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BODY RITUAL AMONG THE NACIREMA	October 9, 2009, 10:37AM
by: Ellen
Horace Miner From Horace Miner, "Body Ritual among the Nacirema." Reproduced by permission of the American Anthropological Association from The American Anthropologist, vol. 58 (1956), pp. 503-507. ________________________________________ Most cultures exhibit a particular configuration or style. A single value or pattern of perceiving the world often leaves its stamp on several institutions in the society. Examples are "machismo" in Spanish-influenced cultures, "face" in Japanese culture, and "pollution by females" in some highland New Guinea cultures. Here Horace Miner demonstrates that "attitudes about the body" have a pervasive influence on many institutions in Nacireman society. The anthropologist has become so familiar with the diversity of ways in which different peoples behave in similar situations that he is not apt to be surprised by even the most exotic customs. In fact, if all of the logically possible combinations of behavior have not been found somewhere in the world, he is apt to suspect that they must be present in some yet undescribed tribe. This point has, in fact, been expressed with respect to clan organization by Murdock. In this light, the magical beliefs and practices of the Nacirema present such unusual aspects that it seems desirable to describe them as an example of the extremes to which human behavior can go. Professor Linton first brought the ritual of the Nacirema to the attention of anthropologists twenty years ago, but the culture of this people is still very poorly understood. They are a North American group living in the territory between the Canadian Creel the Yaqui and Tarahumare of Mexico, and the Carib and Arawak of the Antilles. Little is known of their origin, although tradition states that they came from the east.... Nacirema culture is characterized by a highly developed market economy which as evolved in a rich natural habitat. While much of the people's time is devoted to economic pursuits, a large part of the fruits of these labors and a considerable portion of the day are spent in ritual activity. The focus of this activity is the human body, the appearance and health of which loom as a dominant concern in the ethos of the people. While such a concern is certainly not unusual, its ceremonial aspects and associated philosophy are unique. The fundamental belief underlying the whole system appears to be that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease. Incarcerated in such a body, man's only hope is to avert these characteristics through the use of the powerful influences of ritual and ceremony. Every household has one or more shrines devoted to this purpose. The more powerful individuals in the society have several shrines in their houses and, in fact, the opulence of a house is often referred to in terms of the number of such ritual centers it possesses. Most houses are of wattle and daub construction, but the shrine rooms of the more wealthy are walled with stone. Poorer families imitate the rich by applying pottery plaques to their shrine walls. While each family has at least one such shrine, the rituals associated with it are not family ceremonies but are private and secret. The rites are normally only discussed with children, and then only during the period when they are being initiated into these mysteries. I was able, however, to establish sufficient rapport with the natives to examine these shrines and to have the rituals described to me. The focal point of the shrine is a box or chest which is built into the wall. In this chest are kept the many charms and magical potions without which no native believes he could live. These preparations are secured from a variety of specialized practitioners. The most powerful of these are the medicine men, whose assistance must be rewarded with substantial gifts. However, the medicine men do not provide the curative potions for their clients, but decide what the ingredients should be and then write them down in an ancient and secret language. This writing is understood only by the medicine men and by the herbalists who, for another gift, provide the required charm. The charm is not disposed of after it has served its purpose, but is placed in the charmbox of the household shrine. As these magical materials are specific for certain ills, and the real or imagined maladies of the people are many, the charm-box is usually full to overflowing. The magical packets are so numerous that people forget what their purposes were and fear to use them again. While the natives are very vague on this point, we can only assume that the idea in retaining all the old magical materials is that their presence in the charm-box, before which the body rituals are conducted, will in some way protect the worshipper. Beneath the charm-box is a small font. Each day every member of the family, in succession, enters the shrine room, bows his head before the charm-box, mingles different sorts of holy water in the font, and proceeds with a brief rite of ablution. The holy waters are secured from the Water Temple of the community, where the priests conduct elaborate ceremonies to make the liquid ritually pure. In the hierarchy of magical practitioners, and below the medicine men in prestige, are specialists whose designation is best translated "holy-mouth-men." The Nacirema have an almost pathological horror of and fascination with the mouth, the condition of which is believed to have a supernatural influence on all social relationships. Were it not for the rituals of the mouth, they believe that their teeth would fall out, their gums bleed, their jaws shrink, their friends desert them, and their lovers reject them. They also believe that a strong relationship exists between oral and moral characteristics. For example, there is a ritual ablution of the mouth for children which is supposed to improve their moral fiber. The daily body ritual performed by everyone includes a mouth-rite. Despite the fact that these people are so punctilious about care of the mouth, this rite involves a practice which strikes the uninitiated stranger as revolting. It was reported to me that the ritual consists of inserting a small bundle of hog hairs into the mouth, along with certain magical powders, and then moving the bundle in a highly formalized series of gestures. In addition to the private mouth-rite, the people seek out a holy-mouth-man once or twice a year. These practitioners have an impressive set of paraphernalia, consisting of a variety of augers, awls, probes, and prods. The use of these objects in the exorcism of the evils of the mouth involves almost unbelievable ritual torture of the client. The holy-mouth-man open the clients mouth and, using the above mentioned tools, enlarges any holes which decay may have created in the teeth. Magical materials are put into these holes. If there age no naturally occurring holes in the teeth, large sections of one or more teeth are gouged out so that the supernatural substance can be applied. In the client's view, the purpose of these ministrations is to arrest decay and to draw friends. The extremely sacred and traditional character of the rite is evident in the fact that the natives return to the holy--mouth-men year after year, despite the fact that their teeth continue to decay. It is to be hoped that, when a thorough study of the Nacirema is made, there will be careful inquiry into the personality structure of these people. One has but to watch the gleam in the eye of a holy- mouth-man, as he jabs an awl into an exposed nerve, to suspect that a certain amount of sadism is involved. If this can be established, a very interesting pattern emerges, for most of the population shows definite masochistic tendencies. It was to these that Professor Linton referred in discussing a distinctive part of the daily body ritual which is performed only by men. This part of the rite involves scraping and lacerating the surface of the face with a sharp instrument. Special women's rites are performed only four times during each lunar month, but what they lack in frequency is made up in barbarity. As part of this ceremony, women bake their heads in small ovens for about an hour. The theoretically interesting point is that what seems to be a preponderantly masochistic people have developed sadistic specialists. The medicine men have an imposing temple, or latipso, in every community of any size. The more elaborate ceremonies required to treat very sick patients can only be performed at this temple. These ceremonies involve not only the thaumaturge but a permanent group of vestal maidens who move sedately about the temple chambers in distinctive costume and head- dress. The latipso ceremonies are so harsh that it is phenomenal that a fair proportion of the really sick natives who enter the temple The concept of culture ever recover. Small children whose indoctrination is still incomplete have been known to resist attempts to take them to the temple because "that is where you go to die." Despite this fact, sick adults are not only willing but eager to undergo the protracted ritual purification, if they can afford to do so. No matter how ill the supplicant or how grave the emergency, the guardians of many temples will not admit a client if he cannot give a rich gift to the custodian. Even after one has gained admission and survived the ceremonies, the guardians will not permit the neophyte to leave until he makes still another gift. The supplicant entering the temple is first stripped of all his or her clothes. In everyday life the Nacirema avoids exposure of his body and its natural functions. Bathing and excretory acts are performed only in the secrecy of the household shrine, where they are ritualized as part of the body-rites. Psychological shock results from the fact that body secrecy is suddenly lost upon entry into the latipso. A man, whose own wife has never seen him in an excretory act, suddenly finds himself naked and assisted by a vestal maiden while he performs his natural functions into a sacred vessel. This sort of ceremonial treatment is necessitated by the fact that the excreta are used by a diviner to ascertain the course and nature of the client's sickness. Female clients, on the other hand, find their naked bodies are subjected to the scrutiny, manipulation and prodding of the medicine men. Few supplicants in the temple are well enough to do anything but lie on their hard beds. The daily ceremonies, like the rites of the holy-mouth-men, involve discomfort and torture. With ritual precision, the vestals awaken their miserable charges each dawn and roll them about on their beds of pain while performing ablutions, in the formal movements of which the maidens are highly trained. At other times they insert magic wands in the supplicant's mouth or force him to eat substances which are supposed to be healing. From time to time the medicine men come to their clients and jab magically treated needles into their flesh. The fact that these temple ceremonies may not cure, and may even kill the neophyte, in no way decreases the people's faith in the medicine men. There remains one other kind of practitioner, known as a "listener." This witchdoctor has the power to exorcise the devils that lodge in the heads of people who have been bewitched. The Nacirema believe that parents bewitch their own children. Mothers are particularly suspected of putting a curse on children while teaching them the secret body rituals. The counter-magic of the witchdoctor is unusual in its lack of ritual. The patient simply tells the "listener" all his troubles and fears, beginning with the earliest difficulties he can remember. The memory displayed by the Nacirerna in these exorcism sessions is truly remarkable. It is not uncommon for the patient to bemoan the rejection he felt upon