Thursday, October 31, 2019

Any bisiness artical that has been new nd happened for the last few Essay

Any bisiness artical that has been new nd happened for the last few months - Essay Example All factors of production in the business, may it be, labor, capital, raw materials or enterprise works towards achieving a common goal that is set for the company, and all activities carried out within the business are supposed to lead the company towards achieving its ultimate goal (Nolan, pp.148-152). Businesses additionally are run in a systematic manner, involve various processes, and have a number of rules and regulations that must be followed by those involved in it. One can observe additionally a number of departments in every business that manages various activities, such as the marketing department, finance department, promotion and advertising department, customer care department, etc (Nolan, pp. 20-39). A number of external and internal factors, which may include inflation rates, interest rates, and the exchange rate of a country’s currency can also influence every business and various skills are required in order to run a business smoothly and successfully along w ith achieving its objectives. Recently, due to the earthquake in Japan, which was followed by a tsunami, many changes have occurred in a number of businesses in the country. In an article by Alex Taylor (2011), found on the CNN website, the author (Taylor, 2011) talks about how Japan’s auto making industry is down but not out. He states that the two natural disasters that recently occurred will surely cause various shortages in the industry, but as noted before, Japanese automakers have the power to find their way out of catastrophes successfully. The author (Taylor, 2011) further states in his article that a Toyota representative had reported that no deaths or injuries have been under notice in the Toyota parts plants and subsidiaries, but the plants have surely suffered damage. According to Alex (Taylor, 2011), Toyota plans to keep its 12 main assembly plants in the country closed until Tuesday and the company’s representative stated that this might cause Toyota to l ose 95,000 units of cars that could have been under production. Due to this, Toyota reduced acceleration of the process of production in North America in order to conserve parts (Gholz, pp. 26-30). Japan’s auto making industry (Shimokawa, pp. 56-64) is currently trying to recover and resist from coming to an end, while people in the country are busy burying the dead, rescuing and curing the living citizens and dealing with the aftermath of the great disaster. Korea’s Tong Yang Securities states that production in the industry will surely not be able to come back to normal very soon, even though security analysts are quite busy doing their job and evaluating the results of the major catastrophe. Statistics (Taylor, 2011) included in the report show that in six months after the earthquake that occurred in January 1995, â€Å"shares of Toyota, Honda, and Nissan dropped by 22%, 35%, and 40% respectively† (Taylor, 2011), and it took the companies around one month abo ve a year to recover from the massive destruction and loss caused by the earthquake. At that time, Honda and Mazda, both halted the production of their vehicles and parts for the rest of the week after the disaster, and there was a loss of production of about 36,700 vehicles a day (Taylor, 2011) globally. The author of the article (Taylor, 2011) fu

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Strategic management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Strategic management - Essay Example Thus, it has become imperative for airliners to re-engineer their operations to fit the requirements of strategies like low-cost and differentiation. According to the Porter’s five forces model, the industry situation has led to a decline in the attractiveness of the industry for new entrants. These new entrants would come up with some sort of an edge to beat the entrenched airlines of the industry. The industry is also overseeing a period in which the bargaining power of suppliers and customers both are high. Customers are demanding additional benefits at low cost, whereas suppliers like Oil companies are seeking high prices for fuel. The dynamics of the industry are such that the rivalry amongst competitors is high. Since the customer base has shrink as a result of the world recession, therefore airlines are competing to attract customers towards them by offering differentiated services. Moreover, recent investment by the government on the infrastructure of railways and road network has lead to a situation in which threat of substitute is high for this industry. The results of these two strategic analysis tools show that the airline industry is overseeing a period of unprecedented level of competition and operating environment. Therefore, each airliner needs to come up with operational excellence that allows it to run low cost operations, which has become imperative for the industry participants. How the Airlines are maintaining low cost operations: Airlines, which have adopted a low cost operational mode, have been very stringent when it comes to spending their resources. They have expanded their operations in to new regions only when they were confident that they had the resource to support this initiative. These carriers never go into a head-to-head battle with long distance carriers. Moreover, these airlines try to keep their debt position very strong by not taking too much debt to fund their fleet operations. These airlines have designed an operat ional method that allows them to be short haul, high frequency, and low fare and point-point carriers. In addition, these air carriers have identified a market niche that is a best fit to their style of operations, which enables these airlines to serve them efficiently and economically. Most importantly, these airlines have ripped away the costs associated with extravagant customer servicing. Such costs are associated with frills, lunch and ticketing material. All such costs have been taken away from the operations of these airlines. Conclusion: Harsh economic conditions coupled by rising cost of fuel have made it imperative upon airlines to streamline their operations. Airlines have to come up with a cost structure that is effective and efficient. This cost structure should be incorporated in the operational design of these airlines so that the airline can generate profits from its operations. In this regards many airlines have adopted a low cost strategy under which they have take n certain actions that have been discussed above. Strategic Evaluation of the Strategic Options for Future Growth for the EAI Companies: Recent economic crisis have led airliners in a messy situation. These airliners are now facing a situation in which they have revenues declining at an exponential rate. Moreover,

Sunday, October 27, 2019

How Do Single Sex Schools Effect Students Young People Essay

How Do Single Sex Schools Effect Students Young People Essay Single sex school is better than co-ed school as it brings more confidence to every individual. Single sex education as known as single-gender education, is the practice of conducting education where male and female students attend separate classes or schools while co-ed school is the integrated education of males and females in the same institution. Socially, single sex school makes for more mature people earlier. Young people learn more from experience of diversity. Educationally, single sex schools seem to be better for girls to do well at traditionally male subjects like chemistry and physics. Emotionally it encourages sexual relationships which some say its a distraction from education or is to be objected to morally especially for girls which is why Islam forbids coeducation. If a boy isnt male stereotype in personality he is more likely to be lonely in a single-sex school because with co-ed he may find girls to hang out with. Generally single-sex schools tend to have better academic grades and better discipline, but this may be because most of the hard-working Hindu and Muslim children go there or for other reason that allow them to select against disruptive and disaffected kids, rather than because they are single-sex. Furthermore, single sex schools are more educational than co-ed school because boys are less attracted by girls and girls are also less obsessed with the boys. Therefore, students may pay more attention on classes while all students are same sex. Besides, they will also break out of their behavior when they are left to their own devices. Single sex education has a delightful way of encouraging students to be fearless, to be curious, to be enthusiastic, and to just be themselves. Single sex education with more controlled social outlets is just the ticket for many students. Firstly is less pressure to act cool around friends of other sex. Secondly is less conflict between friends of the opposite sex. Thirdly is more relaxed attitude such as not putting on a show for boys or girls they like. Last but not least, they have lower levels of anxiety over appearance or clothing. Also, less emotional stress brought on by the head games teens play while in relationships. There are several reasons for choosing a single sex school. For boys, they tend to soften their competitive edge and become more cooperative in a single sex school. They can just be boys and not worry about what girls might think or judge them. Furthermore, boys enjoy playing in an orchestra as opposed to a marching band and learn Latin in single sex settings. For girls, teachers will quickly feel comfortable exploring non-traditional subjects like mathematics, advanced science, computers, and technology if the teacher understands how to teach girls. Besides, they may drop their shyness in a single sex setting. They join some sports like hockey, football follow their hobbies without worrying about appearing like tom boys girls are free from sexual harassment which always happens in co-ed high schools. In all-girls schools, girls take over all the positions of leadership whether its drama, sports, or debate team. Also, they participate in class discussions freely, which boys always dominate in co-educational schools. They tend to gain confidence in themselves as students and score higher on their examinations. Girls no longer have to live up to expectations that they must be nice, quiet, non-athletic, and passive. Moreover, girls may work harder without boys distracting them. Girls brains usually work differently from boys because girls are more likely to take up subjects normally dominated by boys. For example like maths and sciences. On the other hand, co-ed schools are many like gender stereotyping has mostly seen in these institutes. Both sexes are almost immature in the very young age and they get mix and are not able to keep a distance. Teacher favoritism is also major issues like some teachers favor girls and some boys. It has been observed that Co-education can cause gender stereotyping. Many students are not able to focus on their studies and they become interested in each other at very young age. Some favoritism has also been observed. In co-education sometimes it becomes difficult for the parents to manage their kids. Students are more likely to become fashion conscious. It can affect the natural learning for some of the students. Co-Education is bad because it create the complex in the poor student who cannot afford expensive mobiles, car, motorbike  etc. The one big disadvantage about having boys and girls in the same class is when we go for physical education. Boys and girls just cannot do the same type of exercise or play the same game together. So we need to have two teachers, one for the boys and one for the girls. Our headmaster has come up with the ingenious solution of having two classes doing P.E. at the same time so that the boys and girls from each class combine together under one teacher each. There are certain conservative people criticize the system of co-education. According to them, this system is against our tradition. They also fear that co-education will develop immoral relationships between boys and girls. They believe that in this system both the boys and girls will be spoilt. The negative aspect is engaging in some non required activities like mostly in coeducation girls and boys are found hanging around those cafes and pubs bunking the classes and this all stinks There are also certain disadvantages of co-education. First, co-education is against the law of nature. Girls and boys are temperamentally different from each other. They have different duties to perform. A girl is required to receive education which can make her a good wife and a good mother while a boy is required to receive education which can make him a good husband and a good father. A Uniform education cannot help them be expert in their respective fields. Thus the very idea of co-education is wrong. Then co-education is against our traditions. It will develop immoral relations between boys and girls. Young boys and girls may fall a victim to their emotions. Moreover, research on coeducation has shown that coeducation in its commonly practiced form tends to reinforce rather than diminish gender stereotypes. For several years the studies concentrated on girls, only during the last seven years or so the focus shifted to boys. All in all, it can be said that coeducation has proved to be of great disadvantage for both sexes. Some of the most common disadvantages for girls are having less space at their disposal, literally as well as symbolically speaking in coeducational classes. Furthermore, no matter if the teachers are male or female, girls get only few fraction of the teachers attention compared to boys. Also girls are abused as social workers, according to the motto seat a well-behaved girl next to a disruptive boy, so as to create an orderly working situation in the classroom. Girls achievements in school are discriminatingly attributed to their diligence versus boys intelligence. Disruptive girls are treated much more severely than d isruptive boys. Boys are given more speaking time during lessons. Cooperative behavior of girls is labeled as conformity, whereas boys` competitive attitudes are usually admired and seen positively by teachers. Girls` contributions in lessons are often pulled to pieces by their male classmates. They are also humiliated, degraded and ridiculed. Even today girls are little motivated for science and mathematics and still opt for traditional female subjects like languages and humanities. The same applies to the choice of schools girl tend to attend schools that are traditionally associated with female education and shun technical schools. Girls` strengths are often not seen as such: cooperative behaviour, high commitment in school, social intelligence, high achievements, good performances, to name but a few. During the early years of research on gender and school ( from the late seventies onward), most of the studies dealt with girls. Programmers to strengthen girls were developed and practised. As a result not only of this , but also of the crisis of the male in Western world in general boys seem to have become even more disruptive and difficult. And so it was realized that coeducation cannot be improved without working with both sexes. As a result the focus of researchers to a very high degree female turned to boys, particularly boys up to the age of 14 or 15. Also, there was a change as to the approach: In the early days of gender conscious work in schools (notably with girls), girls were seen as having deficits compared to boys. From the late eighties onwards the approach was that of a concept of difference, with the vision of a school in in that offered equal opportunities for both boys and girls, reinforcing non-traditional gender stereotypes rather than perpetuating the traditi onal ones. Besides, the disadvantages of coeducation for boys are most of the boys have great problems in the field of social competence. Cooperative methods of work are difficult for them (group and teamwork, for example) whereas, vice versa, girls find competitive methods more difficult. Boys tend to solve conflicts with physical and verbal aggressions. They lag behind considerably in language learning, achieving far worse results. In general, male pupils have worse results in school, fail more often and have a higher dropout rate. As a conclusion the advantages and disadvantages of attending a single sex school or co-educational school are now being looked into more closely when the decision is being made on which environment is best for a child to learn. Each school environment has pros and cons to offer the student. What is important is that the right learning environment is selected based on the one student and how they learn. When a student is not placed in the right learning environment for them they can begin to fall behind the rest of the class. It is important to keep in mind that neither learning environment has yet to show that is the best learning environment for all children to be taught in. This is why the question Is a single sex school or a mixed school the best learning environment for my child? is been asked more and more recently but as a advantage they would able to know how to behave and the difference between them.

