On Multicultural Beliefs and Myths of Sexual Anatomy Essay Example for Free

On Multicultural Beliefs and Myths of Sexual Anatomy Essay Based on what I’ve experienced and heard from one of my Asian friends, most beliefs or myths are more common to males rather than females, with practices mostly concerning the penis. Circumcision is a practice very common in certain parts of the world due to the main influence of religion. In Southeast Asia, specifically in the Philippines, there are still existing beliefs being practiced surrounding circumcision. A male by at least age 10 should be circumcised to ensure they reach their height potential. It is discouraged to have the procedure done right after birth, believing that as the child gets bigger, the foreskin will grow back, thus needing to do another procedure as the child won’t reach his maximum height potential due to the fact that the procedure was done soon after birth. This procedure is usually considered a big event in the child’s life and is decided for by the parents. After the circumcision is done, customary beliefs expect the male child to chew on guava leaves and afterwards, wrap the chewed leaves onto the penis to prevent infection. For some, it is established for the circumcised male child to jump into the river to cleanse the wound. This practice is usually done during the summer months when the kids are out of school and still have time to heal. In the rural areas, it is a huge event and done in makeshift hospitals with volunteers assisting the boys in doing the procedure. Kids often get teased prior to being circumcised by the older kids as this procedure is considered a rite of passage. Kids circumcised soon after birth also get teased about not getting any taller because the procedure was not done at the right time. Of course, by the time that these kids get the right to do the procedure, all bets are off and those circumcised as a baby would often have the upper hand at teasing their previous tormentors. My Asian friend also relayed to me their beliefs about women once they reach the puberty stage and get their menses. According to the old customs in their provinces, the girls are expected clean their underwear upon getting their menses and afterwards, cleanse their face with the same underwear to ensure that they don’t get pimples. Others take it a step further by cleaning their face with their â€Å"first† menstrual blood for the same purpose. The girls are often asked to jump three times on the stairs, which also serves as a cleansing ritual. Some believe that the number of times you jump from the stairs will determine the duration of your menstrual period thus, three jumps would mean you will only have three days of your period. Myths about pregnant women are also widely circulated in their culture, especially in certain rural areas of their country as expectant mothers are advised to be careful when sleeping at night. It is said that evil witches in the form of an elderly woman (although the witch is often regarded as a shape shifter) would take the fetus from the woman’s womb by climbing on top of the roof and yanking the fetus using their long tongue. According to my good friend, this belief is still prevalent in their modern society as it is being portrayed in popular culture via the media. Even in the urban areas, pregnant women are advised by their parents not to sleep near the window for fear that they might be seen and victimized by these witches. All these beliefs and myths are still thriving today in the modern world with the older generation ensuring that the young continue to uphold these traditions and practices. There may be a few that veer away from this path but society still finds a way to remind everyone about these practices.

