept in two very different works: the nineteenth-century Canadian poem "The St. Lawrence and the Saguenay" by Charles…

I pulled over and called out to him, while being very conscious how ludicrous I sounded, did he by any chance know of a church where there was to be a poetry reading tonight?" The man did indeed tell Simic where the church was, indicating that poetry can serve as a means to uplift and communicate the universality of human experience. Social alienation and isolation that accompanies the immigrant experience can be mitigated by the shared connection within poetry.

Thus, Simic's inspiration derives not just from a disturbing childhood replete with wartime imagery and memories of a Nazi invasion. Simic's poetry places him squarely within the immigrant New orld -- a world that is categorically comprised by immigrants. As critics have pointed out, Simic's "disturbing…tragi-comic intensity that leaves the reader suspended between amusement and grief…derives equally from the rigors of daily living," (deNiord 77). "Solitude" is a perfect example of…

In this way, religion was used in an attempt not only to make the proletariat content with their lives of alienation, exploitation and poverty, but also as a way to actually encourage them to want less and to enjoy their low stations in life as a sign of their future happiness in the religious afterlife. Regardless of Marx's beliefs concerning the Christian faith, or any other religious belief system, his critique of religion was aimed not at religious institutions per se, but at their implementation of religion as a means of subjugation.

It is for this reason that Marx believes the emancipation of humanity will necessarily involve an emancipation from religion. Because religious teachings, as Marx sees them, reinforce the ideals that create and maintain the inequalities of the capitalist system, such teachings must be done away with if the proletariat are to be able to make fully informed and…

American Myths Nature Environment

Unlimited Growth and Finite Resources

Western Civilization is currently coming to terms with some very important and unsettling realities. Capitalism, and modern economics thinkers, have idolized economic growth without limit. In most economic textbooks and theories, economic growth is considered an end good, and a lack of economic growth a problem.

Though we can argue about whether economic growth is a good in all situations, it is indisputable that economic growth has natural limits. These natural limits are created by our own natural environment. For this reason, the culture of "more" which dominates Western Civilization and drives all of our reasoning, is not sustainable.

The effect of Western industrial capitalist civilization on the environment has been huge. The culture of Western civilization, currently driven by an ethic of individualism and materialism, empowered by science and technology, has done irreversible damage to the natural environment and continues…

Warriors

This is one of the few instances I can recall in which the film was more enjoyable than the book. Both media portray the subject identically in some respects: this is the fictional account of a New Zealand family decimated by alienation from their Maori warrior roots, and by the domestic violence, poverty, alcoholism and nearly overwhelming hopelessness oozing from that rupture. In addition, the media share most factual aspects of each key family member: Jake Heke, the alcoholic, abusive father who celebrates his work layoff and is eventually abandoned by the surviving members of his immediate family; Beth Heke, the abused mother who struggles to keep her family together, rediscovers her ancestral roots and eventually abandons Jake to save herself and her surviving child (ren); Grace, the early teenaged daughter, a writer and dreamer of a life far beyond her family's slum neighborhood, but who is raped and…

It causes more days that people are not in work and productive than any other single factor. What an astounding figure -- my mind boggles: $300 billion, or $7,500 per employee, is spent annually in America on stress-related compensation claims, decreased productivity, absenteeism, health insurance costs, direct medical expenses (almost 50% higher for workers who report stress), and employee turnover. o compensate for the loss in productivity, organizations are driving people harder to remain competitive and successful. his, naturally, increases the stress even more on the personnel. What a horrible situation. Now, job stress is even called "an epidemic."

his situation saddens me greatly. Will American society continue to break down so greatly that it can no longer be cohesive? Where people will rely only on their individual (and selfish) basic needs (as this social scientist Abraham Maslow described) without regard for the larger social issues? I read that there…

This type of conviction also conveniently disenfranchises the poor of whatever minority from voting if they are convicted felons, and conveniently prohibiting the right to bear arms, or harsher sentencing if they do.