Friday, October 25, 2019

The Internet Does Not Equal Isolation Essay -- Internet

The Internet Does Not Equal Isolation The computer has become a centerpiece for almost everyone’s lives. Teachers require homework to be typed, and students go through an Internet search tutorial at the beginning of every year. Communication online plays a role for many people with the introduction of instant messaging, message boards and chat rooms. Even businesses run their companies on computers and sell online. This can bring up controversy. Some believe that the Internet isolates people and takes away face-to-face interaction. Some studies have been done to see if the Internet causes loneliness. Does this mean that all Internet activity does harm to the world? No, in fact, it can do quite the opposite when actual contact is impossible. Internet has the potential to save lives, connect families and friends, and give ill patients a support system. Internet provides exceptional resources for health information, in particular transplants and organ donations. The web provides a great opportunity to share a wealth of information, and informing people about diseases and providing resources helps a lot in patients’ understanding. For example, TransWeb (www.transweb.org) provides a great amount of information on organ transplants and donations. On this site, the latest news, stories and conference information can be found. Another excellent website is the page for the United Network for Organ Sharing (www.unos.org). Under contract from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, this nonprofit organization makes sure that â€Å"News, patient information, statistics, data requests, Internet links, and more are available at this site, as well as the bylaws and regulations that govern tissue allocation† (Sjogren). Dan Sjogren also... ...E-mail eases trauma.† Nationwide News 7 Dec. 2003: 34. Lexis-Nexis. Rodney A. Briggs Lib., Morris, MN. 7 Dec. 2003. â€Å"Internet use may benefit survival of minority/ethnic patients.† Cancer Weekly 18 March 2003: 24. Expanded Acadamic ASAP. InfoTrac. Rodney A. Briggs Lib., Morris, MN. 7 Dec. 2003. Minerd, Jeff. â€Å"The decline of conversation: with everybody wired, we are starved for face-to-face conversation.† The Futurist Feb. 1999: 18. Expanded Acadamic ASAP. InfoTrac. Rodney A. Briggs Lib., Morris, MN. 7 Dec. 2003. â€Å"Peer-to-Peer Computing Can Help Speed Pace of AIDS Drug Research.† AIDS Weekly 16 Oct. 2000. Expanded Acadamic ASAP. InfoTrac. Rodney A. Briggs Lib., Morris, MN. 7 Dec. 2003. Sjogren, Dan. â€Å"Transplant information on the World Wide Web.† AORN Journal 68 (1998): 1035. Expanded Acadamic ASAP. InfoTrac. Rodney A. Briggs Lib., Morris, MN. 7 Dec. 2003.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Isolation in “Lord of the Flies” and “Heart of Darkness” Essay

This is an awsome essay! Feel free to use it. Great comparison of books, excellent work. novels. Throughout Lord of the Flies and Heart of Darkness the importance of restraint is greatly stressed. This being the restraint to remain human and maintain sanity. In Heart of Darkness, Marlow was able to remain his restriant despite how difficult it was for him. He was always surrounded by cannibals and constant chaos. On the other hand, Kurtz was unable to keep his restriant, as a result he lost his humanity and sanity, and eventually died because of it. In Lord of the Flies, Ralph is able to restrain restrain, and he therefore remains human. He found it difficult though, because there was only one other person who was able to do the same- Piggy. Ralph was determined to maintain order, and he was very alone because of it. Jack on the other hand, gave in to the temptationof simply hunting and playing, and lost his humanity in the process. He became a savage – not a human being, but a savage with a painted body and strange barbaric ways. In contrast, the cannibals in Heart of Darkness, (who are starving) could have easily had many satisfying meals. After all, they outnumbered the whites thirty to five, but they still had necessary restraint to refrain from savagely feasting on some of the easily accessible seamen. Towards the end of the novel, Marlow becomes becomes very close to losing his sanity, but also has the necessary restraint to maintain it. He confuses the beat of a drum (the call to man’s primative side) with his own heartbeat, but is still able to restrain from slipping over the edge as Kurt did. Ralph in Lord of the Flies is constantly faced with temptation to join Jack and all of the other boys, especially when Piggy dies and he is all alone. This makes it even more difficult to restrain from giving in to Jack and his animalistic tribe. Therefore, it is evident how important restrain is in t hese two novels. The ability to do so may be the difference between life and death, and the one who can restrain himself teh most is the one who prevails in the end. In conclusion, it is evident that the authors of these two novels wrote about their own life experiences because they were able to draw emotion form things that actually haopened to them. Also, through Lord of the Flies and Heart of Darkness, Golding and Conrad were able to express the isolation that some of the characters were forced to endure, and the importance of restraint in dealing with one’s humanity. These compelling novels leave the reader with two possible questions. Would I be able to cope with the intense isolation? And, do I have the necessary restriant to maintain the humanity which so many people take for granted? finally, the reader would be left with a better understanding of the darkness, which Golding and Conrad believed, each and every one of us possess somewhere, deep down inside.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

What Techniques Does Auden Employ to Narrate Victorand?

In both ‘Victor' and ‘As I Walked Out One Evening', Auden utilise techniques such as the personfication of time to suggest to the reader that life is a journey and it waits for no one. The use of the first person singular in As Iwalked suggests that it is quite a personal experience, however, in Victor, third person is used to distance the narrator for tge events. W. H. Auden's ‘Victor' includes three different voice through out the poem, his dad, the narrator and Victor himself.Auden uses Victor's dad, who has direct speech during the opening stanzas, to imprint a controlled and biblical lifestyle with no feeling of love. This is further emphasises through the quoatation ‘Don't dishonour the family name'. It is then the narrator who tells the reader about Victor's growing up and his life before and after Anna. Auden does this by the use of the third person when refering to Victor, Anna and the other minor characters through out the play. It is then Victor tha t speaks when asking his father questions such as ‘†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. †¦. ‘ The fact that Victor is asking questions to his afther suggests that he is still trying to please him, which further suggest that Victor is seeking for love in his father. The poem ‘As I Walked Out One Evening' consists of three separate speakers: the lovers, the clocks and the narrator. Each speaker represents a different measure and attitude towards time. The lover’s song paints time to be conquerable and ignorable – no more than a passing annoyance that they are outside of.The soliloquy of the clocks demonstrates time as a product of society, there to keep its subjects in line, and ultimately a ruling force. Finally, the narrator speaks of love as being outside of both of these things. Time is a constant flow than brings change and opportunity, and any claim to deny or control it is an illusion. To begin, the months in ‘Victor' parallel and dictate the events that s hape the poem. The poem begins in ‘frosty December', a vivid image symbolizing Victor's father and his lack of heart for his son.Victor initially meets Anna, the love of his life, in April, a time of rebirth for him. But because it was the first of April, it is Victor who is the fool as the narrative progresses. Victor eventually marries Anna in August symbolizing the warmth Victor feels for the first time in his life. Unfortunately by September, an indicator of the end of summer and the termination of warmth in Victor's life, he jumps to the conclusion that Anna has cheated on him despite the fact that no evidence exists to support his conclusion.Poetic devices add to the overall meaning and interpretation of the poem immensely. The â€Å"Time† spoken of seems to symbolically relate to death, which may, in turn, be a forewarning of Victor's future destructive streak. That leads to the â€Å"Ace of Spades reversed†   the very dagger which Victor slaughters Anna with. The ,coat of fur, Anna wears appears to symbolize her cold, bitter actions, which harm Victor just as Helen of Troy harmed citizens in her time. The simile â€Å"She gave him a kiss like a blow on the head† illustrates that Victor doesn't have the capacity to comprehend real affection.His lack of capacity and lack of warmth is what sparks his jumping to the conclusion that Anna has cheated on him. Meanwhile, Anna is referred to as Victor's Helen of Troy, an ironic allusion to the beautiful wife of Menelaus who began the Trojan War, suggesting that she is beautiful yet dangerous. When Victor persists in asking God questions, he does so at a variety of localities. The vast irony is that from the time he stood in the sunset to the time he came to the river, the locations of his pleas gradually fall from the greatest to the least powerful points.And by the end of the poem, the only thing poor Victor can relate to is the â€Å"woman of clay† ,   personification whi ch represents the only thing Victor can possibly relate to in life. Time is depicted as being something that lurks in the shadows â€Å"time watches from the shadows† and something that creeps up on you when you least expect, and even interrupts couples and lovers when they are at their most intimate  times â€Å"And coughs when they would kiss† this line also again, personifies time. Into many a green valley, Drifts the appalling snow† the first part of this quote represents the beginning of love, before time has interrupted. The word ‘green’ has connotations of summer or spring, the time of year when new things begin to come to life, just like when love begins to blossom. However over time the green valley is taken over by the ‘Appalling snow’ killing all the plants which have blossomed in the summer, time takes its toll on the valley. This is a metaphor for love, love starts of wonderfully, new and fresh.However as time drifts in an d begins to interrupt the love slowly begins to fade and change. The word ‘drifts’ again suggests that time sneaks up on unsuspecting people. In Conclusion, Auden uses techniques such as first person singular, the use of third person and the personification of time. Auden uses these techniques to suggest to the reader that time waits for no one and that it can interrupt at any time. This is further conveys by the quotation ‘and coughs when you kiss'