Evilness beyond comprehension Essay Example for Free

Evilness beyond comprehension Essay This story depicts how a certain innocent person was condemned and was sentenced to death for a crime he did but with an innocent motive. The story goes on around a certain person’s life in a ship where he was said to be one of the crew. Billy as a character depicted in the story is a person whose innocence can not be changed into hatred for other people. Though his surrounding is full of people with evil motives, he is still into trusting them with full innocence. Evilness beyond comprehension Such evilness is beyond the main character’s understanding, and his being weak causes him to lose his sense of defending himself. With this state of the character’s condition, some people around him tend to abuse his weakness, such as the character which is depicted as an evil person in the story who’s Claggart. Claggart as an evil influence in the story caused Billy to use a brutal way to express Billy’s madness because he is speechless; Billy was then susceptible in making an attack due to the evil atmosphere on the ship. By Billy’s innocence, he was dragged to the wilderness of violence. It is beyond his comprehention that it is indeed the evil’s intention to ruin the goodness in his heart. Indeed the evilness had him offguard that had caused him to be condemned. The writer depicted his main character’s innocence as something to be really loved and liked by other people but also a personality which is something to be pitied about. Billy depicting Jesus Christ In simple but complex ways, the main character was said to be somehow depicting Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for the betterment of everyone. He was, as Jesus was condemned to death though they are both innocent. It is showed in the story that the main character’s innocence is really a great lost of its essence in the humankind; though it is said to be wrong depicting Christ’s figure in an ordinary man such as Billy who is said to be an unsound person. The distinction between the divine characters of Christ with that of Billy is that; Billy will not intentionally give up his life or sacrifice himself for other people’s good. On the contrary, Christ accepted being condemned to death for people in the world’s salvation. Another way in which the story of Billy could depict the story of Christ is the story when Pontius Pilate tends to wash his hand to show that he is not responsible for Christ condemnation. On the other hand in Billy’s story, Captain Vere pushed through the military view of law and condemned Billy because he was thinking about what his mates would think of him if he will not punish Billy with what they think would suit the latter for his crime. Both of the character who’s Pontius and Vere, are playing innocent for an unjust case. Between innocence and evil, the author depicted Claggart as the evil one, and goodness was depicted by Billy. The character of Billy in the story is paralleled to many of the bibbles characters and some of those are Adam which is said to be the first man who is born innocent in the world and was also presented as having the same figure of Christ. On the contrary, Claggart was depicted as characterized by evil wher he was paralleled to Satan’s characteristics and figures who motivated and/or influenced Billy to do evil. Billy died simply because he could not defend himself from the evilness that’s in this world, he could not understand the role of evil, and mostly he could not do any defense from evil because he don’t understand what is meant by being evil. Conflict after Billy’s death After Billy had been condemned, there had been a lot of conflicts that had happened after his execution; such as the Bellipotent engaging in a ship war where captain Vere died. The continuous spread of Billy’s story which had became a chronicle for the others, and mysteriously there were a continuous condemnation that happened to different ports in the manner that Billy was condemned. Themes There were themes considered in the story such as a certain Conscience Versus Law this was shown when captain Vere had a confusion of how to decide for Billy’s case. Captain Vere as a friend, he had difficulty on deciding what to do with Billy’s case because Billy was a dear friend to him but then Captain Vere’s responsibility as an authority caused him to sentence Billy for condemnation. After that, the captain was chased by the thoughts of Billy and was bothered by his own conscience because he know that he did not consider Billy’s reasons until he died and repeatedly uttered his friend’s name. Another one is a person’s Vulnerability of Innocence; the story was all about the main character’s innocence versus the evilness around him. It is said that innocence versus evilness is