Progressivism Opposing Viewpoints Essays - Political Ideologies

Progressivism: Opposing Viewpoints Progressivism: Opposing Viewpoints At the commencement of the twentieth century, a period referred to as progressivism swept through America. Precisely, this era in American history began soon after the Spanish-American War and lasted until the beginning of World War I. At this point in history, America was in turmoil due to internal problems and was in dire need of social reforms. The progressive era was like a golden age for intellectuals who strived to create a nation where each citizen could be given a chance at success and involvement in the government. In the latter portion of the 1800's, America faced an economic depression and encountered problems with industrialization, urbanization, and immigration. Some progressives demanded that the government should be run directly by its people and that the quality of city life should be ameliorated through sanitation improvements, the abolition of child labor, and regulated working hours. America's utmost problem, however, proved to be the overwhelming power that trusts and big business held in the nation. This factor had a leading role in the development of the era of progressivism. In general, progressives basically agreed that trusts must be destroyed; however, there were different solutions among the progressives on the correct remedy to solve this problem. One ideology in the progressive era called the New Nationalism, advocated for an increase of government involvement in order to regulate big businesses. The other ideology called the New Freedom, firmly believed the ?big? in business was the threat to American society; therefore, the role of the government should be to break up trusts and monopolies. Whatever may have been the case, the progressives desired to attack any group of concentrated power in order to bring more accountability to the government of America. Although the progressives had good intentions to reform the nation, some historians, such as Richard M. Abrams, author of The Failure of Progressivism, believe the entire movemen t was a complete failure. On the other hand, other historians, such as Arthur S. Link and Richard L. McCormick beg to differ with Abrams and defiantly defend their own belief in their article entitled Progressivism in History that the movement was indeed successful. After closely reading both of the articles mentioned above, I have come to the conclusion that Abrams's argument proves to be stronger in that it is not as biased and seems to be more sensible than that of Link's and McCormick's. In the article, The Failure of Progressivism, Professor Richard Abrams argues that the entire progressive movement was a failure. First, Abrams initially defines what he believes to have been progressivism by concluding that the progressives expressed a common feeling that government should attempt to moralize the lives of its citizens through a series of reforms. According to Abrams, its followers flowered from various groups including female emancipationists, prohibitionists, the social gospel, conservation advocates, businessmen, and intellectuals. The progressives generally advocated for an efficient government that would implement strict moral values upon its people. Although most people in America had the same views as progressives, Abrams claims that ?[the progressives] also conceived of themselves, with a grand sense of stewardship, as its heralds, and its agents.? He states that the progressives mainly wanted to instill old moral values upon Americans by attempting to assimi late immigrants by forcing them to accept the American way of life. Additionally, they wanted to impose antitrust legislation, job reforms, and direct legislation. However, according to Abrams these goals were tarnished for significant reasons. First of all, the movement failed due to racism that was rampant during this time period. In addition to racism among blacks in the south, anti-Catholicism started appearing throughout the country. According to Abrams, racism hindered the motives of progressivism because there was ?the inability of reform to deliver a meaningful share of the social surplus to the groups left out of the general national progress, and in part the inability of reform to achieve its objective of assimilation and consensus.? Suddenly, different ethnic groups such as the African Americans took a more aggressive approach towards the public to finally stand up for their rights, which further contributed to growing animosity. Moreover, Abrams believes that new scienti fic developments regarding race and culture affected the

