Friday, January 24, 2020

Lord of The Flies Book Report :: Book Review

Character Page Ralph Ralph is a fair boy of about twelve. He is the first character introduced in the story and is a dominant leader throughout most of the book. He finds the conch, a symbol of order and authority. He blows the conch and holds an assembly in which he is voted chief. Ralph stays focused on getting rescued and building shelters while most of the others play and hunt. By the end all the boys have either turned against him or died. Piggy Piggy is a large, timid boy, with asthma and specs (eye glasses). He is Ralph's loyal sidekick from the start. His brilliant mind and logical thinking are trapped inside his unattractive body. He is disrespected and rejected because of his looks, and used for his glasses, which are the only means of starting the fire. Piggy struggles to stay strong and clear through the madness and chaos. Jack Jack is the leader of the choir boys who become the first band of hunters. He is intent on becoming savage and killing pigs for meat. He neglects the fire, their only hope for rescue, and goes hunting instead. Jack rebels against Ralph and forms his own tribe at the other end of the Island. His tribe hunts all day and holds feasts and dances every night. His violent instincts show up in murder and destruction as civilization runs out of him. Simon Simon is mysterious and spiritual. He is a small boy with incredible, silent, courage and strength. He starts out a part of Jack's choir, then becomes loyal to Ralph when he is elected chief. Simon helps Ralph with the shelters and is admired by the littluns. He has a spiritual encounter with the Lord of the Flies, which is a pig's head on a stick. This encounter is one of the most symbolic incidences in the book. The head is the beast that all the littluns fear and represents the inner instincts and evils in man. Samneric In the beginning Sam and Eric are recognized as two separate people, two twin brothers. By the end they are referred to as Samneric, a single being. They were loyal to Ralph in the beginning and throughout most of the book. Towards the end they are captured by Jack's tribe and join in on a hunt for Ralph. They are weak and easily swayed by forceful power. Plot The book opens with the description of a beautiful island with pink rocks, warm pools, and a long, palm lined, beach protected by a coral reef.

Thursday, January 16, 2020

Major Differencies Between Eastern and Western Philosophies as the Basis for Adult Education Essay

Western philosophy has its roots in Athens, Rome and Judeo ­Christianity while Eastern philosophy is derived from Confucianism, Taoism and Mahayana Buddhism. As Greek and Latin are to Western civilisation, so classical Chinese is to East Asian civilisation. I will focus on four major differences between Eastern and Western philosophies. 1. Western Individualism and Eastern Collectivism In the Greco‑Roman tradition, the image of Prometheus powerfully illustrates the struggle for individual freedom. Prometheus had gone against Zeus, the all powerful god who ruled the sky from Mt. Olympus. Prometheus annoyed Zeus by creating human beings. To protect the human beings from Zeus, he stole fire from Hephaestos, the blackmith god and gave it to the human beings. This angered Zeus to the extent that Prometheus was chained to a rock and an eagle tore out his liver. In European consciousness, Prometheus had become the hero who: â€Å"†¦defied the patriarchy in the name of individual freedom, who brought light into our darkness. He was the saviour who sacrificed himself for the sake of mankind, the benefactor who brought the gift of technology down from heaven, the teacher who taught us that we are not at the whims of the gods any more, who showed us how to use our intelligence to take control of the world†. The Christian tradition has also reinforced the notion of individual rights. The Bible speaks of God creating Man in His own image and letting him â€Å"have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over all the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth† (Genesis 1:26). By comparison, the Chinese live in a world of obligations: â€Å"†¦obligations to serve the ruler, obligations to work for the family, obligations to obey elders, obligations to help relatives, obligations to do well to glorify the name of ancestors, obligations to defend the country in times of trouble, and obligations to oneself to cultivate one’s own virtue. It would also seem that rights only belong to one individual ‑ the Son of Heaven. Confucianism promotes conservatism and this stifles creativity and robs the people of self‑introspection. 2. Fragmentary and Holistic According to Fritjof Capra, the emphasis of rational thought is epitomised in Descartes’ celebrated statement,’Cognito, ergo sum’ ‑ ‘I think, therefore, I exist.’ This has forcefully encouraged Westerners to equate their identity with their rational mind rather than with the whole organism. This division between the mind and the body has led to a view of the universe as a mechanical system consisting of separate objects, which in turn were reduced to fundamental building blocks whose properties and interactions were thought to completely determine all natural phenomena. This mechanistic conception of the whole world is still the basis of most of our sciences and continues to have a tremendous influence on our lives. Academic disciplines become fragmented and this has served as a rationale for treating the universe as if it consisted of separate parts to be exploited by different groups. The essence of the Eastern world view is the awareness of the unity and the mutual inter‑relation of all things and events, the experience of all phenomena in the world as manifestation of a basic oneness. All things are seen as independent and inseparable parts of a cosmic whole, as different manifestations of the same ultimate reality. The Eastern traditions refer to this ultimate, indivisible reality as Brahman in Hinduism, Dharmakaya in Buddhism and Tao in Taoism. 3. Conflict and Harmony The Marxist view of history saw change as arising from a ‘dialectic ‘interplay of opposites ‑hence class struggle and conflict. Western civilisation based itself on the struggle between the Good and Evil, God and Satan or Psyche and Cupid. Eastern philosophical thought is based on this notion of the Yin and the Yang. Frithjof Capra describes the Yang as the strong,male creative power associated with Heaven while yin is the dark,receptive, female and maternal element. The dark yin and the bright yang are arranged in a symmetrical manner. They are dynamic ‑ a rotating symmetry suggesting very forcefully a continuous cyclic movement.The two dots in the diagram symbolise the idea that each one of the forces reaches its extreme, it contains in itself the seed of the opposite.’Life’ says Chuang Tzu’is the blended harmony of the yin and the yang.’ Taoism permeates the economic and social lives of the Chinese through geomancy, qigong, Chinese medicine and idol worship. As Chan observes:†Almost every hotel, office and commercial building that has gone up within the last decade adheres to certain principles of geomancy or â€Å"Fengshui† ‑ the art and science of harmonising man and nature. 4. Idealism and Pragmatism. The Western idea of democracy does not fit into the Eastern scheme of things easily. In an interview by the Daily Telegraph on 16 October 1989 the former Prime Minister remarked that: I think in a mainly Chinese electorate, the idea of a loyal opposition and an alternative government does not come easily. You’re either for or against the government. The Confucianistic idea of social hierarchy where a person’s existence is relational, extending from his family, society and country. The pragmatism of the East is exemplied in the way Confucianism has been used to emphasize order through social hierarchy and the rules and conventions. Taoism provided the meaning of life and thus compliment Confucianism. Confucius preached the doctrine of the here and now. The emphasis is one of â€Å"life and life† and not â€Å"life and death.† The sage hoped to â€Å"hear the right way in the morning, and die in the evening without regret. â€Å"What lays the foundation of life for the Chinese is the family and the continuation of the family also means the passing on of experience, culture and thought. The Taoists has an equal view of life and death seeing life and death as the coming out and going back of a human form of existence. Chuang Tsu talks of â€Å"coming and going â€Å". Lao Tzu said,†out to life, in to death.† The crux of the matter is to make the best of the present.