These effects of the initial cause, wage payers using the courts to provide themselves cheap labor, push down on eligible voter rates and election to office as well, which makes sense if election takes expensive campaign expenditure and time off working in order to win. Those with the wealth to take time off work to campaign, and to generate the publicity that translates into higher campaign contributions dominate the highest elected office and participation rates compared to ethnicities with lower median incomes (Barak, Leighton and Flavin 108). The result is that minorities lack the power to change public policy and thus the institutions that represent higher incidence of blacks and Latinos in prisons; lower earnings for everyone…

Finding no recourse or way to express her true feelings and thoughts, the Narrator began reflecting on her oppression through the yellow wallpaper patterns on the walls of her room: "The front pattern does move -- and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it! Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast...and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard" (Roberts and Jacobs, 1998:550). This passage can be interpreted in two ways: seeing the woman within the wallpaper patterns may signify her dissociation from herself psychologically by succumbing to insanity. However, this process may also be construed as her way of breaking out of the prison that is her marriage, the oppression she felt being dominated by John and the limits that marriage had put on her as a woman. Though…

American Ethnic Literature

Analyzing the Nature of American Ethnic Literature

America has a distinct history: like ancient ome, its inhabitants have come from all over and few of them can truly say to be natives of the place. This fact alone makes American Literature a compelling label: what makes American Literature American? This paper will attempt to answer the question by showing how many ethnicities have converged in one nation allowing various writers with different ethnic, social, political, economical, and social perspectives to define and/or illustrate a time and place.

As Morris Dickstein states, "When America was merely a remote province of world culture, its educated elites were Anglophile, Francophile, or broadly cosmopolitan. Education was grounded in classical learning, a respect for the ancients over the moderns, and a deeply ingrained respect for old Europe's artistic heritage" (p. 155). This type of background made American letters similar to European. What…

Beauty Beast

Judgment and Superficiality in "Beauty and the Beast": Parsing a Fairytale from a Postmodern Perspective

It is the conceit of nearly every epoch to assume that certain ideas, perspectives, and frameworks are new or unique to the current time, and with postmodernism this has extended to the notion of purposefully and meaningfully fragmented texts. That is, many postmodernists view fragmentation and purposeful alienation from reality -- truly, a questioning of what constitutes reality -- as the quintessential and definitive postmodern element (Erb, 51). hile it cannot be denied that the postmodern period and postmodern works frequently embrace and utilize such fragmentation, and while perhaps no era has used it to the extremes or with the prevalence as the postmodern era, it must also be acknowledged that concepts of alienation from truth and reality are not new to the period, though they were dealt with quite differently in earlier…

al. 11). In the same way that European colonialism itself depended on a limited view of the world that placed colonial subjects under the rule of their masters, European theory was based on a view of literature and identity that had no place for the identities and literature of colonized people. Postcolonial theory is the ideal basis for this study, because in many ways the process of developing a new, hybrid identity born out of the conflicting experiences of first and second-generation immigrants is analogous to the process of developing postcolonial theory in the first place.

In particular, this paper draws most heavily on the notion of hybrid identity, a complicated subject that has arisen within postcolonial studies. The term is difficult to define precisely due to the fact that hybridity itself suggests something complicated and heterogeneous, and at the same time, "if hybrid identity is seen as formed at…

Terkel, Working (Organizational Behavior)

The interview subjects in Studs Terkel's book Working run the gamut from farm wife to university professor, but all are able to be articulate about what it is that they do for a living. However, some basic patterns emerge upon examination of a representative sample of Terkel's interviews. The first thing to note is the relationship of education to work: in some sense, these people are all concerned with how their education did or did not prepare them for the work that they do. A second point to note is the sense of institutional difficulty, in how the individual relates to the larger structures of the workplace -- this can take the form of labor organizations like labor, or the corporations, or even competitors. The final thing that is worth noting in Terkel's interviews is whether or not the individual feels dehumanized or alienated from the…

In its current form in the U.S., prostitution is associated with high rates of criminality, but that is likely a function of its illegal status more than of anything inherent in prostitution. Prostitution is also associated with high risks of STDs, but a closer examination of the specific factors to which that is attributable strongly suggest that legalizing prostitution can effectively eliminate that negative element. Ultimately, prevailing negative attitudes about legalized prostitution are much more reflective of the persistence of irrational social stigmas and antiquated definitions of social deviance that originated in the Victorian Age, if not even much earlier.

eferences

Ainsworth, M.. (2000). Breaking the Silence: Setting ealistic Priorities for AIDS Control in Less Developed Countries the Lancet (Vol. 367: 55-60) Baleta, a. (1998). Concern voiced over "dry sex" practices in Africa; the Lancet (Vol. 352:1292)

Dershowitz, a. (2002) Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age. New York:…

She never says "no," and always takes on these tasks, even though they might not be her direct responsibility. I think my mother is under-employed, but she does not see it that way. I think she could become a graphic designer or at least a document specialist, but she is content to remain in her own sphere.