Free Essays on Straight Pool By John OHara

The short story â€Å"Straight Poolâ€Å", written by John O’Hara, is one of the most interesting and mysterious stories in the anthology, Points of View. The story shows O’Hara’s masterful ability to create drama and intrigue and to involve the reader in the lives of three characters in few short pages. â€Å"Straight Pool† is a very ambiguous story in which the main point of the story is left up to the reader’s imagination. The story begins with a monologue by a loyal, yet confused husband, who is playing pool with his friend Jack Mc Morrow. The speaker is discussing his wife and her problems and his feelings about her behavior. But the monologue can be viewed in different lights. On surface, this could be a simple story about two friends playing pool while one complains about his wife. However, with the clues given throughout the text and some imagination, it might be that the narrator’s wife is having an affair with his pool partner. In the beginning of the story, the narrator discusses how long it has been since he has even picked up a cue stick. He talks about his wife, Mae and how she keeps having crying fits, and that he is afraid to leave her alone. As a result he says that he stopped playing pool to take care of his wife. He goes on to say that if he does try to leave the house, his wife â€Å"all of a sudden stops crying and sits there looking at me, not saying a word, and it’s worse than her crying. (Pg. 32)† In the scenario in which it seems like Mae is having an affair, she could be crying because she feels lost in her marriage and so guilty about her actions. Every time she sees him it reminds her about how bad she feels and what she is doing and she starts sobbing. It seems that she still cares about her husband, but she does not love him. For example, she will not tell him that she his having an affair, either because she is afraid, or just does not want to see him hurt. It could also be argued that her action... Free Essays on Straight Pool By John O'Hara Free Essays on Straight Pool By John O'Hara The short story â€Å"Straight Poolâ€Å", written by John O’Hara, is one of the most interesting and mysterious stories in the anthology, Points of View. The story shows O’Hara’s masterful ability to create drama and intrigue and to involve the reader in the lives of three characters in few short pages. â€Å"Straight Pool† is a very ambiguous story in which the main point of the story is left up to the reader’s imagination. The story begins with a monologue by a loyal, yet confused husband, who is playing pool with his friend Jack Mc Morrow. The speaker is discussing his wife and her problems and his feelings about her behavior. But the monologue can be viewed in different lights. On surface, this could be a simple story about two friends playing pool while one complains about his wife. However, with the clues given throughout the text and some imagination, it might be that the narrator’s wife is having an affair with his pool partner. In the beginning of the story, the narrator discusses how long it has been since he has even picked up a cue stick. He talks about his wife, Mae and how she keeps having crying fits, and that he is afraid to leave her alone. As a result he says that he stopped playing pool to take care of his wife. He goes on to say that if he does try to leave the house, his wife â€Å"all of a sudden stops crying and sits there looking at me, not saying a word, and it’s worse than her crying. (Pg. 32)† In the scenario in which it seems like Mae is having an affair, she could be crying because she feels lost in her marriage and so guilty about her actions. Every time she sees him it reminds her about how bad she feels and what she is doing and she starts sobbing. It seems that she still cares about her husband, but she does not love him. For example, she will not tell him that she his having an affair, either because she is afraid, or just does not want to see him hurt. It could also be argued that her action...

Enterpreneurship...read the requirement i send you carefully Essay

Enterpreneurship...read the requirement i send you carefully - Essay Example They can be differentiated from other group of professionals in terms of certain special characteristics including their leadership styles, self confidence levels, unique thinking process, devotion to a particular goal and flexibility. Apart from these skills, innovation is one of the vital characteristics, which must be possessed by each and every entrepreneur in the 21st century context to establish and manage a business to flourish. According to Peter F. Drucker, innovation is the change which drives the entrepreneur towards a better performance (Selman, n.d). The best example of the innovation strategy adopted by entrepreneurs is the invention of an unconventional online retail store, Amazon.com, by Jeff Bezos in 1995. Jeff Bezos is one of the successful entrepreneurs in the world who had pioneered the trend of online stores, initially by selling books and other products. His early interests in computers and the study of computer science and electrical engineering further led him to the setting up of the biggest online store. Amazon began its journey by selling only books in the US market and other regions of North America. Just after two months of its set up, the company started marketing its products in the other regions of the world following its rapidly growing customer demand and changing trends. Jeff Bezos also started diversifying its products from books to other items such as the CDs, electronic items, clothing and many other household products following which, Amazon today is renowned as a market leader (Gitman & McDaniel, 2008). Evidently, these activities, ranging from expansion of the business and diversification of its product line can be examined as the integral part of innovation demonstrating the innovative skills of the employees. Thus, taking the example of Jeff Bezos, this research will intend to elaborate on the significance of innovation to ensure entrepreneurial success in the 21st century context. Literature Review Innovation is one o f the vital characteristics of an entrepreneur, which makes him different from others. According to Andriopoulos & Dawson (2009), innovation is the process of transforming the ideas into a newer and useful product or service, as laid down by the Department of Trade and Industry. As argued in Andriopoulos & Dawson (2009), the Department of Trade and Industry defines innovation as the ability to make successful and positive utilization of newer ideas to satisfy the gap persisting in the current market. Conceptually, innovation is commonly classified into four types, including hypothetical innovation, production innovation, position innovation and process innovation. The theoretical perspective to the concept reveals that innovative skills of the entrepreneur have become quite imperative over the past decade. Again, as Andriopoulos & Dawson (2009) note, in the year 1961, a study was conducted by Burns and Stalker to analyze the organizational innovation. With reference to this study, i t can be argued that the importance of organizational innovation is immense in determining the efficiency of a successful entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial skills to define organizational innovation also tend to design the firm’s potentiality and adaptation to a chaotic environment. However, a critical perspective to this context reveals that many of the organizations have confusions between the concepts of

