Critically appraises the concept of the public sphere in the context Coursework

Critically appraises the concept of the public sphere in the context of contemporary digital media - Coursework Example The intent also acts as a public sphere where people bring together their opinion. The opinion generated from the public sphere can be channelized to the ruling government to act appropriate in regard to the need of the society. The societies consider the public sphere to be channel that they can use to voice their problems (Hauser 2005). In the modern world and in a more democratic society, public sphere has been of great resource to the ruling government. Ideas and dialogue from their subject are posed in the You Tube and therefore they can easily read them. In most circumstance it is the source of production and circulation of the discussions that are critical to the state. The circulation process doe not only reach the state but the society as a whole (Rutherford 2004). In this respect the voice of the poor is herd and given the equal chances in the development project in the community. Dialogue, act of speeches, debate and discussion can be held together even though people are in different locations. The convergence of the information in one source makes retrieval for the future references in the societies (Goodnight 2007). While the digital society appreciates the modern public sphere in the internet, it has become the major sources of propaganda and rumor mongering. The internet does not include the public opinion in totality. Only the a few people who are accessible to new technology enjoy while the rest does not. The poor’s voices cannot be herd while the rich continue to dominate creating the inequality the major challenge of modern democracy (Habermas 2009). Facts may be posed in the internet whose sources cannot be identified properly. In such cases it becomes arena of rumor and propaganda that cannot be relies upon. This is the major challenge that seems to hinder the well functioning of the public sphere in the modern society. Even though the use of technology is still advancing to mature, most of the

The characters of Maggie and Willie Essay Example for Free

The characters of Maggie and Willie Essay The play Hobsons choice is set in Salford near Manchester in the north of England, in the 1880s. This scene takes place in the boot shop, which Hobson owns, he has four daughters the eldest is Maggie she pretty much runs the shop as Hobson, since his wife died, has turned into an alcoholic. The scene starts with Maggie saying Dinner at half past one girls, Well give him half an hour this looks as if Hobson has gone to the pub but Maggie has told him that lunch is at One but he says its not. So Maggie appeases and says its at half one. From the words Well give him half an hour it seems as if this argument is a regular occurrence. Maggie then proceeds to order Willie, a cobbler at the shop, up from the cellar/workshop this shows that Maggie is the boss which is unusual in the Victorians hierarchy style class structure. Willie would probably think at this point that he has done something wrong as workman where expected to stay in the workshop. The stage directions say that he stops halfway up the stairs meaning Maggie would be looking down on him as if to tell him off. Maggie then gives him another order Come up, and put the trapdoor down this again shows Maggies dominance this would come through on stage. The stage directions then say He (Willie) comes reluctantly Willie would be thinking the worst at the moment the actor would show this with body language and facial expressions. Willie trys to make an excuse to leave were very busy in the cellar Maggie doesnt say anything she just points at the trap, Willie closes it. This shows although not conventional in Victorian society Willie is used to taking orders from a woman. Show me your hands is Maggies next request/order. He makes an excuse, their Dirty, but still complies as if he cant deny Maggies order. Willie is still very nervous Maggie would be able to see this but has yet done nothing to reassure him showing that Maggie enjoys having power over Willie. Maggie then pays him a complement yes there dirty but there clever they can shape leather like no other mans that came into this shop. She asks him where he learnt his trade, here he replies, she refuses his answer saying, Hobsons never taught you to make boots the way you do Willie insists his answer is true. Maggie gives him another compliment youre a natural born genius at making boots but then insults him its a pity youre a natural fool at all else this might be because she finds it hard for herself to compliment someone who she might see as below her. Willie is starting to feel a bit more confident that hes not in trouble but then Maggie asks him when he gonna leave Hobsons? Willie must now think hes got the sack this would show on stage as he stutters out leave Hobsons I I thought I gave satisfaction Maggie doesnt answer his question but throws another question back at him another proof that she enjoys the power balance between her and Willie. Willie says he is not leaving Hobsons until he is rich Maggie again calls him a fool but Willie replies with then Im a loyal fool showing that loyalty is important to Willie.

