The 5 Types of Swears You Find in Speculative Fiction

The 5 Types of Swears You Find in Speculative Fiction While we at the Riot are taking this lovely summer week off to rest (translation: read by the pool/ocean/on our couches), were re-running some of our  favorite posts from the last several months. Enjoy our highlight reel, and well be back with new stuff on Wednesday, July 8th. This post originally ran June 19, 2015. _________________________ Swearing can get weird in speculative fiction. In any other genre, it’s no big deal. Characters either curse or they don’t. But in science fiction and fantasy, where authors have to build whole universes, cultures and languages, cursing can get …creative. Profanity in speculative fiction runs the gamut, from nonsense words (“Tanj you!”) to phrases that hint at the world-building work an author has done. (“Blackened body of god!”) These invented curses can either trip up a reader by making them check a glossary at the back of a book, or act as Chekov’s Gun by giving readers important clues about a story’s mythology. Some are silly, some are shockers, but generally, I find that swearing in speculative fiction tends to fall into five dirty, dirty categories. 1) The PG curse. These are the hecks and goshdarnits of speculative fiction. They are completely made up, but clearly not very vulgar in their own fictional universe. Think “Merlin’s beard, “ from the Harry Potter books, and its slightly-nastier cousin “Merlin’s Pants.” Or, even saltier, “Merlins most baggy Y-fronts.” Then there’s “Fewmets!” from Madeleine L’Engle’s  A Wind in the Door. (Fewmets are described in the book as dragon poop.) All of these are said pretty lightly; no one clutches their wizard pearls when Merlin’s name is taken in vain. 2) The F-bomb stand-in Sometimes an author decides to make up a swear. It makes sense: the author had to make up a whole society, why not include swears? What you end up with, sometimes, are nonsense words that are supposed to sound like languages. Jo Walton wrote a great piece about made up swears in fantasy and science fiction for Tor. Back in the ‘80s, and before, she says, swears were invented or avoided. Now, not so much. Were the made-up curses an attempt to get past publishers that wanted cleaner books? Did they reflect the times? Was it just the way people built world? No idea, but here’s some food for thought: you know where you see creative swearing now? YA books. The Maze Runner by James Dashner has shuck, klunk, and shank. (Guess what “shuck” replaces.) The weird thing about made up swears is that they seem to work on television (how many of us know people who say “frak” or “smeg”? How many Boomer nerds say “Shazbot?” But for some reason, similar words in written sci-fi don’t seem to catch on the same way. 3) The actual, real F-bomb Because in a gritty universe, made up of grimdark characters, some swears are the same. Here’s the logic: fucking and shit are real things that happen in this universe, so why shouldn’t they also be used as curses? This is something you see in recent fantasy epics with darker elements, where the taverns are dirty and the people there would just as soon stab you and rob your corpse as look at you. There are tons of authors who let their characters swear, but my favorite offender here is the obvious one: George R.R. Martin. (In Jo Walton’s Tor essay she mentions a fan artist who made new covers for popular books. A Game of Thrones new title was Knights Who Say Fuck.) 4) The expletive deleted Why make up a swear when you can just bleep it out? For years, authors have experimented with swearing by just omitting it. Because sometimes you can’t ____ing curse even if you really #$%ing want to because it’s a expletive deleted necessary part of your character’s BLEEPing development. Case in point: In Piers Anthony’s Xanth books, symbol swearing is part of the plot since curse words actually cause curses. All curses said in the presence of minors, for example, are represented by punctuation or blanks in the text. Kiersten White takes bleeping to a whole new level in Paranormalcy. It starts as an in-joke, but the main character doesn’t swear, she bleeps. An even more subtle way of deleting expletives? No swears at all. This isn’t unique to speculative fiction, but recently I was looking through Imaro by Charles R. Saunders. Although the reader is told that plenty of people curse in the book, the actual swears in the dialogue are pretty mild. Imaro was published in 1981, which goes back to Walton’s point about language being cleaner in the genre books of the ‘70s and ‘80s. I can think of one last way to bleep out a swear: the character that curses in another language. We’ve all seen it: Something bad happens and the protagonist’s alien/elven/werewolf friend breathes a curse in their own language. For example, from Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles “Kraemet brevetan Aerin!” I fought down the sudden urge to laugh. My Siaru wasn’t perfect, but I was fairly certain Kilvin had said “Shit in God’s beard.” And that brings me to my next category. 5) The religious curse You might be an alien, you might be a wizard or you might be a demon, but no matter who you are, I think we can all agree that there’s nothing so cathartic as taking your own personal deity’s name in vain.  I love religious swears in speculative fiction. There’s just enough blasphemy for me to accept that the curse holds weight, but just enough of a difference to remind me that this is not in my world. Sometimes the curse is mild. In N.K. Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy, the characters use “gods” as a swear, despite the fact that gods are actual characters in these books and even they use “gods” as a swear. My favorite at the moment is probably “Bilford Bogin!” from Kurtis Wiebe and Roc Upchurch’s Rat Queens. I’ve caught myself saying it aloud. I’m still not sure what I’m taking in vain (the comic hasn’t gotten to it yet) but it’s satisfying to say. Religious curses are so interesting because they reflect world-building more accurately that the other types of swears do. So when Patrick Rothfuss’s character says “Shit in God’s beard,” you know beards are important to the culture of the guy who is swearing, and when N.K. Jemisin has one of her characters, a god, say “gods,” in a moment of frustration, a reader learns something about this world: there is more than one god, for example, and this particular god probably prays to a god higher than herself. Swearing is about taking the name of something important in vain. You can learn a lot about a culture’s values by looking at the things it considers to be obscene. That’s the best kind of (expletive deleted) world-building there is. What are your favorite #$#ing fictional swears? Let us know in the comments. Sign up to Swords Spaceships to  receive news and recommendations from the world of science fiction and fantasy. The 5 Types of Swears You Find in Speculative Fiction Swearing can get weird in speculative fiction. In any other genre, it’s no big deal. Characters either curse or they don’t. But in science fiction and fantasy, where authors have to build whole universes, cultures and languages, cursing can get …creative. Profanity in speculative fiction runs the gamut, from nonsense words (“Tanj you!”) to phrases that hint at the world-building work an author has done. (“Blackened body of god!”) These invented curses can either trip up a reader by making them check a glossary at the back of a book, or act as Chekov’s Gun by giving readers important clues about a story’s mythology. Some are silly, some are shockers, but generally, I find that swearing in speculative fiction tends to fall into five dirty, dirty categories. 