being weaned as a babe, and a few individuals even see their troubles going back to the traumatic effects of their own birth. In conclusion, mention must be made of certain practices which have their base in native esthetics but which depend upon the pervasive aversion to the natural body and its functions. There are ritual fasts to make fat people thin and ceremonial feasts to make thin people fat. Still other rites are used to make women's breasts larger if they are small, and smaller if they are large. General dissatisfaction with breast shape is symbolized in the fact that the ideal form is virtually outside the range of human variation. A few women afflicted with almost inhuman hyper-mamrnary development are so idolized that they make a handsome living by simply going from village to village and permitting the natives to stare at them for a fee. Reference has already been made to the fact that excretory functions are ritualized, routinized, and relegated to secrecy. Natural reproductive functions are similarly distorted. Intercourse is taboo as a topic and scheduled as an act. Efforts are made to avoid pregnancy by the use of magical materials or by limiting intercourse to certain phases of the moon. Conception is actually very infrequent. When pregnant, women dress so as to hide their condition. Parturition takes place in secret, without friends or relatives to assist, and the majority of women do not nurse their infants. Our review of the ritual life of the Nacirema has certainly shown them to be a magic-ridden people. It is hard to understand how they have managed to exist so long under the burdens which they have imposed upon themselves. But even such exotic customs as these take on real meaning when they are viewed with the insight provided by Malinowski when he wrote: "Looking from far and above, from our high places of safety in the developed civilization, it is easy to see all the crudity and irrelevance of magic. But without its power and guidance early man could not have mastered his practical difficulties as he has done, nor could man have advanced to the higher stages of civilization." References Linton, Ralph. 1936. The Study of Man. New York: D. Appleton-Century. Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1948. Magic, Science, and Religion. Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press. Murdock, George P. 1949. Social Structure. New York: Macmillan.
topic: Essays
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The man that is LaVeyan Satanists	September 3, 2009, 7:34AM
by: Syn
On Walpurgisnacht of 1966, Anton Szandor LaVey began the Church of Satan. Beforehand, he had given lectures from his home, the infamous Black House, charging two dollars for admittance. He formed a "Magic Circle" with his closest associates, with ceremonial magic. It was suggested to LaVey that he had enough material to start an organized religion. The Church of Satan attracted a great deal of publicity. Its use of nude women as altars, and performances of a Satanic wedding and funeral service, brought it much attention. Anton LaVey shaved his head and wore a white clerical collar, sometimes even wearing horns to complete the image of the Devil incarnate. His flamboyant personality attracted many followers and admirers. In 1969, LaVey published The Satanic Bible, which, even to this day, remains the most authoritative literature on the subject of LaVeyan Satanism, outlining the basic concepts, philosophy and rituals of the religion. A companion book, The Satanic Rituals, published in 1972, presents an array of rituals associated with Satanism throughout the ages, but not necessarily central to the Church's belief system. LaVey also released other literature to further expand on the ideology, namely The Satanic Witch (previously published as The Compleat Witch), and 2 essay anthologies: The Devil's Notebook and Satan Speaks! Since its inception, many individuals sought to recreate LaVey's success by founding new organizations claiming the throne of "true" Satanism, but most were short-lived and ceased to exist altogether. Some, however, have gained remarkable success, allegedly due to the founders' previously strong relations with the Church of Satan. The reasons for the breakaway from LaVey's church were cited as being a difference in ideology, or commercialization of the institution, thus seeking to recreate its previous underground and elitist status. One notable example is the formation of the Temple of Set in 1975 by former Church of Satan member Michael Aquino, who cites disagreement over LaVey's atheism. Aquino believed in a living deity, whom he called Set. The other major organization affiliated with LaVeyan ideology is the First Satanic Church, founded in 1999 by Anton LaVey's daughter, Karla LaVey. She argues that, after her father's death, the church moved away from his original modus operandi, and shifted towards a commercial money making machine. Thus, the First Satanic Church is considered a re-founding of the original one. Today, the Church of Satan is still viewed as the de facto representation of LaVeyan Satanism in the public eye, and fresh publications are released, applying Satanic philosophies to topics of contemporary interest.
topic: Essays
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The 'Mock-Sociopath'. V.1	May 31, 2009, 11:48PM
by: Zach_Macabre
When one mentions a serial killer one is often met with a smile and a "Oh, he's my favorite!". Rather than back in the Mid-1900's you would be met with a sullen scowl, and a grave voice. It is possible (or plausible rather) that this is due to a mixture of the desensitizing of the modern human being via technology and society, and having so much information at your fingertips. You hear your friends talking about Ted Bundy, and you decide he's worth looking into, and like so many other you could become obsessed. This obsession with serial killers has created an entire sub-culture of 'Mock-Sociopaths'. Or people who desire to be a sociopath, and a killer but lack the real metal for it. The 'Mock-Sociopath' is created from a need to rebel against social boundaries, and a desire to stand out. If you take a moment to think, who are the most foreign to the normal human being? A sociopath. One who is devoid of guilt, and seldom experiences an emotion beyond their desire for something, most often the suffering of another human. So this wave of rebellious souls seeks out that most foreign and tries to relate, so that they may distance themselves from their peers, parents, etc. They ultimately come across the serial killers/sociopaths and tell themselves that in order to assume their own identity they must become like these people, and so they attempt to do so. They probably spend a bit of time browsing rotten.com, or some other corpse site, and they most likely start shoplifting in order to bolster their confidence in their adopted sociopathic identity. The facade of a sociopathic identity is everything to the 'mock-sociopath' and they will do almost anything to protect it. However, when it comes down to it, the 'Mock-Sociopath ' is his own worst enemy, because most of the doubts about his identity come from him. The 'mock sociopath' has become so attatched to his identity that at this point, its all they think they have left. So when internal doubts start to arise, they will try their best to quell them. The best way to do this? Try to prove their doubts wrong, of course. Following back to their idols, they will most likely try to kill someone. More later, -Macabre
topic: Essays
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Women's Roles in Ancient Greek Culture	December 5, 2008, 12:15PM
by: CrimsonTearzx
I had to write this essay for English class. I got a 90% out of 100 on this. In Euripides' classic play "Medea," one of the most vital concepts to comprehend is the role of women in Ancient Greek society. Due to how Ancient Greek civilization was constructed, women like Medea had no freedom. The same circumstances also prohibited females from having authority so Mdea had no way to deal with her tragic betrayal. Women were considered to be envious of the same sex, which many people in the play, such as Jason and Creon, considered to be her downfall. Therefore, females were labeled emotionally inferior to men and incapable of making important decisions. Ancient Greek culture was built in a way that prevented women from having independence. Divorce was not an option for women. Only the male could terminate the marriage, but very few men wanted to do that. In the marriage, women were supposed to be faithful while the men could go out and have a plethora of mistresses and other wives. As Medea observes, "Surely, of all creatures that have life and will, we women are the most wretched. When, for an extravagant sum, we have bought a husband, we must accept him as possessor of our body...for women, divorce is not respectable; to repel the man, not possible." (Euripides 24) This establishes the reality that Jason ruled Medea and she could not leave him for fear of being scorned by society. Medea then asserts that "if a man grows tired of the company [of his wife] at home, he can go out, and find a cure for the tediousness. We wives are forced to look at one man only." (Euripides 24) This demonstrates how Medea's free will was obliterated by the law the women could not commit adultury. The result is that women were scorned or disgraced if they divorced and committed infidility. In addition, females lacked power. Medea, in one passage, rants about how women are powerless in terms of marriage and society. She mentions that if she carries out her plan of killing Glauce and the children, she would not have a place to life because she would be disgraced. When she finds out she is exiled, she panics because she knows that she can not support herself and her two sons because women were not allowed to work. Medea states that "women [are] useless for honest purposes, but in all kinds of evil, skilled practitioners." (Euripides 29) Putting it succinctly, Medea hints that females, in general, had no power when it came to Ancient Greek society. Ultimately, Medea was powerless in her marriage and in the society she was brought up in. When Jason makes his entrance into the play, he lists all the reasons why Medea should not be angry. He brings up the thought-provoking idea of sexual jealousy. He claims that all women are sexually jealous of other women. He argues that "women have reached a state where, if all's well with your sex life, you've [got] everything you wish for, but when that goes wrong, [all] at once, all that is best and noblest turns to gall." (Eurpides 34) Jason implies that women will give a man anything as long as the man pleases her. If the male commits adultery, the woman will be jealous. When Creon, the father of Glauce, banishes Medea, he brings up the same theory. He states, "you are barred from Jason's bed, and that enrages you." (Euripides 26) He concurs with Jason about the issue of sexual jealousy but hints at the implication that women have a lot of self-esteem, or emotional, problems due to the sexual jealousy commonly found in females. In summation, women were not able to live their lives as freely as men due to the sexist attitude of Ancient Greek culture. Medea, at the end of the play, has given up everything for the love of a man who gave her nothing in return except infidility and betrayal. She committed murder because it was the only way she could think of getting revenge. She could not commit infidility for fear of being deemed a harlot and being condemned to die. SHe could not get a divorce for fear of how the society would view her. THe way that society brought up women is the main reason why Medea had to lower herself to such atrocities. She did not know any other way because the culture would have used her as a scapegoat for other women who came after her.