The Kinship System of Yanomamo Culture Assignment

The Kinship System of Yanomamo Culture - Assignment Example This system of kinship is based on bifurcate merging. In this system of kinship, though the institution of marriage remains closely confined to the family, it sternly prohibits marriages between parallel cousins. It is just because the Yanomamo people tend to hold kinship so dear that they tend to form groups and manage intergroup relationships by resorting to alliances and warfare (Simpson & Kenrick, 1997). The Yanomamo people tend to organize themselves locally relying on the patrilinial decent. The depth of the lineage groups seldom extends more than three adult generations. Individuals are not allowed to mention the names of their dead as it is considered to be inauspicious (Simpson & Kenrick, 1997). In a practical context it means that the name of ancestors and the human ties associated with them are soon forgotten. Marriage to more than one woman is considered by the males to be a symbol of social status. The social life is woven around striking relationships between groups either through alliances or warfare. Both these methods of striking relationships involve the exchange of women between groups and it is mostly this exchange that gives way to violence and warfare. The Marriages alliances involve a marriage between two groups belonging to two different tribes. In the Yanomamo system of kinship, the individual loyalty and allegiance of a tribe member automatically passes on to the tribe in which that member marries (Simpson & Kenrick, 1997). Perhaps Yanomamo adhere to this kinship going by the need for the males to help tribes survive in an environment marked by scarce resources. Yanomamo people also tend to forge feasting alliances with tribes that are not united by a marriage, but are also not divided by aggression and war. In a broader context the Yanomamo idea of kinship originates from their philosophy that considers nature to be a unified and sacred force, marked by its power to

Does Punishment Deter Crime Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Does Punishment Deter Crime - Essay Example ed as a justified step to make the criminal realize his act of omission and offense that is committed and also as an attempt to give justice to the person or people against whom it has been committed. The changing paradigms of the emerging new pluralistic society have necessitated the need to study the wider implications of punishment for the various types of crimes that are becoming a regular feature of the American society. The punishments which were supposed to serve as examples for others to refrain from crimes are increasingly becoming ineffectual. Hence, in the recent times, crime and punishment have become the most controversial issues and crucial public policy questions, especially in America. Punishment for crimes has primarily been implemented for four major reasons: retribution; deterrence; rehabilitation; and social protection. These four factors are significant motivators for effectively combating crimes against the society and serve as vital public policy decisions while disbursing justice. Criminal justice has seen tremendous changes in the level of punishment and politicians, academicians and social scientists have vastly differed in the use or misuse of the official machinery and the justice system that decides and awards the punishment. The one most vital point that has come through the various public debates is the long term sustainability of the wider objectives of the punishment; whether the punishment has served as effective deterrent? Retribution refers to the concept that the criminal deserves punishment. The adage ‘tit for tat’ or ‘eye for an eye’ becomes the main objective of the punishment. Crime has been committed and therefore the criminal must be paid back in the same manner or something which is as bad as his crime. In the modern times and in the civilized society, this act of vengeance is neither considered to be morally right or just because it would bring our action at par with that of criminal. Hence, our actions need to