1) The PG curse. These are the hecks and goshdarnits of speculative fiction. They are completely made up, but clearly not very vulgar in their own fictional universe. Think “Merlin’s beard, “ from the Harry Potter books, and its slightly-nastier cousin “Merlin’s Pants.” Or, even saltier, “Merlins most baggy Y-fronts.” Then there’s “Fewmets!” from Madeleine L’Engle’s  A Wind in the Door. (Fewmets are described in the book as dragon poop.) All of these are said pretty lightly; no one clutches their wizard pearls when Merlin’s name is taken in vain. 2) The F-bomb stand-in Sometimes an author decides to make up a swear. It makes sense: the author had to make up a whole society, why not include swears? What you end up with, sometimes, are nonsense words that are supposed to sound like languages. Jo Walton wrote a great piece about made up swears in fantasy and science fiction for Tor. Back in the ‘80s, and before, she says, swears were invented or avoided. Now, not so much. Were the made-up curses an attempt to get past publishers that wanted cleaner books? Did they reflect the times? Was it just the way people built world? No idea, but here’s some food for thought: you know where you see creative swearing now? YA books. The Maze Runner by James Dashner has shuck, klunk, and shank. (Guess what “shuck” replaces.) The weird thing about made up swears is that they seem to work on television (how many of us know people who say “frak” or “smeg”? How many Boomer nerds say “Shazbot?” But for some reason, similar words in written sci-fi don’t seem to catch on the same way. 3) The actual, real F-bomb Because in a gritty universe, made up of grimdark characters, some swears are the same. Here’s the logic: fucking and shit are real things that happen in this universe, so why shouldn’t they also be used as curses? This is something you see in recent fantasy epics with darker elements, where the taverns are dirty and the people there would just as soon stab you and rob your corpse as look at you. There are tons of authors who let their characters swear, but my favorite offender here is the obvious one: George R.R. Martin. (In Jo Walton’s Tor essay she mentions a fan artist who made new covers for popular books. A Game of Thrones new title was Knights Who Say Fuck.) 4) The expletive deleted Why make up a swear when you can just bleep it out? For years, authors have experimented with swearing by just omitting it. Because sometimes you can’t ____ing curse even if you really #$%ing want to because it’s a expletive deleted necessary part of your character’s BLEEPing development. Case in point: In Piers Anthony’s Xanth books, symbol swearing is part of the plot since curse words actually cause curses. All curses said in the presence of minors, for example, are represented by punctuation or blanks in the text. Kiersten White takes bleeping to a whole new level in Paranormalcy. It starts as an in-joke, but the main character doesn’t swear, she bleeps. An even more subtle way of deleting expletives? No swears at all. This isn’t unique to speculative fiction, but recently I was looking through Imaro by Charles R. Saunders. Although the reader is told that plenty of people curse in the book, the actual swears in the dialogue are pretty mild. Imaro was published in 1981, which goes back to Walton’s point about language being cleaner in the genre books of the ‘70s and ‘80s. I can think of one last way to bleep out a swear: the character that curses in another language. We’ve all seen it: Something bad happens and the protagonist’s alien/elven/werewolf friend breathes a curse in their own language. For example, from Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles “Kraemet brevetan Aerin!” I fought down the sudden urge to laugh. My Siaru wasn’t perfect, but I was fairly certain Kilvin had said “Shit in God’s beard.” And that brings me to my next category. 5) The religious curse You might be an alien, you might be a wizard or you might be a demon, but no matter who you are, I think we can all agree that there’s nothing so cathartic as taking your own personal deity’s name in vain.  I love religious swears in speculative fiction. There’s just enough blasphemy for me to accept that the curse holds weight, but just enough of a difference to remind me that this is not in my world. Sometimes the curse is mild. In N.K. Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy, the characters use “gods” as a swear, despite the fact that gods are actual characters in these books and even they use “gods” as a swear. My favorite at the moment is probably “Bilford Bogin!” from Kurtis Wiebe and Roc Upchurch’s Rat Queens. I’ve caught myself saying it aloud. I’m still not sure what I’m taking in vain (the comic hasn’t gotten to it yet) but it’s satisfying to say. Religious curses are so interesting because they reflect world-building more accurately that the other types of swears do. So when Patrick Rothfuss’s character says “Shit in God’s beard,” you know beards are important to the culture of the guy who is swearing, and when N.K. Jemisin has one of her characters, a god, say “gods,” in a moment of frustration, a reader learns something about this world: there is more than one god, for example, and this particular god probably prays to a god higher than herself. Swearing is about taking the name of something important in vain. You can learn a lot about a culture’s values by looking at the things it considers to be obscene. That’s the best kind of (expletive deleted) world-building there is. What are your favorite #$#ing fictional swears? Let us know in the comments. ____________________ Follow us on Twitter for more bookish goodness! Sign up to Swords Spaceships to  receive news and recommendations from the world of science fiction and fantasy.