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

High School Students Participating In Extra

High School Students Participating In Extra Introduction The number of high school students of between 15 and 18 years of age who are reportedly involved in various types of antisocial behavior has been on the increase over the past few years (Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 2002).Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on High School Students Participating In Extra-Curricular Activities Have Fewer Discipline Problems? specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Disruptive behavior has a negative effect on high school students and this could result in rejection by teachers and other students. In addition, high school students who are involved in antisocial behavior are also more likely to fail or drop out of school, and abuse alcohol and drugs (Gilman, Meyers Perez, 2004) in comparison with other students who do not engage in antisocial behavior. Moreover, such students could interfere with the normal schooling process. In a bid to overcome this problem, scho ols try to encourage students to participate in various forms of extracurricular activities. This paper is an attempt to determine whether high school students who are actively involved in extracurricular activities have fewer disciplines issues in school compared with their counterparts who do participate in extracurricular activities. Effects of High School Students’ Participation in Extracurricular Activities on Discipline Problems in Schools Traditionally, schools have relied on extracurricular activities as a means of providing leadership and development opportunities to students. In addition, schools have banked on extracurricular activities as a way of building the school spirit (Share 2005). Numerous studies conducted in the past few years have tried to determine the impact of students’ participation in extracurricular activities on the academic performance and social behavior of such students. In his study, Campbell (2006) found out that students who participa te in extracurricular activities are more likely to have better attendance records, higher grade point averages, fewer discipline issues, and lower dropout rates in comparison with their counterparts who do not participate in extracurricular activities.Advertising Looking for research paper on education? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More On the other hand, researchers like Share (2005) report that by participating in cocurricular and extracurricular activities, students are less idle, meaning that they have no time to entertain truant behavior. In addition, these kinds of activities connect students with other students, their teachers, and the school as well. Other than building resilience in the youth by supporting their engagement in poor-social behaviors, extracurricular activities aid students’ growth on their subjective well-being (Mahoney, 2000). Michaelson and Nakamura note that students who participate i n extracurricular activities also tend to have a sense of belonging (Michaelson Nakamura, 2001). Similar sentiments have also been echoed by Gilman et al. (2004) who note that extracurricular activities enable students to have a positive outlook towards life, and this could result in constructive outcome for adolescents. Active participation in school extracurricular activities also enhances the emotional wellbeing of students. On the other hand, students who do not actively participate in school extracurricular activities are at risk of various negative outcomes including antisocial behavior (Mahoney, 2000). Mazza and Eggert (2001) further note that such students could end up engaging in a variety of self-destructive behaviors like illicit substance abuse, self-destructive behaviors like suicide attempts and engaging in antisocial behaviors. Separately, Cousins (2004) noted that by reducing the quality and number of extracurricular programs in a school, this could lead to the loss of useful avenues for directing students away from violent activities. In addition, this also reduces the capacity of a school to handle negative social and personal behaviors that would have otherwise been prevented if only students had participated in extracurricular activities. Cousins (2004) further observes that cutting such programs from the school budget denies students the chance to socialize and improve their mental, physical, and social developmental skills.Advertising We will write a custom research paper sample on High School Students Participating In Extra-Curricular Activities Have Fewer Discipline Problems? specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In another study conducted by Dick (2010) to assess the impact of students’ participation in extracurricular activities on student behavior, achievement, and attendance, the researcher found out that those students who took part in extracurricular activities tended to receive more disciplinary referrals in comparison with their counterparts who did not participate in extracurricular activities. According to Danish (2002), students who are actively involved in extracurricular activities rarely participate in crime and delinquency, not to mention that they act as a role model for the other students in high school and the community at large. The research findings of a study conducted by Braddock (2001) revealed that students who take part in extracurricular activities end up developing various valuable traits that are crucial not just for their success in school, but for their future endevours as well. Some of the beneficial character traits that Braddock (2001) observed include striving for excellence, working with others, making sacrifices for the common good, following directions, and self-discipline. In their study, Feldman and Matjasko (2005) endeavored to examine the role played by school-based extracurricular activities in enhancing development amon g adolescents. The authors discovered a strong link between students’ involvement with extracurricular activities and reduced delinquent behavior, as measured by substance abuse, antisocial behavior, and criminal arrests. Additionally, students who participated in extracurricular activities were also showing improvements in their academic performance. Pate et al (2000) carried out a study in which they endeavored to examine the relationship between health-related behaviors and sports participation among US high school students. The study design was cross-sectional in nature with a sample of 14,221 students as participants, all of whom were students from various high schools in the US. The study’s key outcome measure was to determine the prevalence of male and female students’ participation in sports, and how this was connected to such health behaviors as tobacco use, diet, illegal drug and alcohol sue, weight loss practices, sexual activity, and violence.Adverti sing Looking for research paper on education? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More According to the research findings of the study, male and female respondents who took part in various sports activities were more likely to have healthy eating habits. In addition, participants who took part in sporting activities were also less likely to embrace such unhealthy habits as smoking, and taking of drugs and alcohol. Also, participants who reported taking part in sporting activities were likely to be on a weight loss program, an indication that they wished to improve their self-esteem. Based on these findings, the researchers concluded that high school students in the US who take part in sports activities are more likely to benefit from positive health behaviors than negative health behaviors (Pate et al., 2001). Tassitano et al (2010) also conducted a research study that was aimed at determining whether there was a link between participation in physical activity and the adoption of health-related behavior. The study’s respondents included 4,210 high school studen ts who were randomly selected from various high schools in northeastern Brazil. The key findings of this study was that students who attended psychical education classes reported increased consumption of vegetables and fruits and reduced consumption of soda. This is a sign that students who participated in extracurricular activities also tended to have healthier eating habits. In addition, students who participated in physical education were also less likely to watch television during weekdays, thereby leaving them with ample time to do their homework and study for examinations. In addition, such students were also less likely to watch violent programmes or movies on television that would influence their behaviors negatively. Based on these research findings, the researchers concluded that improved enrolment of students in psychical education classes plays a crucial role in enhancing healthy behaviors among high school students. Adolescents who participate in structured extracurricu lar activities are more likely to benefit from emotional, civic, and social development than their counterparts participating in unstructured extracurricular activities (Mahoney et al., 2005). Some of the examples of structured extracurricular activities include drama clubs, sporting teams, service activities, and church groups. On the other hand, examples of unstructured extracurricular activities include passive forms of leisure like listening to music and watching television. A study conducted by Mahoney and Statton (2000) revealed that those participants who reported talking part in unstructured leisure activities also demonstrated high levels of antisocial behavior in comparison with their counterparts who reported taking part in structured activities. Besides enhancing positive outcomes, students who participate in different forms of extracurricular activity also appear to be immune to numerous developmentally negative behaviors. For instance, students who participate in struc tured extracurricular activities are also less likely to skip school (Rose-Kransnor et al., 2006). According to Fredricks and Eccles (2005), students who are actively involved in performing arts and prosocial activities like volunteer work are less likely to abuse drugs and alcohol. The idea that high school students’ participation in extracurricular activities hinders the development of antisocial behavior has also been supported by a research study conducted by Mahoney (2000) in which the author sought to examine the moderating role played by participation in school extracurricular activities in the development of antisocial behavior among high school students. The research study conducted by Mahoney was longitudinal in design and included 695 girls and boys who were interviewed every year from childhood up to when they had completed high school. Based on the research findings of his study, Mahoney (2000) concluded that the participation of high school students in extracurr icular activities was strongly linked to a decline in the reported cases of criminal arrests. In addition, students who were actively engaged in extracurricular activities were less likely to drop out of school than their counterparts who were not actively involved in extracurricular activities. Conclusion Research findings from numerous studies conducted over the past few years seem to draw a link between the participation of high school students in extracurricular activities and reduced delinquent activities. Besides showing improved academic performance, high school students are also actively involved in extracurricular activities also tend to have a positive outlook towards life, improved emotional wellbeing, and reduced involvement in such self-destructive behaviors as illicit substance abuse. On the other hand, students who do not take art in extracurricular activities are at a higher risk of various negative outcomes, including antisocial behavior. There is need therefore for high school administrators to advocate for participation of students in extracurricular activities as this would be beneficial to not just the students, but also their peers, teachers, the school, and the community as well. Reference List Braddock, J. H. (2001). Sports make the grade. NEA Today, 19(5), 21. Campbell, C. W. (2006). The Fayette County Board of Education’s philosophy on  athletics. Retrieved from https://www.fcboe.org/ Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group. (2002). Evaluation of the first 3 years of the Fast Track Prevention Trial with children at high risk for adolescent conduct problems. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 30, 19–35. Cousins, M. E. (2004). The relationship between student participation rates in Texas  public school extracurricular activity programs and related factors of academic  achievement, attendance, drop outs and discipline. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. Danish, S. J. (2002). Teaching life skills through s port. Pp. 49-60 in Paradoxes of Youth  and Sport, edited by M. Gatz, M.A. Messner, and S.J. Ball-Rokeach. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Dick, A. D. (2010). The relationship of participation in extracurricular activities to student  achievement, student attendance, and student behavior in a Nebraska school  district. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI3398096/ Gilman, R., Meyers, J., Perez, L. (2004). Structured extracurricular activities among adolescents: findings and implications for school psychologists. Psychology in the  Schools, 41(1), 31-41. Feldman, A. F., Matjasko, J. L. (2005). The role of school-based extracurricular activities in adolescent development: A comprehensive review and future directions. Review of Educational Research, 75(2), 159-210. Fredricks, J., A., Eccles, J. S. (2005). Developmental benefits of extracurricular involvement: Do peer characteristics mediate the link between activities and youth outcomes? Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 34, 507-520. Mahoney, J. L. (2000). School extracurricular activity participation as a moderator in the development of antisocial patterns. Child Dev., 71(2),502-16. Mahoney, J. L., Statton, H. (2000). Leisure activities and adolescent antisocial behavior: The role of structure and social context. Journal of Adolescence, 23, 113 127. Mahoney, J. L., Larson, R., Eccles, J. S., Lord, H. (2005). Organized activities as developmental contexts for children and adolescents. In J. L. Mahoney, R. Larson J. S. Eccles (Eds.), Organized Activities as Contexts of Development:  Extracurricular Activities, After-School and Community Programs. Mahwah, New Jersey: Erlbaum. Mazza, J.J., Eggert, L.L. (2001). Activity involvement among suicidal and nonsuicidal high-risk and typical adolescents. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 31, 265 281. Michaelson, M., Nakamura, J. (2001). Supportive frameworks for youth engagement. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Pate, R. R., Trost, S. G ., Levin, S., Dowda, M. (2000). Sports participation and health related behaviors among US youth. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med., 154(9), 904-11. Rose-Krasnor, L., Busseri, M. A., Willoughby, T., Chalmers, H. (2006). Breadth and intensity of youth activity involvement as contexts for positive development. Journal  of Youth and Adolescence, 35, 385-499. Share, J. (2005). The cutting-edge challenge. School Arts: The Art Education Magazine  for Teachers, 104(5), 23–25. Tassitano, R. M., Barros, M. V. G., Tenorio, M. C. M., Bezerra, J., Florindo, A. A., Reis, R. S. (2010). Enrollment in Physical Education is associated with health related behavior among high school students. Journal of School Health, 80(3), 126 133.