different from goodness versus evilness. Billy was a person who is innocent about almost everything which caused his weakness to do evil. He was a person who is morally weak and so naive about evilness because it is shown that evilness is beyond his comprehension. The story showed how Billy’s heart was corrupted and changed into evilness because he was unable to distinguish which is evil when he encountered it. The result is that he let alone violence to come out of him that caused him to kill Claggart unintentionally. Individual Versus Society is also considered as a theme of the story. In the story, the author tried to depict how the society pushed its forces for a certain person to be individually oppressed, that the society limits a certain person of his/her being as an individual. It is shown in the story when Captain Vere encountered difficulty dealing with Billy’s case; he had difficulty in considering what the society wants according to his obligation and what he feels. In deciding for the main characters condemnation, Captain Vere considered his obligation and followed what the law implies; hence he knows and feels that Billy is an innocent person by nature. He then as a leader by profession, pushed through to the jurors about Billy’s execution. It is depicted in the story how society dictates a certain person of how to decide, that their view is more important than that of a persons own view. Considered law The law is made by a constitution for all the people to follow in order to maintain a peacefull world to live in hence a law can still be bend or altered by the people who work on it such as jury and society. They can change law according to their own views and consideration thus it can also be altered through the views of others. One example of a circumstance in the story is when Captain Vere sentenced Billy to death though he knew to himself that Billy is innocent. He decided to condemn billy because hye was afraid of what other people would think if he considered Billy and gave him a simple punishment. The law which Billy’s case was considered was in a military law where the people who are considered as enemies are brutally punished. And that the law was very different from the law in which Billy was supposed to be considered; in a civilian law, where considerations to human were given. There are a lot of strategies and different views when it comes to law, but the best way in viewing law in which it is not considered in Billy’s case was seeking for a principle that would lead them into a just result to both sides. On the contrary, the law which is depicted in the story is really unjust. The loss of correct judgment of the law in the story was shown when Billy was condemned even without hearing his side of the story or considering his motive why he had done such crime. Billy’s justice was also deprived when the ship’s captain did not tell the true story about what had really happened, instead, he pushed the case through until poor Billy was sentenced death. In the context of the story, mercy came in when Billy’s death was given justice. It happened when the ship, Bellipotent, lost from a ship war and captain Vere was wounded and eventually did not survived. In the captain’s last minutes of his life, he was continuously murmuring Billy’s name. This only depicts that â€Å"evil ones who do not give justice are also not given justice in the end†. â€Å"Those who deprive other’s life are also deprived in life in the end†. What the story meant for the readers We can learn a lot of moral values in the story. We can learn in the story that innocence is indeed an admirable character hence it should not cover a person’s knowledge about evilness because it could cause a person to be easily influenced in doing evil. We can also learn from the story that innocence could cause a certain person weakness and vulnerability that could be the main cause for him/her to be deprived by others by his own life. Thesis This story only tends to show the readers how difficult it is to live in this world full of evil forcess thus a person like Billy is innocent about such thing. It depicts how a human would only suffer of his innocence in this kind of world. And that innocence is vulnerable to evilness and deprivation to life. as the character was deprived of his life due to his innocence and lack of comprehention about evilness. Also that the law which is supopsed to give justice; it is the one that deprives people by not considering a certain accused persons statement or side. The kind of law in the story is the one that manipulates a person to view the case in a right manner according to the true essence of justice (Melville, 1924). Works Cited Melville, H. (1924). Billy Budd [Electronic Version] from http://www. sparknotes. com/lit/billybudd/canalysis. html.