topic: Essays
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Animal Intelligence	November 1, 2008, 4:47AM
by: MissMonster
You wake up, ruffle your hair, and look in the mirror. Half awake, you stumble into the kitchen and look at an assortment of brightly colored cereal boxes, picking out your favorite brand. After pouring it into a bowl along with milk, you begin to shovel spoonfuls into your mouth. Your roommate, finished frying eggs, offers you one, which you decline with a hand motion. All these actions and the skills that go along with them seem to be human in nature, but what if you found out that they weren’t? Elephants have what’s called “self-recognition”, and understand that they are looking at a reflection of themselves when looking into a mirror. Alex, an African gray parrot used in animal intellect studies, can sort and differentiate between colors and shapes, just like you sorted out your favorite cereal by the color of the box. Chimpanzees use a number of different tools to eat termites, just like you use a spoon or a fork. And even further, dolphins have been able to correctly interpret and act upon a hand-signal language invented for them by trainers, just as you motioned that you didn’t want an egg. As animals are subjected to new tests, scientists are finding that animals have many of the cognitive skills that were once thought to be exclusive to human beings. But how much intelligence do animals really have? Do different species have different amounts of intelligence? These questions are hard to answer, and usually the answer isn’t agreed upon. I first became interested in this question a few years ago, on a student-volunteer trip to the Amazon rainforest of Peru. One of the places my student group volunteered at was an animal sanctuary, a home for injured animals to be nursed back to health. Among the large number of native animals helped at the sanctuary were several species of monkey, including red howler, capuchin, and red-faced uakaris. After interacting with my fellow primates, it became increasingly apparent to me how human they were, or perhaps how monkeyish I was. They laughed, made crying noises, smiled, grunted, and a red-faced uakari even insisted on styling my hair. The most surprising moment was when a capuchin climbed on my back, covered my eyes with his tiny hands, and started shrieking with laughter as I spun around in confusion. The boundary between humans and other animals suddenly became very blurred for me. How could we see these animals as entirely unintelligent, without emotion? It was another year before I seriously considered this question again, when I stumbled upon a National Geographic article titled “Minds of their Own: Animals are Smarter than you Think”. Before we get into numerous articles, case studies, and experiment reports, it’s only fair that I examine my own bias. I by no means was raised on a farm or by wolves, but I did grow up with a domestic cat that seemed to read my mind from the time I was three until she died just a year ago. I have always had a love for every type of animal, and as a child spent countless hours at the zoo and in museums. I had every “Zoo Books” animal file, was subscribed to “Ranger Rick” (a sort of National Geographic for children), and watched the “Eye Witness” television program every morning before school. However, none of these sources ever claimed that animals had any sort of deep intelligence or emotion. There were other sources, however, that could have affected my notion of animal intelligence. “Rocko’s Modern Life”, “Scooby Doo”, and “The Angry Beavers” were all television shows I watched which anthromorphized animals into speaking, thinking, emotional characters that wore clothing and lived in human homes. Beyond that, books such as C.S. Lewis’s “The Witch in the Wardrobe” provided animal characters that were just as intelligent and civilized as their human companions. However, it’s hard to say that any of these children’s cartoons or books really influenced me into thinking animals had any true intelligence. As I grew older, I accepted that these characters were imaginary. If anything, these shows and novels made me wish animals were intelligent enough for me to interact with them. With a deep love of animals and having interacted with non-human primates, my initial opinion on the matter was very liberal minded; yes, at least some animals are more intelligent than we give them credit for, and yes they have emotions. The first article I read supported this idea. “Minds of their Own” , an article published in National Geographic by Virginia Morell, is based upon the very question I am posing, “How intelligent are animals, really?” The first case Morell uses is that of an African gray parrot named Alex. Bought in a pet shop by Harvard graduate Irene Pepperberg, Alex had been learning the English language and showing Pepperberg how he saw the world for over 30 years, before he died in September of 2007. Pepperberg’s work with Alex showed that as a parrot he could count to seven, pick out what was different in a group of items, and perform several other tasks most people would put beyond his intelligence. When shown an assortment of objects and asked to count how many were a certain color and texture, Alex counted correctly 9 out of 10 times. In the article, Pepperberg went on to explain why birds might need such cognate skills. “They need to be able to distinguish colors to know when a fruit is ripe or unripe. They need to categorize things – what’s edible, what isn’t – and to know the shapes of predators. ( . . . ) For a long-lived bird, you can’t do all of this with instinct; cognition must be involved” (Morell, 3) Other case studies Morell uses include accounts of a dog that can remember the names for 300 individual objects, a crow that can bend wire to make a hook tool, and even scrub jays that hide their food from thieves. Particularly noted for their intelligence are dolphins, who in Louis Herman’s study learned to understand a language of hand signals complete with simple grammar. Herman describes dolphins as similar to humans in their highly social life style as well as their tendency to be very vocal. Morell concludes her article with a glimpse of Herman’s relationship with the dolphins he worked with, describing it as; “I loved our dolphins, as I’m sure you love your pets. But it was more than that, more than the love you have for a pet. The dolphins were our colleagues. That’s the only word that fits. They were our partners in research, guiding us into all the capabilities of their minds. When they died, it was like losing our children.” (Morell, 8) Morell’s finishing lines are touching, describing Herman and the dolphins he worked with having like minds. When I first read this article I whole-heartedly agreed with it. Having done no previous research on the subject, I wanted to believe that animals really were intelligent, deeply emotional beings, which humans simply have a hard time communicating with. Further in my research, however, I began to question the simplicity of this article. No counter-argument was made, and no human controls were compared to the experiments with animals. Though I liked the article, especially because it was written in English and not in scientific mumbo-jumbo, I found it simplistic and lacking. This lead me to the next article, “Animals, Humans and X-Men: Human Uniqueness and the Meaning of Personhood” by Christopher L. Fisher. “Animals, Humans and X-Men” by Christopher L. Fisher proved to be the exact opposite of “Animal Minds. Fisher argues that the difference between human and animal intelligence is not just quantity but quality; that humans have a mindset and emotional depth completely alien from animals’. This argument is made by four main points, consisting of chimps’ lack of in depth language skills, chimps’ lack of “theory of mind”, lack of culture in Neanderthal artifacts, and the denial of morals or ethics in animals. Several case studies are quoted from both sides of the spectrum, including radical ideas that “personhood” should be redefined to include animals, and conservative ideas that animals lack all emotive qualities. In the case of language skills, Fisher claims that chimps do not fully grasp language or have the intelligence to so, because they largely make demands rather than state observations. “Even claims about Kanzi’s ability to enter ‘‘real conversation’’ seem somewhat overdone, since the actual research publications show that these comprise only about 4% of his communication.” (Fisher, 294) His next argumentis that chimpanzees lack a “theory of mind”, the concept that other beings think as they do, and the ability to predict their intentions. Fisher’s 3rd argument is the lack of culture found in Neanderthal artifacts. Evidence is given for this in the sense that ancient human artifacts often include art and complex burial sites. Neanderthals, however, don’t show such artifacts, and burial sites are usually simple. The final argument for the lack of emotion and intelligence in animals is that other species do not have a sense of morals or ethics. Fisher states that all observations of animal emotion or ethics are due to anthromorphism. “Michael Leahy notes that we sometimes attribute to animals purely human characteristics, leading to confusion about their capacities. Dogs are said to look guilty or sycophantic, foxes sly, owls wise, and apes cheeky. This is Wittgensteinian linguistic fuzziness, which leads to wrong conclusions about the subjects of discussion.” (Fisher, 304) On a final note, Fisher uses the fact that in conversations with chimps, they have not had a concept of God. Once again, I was skeptical. Fisher only seemed to strengthen his articles by quoting extremely radical stances. Also, I had to consider the source, “Theology and Science”. With such a source, it is a fair assumption that it’s writers are at least somewhat religious. In such a case, it’s possible that Fisher is biased by his religion, most of which put humans up above other species, especially in Western religions. Also, Fisher seems to imply that chimps are unintelligent partly because they lack language