Monday, October 21, 2019

Explain and assess Haidts ‘moral foundations’ theory The WritePass Journal

Explain and assess Haidts ‘moral foundations’ theory Introduction Explain and assess Haidts ‘moral foundations’ theory ) ‘think of this innate organization as being implemented by sets of related modules which work together to guide and constrain responses to each particular problem.’ The final claim is that morality is influenced by cultural learning. This takes places through a set of ‘learning modules’, which are innate and can be used to build on one’s genetic inheritance. For example, the tendency to bow in deference or respect is common to many cultures, but this is adapted to locally-specific cultural contexts and by ‘the time a Hindu girl reaches adulthood, she will have developed culturally-specific knowledge that makes her automatically initiate bowing movements when she encounters, say, a respected politician for the first time.’ In an American household, however, this foundation might be dropped early on. Despite both girls starting off with the ‘same sets of universal learning modules†¦.the universal (and incomplete) first draft of the moral mind gets filled in and revised so that the child can successfully navigate the moral â€Å"matrix† he or she actually experiences.’ Different societies us e different foundations to build their moralities, and some use all of them. MFT, therefore, is an intuitionist theory contending that human moral systems are the combination of innate predispositions and cultural learning. Additionally, judgements are made rapidly on the basis of a plurality of in-built mechanisms, which have been ‘hardwired’ into humans over the course of our species’ evolution. The rest of this essay will present, explain, and assess, in no particular order, the specific foundations postulated by MFT. There are supposedly five or six empirically supported ‘foundations’ for moral judgements, but MFT allows for others being discovered in the future. The first is the care/harm foundation. Human offspring ‘are unusually dependent, and for an unusually long time’ and the intuitive reactions of females have been ‘optimized to detect signs of suffering, distress, or neediness’ for the purpose of raising more offspring. ‘The original triggers of the Care/harm foundation are ‘visual and auditory signs of suffering, distress, or neediness expressed by one’s own child’, but they can be activated by other children, baby animals, stuffed toys with childlike qualities, or descriptions of suffering. This foundation leads to the creation of terms such as ‘kind’ and ‘cruel’, which are valued differently by different cultures (e.g., classical Sparta vs. Buddhist societies). The second is the fairness/cheating foundation. Social animals face non-zero-sum games in which it is advantageous to cooperate. Creatures ‘whose minds are organized in advance of experience to be highly sensitive to evidence of cheating and cooperation, and to react with emotions that compel them to play â€Å"tit for tat†, had an advantage over those who had to figure out their next move using their general intelligence.’ Social partners with reputations for certain types of behaviour are therefore labelled with words such as ‘fair’, ‘just’, and ‘trustworthy’. The third is the loyalty/betrayal foundation. It was advantageous for our ancestors to form cohesive groups when competing for territory and resources. This same behaviour can be seen in troops of chimpanzees. So humans have developed an innate predisposition to form groups. This manifests today in numerous areas, from nationalism to sports and brand loyalty. The fourth is the authority/subversion foundation. Dominance hierarchies are common among many primates, and the ability to recognise and react by forming strategic relationships yielded an evolutionary advantage. Modules of the human mind in this foundation explain why we submit to many useful but constraining societal structures, such as the police force and political leaders. The varied development of this foundation explains why different societies (modern-day China vs. America) or groups (social conservatives vs. liberals) value authority in different ways. The fifth is the sanctity/degradation foundation. Human evolution carried adaptive challenges, such as moving from tree-based to ground-based living, living in larger, denser groups, and eating more meat, some of which was scavenged. This exposed us to a greater number of pathogens and parasites, and we therefore developed a pre-emptory, in-built sensitivity to factors other than the ‘sensory properties of potential foods, friends, and mates.’ ‘Disgust and the behavioral immune system have come to undergird a variety of moral reactions, e.g., to immigrants and sexual deviants’ There are numerous criticisms of MFT, most of which are directed at one of the four main claims undergirding it: nativism, plurality, cultural learning, and intuitionism. One problem with nativism, for example, is that it is difficult to determine the extent to which the mind is ‘hardwired’. As Graham et al., put it: ‘opinions range widely from minimalist positions, which say that there is hardly any writing on the â€Å"first draft† of the mind, to maximalist positions such as massive modularity’ Indeed, the ambiguity here has led some to criticise MFT, and nativism in general, on the grounds that it lacks empirical neuroscientific evidence for the existence of modules. However, this is not reasonable at present. Given that the field is yet to ‘find a set of genes that, collectively, explains 5% of the variance in how tall people are what chance is there that anyone will find a set of genes that code for mental modules (such as loyalty or sanct ity) whose expression is far more subject to cultural influence than is height?’ There is also considerable criticism of the emphasis MFT places on intuitionism. For example, some argue ‘that that intuition and reasoning are best seen as partners in a dance, in which either partner can lead and the other will follow.’ However, whatever the prominent role of reason, this seems misleading at the very least. As has been referenced already in this essay, and as Hume showed in his Treatise, it is not clear how reason can establish the first principles from which logical argument follows. Moral axioms cannot be given a logical foundation, and to the extent that they exist in nature and are ‘hardwired’, they cannot be expressed. Therefore, they are beyond realm of reason by their very nature. To say that reasoning can lead when it is necessarily guided by intuitive first principles is therefore unsupportable. Interesting critiques come from the monists, who disagree with the pluralism hypothesis. Gray et al. believe that the care/harm foundation is the only one that is truly foundational. Graham et al. (2012) call this Procrustean, citing the fact that certain moral judgements, such as disgust, appear not to be accounted for by the care/harm foundation. Their confidence in this matter, however, is arguably misplaced. Disgust over, say, a dirty environment could be seen as a cause of harm. Perhaps those creatures with a predisposition to avoid unclean environments encountered fewer pathogens, for example, or were at less risk of being exposed to small but dangerous creatures such as spiders and snakes. Clearly, emotions, such as disgust, can potentially be explained by the care/harm foundation. The difficulty here arises in attempting to make bold comment about the way our ancestors perceived the links between various phenomena and their effects. While it is possible to argue that matters of disgust have little to do with harm, perhaps there is link that has not yet been discovered. Some critics suggest that there should also be an oppression/liberty foundation. This is the potential sixth foundation being worked on by Haidt. Others point to the fact that MFT might be missing a waste/inefficiency foundation. These critiques focus on the particular pluralisms chosen for MFT. This is really a matter of fine-tuning, rather than any fundamental. This essay has sought to explain and assess Haidt’s MTF. It has emerged that its central claims are extremely well-founded. The SIM has strong roots that date back to the empirical tradition in Britain and which still have not been successfully overturned. With the developments in psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology, both intuitionism and nativism rest on firm foundations. There are philosophical and other objections that can be targeted at the pluralism element of MFT. This is not to say that it is incorrect but rather that the confidence with which the claim is made is not justified. This essay has not sought to address deontological critiques of the MFT. There are those who would argue that MFT is asking the wrong questions, namely what morality is rather than what it should be. However, given that this problem was so adequately dealt with by Hume in his Treatise, it seems appropriate that scholars building on his legacy should develop a descriptive moral the ory instead. Bibliography Berlin, Isaiah, ‘My intellectual path’ in H. Hardy (ed.), The Power of Ideas 1-23, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001 Bruner, Jerome, The process of education, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960 Davis, Jody L.., Rusbult, Caryl, E. ‘Attitude alignment in close relationships’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81 (2001), pp. 65-84 Edwards, Kari., von Hippel, William, ‘Hearts and minds: The priority of affective versus cognitive factors in person perception’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21 (1995), pp. 996-1011. Graham, Jesse, Haidt, Jonathan, Koleva, Sena., Motyl, Matt., Iyer, Ravi, Wojcik, Sean P. and Ditto, Peter. H, ‘Moral Foundations Theory: The Pragmatic Validity of Moral Pluralism’, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (2012) Gray, Kurt, Young, Liana, and Waytz, Adam, ‘Mind perception is the essence of morality’, Psychological Inquiry, 23, (2012), pp. 101-124 Greenwald, Anthony. G., and Banaji, Mahzarin. R, ‘Implicit social cognition’, Psychological Review, 102, (1995), pp. 4-27 Haidt, Jonathan, The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. New York: Pantheon, 2012 Haidt, Jonathan, ‘The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment’, Psychological Review, Vol. 108. No. 4 (2001), pp. 814-834 Joyce, Richard, The Evolution of Morality, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2005 Mineka, Susan, Cook, M., ‘Social learning and the acquisition of snake fear in monkeys’, in Thomas. R. Zentall John. B. G. Galef (Eds.), Social learning: Psychological and biological perspectives (pp. 51-74). Hillsdale, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1988 Narvaez, Darcia, ‘Moral complexity: The fatal attraction of truthiness and the importance of mature moral functioning’, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5 (2010), pp. 163-181 Perkins, David. N., Farady, Mike., Bushey, B., ‘Everyday reasoning and the roots of intelligence’ in Voss, James F., Perkins, David N., and J. W. Segal (Eds.), Informal reasoning and education (pp. 83-105). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1991 Skitka, Linda J. ‘The psychological foundations of moral conviction, in Wright, Jennifer and Sarkissian Ryan H (eds) Advances in Moral Psychology (pp.267-281), Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2010 [Accessed 09/03/2014] http://tigger.uic.edu/~lskitka/Foundations.pdf Suhler, Christopher. L., Churchland, Patricia, ‘Can innate, modular â€Å"foundations† explain morality? Challenges for Haidts moral foundations theory’, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23(9) (2011), pp. 2103-2116 Williams, Bernard, ‘Rationalism’ in P. Edwards (Ed.) The encyclopedia of philosophy (Vols. 7-8, pp. 69-75) New York: Macmillan, 1967

