Cultural customs Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Cultural customs - Research Paper Example In their homeland, children and adolescents are geared toward achieving the goal of higher education and have lessons taught about the importance of holding onto traditional Chinese cultural values (Henslin, 2003). Lessons on thriftiness, especially in relation to finance, are reinforced during this period of the life cycle. As adults, the Chinese stress maintaining caution in areas of business and establish plans for long-term financial success much earlier than other groups (Zhang). In their homeland, Chinese often marry with the idea that it will be a life-long bond and put a great deal of emphasis on the value of personal relationships. At senior age, it is common to still be a part of the family household and is often revered for wisdom. The U.S. citizen is strikingly different than the Chinese and infants are often reared with much less emphasis on education, but more on securing their emotional well-being. Infants are cared for with considerable intensity and usually the child bonds with the mother over the father. During childhood, there is much less emphasis on creating a family bond and the child is promoted to socialize outside of the family network to build skills in peer bonding and organized play (Henslin). Some of these lessons begin in early educational years and team-based concepts, outside of family values, are the most common experiences. In adolescence, children are given lessons on establishing their own sense of individuality rather than finding connection through family. They are exposed to many cultural symbols through advertising and other media formats, therefore they have access to different external role models to base their own personalities. During adulthood, it is common to partner without taking the vow of long-term marriage and the family structure can be outside of the social norm. Lessons relating to the importance of higher

How sympathetic a character Essay Example for Free

How sympathetic a character Essay Upon reading Aristophanes Wasps for the first time, Procleon, the antihero of the play, evokes a strange sort of sympathy. The part of us that wants to rebel against the system identifies with his character, and admires the way in which, in the second half of the play, he does what the man in the street would really like to do (K Dover) and generally places himself above authority. Aristophanes loads Procleons character with vulgarity and nastiness, but does it in such a way that an audience seeing the play for the first time will focus on sympathizing with him as the `heroic character more than his deep-seated and twisted darker side. For instance, in the first scene we see Procleon trapped inside his own home, treated not like a villain or monster, but a mentally ill obsessive, or trialophile. The more you warn him, the more he goes to court. Thats why weve had to bolt him in and guard the house for fear he gets out. The way the two slaves describe Procleons personality is quite comic. They describe him as a sad old man. He then tries to escape later on by holding on to the bottom of a donkey as it comes out of the house, in a parody of Odysseus in Homers Odyssey. On one hand, we find his wit amusing, and he tries to mirror the cunning of Odysseus, and on the other hand we laughingly pity him for trying such an idea, especially onstage as it looks absurd. Aristophanes is poking fun at the latest trend in Athenian society in the ridiculous person of Procleon. However, Athenian litigiousness and trial mania are not his only target. In his conversion from his former jurymans life, Procleon becomes a caricature of an upper-class snob engaging in one of the well-heeled sets favourite addictions: dressing up in your finery, attending drinking parties and meetings of secret societies and going on drunken rampages through the streets, beating up passers by, knocking over statues, mauling slaves and women, etc. By the end of the play, its hard to tell whether Procleon is ny better off for having traded a poor mans pastime for a rich mans. In the first half of the play, we  see Procleon as a bloodthirsty bastard, a sadistic slave to Cleon whose only friends are the similarly savage, vespine jurymen. Just seeing this feeble army of nasty old men, we find immediate comedy. On the surface, nothing about Procleon seems too bad, just a rather crazed old man with a strange obsession. He enjoys voting defendants down: he is comically sadistic. D. MacDowell However, when we look deeper into the play and Procleons character, we see that there is a far darker and more sinister side to him. First of all, there is the fact that the only reason he enjoys sitting on the jury so much is so that he can wreak pain and suffering upon innocent people. I long to come to court with you, some solid, lasting harm to do. There is also the way in which he treats his daughter, in a rather incestuous manner. she leans over to give me a kiss and fish out those three obols with her tongue! spends his days in the infliction of pain on others and his evenings in running his hand up his daughters skirt. K Dover.

Artists Should not be Resposible for Explicit Lyrics and their Impact on Kids :: Argumentative Persuasive Essays

Artists Should not be Resposible for Explicit Lyrics and their Impact on Kids "Turn that music off! I don't want you listening to that kind of music." Many teens these days are experiencing this kind of thing almost every day. Many parents, in general, have complained and tried to regulate the music that teens are listening to these days. They complain that the music industry shouldn't be able to sell and produce the explicit CD's. The music industry gets a lot of criticism about the music that they put out on the market. Most of the criticism comes from the parents. There are bills passed, such as the "Parental Advisory Program," which enforce that CD's with explicit lyrics have to have a label on them that state, "Explicit Lyrics" or "Explicit Content" (Parental Advisory). This sticker cautions the person who buys the CD that there is bad language or content. The recording industry takes serious responsibility to help parents identify the music with explicit lyrics. The battle between the parents and the music industry still continue to this day. The Parents' Music Resource Center (PMRC) still thinks that there should be more of a regulation on the music than what there is now. "The 'gangsta rap' is just to vulgar for young teens to be listening to. It brainwashes them and sometimes even persuade them to do unlawful things" (Hip-Hop Lyrics). On the other hand the music industry has the "Parental Advisory Program." Therefore if the CD's with the explicit lyrics were restricted in any way it would bring unconstitutional restrictions on the First Amendment right of artists to express themselves freely, and their fans' right to hear what the artists express whatever the subject might be" (Explicit Lyrics). Many say, "What about 'Cop Killer' doesn't that depict that they go out and gunning down cops as a hobby of some sort." Rapper Ice-T himself comes back with, "'Cop Killer' is a work of musical fiction used in the hip-hop world" (Hip-Hop Lyr ics). Some people argue that the explicit lyrics label actually boosts the sales by drawing attention to the labeled album. "Warning labels sell albums. A lot of groups want warning labels" (Between...Place). Many believe that stores should have more of a restriction on which they sell the explicit CD too.