Nature, the Environment and their Uses in Art

Nature, the Environment and their Uses in Art â€Å"I name that man an artist who creates forms†¦ I call that man a craftsman who reproduces forms.† Malraux is talking about artists and craftsmen, but might as well be talking about artists and designers. The audacity of the lowly â€Å"reproducers† was penalised by the iconoclasts, and perhaps we harbour the same fundamental suspicions about designers, people paid to build and sell us dreams just as frequently as they build and sell us houses. Yet it strikes me that there are two ways of dodging the suspicions of the public- the use of the imagination, and the use of Nature. If the two can be happily married then this superior union ought to germinate a magic all its own. â€Å"Moreover, a taste, not to say a passion, for building must be engrained in the child. Mechanical toys and mechanised entertainment kill his imagination and initiative; the feat of putting building blocks on top of each other hardly taxes the brain of a monkey† So the designer presents himself as a kind of sub-originator, and defers his symbolism to the greater origin. There is an individual and a more cosmic interest at work at the same time. The artist grows like a tree, developing, spreading, the ideas rising from the mysterious soils and falling like leaves. But the broader picture, a fluxing creative rhythm bridged by moments in time, demands a grander theory of unification. Nature is as synonymous with decay as it is with growth. The ephemera of modern life is as temporary, inevitable, immediate, as nature itself. Our cities have become sort of flaking, dying, layered forests, with their own dangers and rhythms of life and death. Everywhere we find reminders of our own impact on our surroundings- it is human nature, we cant help trying to clothe our hairless bodies and modify everything around us to make our lives more comfortable. But for some this seems to be a source of almost biblical guilt, and people go to extraordinary lengths, for their own reasons, to cover their tracks and paint their human presence out of the landscape altogether. Hundertwassers house in Vienna , and his designs for the â€Å"Eye Slit house† spring immediately to mind. Are we guilty enough to try to make our impact completely invisible? There can be no contention over the point that man has a negative impact on his environment and it may be that one solution is hiding mans impact altogether, (to enfold ourselves in natures arms, camouflaging ourselves in Her) while another might be to try to disguise our impact by turning our constructions into impersonations of Her. Is this really any different to the fearful icon building of ancient times, and do the â€Å"uglier†, modernist, construction-stating buildings represent a sort of iconoclasm- a return to buildings being made for human functionality rather than as a fearful acknowledgement of natures power as a constructor? Most of the architectural structures which are intended to resemble nature draw attention to the similarities between buildings and plants. Both are subject to a functional rhythm, both have access points, layers, a projectile dynamic- in other words, a sense of growth and promise. Yet plants are transcient, not concrete: they grow and bloom and fade and die, like people. They nourish and protect and reproduce and crumble away. The contrast with sturdy, permanent building materials used for, say, gothic cathedrals, Romanesque churches, the Eden Project, the Golden Gate Bridge, presents a sense of wonder and beauty in itself. Because plants are not like buildings. Buildings are sturdy and static and monumental. It is a fantastic thing to see a grand self-generating plant-beast made of concrete, it is alien and dreamlike and mesmerising but it is all these things because it is impossible. It enchants us because its beauty comes from a faraway, magical land, not from a world we know ab out but from one we would like to know- one in our dreams. Designs based on nature not only solve our problems, sate our yearnings and answer our questions, they also create new problems, new yearnings, and new questions. 1) Ecology since the 17th Century: historical relationships with Nature In the preface to â€Å"The Origins of form in Art†, Herbert Read references Henri Focillon, who suggested that life itself is a creator of forms, that theres no real distinction between art and life: â€Å"Life is form, and form is the modality of life. The relationships that bind forms together in nature cannot be pure chance, and what we call â€Å"Natural Life† is in effect a relationship between forms, so inexorable that without it this natural life could not exist. So it is with art†¦constitute an order for, and metaphor of, the entire universe.† Nature is uncontrollable and unpredictable- it is an ancient metaphor for uncontrollable intervention and for everything we cant accurately forecast. There is even an ancient Japanese treatise on archery which details the way in which the hardest part of the entire sport is waiting for the natural release of the string- a moment of serenity and detachment; total absence of striving. The flow of inspiration to the artist is analogous to this although it is unclear whether the creators inspiration rises from this or rises like it. Theorists have long been aware of this ambiguity and have thematised it themselves. Michael Fried interprets the woods, rocks and glens in Courbets paintings as faces or symbols or metaphors. Christopher Wood finds terrifying anthropomorphised trees looming over the subjects of Altdorfers exquisite scenes. The point is that those people who look at art, who are also interested in using it as an expression of themselves, consistently seek reflection in the pools provided by nature, natural imagery provides the perfect apparatus, somehow, for the admirer of human creativity to integrate the object into their own field of experience. When Paul Klee wrote that â€Å"The creation of a work of art is compared to the growth of a tree- its roots in the earth, crown in the air.† he is presenting an image of flow, as if an artist stands near the tree to allow the sap to rush in. This flow, though, occurs without conscious effort and the artist, crucially, experiences a transformation. â€Å" The idea that art is not a mirrored reflection of a given reality, but also a transformation of one element (which has its roots underground, in the unconscious) into another (made conscious in time and space). The artist is merely a channel whose function it is to transmit the forces of nature into forms of art.