Sunday, October 20, 2019

Admiral Graf Spee - World War II - Kriegsmarine

Admiral Graf Spee - World War II - Kriegsmarine Admiral Graf Spee - Overview: Nation: Germany Type: Heavy Cruiser/ Pocket Battleship Shipyard: Reichsmarinewerft , Wilhelmshaven Laid Down: October 1, 1932 Launched: June 30, 1934 Commissioned: January 6, 1936 Fate: Scuttled on December 17, 1939 Admiral Graf Spee - Specifications Displacement: 14,890 tons Length: 610 ft., 3 in. Beam: 71 ft. Draft: 24 ft. 1 in. Speed: 29.5 knots Complement: 951-1,070 men Admiral Graf Spee - Armament Guns (as built) 6 Ãâ€" 28 cm (11 in.) SK C/28 (2 x 3)8 Ãâ€" 15 cm (5.9 in.) SK C/288 Ãâ€" 53.3 cm (21 in.) torpedo tubes Admiral Graf Spee - Design Construction: A Deutschland-class panzerschiffe (armored ship), Admiral Graf Spees design was intended to nominally conform to the naval restrictions set forth by the Treaty of Versailles which ended World War I. These limited future German warships to 10,000 long tons. Though the vessels of Deutschland-class exceeded this displacement, the German designers devised numerous methods to reduce weight. These included the incorporation diesel propulsion and the large-scale use of welding. The class armament centered on six 11-inch guns mounted in two triple turrets. As a result, the Deutschland-class ships were able to deliver a potent attack despite their relatively small size. As a result of this, they became know in other navies as pocket battleships. Capable of around 28 knots, they were able to out-gun many of the foreign warships that were fast enough to catch them. Laid down at Reichsmarinewerft in Wilhelmshaven on October 1, 1932, the new panzerschiffe was named for Vice Admiral Maximilian Reichsgraf von Spee who had defeated the British at Coronel on November 1, 1914, before being killed at the Battle of the Falklands a month later. Launched on June 30, 1934, the vessel was sponsored by the late admirals daughter. Work continued on Admiral Graf Spee for another eighteen months. Commissioned on January 6, 1936, with Captain Conrad Patzig in command, new cruiser drew much of its crew from the old battleship Braunschweig. Departing Wilhelmshaven, Admiral Graf Spee spent the early part of the year conducting sea trials. Upon their completion, it was designated flagship of the German Navy. Admiral Graf Spee - Prewar Operations: With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936, Admiral Graf Spee entered the Atlantic Ocean and commenced non-intervention patrols off the coast of Spain. After conducting three patrols over the next ten months, the cruiser put into Spithead in late May 1937 to take part in the Coronation Review for King George VI. At the conclusion of the ceremonies, Admiral Graf Spee returned to Spain where it relieved its sister ship, . Returning home late in the year, it participated in fleet maneuvers and made a goodwill call to Sweden. Following a final non-intervention patrol in early 1938, command of the ship passed to Captain Hans Langsdorff in October. Embarking on a series of goodwill visits to Atlantic ports, Admiral Graf Spee also appeared in a naval review in honor of Hungarian regent Admiral Miklà ³s Horthy. After visits to Portuguese ports in the late spring of 1939, the ship returned to Wilhelmshaven. Admiral Graf Spee - World War II Begins: Anticipating the beginning of World War II, German leader Adolf Hitler ordered Admiral Graf Spee to sail for the South Atlantic to be in position to attack Allied shipping. Departing Wilhelmshaven on August 21, Langsdorff steered south and rendezvoused with his supply ship, Altmark, on September 1. Alerted to the beginning of hostilities, he was directed to stringently adhere to prize law when attacking merchant vessels. This required the raider to search ships for war materials before sinking them and ensuring the safety of their crews. On September 11, one of Admiral Graf Spees floatplanes spotted the heavy cruiser HMS Cumberland. Successfully evading the British ship, Langsdorff received orders on September 26 directing him to initiate a campaign of commerce raiding against Allied shipping. On September 30, the cruisers floatplane sank the steamer Clement. To ensure the crews safety, Langsdorff radioed Brazilian naval authorities and informed them of the attack. Alerted to the pre sence of a German raider in the South Atlantic the Royal and French Navies formed eight groups consisting of four carriers, two battleships, one battlecruiser, and sixteen cruisers to hunt down Langsdorff. Admiral Graf Spee - Raiding: On October 5, Admiral Graf Spee captured Newton Beach and two days later sank the cargo vessel Ashlea. Though the former initially was used as a prisoner transport, it proved too slow and was soon discarded. Taking Huntsman on October 10, Langsdorff retained the steamer and took it to a rendezvous with Altmark a week later. Transferring prisoners to his supply ship, he then sank Huntsman. After sinking Trevanion on October 22, Langsdorff steered for the Indian Ocean in an attempt confuse his pursuers. Sinking the tanker Africa Shell on November 15, Admiral Graf Spee turned for the Atlantic in order to refuel from Altmark. While rendezvousing on November 26, the cruisers crew made efforts to alter the ships silhouette by building a fake turret and a dummy funnel. Continuing his campaign, Langsdorff sank the freighter Doric Star on December 2. In the course of the attack, the Allied ship was able to radio for aid and relay its position. Receiving this, Commodore Henry Harwood, commanding the Royal Navys Force G, steered for the River Plate anticipating that this area would be Admiral Graf Spees next target. Harwoods command consisted of the heavy cruiser HMS Exeter and the light cruisers HMS Ajax (flagship) and HMS Achilles. Also available to Harwood was Cumberland which was refitting in the Falkland Islands. The sinking of Doric Star was quickly followed by an attack on the refrigerator ship Tairoa. Meeting a final time with Altmark on December 6, Langsdorff sank the freighter Streonshalh the next day. On board, his men found shipping information that led him to decide to move against the River Plate estuary. Admiral Graf Spee - Battle of the River Plate: On December 13, Admiral Graf Spee spotted masts off the starboard bow. While Langsdorff first believed these to be convoy escorts reports soon informed him that it was a British squadron. Electing to fight, he ordered his ship to maximum speed and closed with the enemy. This proved a blunder as Admiral Graf Spee could have stood off and hammered the out-ranged British warships with its 11-inch guns. Instead, the maneuver brought the cruiser within range of Exeters 8-inch and the light cruisers 6-inch guns. With the enemys approach, Harwood implemented a battle plan which called for Exeter to attack separately from the light cruisers with the goal of splitting Langsdorffs fire. At 6:18 AM, Admiral Graf Spee opened the Battle of the River Plate by firing on Exeter with its main guns while its secondary armament targeted Ajax and Achilles. Over the next half hour, the German vessel hammered Exeter disabling both its forward turrets and starting several fires. In return, the British cruiser hit Admiral Graf Spees fuel processing system with an 8-inch shell. Though his ship appeared largely undamaged, the loss of the fuel processing system limited Langsdorff to sixteen hours of usable fuel. To aid their compatriot, the two British light cruisers closed on Admiral Graf Spee. Thinking the British ships to be making a torpedo attack, Langsdorff turned away. The two sides continued the fight until around 7:25 AM when the action came to an end. Pulling back, Harwood decided to shadow the German ship with the goal of attacking again after dark. Admiral Graf Spee - Scuttling: Entering the estuary, Langsdorff made a political error in anchoring at Montevideo in neutral Uruguay rather than the friendlier Mar del Plata, Argentina to the south. Putting in a little after midnight on December 14, Langsdorff landed his wounded and asked the Uruguayan government for two weeks to make repairs. This was opposed by British diplomat Eugen Millington-Drake who argued that under the 13th Hague Convention Admiral Graf Spee should be expelled from neutral waters after twenty-four hours. Advised that few naval resources were in the area, Millington-Drake continued to press for the ships expulsion publically while British agents arranged to have British and French merchant ships sail every twenty-four hours. This action invoked Article 16 of the convention which stated A belligerent warship may not leave a neutral port or roadstead until twenty-four hours after the departure of a merchant ship flying the flag of its adversary. As a result, these sailings held Admiral Graf Spee in place while additional naval forces were gathered. While Langsdorff lobbied for time to repair his ship, he received a variety of false intelligence which suggested the arrival of Force H, including the carrier HMS Ark Royal and battlecruiser HMS Renown. While a force centered on Renown was en route, in reality Harwood had only been reinforced by Cumberland. Completely deceived and unable to repair Admiral Graf Spee, Langsdorff discussed his options with his superiors in Germany. Prohibited from allowing the ship to be interned by the Uruguayans and believing that certain destruction awaited him at sea, he ordered Admiral Graf Spee scuttled in the River Plate on December 17. This decision infuriated Hitler who l ater directed that all German ships were fight until the end. Taken to Buenos Aires, Argentina with the crew, Langsdorff committed suicide on December 19. Selected Sources Panzerschiffe Admiral Graf SpeeGerman Navy: Admiral Graf SpeeLangsdorff of the Graf Spee