Top 10 New Deal Programs of the 1930s

Biography of Mother Jones, Labor Organizer and Agitator

Mother Jones (born Mary Harris; 1837–November 30, 1930) was a key radical figure in United States labor history. She was a fiery orator, a union agitator for mine workers, and a co-founder of the International Workers of the World (IWW). The current-day political magazine Mother Jones was named for her and maintains her legacy of left-wing politics. Fast Facts: Mother Jones Known For:  Radical political activist, orator, organizer of mine worker union, co-founder of the International Workers of the WorldAlso Known As:  Mother of All Agitators. the Miners Angel, Mary Harris, Mary Harris JonesBorn:  c. August 1, 1837 (although she claimed May 1, 1830 as her birth date) in County Cork, IrelandParents: Mary Harris and Robert HarrisDied:  November 30, 1930 in Adelphi, MarylandEducation: Toronto Normal SchoolPublished Works:  The New Right, Letter of Love and Labor, Autobiography of Mother JonesSpouse: George JonesChildren: Four children (all of whom died in a yellow fever epidemic)Notable Quote: In spite of oppressors, in spite of false leaders, in spite of labor’s own lack of understanding of its needs, the cause of the worker continues onward. Slowly his hours are shortened, giving him leisure to read and to think. Slowly, his standard of living rises to include some of the good and beautiful things of the world. Slowly the cause of his ch ildren becomes the cause of all....Slowly those who create wealth of the world are permitted to share it.  The future is in labor’s strong, rough hands. Early Life Born Mary Harris in 1837 in County Cork, Ireland, young Mary Harris was the daughter of Mary Harris and Robert Harris.  Her father worked as a hired hand and the family lived on the estate where he worked. The family followed Robert Harris to America, where he had fled after taking part in a revolt against the landowners. The family then moved to Canada, where Mary went to public school. Work and Family Harris became a schoolteacher first in Canada, where, as a Roman Catholic, she could only teach in the parochial schools. She moved to Maine to teach as a private tutor and then to Michigan, where she got a teaching job in a convent. Harris then moved to Chicago and worked as a dressmaker. After two years, she moved to Memphis to teach and met George Jones in 1861. They married and had four  children.  George was an iron moulder and also worked as a union organizer. During their marriage, he began working full-time in his union job. George Jones and all four children died in a yellow fever epidemic in Memphis, Tennessee, in September and October 1867. Begins Organizing After the death of her family, Mary Harris Jones moved to Chicago, where she returned to work as a dressmaker. Mary claimed that her pull to the labor movement increased when she sewed for wealthy Chicago families. I would look out of the plate glass windows and see the poor, shivering wretches, jobless and hungry, walking alongside the frozen lake front....The tropical contrast of their condition with that of the tropical comfort of the people for whom I sewed was painful to me. My employers seemed neither to notice nor to care. Tragedy struck Jones life again in 1871. She lost her home, shop, and belongings in the Great Chicago Fire. She had already connected with the secretive workers organization Knights of Labor and was active in speaking for the group and organizing. After the fire, she left her dressmaking to take up full-time organizing with the Knights. Increasingly Radical By the mid-1880s, Mary Jones had left the Knights of Labor, finding them too conservative. She became involved in more radical organizing by 1890. A fiery orator, she spoke at the location of strikes around the country. She helped coordinate hundreds of strikes, including those with coal miners in Pennsylvania in 1873 and railroad workers in 1877. She was named often in newspapers as Mother Jones, a white-haired radical labor organizer in her signature black dress, lace collar, and plain head covering. Mother Jones was a loving moniker given her by workers, grateful for her care of and devotion to working people. United Mine Workers and Wobblies Mother Jones principally worked with the United Mine Workers, although her role was unofficial. Among other activist actions, she helped organize strikers wives.  Often ordered to stay away from miners, she refused to do so and frequently challenged the armed guards to shoot her. Mother Jones focused on the issue of child labor as well. In 1903, Mother Jones led a childrens march from Kensington, Pennsylvania, to New York to protest child labor to President Roosevelt. In 1905, Mother Jones was among the founders of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, the Wobblies). She worked within the political system as well, and was a founder of the Social Democratic Party in 1898. Later Years In the 1920s, as rheumatism made it more difficult for her to get around, Mother Jones wrote her Autobiography of Mother Jones. Famed lawyer Clarence Darrow wrote an introduction to the book. Mother Jones became less active as her health failed. She moved to Maryland and lived with a retired couple. Death One of her last public appearances was at a birthday celebration on May 1, 1930, when she claimed to be 100. (May 1 is the international labor holiday in most of the world.) This birthday was celebrated at workers events around the country. Mother Jones died on November 30 of that year. She was buried at the Miners Cemetery at Mount Olive, Illinois, at her request: It was the only cemetery owned by a union. Legacy Mother Jones was once labeled the most dangerous woman in America by a U.S. district attorney. Her activism left a strong mark on U.S. labor history. The 2001 biography by Elliott Gorn has added significantly to the details known of Mother Jones life and work. The radical political magazine Mother Jones is named for her and she remains a symbol for passionate labor activism. Sources Gorn, Elliott J. Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America. Hill and Wang, 2001.Josephson, Judith P. Mother Jones: Fierce Fighter for Workers Rights. Lerner Publications, 1997.