† Vivantes assessment that â€Å"art, far from being non-conscious, is a conquest of consciousness† is revealing, but wisely countered by Read, â€Å"Admittedly, the artists themselves may not always know when they are merely exploiting the unconscious, rather than â€Å"letting loose the riot of tender shoots†Ã¢â‚¬  As nature and art are so closely related, almost counter intuitively, so words and nature and words and art, are sometimes indistinguishable. All are concerned with abstraction, with roots, with origins, â€Å"we establish†¦our sense of reality by creating, for each experience, a clear and appropriate symbol- vocal sounds which were eventually stabilized as words. Every words was once an original work of art.† Whenever anything becomes too prevalent, too integrated into our consumer vocabulary, we scarcely notice it anymore and it loses its impact. In becoming part of our environment, ourselves, the clichà © ceases to become something desirous to us. Designed solutions respond to an expression of specific desire or need, and so become a meta expression of the same need. While design solutions sate specific hungers, art is an expression, and not even necessarily a resolution of, thematic desires. Poetry and the visual arts dance around the clichà © while occasionally retaining originality (Poussins Dance to the Music of Time is a delightfully literal example of this)- art finds a janus-faced simultaneity, a place for both the clichà © of nature and the pure artistic drive of â€Å"artisticness†. Design, however, is trapped in the problem solving one-dimensional rationality of the prevailing zeitgeist. Perhaps nature is a way of side-stepping the clichà ©, but it can also present itself, maddeningly indistinguishably, as the alluring siren. Maybe there is a link between the mechanised production of imagery and forms and the predominance of natural imagery in the products and lifestyles consumed by people nowadays. There could well be a relationship, yet unexplored, between the unnatural production of natural images and the homogeneity of the images themselves. If the origins are authentic and essential then we should expect products to be more persuasive, more reflective of their origins, more transparent. Mechanisation has allowed for imagery to â€Å"ride the zeitgeist† and generate a new kind of language of â€Å"natural† iconography- perhaps where once there was religious iconography. In Poussins Dance to the Music of Time we find Arcadia, the natural utopia, being equated to male/female synthesis, and then, on another level, the gender synthesis standing for a synthesis of heaven and earth in the familiar conceit of rhythm. In Peter Blakes extraordinary work, The Arcadian Cipher pentagram shapes are located everywhere as a kind of unification symbol: Blake is anxious to synthesise traditionally opposing forces, and make sense of illogical harmonies through the imposition (or uncovering, in his terms) of this particular hypograph. His choice of symbol is less important than his- and other academic semiosticians impulse towards holism. I have already suggested that artists are involved in a janus headed effort: always trying to channel pure nature and represent her in a familiar language- to experience and the represent the clichà © at once. Blakes assessment of the Dance describes the duplicity: â€Å"For where the other two pentagrams represent the Jesus figure and Pan, this definitely connects them with a female element. Through it we are able to establish a male/female partnership both in heaven and on Earth and between heaven and Earth, and it is one which symbolises the poles upon which the Earth spins. The painting depicts Hermes playing his lyre – music was his method of communication between two worlds- and a group of earthly figures dancing to his celestial tune. On the left hand side of the work is a column on which is mounted a carving†¦of two heads facing away from each other.† Theory of this sort, while certainly in constant danger of toppling into quasi-science, superbly exemplifies the inextricability of Nature and Geometry. Theories of Arcadia are saturated with geometric semiotics; art writers constantly trace and re-trace paintings, covering them in layers and layers of â€Å"mathematical† justification. Whether any of these theories have any real use or even make any sense outside of their own self-imposed rules is not my point. I am interested in the relationship between the powers of nature and the powers of men, the irresistible urge to explain the mysteries of nature, her circadian rhythms, her life giving and life stealing properties, her silent chthonic swell and the threat and awe experienced by the bewildered humans that observe her. As one of the most evocative and symbolically potent plants on the planet, the cactus has played many roles in South American tradition and folklore. As with any hostile climate, indigenous species that seem to offer solace will inevitably acquire mystical significance as the protection they offer is associated with promise. To the parched population of parched landscapes, cacti are life-giving, life-saving, surprising, mysterious, frightening- divine. Cacti started off on American continents, and are still most associated with these places- but they have experienced a massive geographical distribution over the centuries, and cacti have been able to instigate habitats around the world. One rumour says that Christopher Columbus was the first person to have taken the first cactus to Europe, presenting this peculiar plant to Queen Isabella of Spain, however this is of course apocryphal. During their explorations on the American continents, the Spanish Conquistadors found, among many other things, these strange vision inducing plants that were utilised ceremonially by the natives as a religious sacrament and was revered as virtual gods. The native South American name for their spineless dense-shaped cactus (Lophophora Williamsii) was peyoti. It is a plant native to Mexican and south west US with button like tubercles which may be eaten fresh or dried as a narcotic. Initially, Cacti (peyoti) were employed for healing purposes, for attempting to divine the future and for generating hallucinogenic visions during scared rites. Although these hallucinations often appear to be compared to LSD trips, the peyote â€Å"acid† is 4000 times less potent, only briefly affecting the chemical balance and activity of the brain. The Spanish chronicler, Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, claimed that natives used a certain plant to induce hallucinatory state and estimated that peyote was widely used at least 1890 years before the arrival of Europeans. The earliest European record dates from around 1635 with the first column of Historia de las Indias Occidentales by Gonzalo Hernandez de Oviedo y Valdes appeared with illustrations of what we would now classify as Cereus and Opuntia. In 1886 that the German pharmacologist, Louis Lewin, published the first systematic study of the cactus, to which his own name was subsequently given- Anhalonium lewinii. The cactus was already well known and loved by primitive religions and the Indians of Mexico and the American Southwest. One of the early Spanish visitors to the New World wrote, they eat a root which they call peyote, and which they venerate as though it were a deity. It became clear why this plant was venerated as a god, when such eminent psychologists as Jaensch, Havelock Ellis and Weir Mitchell began their experiments with mescalin, the active principle of peyote. Mescalin research has continued, and now chemists have not only isolated the alkaloid; they have learned how to synthesize it, so that the supply no longer depends on the sparse and infrequent crop of desert cacti. Neurologists and physiologists have spent years investigating the mechanism of mescalins action upon the central nervous system, and at everyone from philosophers to writers- notably Aldous Huxley- have taken mescalin in the hope that this mystical cactus extract may shed some light on such ancient, unsolved riddles as the place of mind in nature and the relationship between brain and consciousness. It is surely no coincidence that the peyote cactus, so ubiquitous, so loved and feared, is also identified as the solution to ancient problems of human displacement. We identify with the cactus perhaps. It projects intelligently, like an alien from the sand, while we wonder how we are supposed to best relate to our surroundings. When we look at the cactus we see ourselves done better. If anything on the planet holds the key to mans reconciliation with his estranged mother nature, it is surely the cactus. It is too alien to be part of our problem, we reason, so it must be part of the solution. 2) Taoism and Nature â€Å"Humans model themselves on earth, Earth on heaven, Heaven on the Way, And the way on that which is naturally so.† Lao Tse Daodejing (Tao te ching) #251 This simple but sententious dictum was delivered by an Chinese ancient sage, Lao Tse, the founder of Taoism. The saying suggests a means of building a harmonious relationship between beings and nature. Taoist ideas about conservation and ecology, with nature as the inspiration and conclusion to all things, reflect and resemble new philosophies of industrial design, to some extent. Alongside Buddhism and Confucianism, Taoism is one of the three great religions of China. It can be roughly translated into English as â€Å"path†, or â€Å"the way†- that is, the way of correspondence between man and nature, and the way that is a kind of path of nature the course of natural world. The term Tao describes a power that envelops and flows through all things, both living and nonliving. As such, it serves to regulate natural processes and encourage a cosmic balance of all things in the Universe. Tao suggests that the answers to lifes problems can be found through inner meditation and outer observation. Taoist ideas and images may have nurtured or inspired a love of nature in the Chinese, so that they have traditional felt a need to protect it, and have had many ways of cultivating an affinity with it. The Chinese have always seen nature as a companion, a place of security and support to which they could retreat from the cares of the world to rest or heal themselves. Nature, through Tao, is also sincerely life-affirming. Nature can be unfathomably brutal and Tao constantly reminds that the external world is explicitly on-ideal: in fact, according to Tao, the ideal world can only be found through a spiritual path. The only thing that might compromise ones eternal happiness, in Tao as in Buddhism, was a state of mind, an attitude. Both Tao and Nature are associated with a non-materialistic attitude to life, a spiritual approach to living which many perceive as a possible answer to the social issues of today: the problems of sustaining a unified and healthy social order. Taoists believe their religion holds the answers, as it advises its followers to emulate nature, with its simplicity and relaxed, non-intellectual approach to life. Tao seems to suggest that many of the environmental problems of today have arisen from a materialistic human attitude that has overwhelmed mans spiritual relationship with his natural environment. Rather than coexisting with our living space, people have begun challenging it, and it has even become a respectable achievement to be seen to â€Å"conquer† nature. An estimated 42 million acres of tropical rainforest are destroyed annually, an area the size of Washington State. Around 50,000 species of plants and animals are condemned to extinction every year, an average of about 140 species a day. There are more people than ever, and these people routinely pillage resources, destroy or change natural processes arbitrarily and are support the production of thousands of products that lead towards the destructive path of the environment – contradicting the Taoist path. Increasingly materialist in their lifestyles, most people believe that only matter exists, leaving no room for spiritual beliefs. Our quest for pleasure corresponds to a demand placed on the Earth for immediate gain. The visible world takes precedence over any spiritual or psychological activities and ultimately a form of materialism becomes the only truth and belief. Natures force is unknowable in its essence but observable in its manifestations. With the crisis of energy a nd resources, the crisis of