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Implications of Social Media in Organizations Essay

Implications of Social Media in Organizations - Essay Example As the research findings all these factors contribute a lot towards defining the success of any organization. This is because, for any organization to succeed in the competitive world markets, it is necessary for such an organization to meet these diversities in cultures, beliefs, as well as races relevant to their interests on products alongside meeting their changes in attitudes and tastes. It is important to note that social media is available in several forms for the companies as well as organizations to chose from. The major host is the internet. There are a number of websites including Facebook, Twitter, and My Space amongst others, which greatly influence the organizational communication. As the paper discusses majority of the organizations nowadays employ the use of social media predominantly for communicating to their customers and to the general public for a number of reasons. These may involve the fact that social media hosts a large number of people, ranging to millions. The millions of users of such social media is a good representative indicator of success of any business organization since they always determine the customer base of such organizations. It is of critical significance to acknowledge the fact that social media is one of the increasing phenomena in the current society. Social media has a lot of influence in the organizations progress relevant to communication.

Friday, October 18, 2019

Globalisation and Identity Crisis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Globalisation and Identity Crisis - Essay Example However, according to me it has gained momentum in the past couple of decades due to the advancement of technology and evolution of the ways of communication especially the role of the media. Since its mere existence, it has provoked controversies and debates all across the world. Some people are true proponents of this philosophy and they have various reasons for their beliefs, for instance, they believe that it has accelerated the sharing of information and transfer of knowledge from one pole of the world to the other. On the other hand, there are people who view this phenomenon with suspicion and see it as a method by which the developed countries are reaping the poor ones of their valuable resources. Some claim that this is the modern form of barbarism that the British practiced in the subcontinent and many other parts of the world in the 19th century. This essay is written to discuss both sides of the coin and to evaluate the effects of globalization with facts and figures. We w ill separate on this work into three parts to see the holistic picture and be able to evaluate it in a better way. These three divisions will be as follows: Individual, micro level and macro level. Examples will also be given at each level to support the point of view presented. In the end, there will be a brief conclusion to sum up our finding and to express my own opinion this particular topic. Individual Level Under this heading, we will discuss both the advantages and disadvantages that are there for a simple citizen from the advance of globalization. I will also share some of my personal opinions and view points with regards to globalization and its influence on students such as me. The aspects of globalization are important to touch base with because these bring to surface the necessary pointers which will mean success for the sake of the business. My viewpoints are based on the understanding that customers need to move ahead with the passage of time, and for that their expans ion is a must (Harvey, 2005). This will ensure that they grow and develop their own selves and thus the organizations that they are reporting to, be it an institution of global repute or simply a street business that they have come to be a part of. 1. Individuals as Customers: Globalization has tremendously increased the options that an individual has. He can obtain any good from any part of the world. Online shopping is just an example of this aspect of globalization. Also as discussed later in this essay globalization also results in healthy competition which in turn provides the customers with improved product and services. For instance, when I go online I even have the option of purchasing from Monsoon which is a Bangladeshi brand. It is a wonderful opportunity for me to view what new products and brands are available online and how I am able to make the best use of these brands for my own benefit. 2. Knowledge Workers: All the universities’ curricula now include a course on global management and cultural diversity. This is due to the global challenges that the current workforce has to face inevitably. This is an interesting challenge for the global savvy individuals and a hurdle for ethnocentric ones. The outlook is made more global with each passing day which helps the people to grow beyond their means and gives them an opportunity to look at areas where they have still not paid any heed as such. The knowledge workers help the

Philosophy on how you will teach students who have autism Essay

Philosophy on how you will teach students who have autism - Essay Example Teaching using visual aids is the most effective means of teaching autistic student. This is because students with this disorder are visual thinkers; they rely heavily on pictures to comprehend something. Pictographic and written cues assist these students learn and communicate (Arwood, Brown and Kaulitz 2009). The main advantage of using visual aids is that, an autistic student will be in a position to remember a he have the chance of making relationships and recall easily later unlike the oral teaching strategy. Furthermore, visual approach assists to combat attention failure by facilitating focus on the message. Teachers should use visual supports to teach autistic students how to: It is also imperative that a teacher understands autistic student motivators are different from normal students. This refers to the teaching method whereby there is the use of reinforces such as praise. This is because these students often develop an attachment to a single topic, object, Thus in order for the teacher to create learning interest he should clearly know these students preferences. In a scenario, whereby a student likes cars, then a teacher can for instance while teaching mathematics illustrate using cars. Teachers should objectively offer structured or predictable classroom environments. This environment should be structured to provide consistency and clarity. This will ensure that autistic students know exactly where things belong and what is required of them in a specific state, and can anticipate what comes next. Teachers should ensure that the personalized plan for a student with autism should fit well into the overall classroom timetable. Teachers should vary tasks to prevent boredom, and alternate-group, difficult- activities to reduce anxiety and possibly prevent some inappropriate behavior. In addition, incorporating physical activity and exercise at points throughout the day is

Issues in Multicultural Britain Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words - 1

Issues in Multicultural Britain - Essay Example ultures and traditions; however critiques believe that multiculturalism promotes negative aspects such as riots, terrorism, ethnic division, clash of ideologies, etc (Pathak, 2008, p. 72). Britain has been a multicultural society for years but now it tends to have been failing. The national curriculum was introduced in 1988 in the United Kingdom. It was the nationwide curriculum for all the primary and secondary state schools of Britain. The curriculum has been recently revised in order to catch up with the world’s best education systems. The government has designed curriculum changes which would help the children to compete and catch up with the best. This is also referred to as the revolution in education by the Prime Minister and he believes this is vital for the economic prosperity of the country. Moreover, the new national curriculum is written by purely experts in the field, and thus it does not depend on the personal prejudices of the ministers. As the globalization is rapidly spreading all across the world, including Britain, it has become even difficult to conserve our identities. The international borders have been nullified due to the globalization and in order to ensure that the people of every religion, race, ethnic group, and culture are living in peace, the governments have introduced some reforms and legislations (Aydin, 2013, p. 58). The national curriculum is also a part of the educational reforms which covers the long history of multiculturalism and diversity in England. The curriculum includes the historic development of multiculturalism and ethnic diversity, and the progress of multiculturalism education (Pitcher, 2009, p. 24). Since Britain is shaped by a wide variety of cultures and religions, the blood alone is not the factor anymore which makes someone British. However, what it means to be British is related to the fundamental values of Britain which are present in every person living there. These values include the people’s right to

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Einstein doesn't like it Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Einstein doesn't like it - Assignment Example It discusses probabilities of phenomenon and it is impossible to visualize such particles that form the probabilities. However, the Newton laws of motion were different from the quantum laws as they worked on visibility of motion. The three laws of motion presented by Newton were the remarkable discoveries of that time. Another contribution to the world of science was Newton’s law of Gravity that was a breakthrough in the field of physics. On the other hand quantum mechanics argues that it is not possible to know enough about the present so as to accurately predict the future. It is an impossible task that cannot be achieved even with sheer dedication in terms of time and technology. For example, if an object is moving at a certain speed in a certain direction we can determine its position at a certain time period based on its speed and direction. However, in the subatomic realm we can only approximate where the particle would be at a certain time and the more we narrow our focus on one particle the difficult it gets to approximate the other particles’ movements. Thus the entire discussion in this chapter concludes that Newton physics predicts events whereas quantum mechanics focuses on the probability of events. The two fields differ in their focus on the basic unit of observation but they both hold great significance in the field of