I think my mother fears alienation if she changes job responsibilities. She has been at her present company for many years, and has seniority over many other office workers. She would be brand new and probably older than most of her peers if she went into another area of document creation, and I think that scares her. She will not say that to me when we talk, just that she's "content" where she is. I think my mother works too hard, and I wish that she would stop working, but she says we…

Sozaboy' paradoxically decodes the despair and alienation of war into a brighter future for humanity in general. It'd a subliminal lesson that, by making the impact that it does, entrenches itself in the reader's unconsciousness, and helps the reader understand the moral and political implications of war on humanity, in general, and the effect of the Nigerian civil war on the minority areas within the Biafran population in particular.

Sozaboy is a powerful book that is intended to serve as anti-war harangue. That this is so can, I think, be best detected through the language ' rotten English' which serves as vehicle for decoding the disorder and brutality of war. The language itself is a corruption of the regular harmonious way of speaking English. It is fractured, uncouth, incomplete and rough. At rare times, the author lapses into 'regular' English and, as seen, these times seem to occur when order…

Home Exam

Compare the notion of state in Hegel with Marx's view

Both Hegel and Marx are dialectical materialists, in that both philosophers see the progress of human history in terms of an eternal and alternating struggle for control of the state instruments of power, a struggle between the haves and the have-nots. But rather than the political outlook of Hegel, who stresses the dialectical struggle of the classes in terms of who possesses political and governmental power, Marx identifies the struggle of the have-nots with the proletariat, the producers of wealth who are oppressed and exploited by capitalists. The state is no longer primarily determined in view of who rules the government, but who owns and dominates the economy in Marx.

Marx's view of the state, law, etc., as based upon the modes of production, depends upon his view of the human being. Discuss and exemplify.

The Marxist theory…

bad it's to say that something is morally ambiguous. Moreover, something which is perceived as morally ambiguous has reasonable grounds and one could say, justifiable means for existing. Let's take, for instance, an individual who although tends to do good deeds usually, is forced by certain circumstances to behave badly: that is morally ambiguous. One such example, however general, is the presence of the courtesans in Higuchi Ichiyo's "Takekurabe" or "Child's Play," as translated in English. Although prostitutes are morally blamed, in Higuchi's story they are somewhat responsible for "how these great establishments prosper" since "the rickshaws pull up night and day. "(Higuchi 1807) Thus, the courtesans deserve certain credit for the economic survival of the Yoshiwara district, making their presence necessary and, as Higuchi acknowledges, "most of the people here, in fact, have some connection with the quarter. The menfolk do odd jobs at the less dignified houses." (Higuchi…

Kate Braverman wrote an award winning story called "Tales of the Mekong Delta" in 1991. Ten years later, Ted Demme directed and released a film called Blow. The paper will explore, analyze, and compare themes of the two texts. Specifically, the paper will focus on issues of identity, self-esteem, respect, alienation, predatory behavior including domination (and submission), addiction, as well as moral & ethical behavior. Both stories center around the consequences of illicit substances in the personal lives of the characters.

The protagonist in the short story is most often referred to as "she." She meets Lenny at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Lenny essentially begins stalking her. Lenny is the figure for dominance and aggression in the story. She is the figure for submission and vulnerability in the story. She tries to deviate from her routine and essentially change her life, but Lenny tracks her down and shows up at…

Among the factors which this article elucidates are necessary to be considered, Hetherington et al. indicate that "the long-term effects are related more to the child's developmental status, sex, and temperament; the qualities of the home and parenting environments; and to the resources and support systems available to the parents and child than they are to divorce or remarriage per se." (Hetherington et al., 303)

From a clinical treatment perspective, the article by Konstam (2009) is particularly useful. This presents the view that for those verging on adulthood who experience the divorce of parents, there is a more sophisticated and thus more complex sense of loss which is difficult to interpret. This is experienced differently than the dissolution of a marriage for young children who may lack the wherewithal to have observed clear warning signs. Here, Konstam suggests that clinical assistance can be a valuable resource for contending with issues…

He also asserts that government participation in the arts beyond its role as a consumer can pose significant hindrances to the artistic processes. He claims that politics tends to "seek stability, compromise, and consensus," and as a result avoids supporting art that may "offend majority opinion or go over its head" (38). The market, on the other hand, has "liberated artists…from the potential tyranny of mainstream market taste" (23).

Is Government Funding Necessary or Appropriate?