ecology and environment, the crisis of belief and mortality we experience force in the form of natures lamenting reactions. We believe in the formless and eternal Tao, and we recognize all personified deities as being mere human constructs. We reject hatred, intolerance, and unnecessary violence, and embrace harmony, love and learning, as we are taught by Nature. We place our trust and our lives in the Tao, which we may live in peace and balance with the Universe, both in this mortal life and beyond. Creed of the Western Reform Taoist Congregation The recent revival of instinctive desires preserve the health of our planets life without compromising human comfort is the task of ecological attitudes in art and design. Those ecological design solutions that take on board Taoist philosophies link nature, culture, and technology to resituate social human requirements in an environment where the balance of nature receives precedence. Artists and designers must of course work within the constraints imposed by their clients, including the practical and material demands made by every stage of production. Classical Taoist philosophy, formulated in part by Laozi (the Old Master, 5th century B.C.), in part by the editor of the Daodejing (Classic of the Way and its Power), and in part by Zhuangzi (3rd century B.C.), represented a reinterpretation and development of an ancient nameless tradition of nature worship and divination. Laozi and Zhuangzi, living at a time of social disorder and great religious skepticism developed the notion of the Dao (Tao way, or path) as the origin of all creation and the force unknowable in its essence but observable in its manifestation that underlies the mechanisms of the natural world. These men saw in Dao, Nature, and in Nature, Dao. In both these Ways lay the secret to harmonious living. According to these early teachers, the order and harmony of nature was a model for human structures, so much more stable and enduring than either the power of the state or the civilized institutions constructed by human learning. The early Taoists taught the art of li ving and surviving by conforming with the natural way of things; they called their approach to action wuwei (wu-wei lit. no-action), action modelled on nature. As one writer explains, â€Å"Their sages were wise, but not in the way the Confucian teacher was wise, learned and a moral paragon. Zhuangzis sages were often artisans, butchers or woodcarvers. The lowly artisans understood the secret of art and the art of living. To be skillful and creative, they had to have inner spiritual concentration and put aside concern with externals, such as monetary rewards, fame, and praise. Art, like life, followed the creative path of nature, not the values of human society.† Chinese history is dense with stories of people who have grown tired of the pretensions and desperation of social activism increasingly aware of the fragility of human achievements, and whose response has been to retire from the world and turn to nature. Such people have traditionally retreated to a countryside or mountain setting to commune with natural beauty, often composing poetry about nature , or painting interpretations of the scenes surrounding them, as they attempted to capture the creative forces at the heart of Natures vitality. Such people might share their excursions with friends or family, drinking a bite of wine, enjoying the autumn leaves or the evening skies. The literature of Chinese utopians often had a Taoist slant: Tao Qians famous Peach Blossom Spring told of a fisherman who happened across an idyllic Chinese community who had fled a war-torn land centuries earlier, and lived in perfect simplicity and harmony ever since, blissfully oblivious to the turmoil of history beyond their idyll. While the inhabitants urged him to stay, the fisherman departed and shared his discovery with a local official. However hard he tried, he never found a path back to the grove. The fisherman never found a route back because he had failed to understand that he had discovered an abstracted, ideal, world – and one which was to be found not via an external path, but a spiritual one. The utopia was a state of mind, a unique attitude. Laozi and Zhuangzi had reinterpreted nature worship and belief in esoteric â€Å"magical† arts as something both more abstract and more tangible, but the ancient methods and beliefs crept back into the tradition as ways of using knowledge of the Dao to enhance and prolong life. Despite its pragmatism, for some Taoism would always go hand in hand with magical belief. Some Taoists poured their energies into a search for isles of the immortals, or for herbs that could unlock the secrets of immortal life. Many Taoists were interested in health and carried out many studies of herbal medicine and pharmacology, in fact entailing significant advancements in these arts. Taoists even worked out the principles of macrobiotic cooking and other supposedly new and healthy diets. Sensitive to natural processes, they recorded gymnastic mechanisms and studied the effects of massage on keeping the body strong and youthful. Taoists were, then, both magicians and of proto-scientists: they represented the sector of Chinese culture that most closely studied and communed with nature. Some Taoists held that nature was filled with spirits however, theosophically, such spirits were simply many manifestations of the one Dao, something impossible to represent as a single image or in one discreet form. â€Å"The Tao of Heaven operates mysteriously and secretly ; it has no fixed shape; it follows no definite rules; it is so great that you can never come to the end of it, it is so deep that you can never fathom it.† The Huai Nau Tzu The central theme of Taoism is a relationship, and as such contradicts the general western attitude to nature. Nature should not be considered as something passive, awaiting mans masterful control, but as an equal or even superior partner be mastered in a relationship. The aim of the Taiost is to rediscover and eventually merge with the ordered origin of the universe and the only way to do so is the Tao – the path shown to us by nature. Early Taoist philosophers set out from their civilised worlds to take expeditions into the natural world, where they hoped to learn from primitive people living in remote mountain villages. Initially they aimed to introduce the benefits of human civilization to the mysteriously rhythmed order of nature. According to the Tao, nature is â€Å"infinitely wise, infinitely complex, and infinitely irrational. One must take a yielding stance and abandon all intellectual preconceptions. The goal is wu wei, doing nothing contrary to nature. Nature does not need to be perfected or improved. It is we who need to change; we need to come into accord.