McDonalds and Social Responsibility Free Essays

All companies have a responsibility to the public to ensure that their products are not harmful in any manner.   Presently, America is facing a national health crisis as the number of adults and children suffering from obesity continue to rise.   Companies that provide food to the public need to make sure their foods are nutritious and fit for human consumption. We will write a custom essay sample on McDonalds and Social Responsibility or any similar topic only for you Order Now McDonalds was socially responsible in their actions to stop super-sizing food items.   McDonalds is aware of the obesity epidemic in America, and eliminating the oversized food servings might help in some small way.  Ã‚  Ã‚   After all, McDonalds has been nicknamed the â€Å"calorie king,† (Good Business Deeds, 2004).   Moreover, Morgan Spurlock caused McDonalds to be pressured even more after making a documentary of his experience of eating only food from McDonalds for a month.   He â€Å"gained 25 pounds, his cholesterol level soared, and his liver became impaired,† (McDocumented – One Month of living on Only McDonalds Food, n.d.). On the other hand, is McDonalds to blame for the obesity problems in America?   Hasn’t McDonalds always been socially responsible?   McDonalds has been in business for decades and has maintained life long customers and many of them are not obese.   McDonalds provides most of the same food products that it has always provided, including salads.   Is it their fault that people choose to order a burger and fries instead?   Maybe we need to look at the personal responsibility of consumers.   Society has changed, and more Americans lead a sedentary lifestyle than in the past.   Becoming more physically active definitely plays a role in the obesity crisis as much as our diets. Why has McDonalds been singled out over the super-sizing issue?   Even convenience stores provide super-sized soft drinks.   McDonalds is socially responsible, but individuals need to take more personal responsibility in eating a balanced diet and exercising. â€Å"In the 1990s, McDonalds spent over $3 billion dollars on recycled products,† (Good Business Deeds, 2004).   This clearly demonstrates that McDonalds is making an effort to be socially responsible.   Not just for show, but because of the values of the company.   â€Å"We take seriously our commitment to conducting our business in a way that respects the world around us and the issues that matter most to you,† (McDonalds Corporation, 2004). Although they will no longer continue to super-size, some consumers will eat twice as much of the regular size.   McDonalds is not to blame for gluttony.   McDonalds is simply providing a service that consumers want, fast and convenient foods.  Ã‚   That is what restaurants do.   They provide the types of food that people want to eat.   If consumers didn’t enjoy the food at McDonalds they wouldn’t buy it.   The problem with obesity is not a McDonalds issue. The problem is that too many Americans do not want to take responsibility for their personal choices.   McDonalds has restaurants all over the world, including most countries in Asia.   However, most people in Asian countries are fit and trim.   McDonalds is serving up the same food to them as it is to Americans, but they are not suffering from obesity.   May our problem is greed.   We are a materialistic society and we stuff our mouths with food, our closets with excessive clothing, and our bank accounts with money. We never seem to be able to satisfy our appetites.   So when McDonalds eliminated super-sized products we started eating twice as much of the smaller portions.   Whether or not a restaurant serves large or small portions, we will eat as much food as we want to eat.   The ‘food police’ cannot control how much anyone chooses to eat.   And we will continue to gain weight and suffer from poor health.   But this is the law of cause and effect.   Because we eat in excess we are affecting our health.   Because we refuse to exercise, our bodies will fail us.   It is not up to the government to punish the companies that make or provide food.   It is up to each person to take the time to plan and eat balance and healthy meals. We eat at McDonalds because we want instant gratification.   Isn’t it faster and easier to grab a burger on the way home from work, than to go home and good real food?   Isn’t it easier to take diet pills than to take a 30-minute walk each day?   We have the option of making decisions that are best for our health.   Unfortunately, the sad truth is that many of us are choosing to be obese, and we are in denial.   Our health is our responsibility. References Good Business Deeds (2004).   Retrieved April 8, 2007 from http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec04/corporate_12-23.html McDocument – One Month of Living on Only McDonalds Food (n.d.).   Retrieved April 8, 2007 from http://www.plastic.com/article.html;sid=04/01/28/07585282 McDonalds Corporation (2004).   Responsibility.   Retrieved April 8, 2007 from http://www.mcdonalds.com/corp/values/report/archive.RowPar.0001.ContentPar.0001.ContentPar0007.DownloadFiles.0001.File.tmp/CR_Report_(Revised).pdf             How to cite McDonalds and Social Responsibility, Essay examples

The Gilligan-Kohlberg Moral Theory Controversy free essay sample