skills. However, it’s it true that humans lack fluent language skills until several years of age? Even then, it takes years for humans to attain correct grammar. Further more, I don’t really understand why he brought Neanderthals into the picture. While it is safe to say our extinct cousins of sorts were not as intelligent as humans are today, it’s very hard to make a claim abut them on account evidence is scarce. After all, it’s not as if we can run them through tests and experiences. While I found several points Fisher made to be worth considering, I generally found his paper to disagree with my thoughts and lacking in relevant evidence. Finding the first article too liberal and the second to conservative, I felt like Goldilocks searching for a middle position. I found this in the article “Animal Intelligence” by David P. Barash . In the article “Animal Intelligence” Barash argues that intelligence and emotional depth are both present in animals, but not to the extent that they are near human levels. Barash also uses the examples of Alex the English speaking African gray parrot and Rico the toy-identifying dog. However, Barash states that while these feats are amazing, they don’t exactly show that animals are capable of human-like thought. He also warns that all too often people misinterpret animal actions. “Caution is called for when assessing claims of remarkable animal cognitive skills. It is one thing to be generous in interpreting the behavior of other animals, quite another to be taken in.” (Barash, 1) Also stressed is the concept that intelligence is based not only on an animal’s genetics but also on their experience. Chimpanzees raised by scientists are much more likely to understand simple language, and chimpanzees raised in the wild are much more likely to know where the best place to find food is and how to obtain it. Over all, Barash takes a middle stance, stating that while the intellect levels animals show are amazing, assuming that animals are nearly human in nature is far fetching. After my own experiences, reading the previously mentioned articles and several more, and looking at the results from various tests and experiments, my viewpoint is firmly placed in the middle, perhaps leaning slightly to the liberal side. I believe that animals can be intelligent, have emotional depth, and use skills once thought to be exclusive to humans. However, I do not believe that animals have the same intelligence or mind-set that humans have. Sources: Morell, Virginia. "Minds of their Own." National Geographic Mar. 2008. Animal Minds - National Geographic. Mar. 2008. National Geographic. 20 Oct. 2008 . Fisher, Christopher L. "Animals, humans and x-men: Human uniqueness and the meaning of personhood." Theology & Science 3.3 (Nov. 2005): 291-314. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. [Morgan Library], [Fort Collins], [CO]. 25 Oct. 2008 . Barash, David P. "Animal Intelligence." Chronicle of Higher Education 53.50 (17 Aug. 2007): 54-54. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 27 Oct. 2008 .
topic: Essays
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Americans Are Overmedicated	May 15, 2008, 5:45PM
by: my_little_pony
Americans today are overmedicated because doctors are giving medications to their patients that they may not really need. “More and more, patients' reported satisfaction with a doctor's visit is linked to whether or not they are given a prescription. Many see medication as the simple and obvious answer to any health problem, which can result in physicians feeling pressured to prescribe medications, even when they are not appropriate” (Greider). The reason doctors are doing this is because the patient won’t feel satisfied after a doctors visit unless they get a prescription. Because of this, antibiotics have been abused so much that the flesh eating superbug MRSA has adapted and made most antibiotics useless against it, causing MRSA to spread like wildfire. Also, many people are on psychiatric drugs that may have been treated with other less severe methods which they have not tried as treatment because of the easiness of a pill. With all of the medications that people are taking, the side effects from those medications warrant the use for more medications specifically made for the side effects of those previous medications. When have all these unneeded medications become so vital to American society? MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) is resistant to almost all antibiotics, and it’s treatments are becoming more and more scarce as time goes on. MRSA, once only a fear of and nuisance to hospitals and nursing homes, is breaking out of it’s normal habitat and leaching schools, daycares, and prisons. “Experts blame the emergence of these souped-up bugs in part on our habit of treating so many infections with powerful antibiotics; the microbes battle back by mutating to become resistant to the drugs” (Park). This outbreak of MRSA could have been prevented, or at least severely delayed by Americans taking antibiotics only in appropriate situations and only as prescribed. Part of the problem is that patients prescribed antibiotics are only taking the medicine until they feel better and not finishing the whole treatment, which gives bacteria a chance to mutate and in a sense, “conquer” that antibiotic and render it useless to that bacteria. If more people understood this then perhaps they would not be so antibiotic-happy at the doctors office and maybe another superbug may not have a chance to surface. Unlike other physicians, some psychiatrists must seek out patients by persuading them that they need treatment. Drug companies are happy to assist them in this pursuit, as it boosts their sales in the long run. With that in mind, we can now see how psychiatrists and drug companies work together to promote the connection between brain defects and mental disorders. Modern drugs are then offered as the solution for supposed chemical imbalances in the brain. “However, there is substantial evidence that mental disorders are not caused by problems in the brain and that patients are being over prescribed psychiatric drugs when alternative treatments such as psychotherapy would be more effective” (Leavitt). An example of overmedication with psychiatric drugs is the amount of children improperly diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and the serious medications that these children are put on. Millions of children are being diagnosed with ADHD and put on medication that has been proven to have dangerous short and long term effects. Medical professionals have long acknowledged there is no objective criteria for determining whether a child has ADHD. Furthermore, the symptoms of ADHD have many possible causes, from sleep apnea to lead poisoning. Parents of children diagnosed with ADHD should really know about the disorder before letting doctors dope their children up on Ritalin (a stimulant that is close to cocaine in its composition and is most doctors’ drug of choice for treating ADHD) or something similar. With all of the medications that people are taking, more medications are being developed to combat the side effects of the previous ones. Dr. John D. Griffith, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, states: "I would like to point out that every drug, however innocuous, has some degree of toxicity. A drug, therefore, is a type of poison and its poisonous qualities must be carefully weighed against its therapeutic usefulness.” Unrecognized drug side effects are particularly of concern in the elderly, who tend to take more drugs for their ailments but metabolize them differently than the younger people tested and usually represented in drug-company studies (Greider). Wayne K. Anderson, Ph.D., dean of the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Buffalo, tells the story of: An eighty-year-old man who had osteoarthritis and was given a drug that made him nauseated. His doctor prescribed an anti-nauseate, which, after several months, produced a tremor. The man went to another doctor, who diagnosed Parkinson's disease and prescribed drugs to treat it, which increased the patient's nausea, resulting in an increase of anti-nausea drugs. Finally, a pharmacist had a conversation with the man's wife and recommended he be admitted to the hospital, where the drugs were carefully withdrawn. “He was discharged with a single prescription—Tylenol, for the osteoarthritis. Over the course of a year this man had become bedridden and now he was able to get back into life” (Greider). This happens all over in American nursing homes. If a resident has an itch, gas, is constipated, or has even the mildest headache some form of unnecessary medication is likely given. Why else would anyone want to go to the doctor unless it was to get medicine for their ailment? “It has been suggested that the impulse to use drugs is universal, a trait that distinguishes human beings from other animals. And isn't there something inherently appealing about taking medicine? You swallow it—you get better. Getting a medicine defines and validates one's suffering, while offering the promise of a solution” (Greider) Medicines certainly do have their advantages! Without modern medicine there would be a lot more lethal infections, people in pain, and untreated psychiatric patients. Many people prescribed certain medications do in fact need them and would suffer considerably without them. Where do we draw the line between which medication is needed and which medication is not? Doctors advise using a bit of common sense. Always ask your doctor what the medicines that he is giving you or your child are for and what side effects there will be. If he is prescribing you antibiotics ask, “If I didn’t take this antibiotic, would my body be able to fight this infection itself?” If your body can fight the infection itself, do all of us a favor and let it, because the more antibiotics are used the less effective they will become in the future when bacteria mutate even further and render antibiotics useless. Always examine possible reasons for symptoms of psychiatric disorders and don’t automatically run to a drug to solve all your problems. We are humans, we are tough, and Zoloft hasn’t been around for the first couple thousand years of our existence, why do we think that we require it now? Works Cited Katharine Greider. "Americans Are Overmedicated." At Issue: Are Americans Overmedicated?. Ed. Amanda Hiber. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Umpqua Community College. 28 Feb. 2008 . Fred Leavitt. "Americans Are Overmedicated with Psychiatric Drugs." At Issue: Are Americans Overmedicated?. Ed. Amanda Hiber. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Umpqua Community College. 28 Feb. 2008 . Park, Alice. "Staph on the March.(BEST INVENTIONS OF 2007)(Life: Sport - Living - History - Health - Environment - Life After Work; Health)." Time. 170. 20 (Nov 12, 2007): 123. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Umpqua Community College. 28 Feb. 2008 . Bruce Wiseman. "Children Are Overmedicated with ADHD Drugs." At Issue: Are Americans Overmedicated?. Ed. Amanda Hiber. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Umpqua Community College. 28 Feb. 2008 .