Choose one Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Choose one - Essay Example As I was reading the text, I felt compelled to verify the facts that were presented against my own personal experience of growing up in a major East Coast city. It is always a treat to re-examine my own home town from someone else's perspective. Without a doubt I found Jacobs' poignant assessment of city life was something with which I could strongly identify. Each section of the text highlights a critical aspect of the city that becomes through Jacobs' voice a substantial statement about the inner workings of the urban community. At first glance some of the subject matter might seem peripheral but for the exceptional insight and understanding demonstrated by the author. I didn't know that a man-made landscape could be considered a living organism until Jacobs made the reference to a city being a kind of ecosystem. Everything needs to be balanced and in harmony for all of the occupants to survive in such a fragile place. Nothing makes you think "city" more than the idea of the sidewalk, which is the pedestrian's portion of a city street. Investigating the sidewalk is surely an essential component to gaining an understanding of any urban community. In a crowded city filled with businesses, municipal structures, and parked cars these are just about the only public spaces left for people to spend their time. A safe place to walk is only one of the many functions that the sidewalk fills in a typical city. The sidewalk is like a living conduit that connects all of the separate houses and turns them in to a neighborhood. In a big city, the sidewalks seem to go on and on forever. You could imagine that it would take years to explore all of the streets in even a modest sized community. Like most inner city kids, I spent my entire youth playing on the sidewalk. The streets where I lived were always buzzing with activity. In the mornings many small children marched past my house on the way to the local elemen tary school. Adults strolled to their cars and sped off to work, while the elderly folks tended the garden or simply sat on the stoop socializing. The corner store two doors down from me was another hub of intense movement. Many different people would come and go at slightly different hours of the day, so that there was a constant stream of foot traffic. There were the morning deliveries of newspapers and mail. Maintenance workers and meter readers seemed to visit on a regular basis. Cars carrying tourists who got lost on their way to the airport would occasionally cruise past and stop to have a look. At dusk the teenagers would carouse and mingle. A variety of people used the sidewalk each day for their own purposes, and sometimes those lives would intersect with each other. As Jacobs states, "lowly, unpurposeful and random as they may appear, sidewalk contacts are the small change from which a city's wealth of public life may grow" (95). As I look back I can see that I had lived in a healthy community. There were other neighborhoods that I knew about which were decidedly unhealthy. The local housing projects for example were the places that my friends and I scrupulously avoided. For some reason these tenements were tucked away in a part of the city that was easy to bypass. The

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Einstein doesn't like it Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Einstein doesn't like it - Assignment Example It discusses probabilities of phenomenon and it is impossible to visualize such particles that form the probabilities. However, the Newton laws of motion were different from the quantum laws as they worked on visibility of motion. The three laws of motion presented by Newton were the remarkable discoveries of that time. Another contribution to the world of science was Newton’s law of Gravity that was a breakthrough in the field of physics. On the other hand quantum mechanics argues that it is not possible to know enough about the present so as to accurately predict the future. It is an impossible task that cannot be achieved even with sheer dedication in terms of time and technology. For example, if an object is moving at a certain speed in a certain direction we can determine its position at a certain time period based on its speed and direction. However, in the subatomic realm we can only approximate where the particle would be at a certain time and the more we narrow our focus on one particle the difficult it gets to approximate the other particles’ movements. Thus the entire discussion in this chapter concludes that Newton physics predicts events whereas quantum mechanics focuses on the probability of events. The two fields differ in their focus on the basic unit of observation but they both hold great significance in the field of