Feminist ethics explores the fundamental effect of this imbalance on moral philosophy and seeks to rectify it. So the questions we face are: Do women have a distinct moral perspective? How if at all is gender relevant to moral theory? Questions such as these will be answered in this essay. The concept of morality has long been one of intense interest and debate for many disciplines, from ancient philosophy to contemporary psychology. However, it could be questioned the extent to which we have developed in terms of understanding such an abstract entity. Carol Gilligan follows the cognitive developmental models of Lawrence Kohlberg in her argument concerning female morality, yet can her perspective be supported, or does her theoretical model raise broader issues surrounding the explanation of moral thought and behavior? According to Gilligan, the model of a distinct female moral development is in response to the lack of attention paid to women in previous models of moral development, namely Kohlberg. We will write a custom essay sample on The Gilligan-Kohlberg Moral Theory Controversy or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page I want to begin by comparing two well-known scholars and their debate, Carol Gilligan and Lawrence Kohlberg. My purpose here is to review the Gilligan-Kohlberg controversy and show the relevance of gender diversity in moral theory. I will discuss some of the implicit and explicit philosophical differences between Gilligans and Kohlbergs out-looks and will then illustrate that Gilligan’s claims that women have a distinctive moral voice cannot be fully justified. Lawrence Kohlberg, born in 1927, taught at Harvard University where he taught both education and social psychology. Kohlberg’s stages of moral development are the stages in thinking about right and wrong that everyone goes through growing up. Each stage builds on the one before so you have to go through them in order. There were six stages (three levels): avoiding punishment, self-interest, good boy attitude, law and order morality, social contract, and principle. The first level of moral thinking, â€Å"pre-conventional,† is generally found at the elementary school level. In the first stage of this level, people behave according to socially acceptable norms because they are told to do so by some authority figure (e. g. , parent or teacher). This obedience is compelled by the threat or application of punishment. The second stage of this level is characterized by a view that right behavior means acting in ones own best interests. The second level of moral thinking, â€Å"conventional,† is generally found in society. The first stage of this level (stage 3) is characterized by an attitude, which seeks to do what will gain the approval of others. The second stage is one oriented to abiding by the law and responding to the obligations of duty. The third level of moral thinking, â€Å"post-conventional,† is one that Kohlberg felt is not reached by the majority of adults. Its first stage (stage 5) is an understanding of social mutuality and a genuine interest in the welfare of others. The last stage (stage 6) is based on respect for universal principle and the demands of individual conscience. While Kohlberg always believed in the existence of Stage 6 and had some nominees for it, he could never get enough subjects to define it, much less observe their longitudinal movement to it. Gilligan (â€Å"In a Different Voice) challenges Kohlberg’s â€Å"stage theory† of moral development. Carol Gilligan, born in 1936, received her doctrine then taught at Harvard University, where she became Kohlberg’s research assistant. Gilligan argued that by building his model on a sample of men, Kohlberg had failed to include the perspectives of women, and further, had relegated women to the status of deviants from the norm. According to Gilligan, she thinks that men are characteristically concerned with practical moral matters of justice and that women are more often concerned with the moral matters of care. Gilligan suggested, â€Å"Women spoke a language which was not decodable by Kohlberg’s system. She thought that women were fundamentally unheard in the Kohlberg’s methodology. In 1977 Carol Gilligan challenged Kohlberg’s model in saying that there was sex bias. In conducting interviews for a project with Kohlberg, Gilligan found what she called â€Å"a different voice,† the perspective, voiced mainly by women, that morality was not defined by justice, fairness, or universal rights, as Kohlberg argued. Instead, this perspective described morality based on care, on responsibility to others, on the continuity of interdependent relationships. When one begins with the study of women and derives developmental constructs from their lives, the outline of a moral conception different from that described by Freud, Piaget, or Kohlberg begins to emerge and informs a different description of development. In this conception, the moral problem arises from conflicting responsibilities rather than from competing rights and requires for its resolution a mode of thinking that is contextual and narrative rather than formal and abstract. This conception of morality as concerned with the activity of care centers moral development around the understanding of responsibility and relationships, just as the conception of morality as fairness ties moral development to the understanding of rights and rules (Gilligan, 1982). Gilligan illustrated this view as a morality of care and argued that it was a distinct moral orientation, not just one of Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. She believed that this orientation resulted in different reasoning and ways of resolving moral conflict situations. Kohlberg’s response to Gilligan was to recognize the significance of distinguishing the concept of morality, which focuses on special relationships and obligations, but to deny that it was a distinct moral orientation. He saw it as an addition rather than alternative to justice solutions. We believe that Gilligan’s distinction between a morality of care and a morality of justice is a distinction held in the minds of all human beings†¦ However, these two senses of the word moral do not represent two different moral orientations existing at the same level of generality and validity. We see justice as both rational and implying an attitude of empathy. It is for this reason that we make the following proposal: i. e. that there is a dimension along which various moral dilemmas and orientations can be placed. Personal moral dilemmas and orientations of specials obligation, as we have just discussed them, represent one end of this dimension and the standard hypothetical justice dilemmas and justice orientation represent the other end (Kohlberg, Levine, and Hewer, 1983). Therefore, Kohlberg expanded his view of morality to include obligations based on special relationships. Gilligan maintained that a primary concern with morality as care often extended