Immanuel Kant Theory of Justice

Immanuel Kant Theory of Justice The philosopher Immanuel Kant believed that his retributive theories of justice were based in logic and reason. The retributive stance on punishment states that punishment is necessary, and indeed, justified, on the basis that the act of committing crime deserves punishment. The strict guidelines Kants theories created, coupled with the very nature of retributive justice fuelled the arguments of those of Kants critics who claimed his approach would lead to harsh and ineffective sentencing. It is my intention to use this paper as a means of exploring and addressing these claims. Judicial punishment can never be used merely as a means to promote some other good for the criminal himself or for civil society, but instead it must in all cases be imposed on him only on the ground that he has committed a crime; for a human being ought never to be manipulated merely as a means related to anothers purposes First, he must be found to be deserving of punishment before consideration can be given to the utility of this particular punishment for himself or for fellow citizens  [1]  . Upon considering the above it is clear that, in Kants view, the only purpose punishment should serve is to penalize the criminal for committing a crime. Whether or not the punishment could have an affect on the criminals propensity to reform is therefore irrelevant. The punishment is there to punish the criminal for the crime they have committed; nothing more, nothing less. This leads on to the theory of just deserts. This theory is now considered to be one of the more prominent views on the subject of the punishment of criminals  [2]  . The key belief of the principle being that offenders must deserve punishment: [in] the everyday thinking about punishment, the idea of desert figures prominently. Ask the person on the street why a wrongdoer should be punished, [and] he is likely to say that he deserves it  [3]  . Kant advocated two principles regarding the way punishment should be meted out. As we have established above, the first of which is that the only right and proper grounds for punishment is that the criminal deserves it. And so it follows that punishing a criminal with the aim of promoting happiness, reformation or deterrence would run contrary to the categorical imperative by making the punishment a means to an end. Kants categorical imperative is the universal law that states that all people must act in a morally correct manner at all times. Therefore ones own desires or wishes cannot be taken into account when making a decision, as no one persons desires should be prioritized above anothers. The desired outcome of any action must be to avoid causing harm or inflicting damage upon another person. In this regard, Kant defines an act as morally correct if it can be applied as a universal law. For example: I will never tell the truth would be deemed to be immoral because it could not b e applied as universal law as, in the event of everyone having to never tell the truth, the truth would lose its significance. In simpler terms, when considering Kants categorical imperative, the logical approach surely dictates that we must consider the affect our own actions will have on others, and then to avoid carrying out actions that will harm or hinder the rights of others. The second of Kants principles regarding punishment relates to proportionality; the sentence received should be proportionate to the crime committed. Kants theories of autonomy and free decision making make up the foundations for his view on just deserts. The theory submits, first of all, that everybody is duty bound to respect each others rights. Kant goes on to suggest that adhering to the law is a sacrifice of ones right to freedom of choice. Therefore, those that commit crime gain an unfair advantage over those that do not. Punishment is used as a means to redress the balance between the law abiding citizens and the criminals, removing any unfairly gained advantage from the criminals. The punishment is intended to punish no more or less than relates to the advantage gained. It follows, therefore, that deterrence and reformation bear no relevance to this method of sentencing. This type of justice system is still relevant today, and indeed, has been put to use by some governments. The U.S. State of California has rigorously applied retributive punishment philosophies to its court system. Retributive justice has been applied in California since the inception of the Determinate Sentencing Law: The Legislature finds and declares that the purpose of imprisonment for crime is punishment  [4]  . One of the key policies of Californias justice system is the three strike rule. The three strike rule was introduced in 1994  [5]  . Its main purpose was to punish repeat offenders by handing out long sentences a minimum of twenty-five years to those that have been convicted of a felony and already have two strikes for violence on their record. Sentencing under these guidelines leads to particularly long, and critics say, ineffective, sentences  [6]  . The policy has been successful in that it has kept criminals off the streets for longer  [7]  , but it can be argued that the detrimental effects, such as criminals receiving life sentences for what amounts to petty offences the third strike doesnt have to be a violent offence outweigh the beneficial effects. This policy also conflicts with Kants categorical imperative in that receiving a life sentence for being convicted of shoplifting  [8]  (as the third strike) is not proportionate. We have already established that Kants intention is for individuals who have been found to have broken the law to receive punishment that is relative to the advantage that they have gained by committing the crime. If the above assessment were to hold true it