Character of Nicholas in Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale Essay

Nicholas, with his outrageous sense of humour and eager pursuit of love, functions as the charming, likeable hero in Miller’s Tale. He is introduced as â€Å"hende Nicholas†, and his conduct does not at all answer to the usual sense of the adjective which implies great courtesy, but its suggestion of approval is repeatedly invoked as the Miller refers to his hero by this formula. We learn at once that he is knowledgeable and of his interest in astrology. This is seen as a respectable branch of learning, but Nicholas is aware of its power to impress others, while he is able to supplement his income by weather-forecasting. He is also helped financially by friends. The imaginary flood of which Nicholas tells John shows us his cunning, his confident attitude, his inventiveness and especially his contempt for the stupid tradesman: ‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Nicholas, / ‘His time’s been badly wasted, if a scholar / Can’t get the bet ter of a carpenter.’ (lines 191-193) In spite of this, however, the Miller presents the astrologer in a way that makes the audience like Nicholas. He does this by making John seem deserving of punishment for his unwise marriage and subsequent jealousy. Nicholas’s youth and attractiveness makes us less critical of his boldness, and the comic manner of the tale’s telling makes his conduct seem less worthy of censure than would be the case with real people. Nicholas seems a more appropriate partner for Alison than does John, and the Miller’s repetition of the formula â€Å"hende Nicholas† encourages us to be more sympathetic. However, it is important to note that Nicholas does not escape his daring plan without any consequences. His over-confidence and lack of prudence earn him a punishment appropriate to his offence, and in keeping with the farcical spirit of the tale he is â€Å"scalded in the towte† by his rival, who mistakes him for Alison. Thus, Nicholas may be the character that has the audience rooting for him by being likeable and providing good laughs, but his charming yet arrogant attitude does not prevent him from suffering the consequences of his actions. The Canterbury Tales [Oxford guides to Chaucer]. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.

Obedience vs Responsibility Essay

Obedience and Responsibility In Stanley Milgram’s, â€Å"The Perils of Obedience†, Milgram states â€Å"The essence of obedience is that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person’s wishes, and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his actions. † (Milgram 6) Through his experiments he shows how we obey commands against our better judgment. It my belief that we are generally obedient as long as someone else assumes responsibility for the outcome. Therefore, this poses the question; would we be fully obedient if we were held responsible for the outcome? Milgram’s experiment consists of three roles: the experimenter, the teacher, and the learner. The learner, who is actually an actor, is strapped to an electrocution device is tested on his ability to remember a word of a pair when he hears the first one again. The teacher, the actual test subject, asks the questions and administers a shock ranging from fifteen volts to four hundred fifty volts for incorrect answers. The experimenter is simply there to guide the teacher and record the findings. The experiment begins by the teacher asking the learner questions. When the learner answers incorrectly, the teacher must correct him and administer a shock starting at the lowest voltage. As the experiment continues the voltages increase and so does the reaction from the learner. What begins as minor discomfort on the learner quickly turns into screams of pain and pleas to be released. The experimenter’s job is to record the reactions of the teacher based on learner’s reactions and how long the teacher will continue to go on with the experiment. The results of the first experiment conducted on a group of Yale undergraduates, showed that about sixty percent of them were fully obedient, even to the maximum voltage. (Milgram 2) A colleague of Milgram’s dismissed the findings stating, â€Å"Yale undergraduates are a highly aggressive bunch who steps on each other’s neck on the slightest provocation. † (Milgram 2) He believed that when the experiment was carried out on â€Å"ordinary† people the results would be much different. The second experiment was conducted on professionals, white-collar workers, unemployed persons, and industrial workers. The results were very much the same as those of the Yale students. One specific experiment involving Fred Prozi, a good natured unemployed fifty year old, shows that once responsibility is placed on someone else we are content with following demands that are given. At one point in the experiment Prozi turns to the experimenter and says, â€Å"You accept all responsibility? (Milgram 4) Once the experimenter agrees Prozi continues and inflicts a 450 volt shock numerous times despite hearing the learners scream of agony and pleas to be released. This shows that once we detach ourselves from the responsibility of the outcome, we will comply with the demands given even if the effects of the demands are harmful, destructive and blatantly clear. In a variation of the experiment, the teacher was not required to pull the lever that shocked the learner; rather they just had to administer the word pair test. This removed even more of the responsibility of the teacher, since they were not actually inflicting pain on the victim. The result of the result of this experiment showed that 37 out of 40 adults continued to the highest level on the shock generator. (Milgram 7) We see this type of behavior in everyday society. People are willing to carry out the demands of others if they feel the demands are not neccassarily their views or actions. An example of this could be someone dismissing someone from a job because their senior boss ordered them to. They may not feel the same way about the employee or the descision to fire them, but they remove any emotional responsibility because they were just following orders. An even better example of this would be that of war in modern society. Since soldiers are given orders to kill by their superiors, they can remove any emotional responsibility because they were simply following orders. Likewise, the person odering the soldier to kill someone removes the responsibility on the superior because they are actually committing the act of murder. Also, many Americans can justify was because we as individuals aren’t actually fighting the war and do not see the effects of the war daily. In conclusion, it is my belief that if we were held personally responsible for the demands ordered by another most people would not comply with those demands. It is easy to put our conscience at ease when we are not responsible for the actions ordered by another, it is not as easy if we were to be held responsible. I believe that Milgram’s article proves this to be true, not just in the experiments he conducted in the article but in modern society as well.