beyond ties of family and close friendships. According to Gilligan, the process of defining a moral conflict was crucial to understanding ones moral reasoning (Gilligan, 1982). Reviewing Kohlberg’s methodology, Gilligan critiqued his hypothetical dilemmas presupposed a definition of morality as justice and were biased towards justice-based resolutions. Gilligan, along with other researchers, developed an interview to determine the different types of moral reasoning. The interview is designed to permit an interaction between two people that makes it possible to present as fully as possible how one of them thinks about some important issues†¦ Thus the set of questions put to a person in an interview is designed to allow the person to present his or her thinking and to elaborate the ways between two people. For the interviewer, two things are necessary: (1) to listen, that is, to follow the train of thinking of the person interviewed; and (2) to have – as Piaget suggests – some directing hypothesis to guide the probing (Lyons, 1984). The objective of the interview was to explore the hypothesis that men and women define moral issues differently and use different bases on which they reason them out. Results found showed that Gilligan’s thesis that two distinct moral orientations were significantly related to gender. In both of the studies, the ethics of care predominated in female thinking and the ethics of justice predominated in the male thinking. Most of Gilligan’s work focused on her views of the care – justice distinction. It is an argument that many men and women find very appealing. However, in conducting her hypothesis, she developed a methodological innovation. Since she used open-minded interview questions about real life dilemmas, the participants were able to define morality in the context of their own lives. Because of this methodological approach, Gilligan was able to â€Å"hear† the voices of women and men describing their own experience of moral conflict. These provided the data for her articulation of â€Å"a different voice†. Gilligan’s method is less biased than Kohlberg’s in that it enables people to provide their own moral dilemmas as the basis for examining their reasoning. However, a third argument has come into play. Carol Stack found errors in her findings of Gilligan. Stack argues persuasively for a greater understanding of relative factors in defining gender identity. Her appeal does not contradict Gilligan’s criticism of Kohlberg, but takes it a step further. Gilligan’s theory of women’s moral development has taken root in native soil. It is a powerful and persuasive theory that derives a female model of moral development from the moral reasoning of primarily white, middle-class women in the United States. The model fits the data, and it fits the conceptualizations of many feminist researchers. However as black and third-world feminist researchers have emphasized, gender is a construct shaped by the experience of race, class, culture, caste, and consciousness. Feminist research must contribute another dimension to the construction of feminist theory: it should provide a critical framework for analyzing gender consciousness and a cautionary reminder to those theorists who think that gender construction is the same in all societies (Stack, 1986). With that perspective being revealed, Gilligan now appears to be in the same trap as Kohlberg. Both Gilligan and Kohlberg have major criticisms in their studies conducted. While gathering empirical research, a sample is selected to represent the larger population. How the population is described and how the sample is chosen are important to the conclusions made about the research gatherings. For instance, if Kohlberg’s population norm is â€Å"people like us,† and that is what we believe, then we will relegate people that are â€Å"not like us. Kohlberg’s norm was men, and later on women were taken into account and measured as â€Å"others. † Gilligan’s norms were white, educated, middle-class women. When researchers see themselves as the norm, those who do not fall under that category are different and become the â€Å"other. † In this case, the people that do not categorize under the norm, their voices are not considered important enough t o acknowledge. The words may be physically heard, but the import of them is dismissed as insignificant. Listening to women’s views and trying to tie them into the research model does not mean that all women think in the same way, nor does it mean that all women have been left out. Throughout the research, it indicates within the models, methods, and in our society as a whole, it is hard to understand and translate the experiences. Gilligan argues, in regards to moral reasoning, that those experiences can be heard by listening more carefully to women. On the other hand, listening to men share their experiences are hard to hear also within the context of narrowly defined frameworks of moral development. The lesson is not that all women are caring, but in this development to exclude women’s experience, a type of reasoning and expression has also been excluded which is also an aspect of men’s thinking. Summing up care as a form of moral reasoning does not authorize the idea that all women are the same and engage in caring resolutions. In general, it gives an overall better understanding of the reasoning of people. With that being said, both men and women practice the act of caring. In conclusion, I feel that Gilligan’s claims that women have a distinctive moral voice cannot be fully justified. Gilligan is on the right track when she writes about the dual context of morality and moral maturity. Nevertheless Gilligan is wrong in the respect that she thinks, like Kohlberg, that these matters can be proven by empirical research and data. Men and women across various cultures appear to have the capacity to adopt either the justice or care driven approach to moral dilemmas, yet there does not appear to be a fixed pattern or system of thought. Regardless of whether her theory of female moral development is accurate, Carol Gilligan’s work helped to encourage the field of psychology to include women and girls in studies and theories.