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Foreign Policy Under Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson, a Democrat-Republican, won the presidency from John Adams in the election of 1800. Highs and lows marked his foreign policy initiatives, which included the spectacularly successful Louisiana Purchase, and the horrid Embargo Act. Years in Office: first term, 1801-1805; second term, 1805-1809. Foreign Policy Ranking: first term, good; second term, disastrous Barbary War Jefferson was the first president to commit US forces to a foreign war. Barbary pirates, sailing from Tripoli (now the capital of Libya) and other places in North Africa, had long demanded tribute payments from American merchant ships plying the Mediterranean Sea. In 1801, however, they raised their demands, and Jefferson demanded an end to the practice of bribe payments. Jefferson sent US Navy ships and a contingent of Marines to Tripoli, where a brief engagement with pirates marked the United States first successful overseas venture. The conflict also helped convince Jefferson, never a supporter of large standing armies, that the United States needed a professionally trained military officer cadre. As such, he signed legislation to create the United States Military Academy at West Point. Louisiana Purchase In 1763, France lost the French and Indian War to Great Britain. Before the Treaty of Paris of 1763 stripped it permanently of all territory in North America, France ceded Louisiana (a roughly defined territory west of the Mississippi River and south of the 49th Parallel) to Spain for diplomatic safe-keeping. France planned to retrieve it from Spain in the future. The deal made Spain nervous as it feared to lose the territory, first to Great Britain, then to the United States after 1783. To prevent incursions, Spain periodically shut down the Mississippi to Anglo-American trade. President Washington, through Pinckneys Treaty in 1796, negotiated an end to Spanish interference on the river. In 1802, Napoleon, now emperor of France, made plans to reclaim Louisiana from Spain. Jefferson recognized that French reacquisition of Louisiana would negate Pinckneys Treaty, and he sent a diplomatic delegation to Paris to renegotiate it. In the meantime, a military corps that Napoleon had sent to reoccupy New Orleans had run afoul of disease and revolution in Haiti. It subsequently abandoned its mission, causing Napoleon to consider Louisiana too costly and cumbersome to maintain. Upon meeting the US delegation, Napoleons ministers offered to sell the United States all of Louisiana for $15 million. The diplomats did not have the authority to make the purchase, so they wrote to Jefferson and waited weeks for a response. Jefferson favored a strict interpretation of the Constitution; that is, he did not favor wide latitude in interpreting the document. He abruptly switched to a loose constitutional interpretation of executive authority and okayed the purchase. In doing so, he doubled the size of the United States cheaply and without warfare. The Louisiana Purchase was Jeffersons greatest diplomatic and foreign policy achievement. Embargo Act When fighting between France and England intensified, Jefferson tried to craft a foreign policy that allowed the United States to trade with both belligerents without taking sides in their war. That was impossible, given that both sides considered trade with the other a de facto act of war. While both countries violated American neutral trade rights with a series of trade restrictions, the United States considered Great Britain to be the biggest violator because of its practice of impressment—kidnapping US sailors from American ships to serve in the British navy. In 1806, Congress—now controlled by Democrat-Republicans—passed the Non-Importation Act, which prohibited the import of certain goods from the British Empire. The act did no good, and both Great Britain and France continued to deny American neutral rights. Congress and Jefferson ultimately responded with the Embargo Act in 1807. The act, believe it or not, prohibited American trade with all nations—period. Certainly, the act contained loopholes, and some foreign goods came in while smugglers got some American goods out. But the act stopped the bulk of American trade, hurting the nations economy. In fact, it wrecked the economy of New England, which relied almost exclusively on trade to support its economy. The act rested, in part, on Jeffersons inability to craft a creative foreign policy for the situation. It also pointed out American arrogance which believed the major European nations would cave in without American goods. The Embargo Act failed, and Jefferson ended it just days before he left office in March 1809. It marked the lowest point of his foreign policy attempts.