† Contrary to one possible interpretation of Yin/Yang, Taoists rejected all dichotomies, including the fundamental existence/non existence one, since it is their belief that both stem from the same source, â€Å"Athe deep and the profound. Rather, Taoisms goal is to use consciousness of duality and wisdom about it to reach the stage before any dualities existed. There is only one path to this source, then – the observation of nature. As one writer explains, â€Å"The Tao is a divine chaos, not a random accident. It is fertile, undifferentiated, and teeming with unrealized creation. It is the mother of everything in nature; it is a great darkness that operates spontaneously to give birth and life to all things.† 3) Ecological thinking in contemporary art and design Are we really moving towards a common lexicon of human creation and natural creation? Alan Power cites Steiners â€Å"startling prediction†, â€Å" Buildings will begin to speak. They will speak a language of which people have as yet not even an inkling,† Yet I wonder how startling this really is. Buildings are indeed more â€Å"scientific†, more complex with less obvious evidence of human intervention. Many buildings nowadays appear to have been designed and built by aliens, no longer made to be lived in but impenetrable to our rational human minds. Again, they resemble complex organisms in their initially baffling structure, their illogical shapes and apparent preference of shape and form to practicality. But they are still made by humans, albeit humans employing a dozen layers of technology to translate abstract geometry into audaciously confusing formulae. They are still constructed by and for humans to use, and to that extent are utterly comprehensible, at least to the humans that use them. Where there is room for gratuitous aesthetic treatment in a design, designers, consciously or not, grasp the zeitgeist, construct from fashionable and available materials, and exploit their artistic freedom as far as their unconscious n otions of the â€Å"aesthetic† will allow them to. These notions, I am attempting to argue, are controlled by biologically ingrained forms of the organic. It doesnt matter if a building is technically accomplished to exhibit skeletal forms, as with the giant domes of the Eden Complex in Cornwall, the Brooklyn Bridge in New York and the Mildred Cooper chapel in Arkansas or swollen like the pregnant belly of the Guggenheim, NY . Nature can be found in all design, both rational and irrational, and the more we try to escape it, to avoid mimicking it, the more we are forced to study its base rules, its gravity and its ebb and flow, the tensile strength of its spider-webs, the effects of its uncontrollable eruptions and tidal waves and tornados. Nature is absolutely full of potential metaphors for ways in which we can improve our lives. Today, apple peels are being used by scientists at the University of Clemson as a metaphor for edible packages disolvable pouches like boil in the bags that add protein to a macaroni and cheese dinner, or packages that act as a booster for laundry detergent. Theres certainly a human instinct to perceive products inspired in obvious ways by nature, as being somehow â€Å"good† for us, or â€Å"good† in a moral sense. Of course, human instincts are not to be trusted blindly, and it doesnt follow that because a kind of packaging is inspired by an apple core it is environmentally friendly, inspirational, beautiful, or better for us or the world. But I suppose it has a slightly higher chance of being one or more of these things, our instincts are not too wide of the mark and do control the things we want to buy and sell. A study entitled â€Å"Trees in Small City Business Districts: Comparing Responses of Residents Potential Visitors† begins, â€Å"This study tested whether public response to trees in the downtown business districts of smaller cities is comparable. Research methods included interviews and mail-out surveys. Survey respondents prefer having large trees in retail streetscapes. Trees are also associated with reported increases in patronage behavior (such as travel distance and visit frequency), and willingness to pay more for products. Few differences in response were detected between small city residents and potential visitors who reside in large cities.† What is it about natural organisms that make us want to part with our money? Marketing strategies state such things as fact, using careful example to â€Å"prove† what we â€Å"intuitively† want to believe is true that â€Å"good product and package designers have known for centuries- that the best inspiration for new products comes from nature. The camera mimics the human eye. Helicopters, like hummingbirds, can hover and fly backwards. Velcro brand fasteners were inspired by prickily burrs attached to a Scottish inventors boot.† They get away with this because nature is, and has always been, such an alien force to us humans, as we have seen. Like an alien from another planets, we hope it will be benevolent and, through its own irrepressible character, its mysterious and enviable immortality, hold the secrets to our own improved lifestyles and lifespans. Of course our relationship with nature has changed slightly as we have changed, as a race, but our view of H er remains essentially the same as ever. We still need to imitate and control what we see outside us, in the hope that we can sypher off a little of the magic and mystery for ourselves. In the developed world these harmless, yet irrepressible rhythms are increasingly invisible. It is possible to spend months in a city dwelling, never seeing a dead animal, a nesting bird, a tree in blossom. Nature has become more promising, more mysterious, more magical, and more frightening through its real invisibility, but nature is not wilfully elusive or coy, this is an invisibility we that have imposed. Inevitably, the packages and products that are environmentally superior that are kind to nature also resemble it: they might be inherently efficient, easily recycable, and often they use recycled materials made from renewable resources. One organisation creating such products, back in their 1990s heyday, was â€Å"Zerosm†, and they identified several techniques fo