would mean that Andrew von Hirschs proclamation regarding the opinion of the person on the street  [9]  would surely be correct. Despite this, one could argue there to be various potential flaws present within the theory. Not the least of which is how to apply this theory of punishment to a criminal that has gained no discernible advantage from their crime. For example: A boy living alone with his mother is periodically abused by her. He is subjected to sustained mental, physical and sexual assaults that he is powerless to prevent. He is kept locked up for the majority of his time at home and is threatened that, were he to tell anyone of what he has suffered, he would receive more severe abuse. The abuse continues as he grows older and eventually he fights back. On this occasion he hears his mother approaching him via the stairs that lead to his room. He rushes to the top of the stairs and pushes her down them, resulting in her death. I would suggest that it is certainly arguable that the boys only intention was for the abuse to stop, rather than an intention to kill or seriously injure his mother. SOURCE IT UP It surely would not be right to say that there has been any advantage gained in this example. The rest of society is not expected to endure such abuse, and so it follows that the boy was already at a disadvantage. Also, surely th e victim in this crime was herself guilty of not respecting the rights of her son, as per Kants theory of just desert. This would surely lend weight to the line of thinking that it would be unfair to punish the criminal in this, albeit radical example, where there has been no advantage gained, by the very same principles applied to those that have gained some advantage. This example seems to support the beliefs of Kants critics  [10]  , and certainly strengthens the view that two wrongs dont make a right. Kant endorsed capital punishment as a suitable punishment for murderers  [11]  . This stance is a good example of Kants beliefs regarding proportionality; a life for a life. However, this stance also goes some way to strengthening the claims of those that believe Kants philosophy encourages harsh sentencing  [12]  . This leads on to the area of Kants philosophy that has attracted the most criticism. How can ending the autonomy of another, criminal or otherwise, be in keeping with Kants theories regarding categorical imperative? To use Kants own words, to hand out capital punishment must surely be classed as FIND SOME RELEVANT WORDS. Why is it that this stance can be upheld in relation to suicide or murder, but disregarded when it comes to the punishment of a criminal? Again, we turn to the view of Andrew von Hirsch, who said: A person who violates the rules has something others have the benefits of the system but by renouncing what others have assumed, the burdens of self-restraint, he has acquired an unfair advantage. Matters are not even until this advantage is in some way erased à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Justice that is punishing such individuals restores the equilibrium of benefits and burdensà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ã‚  [13]   Kant justifies such an approach by saying [the criminal] draws the evil deed back to himself when he suffers that which according to the penal law is the same as what he has inflicted on others. According to this line of thinking, a criminal that has murdered somebody else has done so because they have made a choice to do so, and in doing so, they have gained an advantage over the victim. In other words: A kills B because A didnt like the look of B. By murdering B, A has sought to gain an advantage over the rest of law abiding society, who by adhering to the law, have sacrificed their freedom of choice. So, As choice to murder B, is deemed to be A unfairly reclaiming his freedom of choice. However, if A is punished via capital punishment, it is not to gain any advantage, it is merely to punish A for the crime he has committed in a proportionate manner. He has taken a life, therefore his own becomes forfeit. Again, though, there is a case for arguments against Kants stance on the ma tter. How can theory stand up in cases where the criminal has not acted out of any rational thought? How can Kants view apply in cases where the criminal has lost their mind to insanity and acted on instinct rather than choice? There is no reason, no autonomy in such an instance. In conclusion, I believe Kants theory on punishment to promote certain values which are of utmost importance to society. Namely, the categorical imperative and, in particular, his view on morally correct actions. However, there is perhaps, something robotic about his theory. It would be wonderful if everybody told the truth all of the time, regardless of consequence. It would be equally wonderful if people did not commit crime at all. I believe that asking everyone to follow the same universal laws, while noble and beneficial in theory, cannot be achieved due to the complexity and intrinsic selfishness of human beings. Similarly, to punish them in such a way; without taking deterrence, the propensity to reform, or any other individual factors pertaining to a given case, such as circumstance and state of mind, would be unfair. While I agree that proportionality would offer certain advantages when sentencing, such as adherence to the rule of law; everyone is treated equally. Kants stan ce on punishment also presents its fair share of problems. Namely, that peoples actions are often dictated by circumstance, which obviously would not be taken into consideration under the guide lines laid out by Kant, and presented throughout this essay. Owing to this fact, I believe that Kants stance on punishment would be perfect in an ideal world. However, as unfortunate as this fact is: we do not live in an ideal world.

Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness :: Essays Papers

Heart of Darkness â€Å"A Worn Path† is a story of an old woman’s enduring courage, and strength, despite scores of obstacles. It begins on a â€Å"bright frozen day in the early morning.† Phoenix Jackson is making a strenuous journey across a wintry countryside to acquire medicine for her grandson who is chronically ill. She was â€Å"very old and small and/she carried a thin small cane made from an umbrella.† This clearly shows the reader that she is not suited for this arduous excursion. However, she has made the same trip a countless amount of times. The author uses Phoenix’s story to represent a journey of life. Her unwillingness to immediately reveal the purpose of the journey allows the reader to interpret this as a general journey without a specific purpose, just as life is often referred to as a journey whose reason is unknown. The obstacles she runs across in her travels represent the problems that one might have to face in life. Welty wants the reader to focus on Phoenix, her journey, and the obstacles that get in her way; because it is through the story of this journey that the author coveys her message, showing Phoenix’s sheer will and determination to endure, no matter what hardship presents itself to her. Throughout the entirety of the story, the author uses the third person limited omniscient point of view. This serves to give the other characters in the story less dimension, and thus, less importance, so that Phoenix is the only character that is fully developed. With this point of view, her physical characteristics are described, in depth, in the beginning of the story through the narrator. Sensuous imagery is used to put a brilliant picture of Phoenix in the mind of the reader. â€Å"Her eyes were blue with age. Her skin had a pattern all its own of numberless branching wrinkles.† This passage is exemplary of Welty’s exceptional ability to captivate one’s interest through use of diction. The characteristics of her personality are also depicted mainly through the reader’s experience of her actions, words, thoughts, and interactions with the other characters. This is the main reason that the other characters are a necessity. The hunter tries to persuade Phoenix to go home. He represents those in life who try to stand in the way and discourage people from fulfilling their goals. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness :: Essays Papers Heart of Darkness â€Å"A Worn Path† is a story of an old woman’s enduring courage, and strength, despite scores of obstacles. It begins on a â€Å"bright frozen day in the early morning.† Phoenix Jackson is making a strenuous journey across a wintry countryside to acquire medicine for her grandson who is chronically ill. She was â€Å"very old and small and/she carried a thin small cane made from an umbrella.† This clearly shows the reader that she is not suited for this arduous excursion. However, she has made the same trip a countless amount of times. The author uses Phoenix’s story to represent a journey of life. Her unwillingness to immediately reveal the purpose of the journey allows the reader to interpret this as a general journey without a specific purpose, just as life is often referred to as a journey whose reason is unknown. The obstacles she runs across in her travels represent the problems that one might have to face in life. Welty wants the reader to focus on Phoenix, her journey, and the obstacles that get in her way; because it is through the story of this journey that the author coveys her message, showing Phoenix’s sheer will and determination to endure, no matter what hardship presents itself to her. Throughout the entirety of the story, the author uses the third person limited omniscient point of view. This serves to give the other characters in the story less dimension, and thus, less importance, so that Phoenix is the only character that is fully developed. With this point of view, her physical characteristics are described, in depth, in the beginning of the story through the narrator. Sensuous imagery is used to put a brilliant picture of Phoenix in the mind of the reader. â€Å"Her eyes were blue with age. Her skin had a pattern all its own of numberless branching wrinkles.† This passage is exemplary of Welty’s exceptional ability to captivate one’s interest through use of diction. The characteristics of her personality are also depicted mainly through the reader’s experience of her actions, words, thoughts, and interactions with the other characters. This is the main reason that the other characters are a necessity. The hunter tries to persuade Phoenix to go home. He represents those in life who try to stand in the way and discourage people from fulfilling their goals.

psychology and learning Essay -- essays research papers

There are many different kinds of ways that people and animals learn. People can adjust the way they learn to the different situations in which they are learning and what they have to learn. One form of learning is known as conditioning. Conditioning emphasises the relationship between stimuli and responses. The two types of conditioning found are Classical conditioning and Operant conditioning. Learning may occur in different ways. Psychologists have distinguished between different types of learning, these being Observational Learning and Insight Learning.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Classical conditioning refers to a simple form of learning, which occurs through the repeated association of two or more different stimuli. Learning is only said to have occurred once a particular stimulus always produces a response which it did not previously produce. Classical conditioning involves an unconditioned stimulus and an unconditioned response, as well as a conditioned stimulus and a conditioned response. The unconditioned stimulus is any stimulus, which consistently produces a naturally occurring, automatic response. The unconditioned response is a reflexive and involuntary response, which occurs as a result of the unconditioned stimulus. The conditioned stimulus is the stimulus that is neutral at the beginning of the conditioning process and does not produce the unconditioned response. But through repeated association with the conditioned stimulus, triggers the same response as the unconditioned stimulus. The conditioned response is the learned respo nse that is brought forth by the conditioned stimulus. The conditioned response occurs after the conditioned stimulus has been associated with the unconditioned stimulus. An example of classical conditioning is when a person walks past a certain house each day and every time is attacked by a large dog. They then associate that house with the dog and avoid walking past there again. In this example the unconditioned stimulus is the dog, the unconditioned response is fear, the conditioned stimulus is the house, and the conditioned response is avoidance of the house.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Operant conditioning is the learning process in which the likelihood of a particular behavior occurring is determined by the consequences of that behavior. It is based on the assumption that a person or animal will tend to re... ...ng it long enough to reach the banana. After many futile attempts to reach the banana with his hands, the Chimp then tried other solutions, which included using each stick independently to reach the banana. Failing once again the chimp sat down with the two sticks in his hands, appearing as though he had given up. But then, seeing that both sticks could be put together to make one long stick (insightful experience), the Chimpanzee placed the small stick a little way inside of the larger one and was able to reach the banana and pull it toward himself.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There are many differences and similarities between each of these learning processes. For example, classical conditioning involves only involuntary or reflex responses where as operant conditioning involves both involuntary and voluntary reflexes. These different learning processes can be used independently in many different situations. Where Classical conditioning may be more effective in one situation it may be useless in another. For this reason each of these learning processes, Classical and operant conditioning, and observational and insight learning are each as important and effective as the other.