Theories and Models of Memory

Theories and Models of Memory Baddeley and Hitch developed another model of short-term memory which is called working memory. The distinction between short-term memory and working memory is that short-term memory is frequently used interchangeably with working memory however the two of them should be used separately. Short-term memory refers to just the temporary storage of information within the memory whereas working memory refers to the processes that are used to temporarily organise, manipulate and store information. Their model also put forward instead of the short-term memory being a single store, it is in fact an active processor containing many different types of stores- the central executive, phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and episodic buffer. Central executive: The central executive is the main and most important component of the model which can be best described and known for attention. It is responsible for controlling and monitoring the operation of the slave systems known as the phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketch pad that have limited capacity, and relates them to the long-term memory. Within the central executive, it decides what information needs to be attended to and which parts of the working memory to send this information to in order to be dealt with. Also, it is its function to decide what working memory pays attention to whenever someone is completing an activity and another activity comes into conflict with it. The central executive basically directs attention and puts the activity most important as priority meaning it selectively attends the important stimuli and ignores the least important. Despite how important the central executive is in the working memory model, we know less about it compared to the two subsystems it controls. It is Baddeley who suggests that the central executive functions more like a system that controls attentional processes, rather than a memory store. This is unlike the visuo-spatial sketch pad and the phonological loop which are both specialised storage systems. Phonological loop: The phonological loop holds speech-based information for 1-2 seconds and is composed of an articulatory control process and a phonological store. The articulatory control process acts as an inner voice which practices information from the phonological store by repeating it again and again. An example of this is remembering a phone number we have just heard. As long as we keep repeating it in our heads, we can retain the information in working memory. The phonological store on the other hand is the inner ear. Spoken words enter the store directly meanwhile written words must firstly be changed into a spoken code before they can enter the phonological store. The working memory model has strengths and is supported by Shallice and Warrington (1974). Theyfound support for the working memory model through their case study of KF. KF was a brain damaged individual who had an impaired short-term memory. He struggled to immediately recall words which were represented verbally, but was fine with visual information. This suggested that he had an intact visuo-spatial sketchpad but an impaired articulatory loop, therefore showing evidence for the working memory models view of short-term memory. This finding couldnt be explained using the multi-store model of memory, which therefore put forward that the short-term memory was just one system. Visuo-spatial sketchpad: The visuo-spatial sketchpad is known as the inner eye and refers to what things look like. It also processes the temporary storage of spatial and visual information. It can manipulate visual and spatial information held in the long-term memory, and images in two and three dimensions, for example people can recall someones face they know from long-term memory in only two dimensions and can also imagine walking around their kitchen in three dimensions. Evidence suggesting that the working memory uses two completely different systems for dealing with verbal and visual information is that it is much harder to perform two verbal tasks at the same time because they interfere with each other and results in performance being reduced. The same applies to carrying out two visual tasks at the same time. However, a verbal processing and visual processing task can be completed at the same time because the information does not interfere. Furthermore, this supports the view that the sketch pad and phonological loop are two separate systems within the working memory. Gathercole and Baddeley (1993) also support the working memory model and they completed a lab study where people participating were divided into two groups. All of them had to complete a task which involved them following a moving spot of light. This would use the visuo-spatial sketchpad. At the same time as this was going on, one group also had to describe the angles on a letter, which was another task involving the visuo-spatial sketchpad. The other group meanwhile was given a second task that would involve and use the phonological loop and they were given a verbal task whilst following the light. The results were that Gathercole and Baddeley found the performance was way better in the participants completing tasks which used separate systems. Episodic buffer: The episodic buffer was added into the working memory model by Baddeley in 2000 after the model failed to explain the results of various experiments. It briefly stores information from the other subsystems, integrating it together, along with information from the long-term memory, resulting in complete scenes or episodes. It basically acts like a backup store which communicates with both the components of the working memory and the long-term memory. The episodic buffer is not limited to one sense only, unlike the other two slave systems. Its functions seems to weave visual memories, bind memories together and phonological memories into single episodes, which then become stored in the episodic long-term memory. The central executive chooses information from the phonological and the visuo-spatial sketchpad that go into the episodic buffer to then form an episode of memory. Along with this, the episodic buffer also appears to download episodes from the long-term memory, referring them to be analysed and possibly recalled to conscious memory.

Life Styles Inventory (LSI): Self Analysis Essay -- self-assessment di

Introduction The Life Styles Inventory (LSI) is a self-assessment diagnostic instrument that measures 12 key thinking patterns, or "styles". The LSI promotes performance change and improvement by increasing personal understanding of one's thinking and behavior. By responding to these 240 inventory items, individuals learn exactly where they need to focus their development efforts, without ambiguity or guesswork. The results of the self-description are plotted on a circular graph for easy visualization of how the individual thinks and behaves in the 12 LSI styles. This profile acts as a personalized developmental needs assessment, calling attention to the individual's strengths as well as areas needing improvement. Part I: Personal Thinking Styles (primary, backup, limiting) According to my LSI profile shows my primary style is achievement. My backup thinking style is dependent. My backup style was closely followed by avoidance. Refer to attachment â€Å"A† The LSI . My limiting style appears to be is two fold. dependent and avoidance. It illustrates that these two â€Å"limit† my self-actualization and achievement percentages. I do not find myself to be overly defensive or aggressive when dealing with individuals. I tend to listen more to what people have to say. This result was not new to me. avoidance and dependent evidently are the areas that are causing me not to excel. According to the LSI information provided, when your achievement score is greater and the humanistic-encouraging and affiliative scores are less, a concern for task accomplishment will diminish a concern need for others. Evidently this imbalance is reducing my overall effectiveness. When I put this under my microscope, I find that this charact... ...te achiever I need to lead by example, and encourage individuals to give their best effort on every project. Although I am a limited self-starter I must learn to communicate more realistic performance standard/goals and promote teammate input. As I continue to study Leadership and Organizational Behavior, I hope to change my thinking style that is geared to personal effectiveness. Limit my passive / dependent styles and obtain more constructive styles. The Life Styles Inventory from Human Synergistics International was a good wake up call, and offer a way to change your profile. The Challenge of Change section in the LSI will enable me to document a self-improvement plan utilizing my LSI profile. With this, my change suggestions and self-improvement plan will give me a guided direction to properly focus my personal development goals on the way I need to go.