topic: Essays
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Animal Experimentation is Completely Justified and Necessary Because it is Essential for Medical Progress	April 26, 2008, 6:49AM
by: my_little_pony
Could you imagine what your life would be like if you were confined to an iron lung for the rest of your life with your only view being the ceiling because animal rights activists made it impossible to use animals to find the cure for polio? Animal experimentation is completely justified and necessary because it is essential for medical progress. Without the use of animals in scientific research we would not have as many preventative drugs for AIDS patients, nor as many vaccines for terrible illnesses, and also we would not have discovered the Rh factor, a very important issue when it comes to women and pregnancy. Regulations brought in to protect animals' welfare are hindering vital research, research that could possibly find the final cure for AIDS and different cancers. We need animals to test drugs to make sure that they are safe for humans before administering them to our children, parents, and ourselves. There are no substitutes for animals, other than humans, that work as well and produce such conclusive results as they do. AIDS research would be impossible without animal experimentation. In one case the bone marrow of a baboon (baboons are immune to the AIDS virus) was implanted into a human with AIDS in an experimental treatment, after which the baboon was killed painlessly with a lethal injection. Many animal rights activists disagree with what was done, but would have it been right to save the baboons life in favor of denying treatment to someone with AIDS? Animal transplants have enormous possibilities for people with leukemia and lymphoma who go without treatment in a lot of cases because of a lack of donors. Many researchers believe that through animal testing a cure for AIDS will be found, and one states that restrictive animal rights laws get in the way of progress. According to Joseph E. Murray, the 1990 Nobel Laureate in medicine, “Whenever a cure for AIDS is found, it will be through animal research.” Finding a cure for AIDS warrants the sacrifice of animal lives. In 1908, researchers Karl Landsteiner and Erwin Popper conducted an experiment on monkeys and by doing so changed the way animal experimentation was done. They removed part of the spinal cord of a boy who had died of polio and ground it up, filtered it and injected it directly into the spines of two monkeys. One monkey became paralyzed and both monkeys died. The spinal cords showed the same kind of damage as those of humans with polio. In a very simple way, Landsteiner and Popper had demonstrated that monkeys could be used to model human diseases. Other scientists caught on and in 1911, monkeys were found to be susceptible to measles, in 1914, mumps, and in 1928, yellow fever (Derbyshire). With his discoveries of how monkeys could be used as models of humans, Landsteiner discovered the different kinds of blood types in humans in 1930 and won the Nobel Prize. Landsteiner was particular about the kind of animals that he used and would onlyuse rhesus macaque monkeys, which was important because in 1940, he discovered a blood factor shared by the macaques and humans: the Rh factor. Short for rhesus, Rh factor refers to a cluster of highly reactive proteins on the surface of red blood cells. Most people have these proteins and are called Rh positive. A minority, however, lacks the proteins and is called Rh negative. If an Rh-negative woman becomes pregnant with an Rh-positive child, her immune system will develop an immune defense that will attack any future pregnancy with an Rh-positive child. Her immune system will rip into the fetus' alien red blood cells, jamming them together and exploding them. (Derbyshire) What an important discovery! Good thing that Landsteiner's discovery led to the development of a vaccine that blocked this terrible immune response. It is puzzling that some people would even think of saving a few monkeys rather than having this vaccine. Without animal testing many areas of research would come to a halt and many cures for things would go undiscovered. Thomas Starzl, the pioneer of the kidney transplant, was recently asked why he used dogs in his work. He explained that his first series of kidney transplant operations left the majority of his subjects dead. He figured out what enabled the minority to survive and began a second series of operations; the majority of these subjects lived. A third group of subjects received liver transplants and only one or two of them died. In his fourth group all subjects survived. Starzl remarked that it’s important to realize that his first three groups of subjects were dogs, while the fourth group of subjects were human babies. It is sad to say that some people would favor discontinuing this line of research rather than use dogs to refine the process. If animal rights activists had their way the world would by a very different place, a place which there would be very little pleasure living in. Animal activists oppose all animal-based medical research. If we had listened to their arguments 50 years ago, children still would be contracting polio (the vaccine was developed in monkeys). Diabetics would not have insulin, a benefit of research on dogs. We would also be without antibiotics for pneumonia, chemotherapy for cancer, surgery for heart diseases, organ transplants and joint replacement.(Murray) Animal rights activists believe that animals have just as many rights to life as humans do and should be treated as such. Organizations like PETA were formed to protect animal rights. People who support animal rights believe that animals are not ours to use for food, clothing, entertainment, experimentation, or any other purpose. PETA is right on a lot of their values. Animals should not be used for entertainment, nor should they be used for experiments concerning cosmetics. Do we really need another hairspray? The answer is “No!” But, do we really need a cure for AIDS? The answer is “Yes!” Many animal rights activists argue that a healthy lifestyle can prevent many diseases and ailments which would warrant the need for treatment, treatment which could have been discovered using animal testing. Some animal rights activists believe that medical research altogether could be stopped if people lived healthy lives and did not require treatment for diseases and ailments. This would be nice if it were true, but sadly it is not. My aunt and uncle, Wister and Tom Hart, are people who live very healthy lifestyles. They eat well, exercise, rest well, and are generally happy people. Both have had cancer and survived. If not for chemotherapy (perfected through animal research) they would not have made it. Who would be to blame for their deaths then? Medical research needs to use animals for testing in order to progress. It is not a necessary evil; it is just necessary. Just like animals, humans have the right to further their species and protect it so that it may flourish and not become extinct. When cancer, disease, and ailments arise, it is our right as human beings to find the cure for these things, however possible, without hurting other humans, because surviving is what we are genetically programmed to do. We live in a modern world today free of many of the diseases that plagued our past. Many of us have forgotten or simply not known what a different world it was before all the cures that came of animal testing. Because of this, animal rights activists simply do not see what is needed to live in such a privileged society such as we do, where issues of our survival are rarely worried about in our daily lives. They are sentimentalists, “Save the animals!” they cry out, but when it comes down to it, what they are saying means that they are more concerned about another species than their own, even if they don’t understand that that‘s what they‘re implying. If your child had cancer, would you refuse to use chemotherapy on them because the methods used to perfect it were tested on animals? Would you deny them medicine for pain for the same reason? I think not. Works Cited Derbyshire, Stuart. "Animal Experimentation Is Justified." Current Controversies: The Rights of Animals. Ed. Auriana Ojeda. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2004. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Umpqua Community College. 29 Jan. 2008 http://find.galegroup.com/ovrc/infomark.do?&contentSet=GSRC&type=retrieve& tabID=T010&prodId=OVRC&docId=EJ3010062239&source=gale&srcprod=OV RC&userGroupName=umpquacc&version=1.0. Murray, Joseph E. "Animal Experimentation Benefits AIDS Research." At Issue: Animal Experimentation. Ed. David M. Haugen. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2000. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Umpqua Community College. 29 Jan. 2008 http://find.galegroup.com/ovrc/infomark.do?&contentSet=GSRC&type=retrieve tabID=T010&prodId=OVRC&docId=EJ3010002205&source=gale&srcprod=OR C&userGroupName=umpquacc&version=1.0.