There are many who disagree with Cowen, claiming that public funding for the arts is crucial to maintaining a vibrant, diverse, and forward-thinking creative community. These arguments are generally characterized by the theory that, while art as a market commodity is a healthy and valuable part of the artistic culture, there must also be a forum for art as a public good. This forum cannot be trusted to the market, which may or may not…

Nature.... General Will

The ideas to create just and liberal society go all the way back to ancient times. The first examples of civil society were proposed by Plato and Aristotle, who saw the ideal state to be a republic ruled by the wise men and aristocrats as "first among equal." They didn't go in depth to explain its structure, functions of government in details, etc. These were the first discourses about the state where the harmony and equality established by the laws of nature will be preserved and developed. But the history shows that Greek republic failed under the pressure of power-gaining ome and Greek democracy was forgotten for centuries, but some of its principles preserved and where later developed by the philosophers of Enlightenment.

Enlightenment or renaissance of political thought and birth of civil political teachings was represented by a new idea of state, where the power was…

Male and Female -- Both a Part of Leslie Marmon Silko's book Ceremony

Indian society defines what is positive about the male essence to be what is active in the world. However, the male protagonist Tayo of Leslie Marmon Silko's novel Ceremony, feels as if he has been denied his ability to demonstrate his manhood to the world, as an Indian brave ought to. Because of his perceived failure fighting in a white-driven war, Tayo experiences a sense of alienation from his current society, although he has finally returned to Indian life. He feels cast out of the white world for his inability to kill Japanese people, and feels cast out of the Indian world because of his sense of passivity. One of the reader's first images of Tayo is as he sites by the window at his Auntie's house. Recently released from a mental hospital after his mental breakdown…

This stream-of-consciousness writing is in a secret journal, for the writer will get into trouble if what she writes is found by Sister Theo, who "checks our letters home. e're not allowed to say anything about the school" (Sterling 12). If the journal is discovered, the girl may suffer abuse at the hands of the teachers. riting is an act of defiance that the girl sees to be worth the risk.

The time of the story was a disturbing part of Canada's history. The use of Residential Schools actually predates Canada's existence as a country (meaning before Confederation in 1867, and the system served as a means of containment and control if the Indian population. As the Europeans acted out the myth of the New orld as an undiscovered and undeveloped land, the existence of the Aboriginal peoples complicated the myth and challenged the government that was instituted. Policies were…

It was originally established in the early 19th century by Auguste Comte who tried to unify history, psychology and economics through an understanding of society as a broad paradigm. Emile Durkheim took this a bit further and focused on the way societies could maintain a sort of integrity within the modern work where past cultural trends (religion, ethnicity, etc.) were no longer the singular part of society. His view, which has become the modern view of sociology, surrounded questions of what binds individuals together as a formal group (society) and what happens to this group both collectively and for the individual. This is a broad discipline as well, and clearly an academic response to the modern age (industrialization, urbanization, secularization, etc.). The field looks at social rules, the way those rules were formed, and the way that individuals coalesce into groups, communities, institutions, and even powerful social organizations that transcend…

Global Business Cultural Analysis

Nigeria

Nigerian History

Synopsis of Nigerian government

Nigerian monarchy to presidential system

The evolution of Nigeria from British control to a civilian democratic government

Nigerian major commodities

Oil

Food

The major elements and dimensions of culture in Nigeria

Cultural dimensions

Individualism

Power distance

Masculinity

Uncertainty

Model of culture

Universalism or Particularize

How is the integration of elements and dimensions that Nigerians doing business in the country?

The effects of governments on the prospects for its business around the world

How the elements and dimensions compared with the United States, culture, and business?

The role of women in the workplace

Business visitors must be dressed in an elegant and tie (for men!)

Cross-cultural business transactions between the United States and Nigeria

Conclusion

eferences

Abstract

Thurstan Shaw and Steve Daniels, who are the founder for archaeological research proved in their research that Nigeria has been developed since 9,000…

arxist or Neo-arxist Research

Theorist

Theory Summary

Critique of Theory

ax Weber

According to ax Weber the state is a special entity that possesses a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Weber believes politics is a required activity of government used in order to influence and control the relative distribution of force and power in the country.

Weber wrote of three main types of authority and political leadership domination that is present in society. These three types are charismatic, traditional and legal domination.

Weber also developed a theory of stratification where he explained and used such ideas as class, status, and party. According to his theory class is determined by an individual's economic situation. The notion of status is similar to prestige and honor. And the main purpose of parties is to gain domination in certain spheres of life. Like Weber, arx saw society as the struggle for class…

Barry's "Machine Man"

Originally published in 2011, Max Barry's futuristic science fiction novel "Machine Man" was first made available to readers as an online serial, before being updated and collected into a full-fledged book. Barry bucked publishing industry protocol and posted excerpts from his "Machine Man" to his personal website, imploring his regular readers to submit criticism and feedback in the hope of collectively shaping his creative vision. As one of the first literary works to be "crowdsourced" in terms of content, the version of "Machine Man" which emerged from this collaborative process is, much like its conflicted protagonist, an amalgamation of various constituent parts which comes together to form a harmonious whole. Barry's thematic thrust with the novel -- which tells the tale of Charles Neumann, a subordinate scientist working for a military research conglomerate known as Better Future -- is humanity's ceaseless pursuit of perfection, and the consequences…