surgeon general :: essays research papers

There are many leaders in the United States today. These men and women help to form the nation into what it is today and what it will be in the future. One of these important leaders of the United States is the Surgeon General. The Surgeon General has many responsibilities and priorities that form our nation’s Public Health System. These responsibilities and priorities of the Surgeon General will be explained throughout this paper.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  According to the Reader’s Digest Encyclopedia the Surgeon General is the chief medical officer for the United States Public Health System. This means that since 1871 the Surgeon General has been the nation’s leading spokesman on matters of public health. The first person to hold the position of Surgeon General was Dr. John Woodworth. Dr. Woodworth put together a group of physicians to assist him with health issues. The Congress recognized these men and women as the Commissioned Corps.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Over the years the position of Surgeon General has changed in many ways. In 1873 the official title of the Surgeon General was changed to Supervising Surgeon General and then back to just Surgeon General in 1902. According to Funk and Wagnall’s New Encyclopedia the Surgeon General was the head of the Public Health System and reported directly to the Secretary of Health. After 1968 the Surgeon General reported to the Assistant Secretary of Health.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The current Surgeon General for the United States is Dr. David Satcher. He was born in Anniston, Alabama on March second 1941. Dr. Satcher, his wife Nola, and his four children live in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Satcher received his M.D. and PhD from Case Western Reserve University in 1970. Dr. Satcher is the sixteenth Surgeon General and also the first African American man to hold this position. Fourteen men and two women have held the position since it originated in 1871. Dr. Satcher was sworn in on February thirteenth 1998 and his term will end in February 2002. He also held the position of Secretary of Health from February 1998 to January 2001. He was also the Surgeon General at this time. According to the Official Surgeon General website, Dr. Satcher has many jobs and responsibilities. First off his job is to administer the U.S. Public Health System. This is a group of public health professionals who respond to current and long-term health needs of the Nation. Dr. Satcher also provides leadership and management to the Public Health Service in the field of emergency preparedness and response activities.

Childbirth and Different Bursting Emotions

The miracle of life is the single most experience that every woman will remember in her lifetime. Almost every detail of the whole process can be definitely recalled by the mother, no matter how long it had happened. Every woman may have their own unique story of the parturition in every child she may have. But one thing is for sure, this amazing event is life changing, both an ending and a beginning. It marks the impending end of gestation and the start of a new family structure. The labor process is a time of different bursting emotions. There is the excitement of seeing the baby for the first time; fear of what might occur during the culmination of pregnancy and the unforgettable, excruciating, agonizing pain of contractions. The transition of events is very hard, long and rewarding all at the same time. Giving birth has been divided into three stages. The first stage of dilatation is the beginning of true labor contractions and ending when cervix becomes fully dilated. The progress and length of this stage varies from every woman to another. But definitely, the pain goes incredible as the contractions started coming closer and closer together. The mother may experience feelings of helplessness, restless, irritable, anxious and even out of control as contractions become stronger. The second stage is from descent to the birth of the newborn. This is the bittersweet part from the entire horrible aches that had transpired. This is the long awaited moment when you finally meet the precious one, actually touching his or her tiny hands and giving her warmth with your own bosom. I would like compare this journey into zealously unwrapping a huge special package that no matter how you have known what is inside of the gift; one will still be caught in awe upon laying eyes of the presence. The feeling is better than receiving that first I love you from someone you fell in love with. Lastly, from the time the baby is born until following the delivery of the placenta. There will be a sudden gush of blood. The placenta separates first at edge and delivers with maternal surface evidence. Now, the roller coaster drive of pregnancy ends. Labor normally launch when a fetus is sufficiently mature to cope with extra uterine life, yet not too large to cause mechanical difficulties in delivery. In some instances, labor initiates before the fetus is mature. On the other hand, labor may be delayed until the fetus and the placenta have both passed beyond the optimum point for birth and this is now termed post mature birth. In fact, some women need to be induced with medications to start or hasten labor. If all interventions fail, the mother must deliver her child without expulsion and must immediately need to submit to cesarean section, or surgical removal of a child, instead of having the baby pass through the birth canal. In summary, it can be said that while there is a general expected trend in the way each child birth will go, there is really no predicting the outcome for each individual mom. In fact, the only predictable factor of parturition may be variance. Inevitably, even how thoroughly science can explain the process of pregnancy until the expulsion of the newborn; it always feels surreal and marvelous how a person can bestow another life from her.