topic: Essays
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Sabian vs Zildjian	March 15, 2008, 3:49PM
by: Syn
Sabian is a Canadian cymbal designer and manufacturer. It is one of the largest in the world, along with Zildjian, Paiste and Meinl. The company was founded in 1981 in Meductic, New Brunswick, Canada by Robert Zildjian, son of Avedis Zildjian III, the head of the Avedis Zildjian Company. Family tradition had it that the head of the company would only pass its secrets down to the oldest son, but Avedis III gave the information to both his sons, Armand and Robert. This led to a family feud and a legal squabble, resulting in Robert leaving Zildjian to form the rival Sabian company. The companies continue to be rivals, and are both among the world's most popular cymbal brands. The settlement gave Robert Zildjian the Canadian factory that at that time produced 40% of the production of the Avedis Zildjian Company, and most notably the entire K. Zildjian line, all manufacturing in Turkey having ceased by this time. Robert agreed not to use the Zildjian name or to claim that his cymbals were the same. The most notable difference between Zildjian and Sabian is that Zildjian uses a softer, mellower sounding alloy while Sabian uses a more tin-based alloy. The cymbals of the two companies today can be distinguished by sound fairly easily. Sabians are relatively thinner for their advertised weight. Sabian cymbals have longer sustain (with some exceptions) than their Zildjian counterparts, and Zildjian have a faster response (or attack). Sabian cymbals tend to be mellower in sound overall, but all of these differences wholly depend on the individual cymbal model. Robert Zildjian formed the word "Sabian" from the two first letters of the names of his three children Sally, Billy and Andy, and initially released two lines of cymbals, HH and AA, both of them of the traditional bell bronze alloy. The HH or "hand hammered" line were widely regarded as being K. Zildjians in all but name, and there was nothing in the settlement to prevent this being the case, although Robert Zildjian was legally prevented from claiming that it was true. However it was the other line, only slightly cheaper in price, that caused a sensation. The AA line were machine-made bell-bronze cymbals. They introduced a subtly different sound that appealed to many drummers, and also a level of consistency which was at that time new in a line of bell-bronze cymbals. Currently, Sabian has nine different series of cymbals. Their B8 series and B8 Pro series are regarded as student-level or entry-level cymbals. Their Xs20 series are regarded as intermediate-level cymbals. Their AA series and the AAX series of cymbals are regarded as semiprofessional-level to professional-level cymbals. Their HH series, HHX series, and Vault series of cymbals are regarded as professional-level cymbals. Further, cymbals from the Signature series are models developed in assistance with Sabian-endorsed artists, the price and quality of which vary from cymbal to cymbal ------------------------------------------------- The Avedis Zildjian Company is a cymbal manufacturer Founded in Istanbul, Turkey. It is one of the world's largest manufacturer of cymbals, along with Paiste, Meinl and Sabian. At nearly 400 years old, Zildjian remains one of the oldest operating companies in the world. They also sell drum-related accessories, such as drum sticks. The first Zildjian cymbals were created in 1618 in Istanbul by an Armenian man named Avedis, who, while looking for a way to turn base metal into gold, created an alloy combining tin, copper, and silver into a sheet of metal that could make musical sounds without shattering. Avedis took the surname of Zildjian, from Turkish "zil+ci" (cymbal-maker/seller) and the Armenian suffix "yan" (son of), and began an industry in 1623, the details of whose main product remained secret for generations. It became family tradition that only the oldest son of the company's head would know the manufacturing process. The Zildjian Company moved from manufacturing noisemakers to frighten the enemies of the Ottoman Empire to manufacturing its cymbals as musical instruments in the 19th century. In 1908, Avedis Zildjian III migrated to Boston, while Kerope Zildjian continued to make cymbals in Turkey under the K Zildjian Constantinople name. In 1923, the Turkish Republic was established and the name of Constantinople was officially changed to Istanbul, resulting in the change of the company’s name from K. Zildjian Constantinople to K. Zildjian Istanbul. In around 1926, Aram Zildjian signed an exclusive American distribution agreement for K. Zildjian cymbals with Gretsch. Around 1928, Avedis III and Aram Zildjian began manufacturing cymbals in Quincy, Massachusetts, and the Avedis Zildjian Co. was formed in 1929, the same year that the Great Depression began, in competition with the K. Zildjian company in Turkey. Avedis made many innovations in cymbals that are still around today; he was the first to develop drum-set cymbals, and gave cymbals names such as ride, crash, splash, and hi-hat. Jazz drummers such as Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, Louie Bellson, Shelly Manne, Cozy Cole, and Papa Jo Jones all used Avedis Zildjian cymbals. The cymbals were made with both automated processes and hand hammering, but Zildjian ended the latter tradition in 1964 after a rise in demand resulting from the popularity of The Beatles' drummer Ringo Starr on The Ed Sullivan Show. In 1968, the K. Zildjian Co. and all European trademarks were bought back by Robert Zildjian on behalf of the Avedis Zildjian Co. Zildjian was having labour requirement issues with oven room operators and machine operators, so Avedis split the production into two separate operations, one for rolling and casting only, and one for finishing work. They then opened up the Azco factory in Meductic, New Brunswick, Canada in 1968. From 1968 to 1970, the Azco factory produced Zilco cymbals. There were two types of Zilco: one was a thin rolling produced without any hammering at all, which cut costs. At about this time in the Azco factory, Robert Zildjian, with a man called Dick Dane, invented the modern process for pressing cymbals into shape. Before this it was done by bumping with the Quincy drop hammer. In 1970, Zildjian needed all their production capabilities at Azco for their regular Zildjian line, so the factory in Quincy (the then location of Zildjian) would send up castings to be finished into cymbals at Azco. At one point Azco was responsible for 40% of Zildjian's output. In 1975, there were problems with the Turkish government and Robert went over to Turkey and brought over a crew to start making K. Zildjian cymbals in the Azco plant. This was an interesting time for the Zildjian clan because it was the first time that Kerope and Avedis Zildjian had worked together to make the same Zildjian cymbals after years of competing with each other as A. Zildjian and K. Zildjian Istanbul. These were made until 1979 when Avedis died and Robert split from Zildjian amidst conflict with his brother, Armand Zildjian. Shortly thereafter, in 1981, Robert started making Sabian cymbals in the Meductic Azco factory, while Kerope and his son continued to make Sabian's early HH (Hand Hammered) cymbals. Other than cymbals, the Avedis Zildjian Company also produces products such as drum sticks and other drum accessories. The drum sticks are currently produced in Alabama. The Artist Series drum sticks allow these endorsers to personalize their own drum sticks, and these sticks are sold to the public. The Avedis Zildjian Company continues to produce cymbals today in Norwell, Massachusetts. Armand Zildjian was the head of the company after Avedis' death until his own passing in 2002. The company is now run by Armand’s daughters Craigie Zildjian and Debbie Zildjian.