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

The Internal Morality of Chinese Legalism Essay Example for Free

The Internal Morality of Chinese Legalism Essay Abstract It is widely held that there are no indigenous roots in China for the rule of law; it is an import from the West. The Chinese legal tradition, rather, is rule by law, as elaborated in ancient Legalist texts such as the Han Feizi. According to the conventional reading of these texts, law is amoral and an instrument in the hands of a central ruler who uses law to consolidate and maintain power. The ruler is the source of all law and stands above the law, so that law, in the final analysis, is whatever pleases the ruler. This essay argues, to the contrary, that the instrumentalism of the Han Feizi is more sophisticated and more principled than the conventional reading acknowledges. It suggests that, by examining the text of the Han Feizi through the lens provided by American legal theorist Lon Fuller, we can detect an explicit articulation of what Fuller called the internal morality of law. The principles of this morality are elaborated and their importance explained. In this way, the Han Feizi is retrieved as a significant reference point for thinking about legal reform in China today. I am indebted to Liang Zhiping and David B. Wong for comments on an earlier draft, and to William P. Alford, as ever, for his guidance in thinking about law and legal institutions in China. Introduction The rule of law is now commonly regarded as an obligatory step to establishing China’s rightful place in the global community. Yet it is widely believed that there are no indigenous roots for the rule of law ideal; it is an import from the West. The Chinese legal tradition, rather, is rule by law, as elaborated most fully in ancient Legalist texts such as the Han Feizi. The distinction between rule by law and rule of law has many dimensions. Of central importance is the relationship of law and morality. Although no canonical formula exists for the rule of law, a moral ideal lies at the core, however it is specified. In rule by law, in contrast, at least according to the conventional understanding, law is amoral and an instrument of power. A typical statement is offered by Burton Watson, the respected translator of Han Fei’s work in English: Legalism, Watson says, â€Å"professed to have no use for morality whatsoever† (and similarly for religion and ceremony). It focused on a single problem: strengthening and preserving the state.1 In this regard, Watson follows Arthur Waley, who said that members of the â€Å"school of law† (fajia) â€Å"held that law should replace morality.† Instead of the term â€Å"school of law,† which he regarded as too narrow, Waley referred to members of the fajia as â€Å"the Amoralitsts .†2 It is because of this alleged amoralism that Randall Peerenboom can write a 670page book on â€Å"China’s long march toward [the] rule of law† and barely mention Han Fei. Peerenboom expresses the conventional view: for Han Fei, law is one instrument in the ruler’s toolbox for sustaining strong centralized control. Since the ruler is the source of all law, and stands above the law, there are no limits or effective checks on the ruler’s arbitrary power. â€Å"In the final analysis, law was what pleased the ruler.†3 This view of Legalism is reinforced by a particular reading of Chinese legal history during the period of the Three Dynasties, China’s bronze age. Liang Zhiping, the eminent legal scholar, claims that the predilection for rule by law, in Han Fei and other Legalists, has its roots in the way law emerged initially in China, namely, as an instrument by which a single clan exercised control over rival clans. â€Å"[W]ithin a system tha t was inherently unstable †¦ [l]aw was seen as the will of the rulers and an instrument of suppression; its primary manifestation was in punishment.† Hence, the choice of rule by law was the product of an extended and unique cultural development. â€Å"[T]he legalists merely developed to its extreme the ancient legal model, ‘[y]ou who obey my orders shall be rewarded before my ancestors; and you who disobey my orders shall be put to death before the spirits of the land.’†4 These two conceptions of law and legal institutions—rule by law and the rule of law—are familiar in the West, although rule by law now has few, if any, advocates. But one needs to go back only to John Austin, the influential 19th century English legal theorist, for systematic elaboration of rule by law. Western theorists, indeed, might be tempted to look at Chinese Legalists through the lens of Austin, since his work enables us to see a systematic body of thought in the Han Feizi. However, this lens, I shall argue, brings some elements of the Han Feizi into sharp focus only at the cost of distorting others. Western theorists need a corrective lens, which is provided by Lon Fuller. In assessing Austin’s account, Fuller’s approach is most helpful because it offers an internal critique, showing that denial of a compelling connection between law and morality is inaccurate to the theory itself. Fuller’s account does not rest on a semantic analysis of â€Å"law† but on a pragmatic appreciation of legal order as a form of governance. Out of this appreciation, the practical connection—the interaction and mutual dependence of law and morality in the everyday work of lawmakers and other collaborative participants in the creation of legal order—emerges even in rule by law properly understood. Thus, Fuller shows how the moral core of the rule of law is present in the generic use of law in society. The moral core of the rule of law—the thin theory, as it is often called— encompasses two key ideas: (1) While law is an instrument of political power, law also constrains power. Hence, law and power are, to some degree, opposed. (2) While law channels political power, law also enables power to be rightly exercised. Hence, law is a source of legitimation for the exercise of power. How is political power constrained and yet also rightly exercised? The rule of law ideal is that these conditions are met if it is truly the law that governs legal subjects, not the wishes of specific individuals or groups. The ideal is a government of laws, not persons, so the moral core (in a word) is impersonal governance. My thesis is that Han Fei’s text, the Han Feizi, displays this moral core and thus connects law and morality. I shall argue, indeed, that the Han Feizi advocates a purer form of the rule of law than is offered by many Western theorists. Chinese Legalism did not be gin with the Han Feizi, but it is generally regarded as the most sophisticated exposition of the theory. I believe it is more nuanced than generations of commentators have acknowledged. It is important to emphasize that my interest is with the rule of law as a legislative, rather than judicial, ideal. This focus is appropriate for the Han Feizi, since it contains no explicit judicial theory (although it has definite implications, as we shall see, for the work of judges). That means that the vision of law in the Han Feizi is incomplete. On the other hand, most Western theorists neglect the legislative ideal, and many mistakenly believe that judicial independence (or the separation of powers) is sufficient for establishing the rule of law. I shall suggest that, at least for the legislative ideal, worthy indigenous Chinese sources for the rule of law exist. Contrary to Watson and Peerenboom, I argue that the Han Feizi intends to link law and morality. But I should say from the beginning that this essay is not an attempt to recapture Han Fei’s conscious motives or point of view. It is an attempt to retrieve a text for contemporary understanding and use. Admittedly, this effort runs the risk of literary misprision—willful, not to say creative, misreading. But recovering the rich history of Chinese legal thought seems to me worth that risk. It is often said, with good reason, that successive Chinese emperors followed the Legalist template set out by the Han Feizi. If it turns out that the Han Feizi carries a different message from the one it is usually taken to convey, the imperial history may have to be re-examined to determine when it followed the template and when it did not.5 [I] Rule by law: Han Fei and John Austin The conventional reading of the Han Feizi pictures law as an instrument in the hands of the ruler. This could mean different things. Instrumentalism is sometimes construed to mean that rulers use law only if and when it suits their purposes; it is employed (or not) at the ruler’s discretion to achieve the ruler’s own desires or ends. In this construction, law does not have any special pride of place, and certainly nothing beyond a fortuitous connection to moral value. On any particular occasion, if a ruler fails to realize his or her will by the use of law, an alternative instrument of governance could be deployed. Let’s call this ad hoc or strategic instrumentalism. This is not rule by law, as I understand it. Rule by law meets at least one and possibly two conditions missing from ad hoc instrumentalism. Most importantly, the commitment to rules—fixed standards of general applicability—is not ad hoc; they are the ruler’s chosen mechanism of governance. Thus, the commitment to rules is deliberate and firm, and the instrumentalism is consistent and principled. This commitment, we shall see, introduces a variety of self-imposed constraints on lawmaking and secures the connection between law and morality. Second, the rules promulgated are not necessarily intended to serve the lawmaker’s personal desires or ends. They may serve common ends, or they may permit (or enable) subjects to pursue ends of their own. In that event, we move from a minimal to a morally robust instrumentalism. If the rules facilitate the pursuit of ends other than those of the lawgiver, principled instrumentalism transitions into the rule of law. Although the Han Feizi is conventionally read as committed (at worst) to ad hoc instrumentalism or (at best) to a consistent but minimal instrumentalism, I shall argue in section III that many of the essays that make up the Han Feizi advocate a robust principled instrumentalism. For this reason, it will be helpful to examine first a systematic statement of the minimally instrumentalist view. John Austin is more clearly committed to minimal instrumentalism, because his aims were more academic—to elaborate a systematic theory—whereas Han Fei wished to provide practical advice to rulers. A consideration of Austin enables us to grasp what coherence the minimally instrumentalist view has. Like Han Fei, Austin aimed to be a realist about law, to examine actual facts in the world. That led him to trace the existence of law to the exercise of power. Accordingly, the proper understanding of law is genetic. In the strict sense, law is a command—a wish expressed by a determinate person or body possessing supreme power in an organized and independent society, backed by the credible threat of a sanction (i.e., pain) in the event of noncompliance. Why does the credible threat of a sanction make a law binding? Austin was a voluntarist about law as he was in theology. The duty to obey a command rests not on its conformity to an independent moral standard but simply on its emanating from a preponderant power. To have a duty to act is to be compelled to act. â€Å"[I]t is only by the chance of incurring evil, that I am bound or obliged.†7 Thus, whether divine or human, law makes its appearance within a relationship of domination—a superior (in power) issuing orders to an inferior (in power), where the former has the capacity to compel the latter to act by means of a threatened evil, i.e., pain. The duty is legal if it is issued by a political sovereign, moral if issued by God. Hobbes observed that the conditions for a social contract obtain if persons are of roughly equal ability, for then they acquire an equality of hope in having their respective claims satisfied. But in circumstances where a clear supremacy of power lies in one individual or body, no question as to the proper distribution of duties and rights arises. The distribution of duties and rights naturally parallels the distribution of power.8 That, obviously, is Austin’s view as well. The foundation of law is force or the threat of its use. To have a duty, therefore, in Austin’s quaint phrase, is to be obnoxious to the superior’s threat. Obnoxiousness is determined by one of two empirical facts: either the extent to which the inferior party is motivated by fear of the sanction, or the likelihood that the superior party will carry out its threat. While the pursuit of pleasure is as much an ultimate spring of human action as the avoidance of pain, the latter is more to be relied on than the former. The certainty and severity of threatened pain, in the event of noncompliance to the superior’s commands, are defining features of legal (as of moral) order. Since the definition of law stipulates nothing about the content of the superior’s wish, law may have any content whatever and still be binding. The separation of law and morality is secured: might makes right. Thus, law is imperative, preemptory, morally arbitrary, coercive, and an instrument of domination. It also, as we shall see more fully in a moment, aims above all at stability and order. By definition, Austin’s sovereign is not subject to a superior power and hence does not have any legal duties. (By the same token, the sovereign does not have any legal rights, either.) Austin formulates this point most sharply by observing that â€Å"every government is legally despotic.†9 This is a provocative way of saying that its power is legally unlimited; it stands above the law and can make, or unmake, any law whatever. It is not misleading to say the sovereign is self-legitimating, as long as we keep in mind that legitimation comes not from satisfying a standard of legitimacy but from the successful exercise of supreme power. Yet one of the virtues of Austin’s writing is that it is richer than the genetic definition of law would lead one to expect. (Failure in the legal literature to appreciate the richer analysis is the same kind of failure one finds regarding the Han Feizi.) Exploring some of this richness will help us develop a critique that illuminates the Han Feizi. Austin actually formulates three distinct definitions of law—in addition to the genetic there are formal and purposive definitions—each of which meshes imperfectly with the others. The formal definition appears when Austin stipulates that a command is a law only if it has the attribute of generality, that is, it must refer to a class of acts to be done or avoided, not a single action. Particular or occasional commands are not laws in the strict sense.11 This stipulation is sensible, since modern law typically consists of a body of standing rules, not extemporaneous orders. It shows that Austin thought of legal order as a system, or at least a set, of rules. But in relation to the genetic definition, it is completely unmotivated; nothing in the meaning of command requires it. At the same time, the implications are profound. The addition of generality represents a significant departure from personal command and toward impersonal governance. It commits the lawmaker to acting in certain ways in as yet unknown cases. And, by grouping actions into classes, it produces a degree of uniformity of treatment across persons. So, with generality, the picture of a compliant inferior following the wishes of a superior recedes to a significant degree. These implications—uniformity across persons and prior commitment in unknown cases—indicate that certain formal features of laws may have moral import, and I shall say more about them in a moment. With law understood as a self-conscious instrument of domination expressing the wishes of a (human) sovereign, it is only to be expected that Austin would stress the potential divorce between the content of promulgated laws and the requirements of morality. â€Å"The existence of law is one thing; its merit or demerit is another.†12 But if law itself, simply as a body of general rules, has moral import regardless of its content, we have taken an important step toward a robust instrumentalist account of law. The richness of Austin’s analysis is even more evident in his purposive definition. In its most general and comprehensive sense, he says, a law is â€Å"a rule laid down for the guidance of an intelligent being by an intelligent being having power over him.†13 Asymmetry in power is central for Austin, as we have seen, but intelligent guidance introduces a different dimension. Austin followed Locke in thinking of law as a human contrivance, establishing relations between rational beings. But the idea of intelligent guidance has implications Austin was hesitant to pursue. He recognized, for example, that the concept of command precludes ex post facto rules, since an utterance cannot constitute a command if the action required cannot be performed. Yet to acknowledge this conceptual point would be tantamount to placing a limit on sovereign power; an ex post facto pronouncement would not be a law, even though it possessed all the other features of the genetic definition. 14 Further, such acknowledgement would be the first step on a slippery slope. It would allow one to say that other pronouncements of the sovereign are also not laws, for instance, ones that are not clear in meaning. How could an obscure or incoherent utterance provide intelligent guidance to human conduct? Or an utterance that was not made public? Or that kept changing? These implications are precisely the ones pursued by Fuller in developing what he called the internal morality of law. Before turning to Fuller, however, we should pause to ask why Austin recoiled from the implications of his purposive definition and instead adhered to the idea of law as an instrument in the hands of a supreme person or body exercising power over others. My hypothesis is that rule by law in its minimalist variant was important to Austin for two related reasons: the fear of disorder and the uncertainty of morality. Both of these were reflected in Austin’s ambivalence about the expansion of democracy in England in the early 19th century. He saw little possibility, at least in the foreseeable future, of achieving the educational and mental improvement of the general population that he regarded as a prerequisite of democratic government. As a result, according to John Stuart Mill’s account, Austin developed an â€Å"indifference, bordering on contempt, for the progress of popular [i.e., democratic] institutions.†15 In addition, Austin believed that common moral opinion was so fractured, so full of partiality and prejudice, that ordinary people cannot be trusted to act decently. What makes government by a powerful ruler necessary and expedient is the â€Å"uncertainty, scantiness, and imperfection† of the mora l beliefs people espouse. â€Å"Hence the necessity for a common governing (or common guiding) head to whom the community may in concert defer.†16 The resonance of these passages with much of the Han Feizi, or at least the conventional reading of it, should be apparent. Lack of confidence in the capacity of human beings to govern themselves makes it necessary to have a sovereign whose will provides common directives that are easily discernible and effective. If people are allowed to follow their natural propensities, they will engage in all manner of disorderly behavior. Social order requires stable external direction by means of the threat of force. Thus, the solution to the problem of social order—Hobbes’s problem—is managerial direction (to use Fuller’s term). Without top-down control, matters are likely to get badly out of hand. The exercise of control in Austin’s case, of course, is thought of as benign. The goods of order and unity are taken for granted. The power of the superior is canvassed, not in terms of personal wishes or even class interests, but its efficacy in producing the â€Å"steadiness, constancy, or uniformity† that every society needs. Thus, Austin—like Han Fei, as I shall argue—makes sense of law in practice as an instrument in the hands of a single individual or mandarin elite with the competence and requisite disinterestedness to attend to the public need. To that extent, Austin’s theory is a pure expression of rule by law.