Do you belive that Opedius is essays

Do you belive that Opedius is essays Pier Paolo Pasolini created a film based on the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. This film is considered one of the finest renderings of a classical Greek subject that the cinema has ever produced. Pasolini has in this film rearranged the flow of events, so that they follow the chronological order. The story starts with the shepherd carrying a child to the desert, while in the original myth from Sophocles the point of departure is different; the messenger come to ask Oedipus for help in saving the dying city. Furthermore Pasolini adds a modern prologue and epilogue, which are brilliantly lyrical and charged with great intensity of personal feeling. Pasolinis Oedipus Rex may be taken to be as much about Pasolini himself as about Sophocles hero. According to Pasolini this film is the most autobiographical of all his creation. One of Pasolinis claims about his film was that the little boy of the prologue is himself, the boys father is his father, and the mother is his own mother. Oedipus is born into circumstances of Pasolinis childhood, with his parents clothes in the film inspired by photographs of Pasolinis parents. Pasolini tried to create his own form of Oedipus; he wanted to avoid any connections that the audience could make with the original story. For this reason the location where the story was filmed was moved from Greece to Morocco. In portraying Oedipus, Pasolini had made some insertions into the story. Somewhere at the beginning of the story line he presents Oedipus at the age of 20 throwing discus at the competition and what was significant about this event was the cheating of Oedipus. This fact might suggest to us that Pasolini didnt think that Oedipus is a completely innocent, but.... Oedipus is allowed to kill in the film by Pasolini, in order to defend his pride, but is the killing the act of the innocent person or does Pasolini ...

Constructivism in Learning and Teaching

Constructivism in Learning and Teaching Constructivism is a system of learning where the students do not just passively absorb information. Educational experts were concerned with what was going on in the mind of the student. There is active participation from the students. They are taught to relate the knowledge they are being given by the teachers and relating it to their experiences in life.Advertising We will write a custom article sample on Constructivism in Learning and Teaching specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This approach in education is important as it teaches the students to be critical thinkers. They become active and motivated in the classroom. Students learn to construct their own understanding of the learning material or literature. The students become autonomous and independent thinkers. With this approach in learning the students learn to engage more in problem solving and stop being passive. The skill of problem-solving is important and even assists the st udent in his adult life. It is a skill for life and that is what education should be. The student develops in his mental processes. It is a process of discovery for the student as he experiments with ideas at problem solving and getting solutions for the issues in his environment. The theory of constructivism learning is based on several concepts. Learning for the student will depend on what he or she already knows or has experienced. In the area of literature, students are motivated to relate the story or characters to what they already know or what they have experienced. Secondly, learning should be about the students inventing ideas concerning the learning materials. It may involve students analysing their old ideas in light of the learning materials and changing their old news to conform to what they are learning. When a student encounters information that is contrary to their way of thinking, then he finds himself at a state of disequilibrium. The student therefore has to chang e or alter his way of thinking in order to attain equilibrium. The whole process therefore is about inventing ideas instead of the student just accumulating facts and information. It is therefore a student centred class where the teachers facilitate the process of students hypothesize, predict, pose questions, research and invent (Collins, 2008). Students look at the world under the influence of their experiences and social interactions. Whenever a new experience is encountered the student tends to analyse the old experiences and the new experience. The student therefore tends to really consider prior experiences. If this is the way that people behave, then the educational approach in the classroom should take advantage and use an approach that helps the student enjoy learning.Advertising Looking for article on education? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The teacher therefore is a facilitator who has to know the inter actions between the students and their external environments. The student is shown which interactions with his environment will provide an opportunity for growth and is actually healthy (Huang, 2002) The teacher in the constructivist classroom has to possess certain qualities. He should be highly flexible and creative as he interacts with the students. The teacher is trained on how different students use their own experiences, prior knowledge and experience to construct meaning. When it comes to literature, there can be no single interpretation of a piece of reading. There are several and different interpretations and all of them may be correct. The teacher’s interpretation is not always the only correct way of perception. At the end of the day, it is a highly democratic environment where the students and teachers are able to interact and participate in the learning process. References Collins, R. (2008). Enhanced Student Learning Through Applied Constructivist Theory. Transf ormative Dialogues: Teaching Learning Journal, 2(2). Web. Huang, H. (2002) Toward constructivism for adult learners in Online learning environments. British Journal of Educational Technology.,33 (1)27-37. Web.