topic: Essays
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Social Inequality in the United States	March 5, 2008, 6:45PM
by: KLOKWERKAOS
Though many argue that social inequalities of minorities and sub-culture groups only have as much stratifying impact on a person’s life as they are allowed, it is clear that outside of the best educated regions of the United States that prejudice and discrimination are a continual problem for those societies on a macro level. Further, it can be reasoned that so long as there are identifiable differing characteristics between humans that some form of subjective bias and level of prejudice will continue to be present and generate some form of conflict. Initially the capitalist environment of the United States was set up with the assumption that personal greed would motivate the economy and the system was set up so that the rich would be taxed heavily to help maintain overall greater societal conditions. In a way this was wildly successful as well as proving to be a dramatic failure. Indeed, today’s standards of living and economic conditions are far superior within the United States that those of the year 1776, however the failing of the capitalist system was to realize that there is no maximum capacity for human greed. On this Jacobs writes: “Expansions in the size of minority populations threaten the power of ascendant groups, who respond with efforts to maintain their dominant position”. Eventually individuals able to “get ahead” economically found that they could use their wealth to maintain itself and accumulate greater wealth through oppression (though this was by no means first developed in the United States). Once this policy of expansionism and dominance was coupled with a few generations of inherited money, the initial drive and intellect that created the wealth very well could have been, and frequently was, completely absent in the individuals that possessed the wealth. This caused all kinds of breakdowns in the American governmental system. The initial ideal was that voters would be land owners and thus be wealthy and deemed in possession of the wisdom to vote in adequate representation elections as they had proven themselves able to rise above their neighbor, but as power and wisdom became less and less synonymous through generations of inherited money an increasing decentralization in government occurred as the ideals of the past were found to be bankrupt. Over time a variety of different fears such as loss of wealth and differences in culture among other things allowed those of like traits to band together in social networks to work to maintain power over other individuals. Historically certain aspects such as race and gender and religion were used to determine societal caps to wealth levels and other measures of success within the United States. Discrimination and prejudice became the norm and stratification became exaggerated due to many various factors. Wilkinson writes: “In 1944, Myrdal, Richard Sterner, and Arnold Rose wrote that ‘segregation is now becoming so complete that the white Southerner practically never sees a Negro except as his servant and in other standardized and formalized caste situations.’ Both ecological separation and racial distance were entrenched in the fabric of the nation's beliefs, values, and social class hierarchy. All housing, private and public, was segregated by custom and by law.”(1995). Though this segregation was once federally endorsed, over time racial biases were eroded due to other changes in the sociological environment concerning feminism and other decentralizing movements which called for even greater restructuring of society. These movements even began to challenge not merely the work force ideal, but the traditional family unit itself, which in turn had religious ramifications as well. As women gained more and more rights within society those in power focused less on differences such as specific ethnicity and started to broaden their discrimination zones to more generic terms of skin color. Religious affiliation was also accepted on broader terms as well, being more commonly separated through major associations rather than specific denominations. As technology increased and information became increasingly more accessible, valuable and a more common form of currency, recognition of skin tone and gender became less focused but was still an identifiable problem within the United States. To combat this, early efforts included Affirmative Action policies which caused large amounts of controversy in all directions. Affirmative Action was both supported and denounced by both advocates and assailants of discrimination as it posed an exploitable system that could be used to fight for or against discrimination depending on how it was used. Affirmative Action allowed that certain minority groups would be allowed exaggerated opportunities in concerns to work and education over that which was typically available in the past. The system was far from perfect but overall today discrimination is less of a concern than it was before affirmative action but the degree to which Affirmative Action helped or hindered the current state of affairs concerning social inequality concerning minorities is largely a matter of opinion based on selective fact analysis. Eventually efforts to create a blind system were implemented by placing restrictions on government collection of data concerning race in several instances but were determined to be inadequate. The spirit of such efforts was to denounce the idea of forcing people to even identify themselves as Black, White, Hispanic, Asian or otherwise as it would only perpetuate the idea of existence of the concept of “minorities” to begin with. Such efforts are shown to prove inadequate as although Federal policy no longer endorses discrimination that the United States has not yet completely outgrown the concept of racial inequality on cultural and class levels. Much like Affirmative Action, the post-analysis of such anti-affirmative action movements continues to show improvements in eradicating social inequality for minorities but it is unclear to what extent the movements themselves helped or hindered the cause of decentralization. One of the most important aspects to keep in mind when addressing these issues is that once Federal backing of discrimination is ceased that the ideal of discrimination based on race should have disappeared (in theory) but it didn’t. Based on information technologies increasing a lingering sense of the past is allowed to have a societal voice more than ever. As is the case, certain issues of culture and class are very often confused as issues of race or even reverted to issues of race within a given system. Although the lingering voice of the past requires that we recognize it, it does not require that we adhere to it as modern doctrine. As such, efforts are being made to utilize sociology studies to focus on broader issues that are actively effecting stratification. In this regard Downey writes: “Environmental inequality is a relatively new concept that gained national attention in the late 1980s and early 1990s due to the efforts of grassroots environmental justice activists and professional researchers. Calling into question the mainstream environmental movement's assumption that environmental degradation affects everyone equally, environmental justice activists and researchers argue, among other things, that the poor, the working class, and people of color are disproportionately burdened by environmental hazards.”(2005). Downey’s statement offers a more high powered look (and at the same time on a look on a broader scale) at the issue of minority segregation and offers that if we can take into account the factors that cause stratification, such as ethnic concentration and class hazard and learn to stop and prevent such factors on a larger level, such as eradication of class orientation, that we may be able to further decentralize society. In theory, like those that came before him, Downey’s statements seem like a nice cure all blanket statement, but as we’ve seen in the past with Affirmative Action and Anti-Affirmative Action movements as well as other decentralizing efforts that there is always an inherent backlash that pulls in all directions. Specific decentralizing efforts appear to cause both harm and good to varying degrees depending on how they are applied to the current paradigm as well as their post-interpretation results. It seems then, that decentralizing efforts could only be effective on the macro level problem if they were applied with an even macro level influence, though this is a very difficult ideal to achieve. Those in power have had generations of breeding to learn how to centralize and increase and preserve their power to create further stratification so potent that the wealthiest one percent of the United States controls 98% of the nation’s wealth. Historically such stratification has only been corrected through violent outbursts of the masses, though this becomes less likely as the standard of living increases and generations of increasing conditioning towards apathy through various media (both obvious [television and radio propaganda] and not so obvious [busy work deterrence methods and artificial accolades]) are put into place for the lower classes. As such apathy exists one has to begin to even question the validity of challenging the bureaucracy at all especially when challenging the system generally earns one some sort of miscreant label such as misfit or anarchist. As one questions the nature of the system of centralized power it becomes evident that the system works in a cycle of expansionism followed by integration and then decentralization efforts. That being the case it appears that the whole system is working its way slowly toward a universal harmony where distinguishing characteristics and identity are no longer present. Some sociologists have argued to the contrary of the bureaucracy that the stratification efforts of the ruling class may even develop a sub-human servitor race within several generations. Even still we can safely assume that given the nature of statistics that over the length of a given length of time a probability constantly approaches singularity in some fashion or another. That being the case it seems that social inequalities becoming eradicated and power decentralization is an inevitability, though the question then becomes: “In what wisdom do we trust to expedite the process?”