Indexical Grids and the Construction of Identity in Wilde’s The Importa

The Victorian Google: Indexical Grids and the Construction of Identity in Wilde’s The Importance of Earnest This paper considers the indexical grid, those texts such as the railway time table, the army list, or the postal directory upon which the Victorians depended to manage the proliferation of information in the nineteenth century even as we use internet search engines such as Google today. Then as now the indexical grid surpassed its utilitarian function as simply a means of locating a person’s address or confirming a fact. It fundamentally altered the subject’s relation to the organization of knowledge, and, in so doing, provided possibilities for new modes of identity formation. This paper takes Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest as its case in point in order to argue for the productive function of the indexical grid, its capacity to disinter the subject from its organic rootedness in history, even while invoking history as the condition of this alternative model of subjectivity. In the modern world of information, it concludes, one discovers the â€Å"trut h† of one’s being not in the experiential process celebrated by the bildungsroman, but in the depthless alphabetical arrangements of the archive. Foucault’s The Order of Things describes the modern episteme as resulting from the breakdown of the taxonomic imperatives of Classicism. The exemplary form of such imperatives was the scientific table, the mathematical function of which was to link things together through external resemblances and differences that effaced their relation to history; in such an order, â€Å"the sequence of chronologies merely scanned the prior and more fundamental space of a table which presented all possibilities in advance† (218). By the nineteent... ...d in the same way,† as Derrida notes, â€Å"is no longer lived the same way. Archivable meaning is also and in advance codeteremined by the structure that archives† (18). The effect of this structure is not to arrest Jack within the space of order, but to affirm his identity an effect of its productive potential. In a world in which subjectivity seems more often to reside on the surfaces of an index card than in the deep recesses of the self, â€Å"[t]he truth,† as Algy says, â€Å"is rarely pure and simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature, a complete impossibility!† Works Cited Derrida, Jacques. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Trans. Eric Prenowitz. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1996 Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage, 1973. Wilde, Oscar. The Importance f Being Earnest.

Adobe Flash Player Essay

The Adobe Flash Player is freeware software for viewing multimedia, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming video and audio, content created on the Adobe Flash platform. Flash Player can run from a web browser (as a browser plug-in) or on supported mobile devices, but there also exist versions running directly on an operating system intended both for regular users and content developers, denoted with the Projector (or Standalone) and Debugger name suffixes, respectively. 2] Flash Player runs SWF files that can be created by the Adobe Flash Professional authoring tool, by Adobe Flex or by a number of other Macromedia and third party tools. Flash Player was created by Macromedia and now developed and distributed by Adobe Systems after its acquisition. Flash Player supports vector and raster graphics, 3D graphics, an embedded scripting language called ActionScript executed in ActionScript Virtual Machine, and streaming of video and audio. See more:Â  Social Satire in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Essay ActionScript is based on ECMAScript, and supports object-oriented code, and may be compared to JavaScript. Flash Player has a wide user base, with over 90% penetration on internet connected personal computers,[3][4][5] and is a common format for games, animations, and GUIs embedded into web pages. Adobe Systems, the developer of Adobe Flash Player, states that more than 400 million of total more than 1 billion connected desktops update to the new version of Flash Player within six weeks of release. 6] Flash Player can be downloaded for free and its plug-in version is available for recent versions of web browsers (such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari) on selected platforms. Google Chrome distribution comes bundled with the sandboxed Adobe Flash plug-in and will continue to support the plug-in in Windows 8 Metro mode. [7][8][9] Each version of Adobe Flash Player is backwards-compatible.