Response to the Prince by Machiavelli Essay Sample free essay sample

Your friend insists that Machiavelli believed that deriving power was the ultimate end. regardless of human morality. Analyze the undermentioned transition from The Prince and utilize this transition to assist your friend understand Machiavelli in a different visible radiation: â€Å" Yet it can non be called art to kill fellow citizens. to bewray friends. to be unreliable. pitiless. irreligious. These ways can win a prince power but non glory† ( The Prince. 29 ) . While you must establish your rebuttal to your friend’s place on the above transition. you may cite one secondary illustration from The Prince ( non the talk ) to back up your point. Therefore. when a prince decides to prehend a province. he must find how much hurt to bring down. He needs to strike all at one time and so forbear from farther atrociousnesss. In this manner. his topics will finally bury the force and inhuman treatment. Gradually. bitterness will melt. We will write a custom essay sample on Response to the Prince by Machiavelli Essay Sample or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page and the people will come to appreciate the ensuing benefits of the prince’s regulation. Most of import. a prince should be consistent in the manner he treats his topics. The other manner a prince can come to power is through the favour of his fellow citizens. Princes who rise through this path are caputs of what Machiavelli calls constitutional princedoms. A prince created by the people must retain the people’s friendly relationship. a reasonably easy undertaking. A prince created by the Lords must still seek to win over the people’s fondness. because they can function as protection from hostile Lords. Benevolence is the best manner to keep the authorization of the people. If people expect ill will from a prince but alternatively receive kindness and favours. they feel a great duty to their prince. hese chapters describe how different types of princes should set up power. within a state’s environment of fluctuating power kineticss. Machiavelli makes an facile statement for the importance of a domestic power base. He does non waver to admit the necessity of inhuman treatment and offense in set uping this power and even explains how to utilize inhuman treatment most efficaciously. He does non rede moderateness in the grade of inhuman treatment used. but instead a bound on how long extreme inhuman treatment is to be employed. That is. Machiavelli does non state that princes must be barbarous but non highly barbarous. Alternatively. he argues that barbarous Acts of the Apostless must be committed as necessary. but all at one time and so ceased. so that the public will bury them. This sort of statement is highly matter-of-fact and ignores all inquiries of right and incorrect. Taking historical illustrations as the footing for his statement. Machiavelli merely describes how po wer has efficaciously been deployed and consolidated in the yesteryear. and does non presume that human nature will take a bend for the better in the hereafter. While any prince can accomplish and keep power. glorification remains a more elusive end. Although Machiavelli is chiefly concerned with how princes perform as swayers. he besides gives an appraisal of the different sorts of princes. Machiavelli’s position is that the prince who rises and survives by agencies of perfidy and the prince who succeeds by his innate art are both technically princes. But he besides admits that the two are non equal in award or glorification. and. possibly. even moral worth. 1. At this point one may observe that work forces must be either pampered or annihilated. They avenge light discourtesies ; they can non revenge terrible 1s ; hence. the injury 1 does to a adult male must be such as to rid of any fright of retaliation. Explanation for Quotation 1 gt ; gt ; This transition from Chapter III is an illustration of logical concluding conspicuously devoid of ethical considerations. A prince must recognize that he has two options: benevolence and devastation. Because the latter option will do bitterness among the people. he should take it merely if he is perfectly certain there will be no ailment consequences—that the devastation he incurs will extinguish or disenable any parties that might seek to avenge themselves against him. Feelingss of commiseration or compassion are nonmeaningful. Self-interest and self-defense are in this instance the motivation factors and are to be pursued ruthlessly. Borgia would make the most to determine Maciavelli’s sentiments about leading.Borgia was a craft. cruel. and barbarous politician and many people despised him. Machieavelli believed Borgia has the traits necessary for any leader who would seek to unite Italy. The Prince was written as a practical usher to assist Lorenzo de’ Medici stay in power during a clip of political convulsion but became a book that was criticized as being immoral. immorality. and wicked. Sir Niccolo Machiavelli.I personally understand your desire to return to political relations and I appreciate your desire for a place within my authorities. However. the desire of an ordinary citizen to rede. instruct. and act upon the heads of swayers like myself is unacceptable and will non be tolerated. When you use the metaphor. â€Å"a individual standing on a mountain is best positioned to study the landscape below. and a individual standing below is best positioned to study the mountain. ( Dedication. 