Netflix employees "tear, slap, and clack" through a day's work can be easily understood within a classic sociological framework, using either a Marxist or a Durkheim lens. Both Marx and Durkheim would have noted that the Netflix model represents quintessential division of labor. The employees perform one task with maximum efficiency. hile Durkheim would focus primarily on the social contracts and organization of the employees within the Netflix organization, Marx would critique the means by which the Netflix associates are distanced from the owners of the means of production, their labor artificially devalued and exploited, especially given the employees come from developing countries in Africa and Asia. However, the way Sheehan describes the Netflix operation shows that Durkheim's concepts of social solidarity, specialization, and interdependence are indeed requisite to human survival and are inescapable, as the sociologists affirms in his dissertation on the function of the division of labor.

hereas…

Mill talked of ethical freedom in terms of all areas wherein individual and society interacts and become involved with each other; Marx utilized the same viewpoint, although specified it in terms of proletarian-bourgeoisie relations.

For Marx, ethical freedom is self-realization within the individual, and primary in this realization was the acknowledgment that one needs to be economically independent in order for modern individuals, and society in general, to function progressively. Ethical freedom is said to have been achieved if there will develop a new social order, identified as the "industrial proletariat," described to be the modern individuals, belonging to the previously identified proletariat class, who embodies "fresh moral and political idea, but one rooted in the world of material reality" (Morgan, 2005:392). In concrete Marxian terms, self-realization is an event that will occur only once the following elements have been abolished, as cited in "The Communist Manifesto": "representative government, bourgeois…

He is not longer alienated from the sector of society that she represents. Their relationship bridges the gap and provides the fuel to take the country into a new direction.

However, things are not all rosy for the couple. They have to overcome the prejudices that each group, Mexican and African-American, has for each other as well as battling prejudice and stereotypes from whites.

To recap, the author has considered the novel America by John Debrizzi. hat makes this a bit more difficult to digest the novel's contents is that Debrizzi is a sociologist. To properly understand the novel, one must understand the social theory behind it. Therefore, the author first considered the theoretical implications, specifically Debrizzi's working out of Mills dichotomy between individual and society. In this, they considered how the Marxist dialectic and the alienation from the means of production apply. Finally, they considered the novel, particularly the…

In O'Connor short story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the antagonist is an outlaw, in keeping with the frequent use of alienated members of society in Romantic poetry and literature. The alienated member of society is contrasted with the crass materialism and superficiality of the family the Misfit kills. The child June Star is so poorly brought up that she says: "I wouldn't live in a broken-down place like this for a million bucks!" To the owner of the roadside restaurant the family stops at, and is punished dearly for her transgression by the author O'Connor with death.

Yet the grandmother, upon hearing of the story of the Misfit says: "hy you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!" The grandmother is said to "reached out and touch" the Misfit him on the shoulder, but the Misfit is said to have "sprang back as if…

Being away from one's family is hard; it takes time to get used to it. The newly married woman did know how to face this difficult situation and no one to counsel her on the subject.

The wife moved away from her parents' house, then she got two children a boy and a girl. The choice they made for the boy's name was unfortunate. They called him Gogol, like the Russian writers his father admired so much and this name would provide countless occasions for his peers in America to make fun of him. He will later struggle to change it into a neutral old American name, Nike and will finally succeed. Despite that, his family will continue to call him Gogol.

Gogol is a suburban male teenager caught between his Indian roots and his American birthrights. Gogol and his Indian-born parents must somehow strive to keep a balance between…

This is her suffering.

LUIS J. RODRIGUEZ, THE REPUBLIC OF EAST LA (2002)

"Unfortunately, Rosalba endured many scary nights staying in dingy hotel rooms with other migrants, mostly women, in downtown Los Angeles. She not only didn't have a man to help but no obvious skills except what she learned on the rancho. She had to survive being cast into a peculiar universe of neon and noise. This was a place where women sold themselves for sex or get stoned, and where people on city buses never say anything to you unless they happen to be drunk or crazy" (229).

In this extract, several things become clear about the nature of Los Angeles and its inhabitants. The migrant, whose group Rosalba joins, represents the suffering of poverty. The "peculiar universe of neon and noise" shows just how far Rosalba feels removed from this artificial, seemingly wealthy world. She has nothing…