. Historically reviewing social inequality shows us that a system of control, no matter what kind, (be it ethnic, monetary, religious, class, sex or whatnot) is an illusion that is shattered at a moment of realization. In an effort to aid such realizations of decentralized power it seems wise to administer education as the preferred alternative to restrictive systems of control, however, with such education requires the understanding that at present we recognize a need for certain restrictions for those that are not adequately educated to prevent loss of resources for humanity as a whole (assuming the goal is the universal genetic inclination to preserve humanity) until such a time as we have unlimited resources available (if such a thing is possible). Sadly this still leads us to inevitable flawed use of subjective judgment calls as we must allow that while certain regions of the United States may be technologically and sociologically ready for a totally blind system in which applications for jobs is done through submission of a social security number and a verification that minimum job requirements are met, other communities may still have such an exaggerated imbalance by contrast that trying to apply such tactics to the area would cause a large resistance and system collapse, and thus be a drastic waste of resources. In conclusion, if we are to eliminate social inequality we must be constantly striving towards appropriately educating each individual to capacity in an effort to remove defining individual characteristics and decentralize power. Until such a time as this is possible it seems appropriate to accept that conflict and inequality will remain as constants and that we can only continue to make efforts that we have no way of accurately directly accounting for the contributions of, though with increased education we can spend less energy on maintaining an optimistic view and more energy on making sound contributions to decentralization efforts. References Downey, Liam. "The unintended significance of race: environmental racial inequality in Detroit *." Social Forces 83.3 (March 2005): 971(37). General OneFile. Gale. Apollo Library. 28 Feb. 2008 . Gale Document Number:A132872696 Jacobs, David, and Richard Kleban. "Political institutions, minorities, and punishment: a pooled cross-national analysis of imprisonment rates *." Social Forces 82.2 (Dec 2003): 725(31). General OneFile. Gale. Apollo Library. 28 Feb. 2008 . Gale Document Number:A112645453 Wilkinson, Doris Y. "Gender and social inequality: the prevailing significance of race." Daedalus 124.n1 (Wntr 1995): 167(12). General OneFile. Gale. Apollo Library. 28 Feb. 2008 . Gale Document Number:A16783180
topic: Essays
[reply] [32 comments]

Discordianism	February 23, 2008, 6:09AM
by: KLOKWERKAOS
I'll preface this by saying I am registered as a Discordian THE TRUTH ABOUT DISCORDIASMS!!!!!111leetlolzomgwtfbbq!11one Invented by a geek and a couple of hippies in the 1950's as a cheap substitute for marijuana, Discordianism not just a seriously old meme; it is in fact a rather sneaky Illuminati trap designed to look like a religion to some, and like lulz to others. In this manner it seduces the unsuspecting based on their greatest weakness. Like all novelty religions, it is extremely unfunny and most of its adherents are friendless autistic drama club nerds who quote endlessly from Monty Python and Douglas Adams when not in the comfort of their personal hugbox. They think that by endlessly repeating a bunch of 50-year-old in-jokes they can prove how hip and original they are. Serious business angle: Discordianism is a modern, irreligion founded circa 1958–1959 by Malaclypse the Younger with the publication of its principal text, the Principia Discordia (read it here, not page 3 is intentionally left blank, it's about 50 pages and worth the read if you are a schollar). It is widely regarded as a parody religion, and has been called "Zen for roundeyes", based on similarities with absurdist interpretations of the Rinzai school. Discordianism recognizes chaos, discord, and dissent as valid and desirable qualities, in contrast with most religions, which idealize harmony and order. Eris, the Greek mythological goddess of discord, has also become the matron deity of the religion Discordianism, though such rarely regarded with any credence as it would debunk the faith. It is hard to describe Discordianism as a religion because Discordians do not have any specific beliefs or dogma that would set them apart from the practitioners of other religions. Many of the practicing Discordians believe that humanity suffers from the "curse of Greyface" (i.e, takes itself too seriously) and thus needs to be saved from this grave outlook on life. Thus the Discordians seek to reverse the "curse of Greyface" by teaching the people "to laugh at themselves and their problems/lives." This, the Discordians believe, would solve most of the problems of the world. While Discordianism is separate from modern neopaganism, a number of neopagans have incorporated elements of Discordianism into their beliefs. In addition, Neopagan author Margot Adler discussed Discordianism in her book, Drawing Down the Moon, while religious authority J. Gordon Melton lists Discordianism among various Neopagan groups in his Encyclopedia Of American Religions. (Melton claims to have excommunicated all other Discordians, based on the fact that he is a Discordian Pope. Being Popes themselves, they then de-excommunicated themselves and/or each other.) It is difficult to estimate the number of followers and correctly identify Discordian groups. The anarchist ethic that pervades Discordianism[3] is reflected in an encouragement to form schisms and cabals.[4] Additionally, few adherents hold Discordianism as their only or primary faith. Instead, Erisians tend to adopt Discordianism as a complement to other faiths. MOAR ACTUAL TROOFZ!!! Followers: Adherents of the propaganda and other crap associated with this religion/joke/ploy, notably the roll of toilet paper known as the Principia Discordia, fall into five distinct groups. It is theorized by some that these are phases that each Discordian must go through on their path through life; these theorizers are sometimes known as Wicca and are ruthlessly mocked by actual people. *Fanboys treat the words of their Discordian betters as actual, honest-to-Goddess catma, and go 'round talkin' smack 'bout No Hot Dog Buns (Hail Eris All Hail Discordia,) 23 This, 23 That. They usually do this on the Internets, since if they did it IRL they would immediately be struck senseless by how unfunny they are. *Dilettantes are able to apply a dose of Hipster Irony to their now tastefully Discord-flavoured post-modern worldview, chuckling over what were once worrisome logical contradictions in their thinking and in so doing transforming them into self-effacing badges of coolness. Many join NAMBLA at this point; other, less fortunate, ones become liberals. *Chaos Magicians spend most of their time in their parent's basement drawing nonsense symbols in the air, playing with action figures, and generally retreating from reality. Which is a good thing, because if they were forced to interact with it at this point they would be raping every man, woman, and inanimate object they could get their hands on in the ass in the name of Nazi anarchy. *Rutabagas, about which nothing fnord needs to be said. *Robert Anton Wilson. Universally regarded as the Uber-Discordian King. RAW is what all true Discordians aspire to one day reincarnate their sorry asses backward through time into. Once they have died and been reborn as RAW, the Uber-Discordian King's aspiration/fate is, quite naturally, to meet John Titor, travel even further back in time to the Philadelphia Experiment and murder Ayn Rand to test the Grandfather Paradox. Potential for Drama: Disgruntled or bored Discordians are sometimes known to perform "jakes", which is essentially a form of trolling IRL. The primary drama quotient among Discordians themselves, though, revolves around the one and only Discordian Sin; that is, Being Bothered. Discordians are required to mock any other Discordian they sense Being Bothered, and to encourage them to "just let it (all) go (permanently)" on the basis that the lack of philosophical underpinnings is a small price to pay for a feeling of self-assurance, or maybe just numbness. Anonymous??? Anonymous is said to have the answers for what Discordianism lacks and operates largely on the same principles but to a completely different effect. Where as Discordianism allows for identity (which is a sociological innevitability at this time) Anonymous requires a complete lack of defining characteristics in order to be counted among it's ranks.
topic: Essays
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