1 ) you attempt to convert me you know more about the art of governing than myself. Your dealingss with the craft. cruel and barbarous politician Cesare Borgia assist me to farther understand your sentiments on leading. You hold the beliefs that Borgia had the traits necessary for any leader who would seek to unite Italy. and believe I should follow in those footfalls. I do non wish to be associated with such a swayer. Touching on your ideas of virtuousness when you quote. â€Å"of all the things he must guard against. hatred and contempt come foremost. and liberalness leads to both† ( XVI. 2 ) . I am confused by your advice to ignore the rules of virtuousness. The letters I receive on a regular basis from members of the church talk about the importance of a prince to move morally. with the ethical premiss that 1 who acts good. will regulate good. I respect my church. and happen it disturbing for you to give me advice against what they believe. My people will get down to see this book as a usher to unbelieving dictatorship. which I can see now. This work is a irreverent publicity of immorality. and I can see your purposes of self-seeking use. It is a unsafe game to play being anti-Christian. and your disdain for the pontificate and political aspirations of the Catholic Church is apparent. To reason. I will non be directing an invitation to function as an functionary in my authorities. and inquire you no longer prosecute these ideas. Work force will be geting to your place shortly after you receive this missive to take you to where you belong. Good twenty-four hours.The Medici Essay Question # 1: You are a Medici prince and you are returning the manuscript of The Prince to Machiavelli with a missive explicating why you will non engage him as your political advisor. As you will remember from Unit 4. the Medici were a powerful Florentine household. Remember to include a chief thought that guides your rejection missive and to include specific citations from The Prince ( non the talk ) that support your statement.

Free Essays on Jeremy Rifkin Essay

Jeremy Rifkin from the passage from â€Å"The Age of Simulation† contends that the Television is the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems in modern society. He claims that we as a nation sit in front of the TV endlessly in order to fulfill some aspect of out life that we are not getting in a regular environment. Which is in part due to the fact that Television is in and plays such a substantial role in our lives. He shows how all of the essential social needs can be and are to often met through this lifeless medium. How we reach stimulation that would otherwise be given through genuine human contact is now impersonal. We are making what was once personal now impersonal. Some would argue that this is not the case while the facts still remain, that we as a culture are spending more and more time in front of the television, we are spending it with friends and family and this shared experience be it in the same room or different houses give us the opportunity to communicate and share the same common feelings. As well discuss the issues that arose on the night before’s shows. The water-cooler chat has been in this country filled with the same topics across the country. This trend also seems to have bridged the economic gap; the rich are still watching the same Joe Millionaire as the poor. We now have a common theme in this country a starting ground that which communication between two people that previously would not have anything to talk about now have a common interest or at least no matter what your education level is you can hold the same conversation about what happened on Big Brother 4 last night. Some would also argue that we as a society have deteriorated so far due to other circumstances that the backwoods country culture of old has been lost due to fear. Therefore we have been forced to look for our stimulation elsewhere. Television then has filled a gap in our being that needed to be filled. Televis... Free Essays on Jeremy Rifkin Essay Free Essays on Jeremy Rifkin Essay Jeremy Rifkin from the passage from â€Å"The Age of Simulation† contends that the Television is the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems in modern society. He claims that we as a nation sit in front of the TV endlessly in order to fulfill some aspect of out life that we are not getting in a regular environment. Which is in part due to the fact that Television is in and plays such a substantial role in our lives. He shows how all of the essential social needs can be and are to often met through this lifeless medium. How we reach stimulation that would otherwise be given through genuine human contact is now impersonal. We are making what was once personal now impersonal. Some would argue that this is not the case while the facts still remain, that we as a culture are spending more and more time in front of the television, we are spending it with friends and family and this shared experience be it in the same room or different houses give us the opportunity to communicate and share the same common feelings. As well discuss the issues that arose on the night before’s shows. The water-cooler chat has been in this country filled with the same topics across the country. This trend also seems to have bridged the economic gap; the rich are still watching the same Joe Millionaire as the poor. We now have a common theme in this country a starting ground that which communication between two people that previously would not have anything to talk about now have a common interest or at least no matter what your education level is you can hold the same conversation about what happened on Big Brother 4 last night. Some would also argue that we as a society have deteriorated so far due to other circumstances that the backwoods country culture of old has been lost due to fear. Therefore we have been forced to look for our stimulation elsewhere. Television then has filled a gap in our being that needed to be filled. Televis...