Leadership-Article Critiques Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Leadership- Critiques - Article Example These terms are used interchangeably to define the types of leadership. The article addresses several issues affecting leadership development. The contribution of literature based paper in defining the leadership issues is addressed in the article. Distributed leadership emerged in the education sector and has improved the performance of the students and the facilitators. It contrasts the team-based shared leadership literature. The article addresses gaps in the literature and illustrates the incompleteness of the study associated with shared or distributive leadership. In spite of the glaring difficulties of the study, it is evident that shared leadership is a complex process and a modern concept not understood by many leaders and managers. The article evaluates the assumption associated with traditional and shared leadership. Shared leadership is defined in the article as a simultaneous, ongoing and mutual influence process occurring within a team. Therefore, the work of shared lea dership is to develop the necessary interaction between the members of the team. The exploration of the fine grained dynamics of relationships within teams will produce very different research agendas based on the theory employed. In fact, the issues requiring articulation could not be addressed in the article because of the minimal literature present in the society. Critique The article is useful when addressing the leadership styles in the society. In fact, shared leadership has been used in the society to define then various issues associated with education, but the study of shared leadership has been minimal. The findings of the research are conclusive based on the number of participants and the nature of the leadership trends. I agree with the findings on shared leadership application. The role of the leaders in education is captured significantly in the process through the literature review presented. In illustration of shared leadership, the article evaluates the nature and a cceptability of shared leadership in other sectors of governance. Consequently, it addressed the application of shared leadership concept in business and organizational set-up. To illustrate change in leadership and management, the article addresses issues that affect management of teams and change of behavior. The impact of shared leadership in education is evident through the success achieved in the management of the teams. In spite of the challenges associated with the topic, the authors are able to develop a concise understanding of the leadership process and encourage the development of the necessary skills. The article is effective in describing the dynamics of relationships and the ontological debates of interest in the contemporary society. Therefore, leaders must be able to address the issues of shared leadership. Theorizing leadership should be undertaken based on extensive research carried out. Therefore, the article is vital in addressing shared leadership because it is conclusive and has diverse research work undertaken. Distributed and shared leadership articles are not less important for broader issues associated with human thinking and relationship. In conclusion, the article describes distributed and shared leadership conclusively. Article title: Exploring Distributed Leadership in the Small Business Context Article summary The article address

The Speckled band Essay Example for Free

The Speckled band Essay The horrific details that Conan Doyle puts across in his stories are not dampened in any way and this makes the story seem more believable. He goes to great lengths to describe everything so that a full picture can be constructed without leaving anything to the imagination. This ensures that the reader sees the story in exactly the way Conan Doyle wants them to see it. It also emphasises the feeling of trust for the narrator since hes sharing so many details. In The Adventure of the Engineers Thumb an example of this detail shows in the paragraph spoken by the engineer: Oh no: not now. I shall have to tell my tale to the police; but, between ourselves, if it were not for the convincing evidence of this wound of mine, I should be surprised if they believed my statement, for it is a very extraordinary one, and I have not much in the way of proof with which to back it up. And, even if they believe me, the clues which I can give them are so vague that it is a question whether justice will be done. In order to increase the image created by Conan Doyle, conversation is short, sharp and factual to make sure that only facts are expressed to the reader so that they can make up their own mind about what is happening. Conan Doyle doesnt force his opinions on them and this makes it more realistic. An example of this type of conversation is exchanged between Holmes and the Engineer: One horse? interjected Holmes. Yes, only one. Did you observe the colour? Yes, I saw it by the sidelights when I was stepping into the carriage. It was chestnut. Tired-looking or fresh? Oh, fresh and glossy. Thank-you. I am sorry to have interrupted you. Pray continue your most interesting statement. The engineer seems to be telling everything he knows and this makes him much more believable. The very detailed description of the events has another effect. It very gradually builds up the suspense and the reader is allowed to wonder what the mystery could be and what could be so unusual. The engineers statement is greatly lengthened to ensure that this happens effectively. The intrigue of this story is increased by the odd contrasts between the characters. To one side of the engineer, there is a very respectable professional man, Dr. Watson, who is in stark contrast to the quirky and abnormal private detective Sherlock Holmes and they are both in stark contrast to the engineer, a man of manual occupation. The quirkiness, that is so unique to Holmes character, adds a further level of realism to the story because it enables twists to the plot that ensure the story is not tiresome. The name Colonel Lysander Stark gives a sense of intrigue. The reader is at once put on edge about his behaviour, reminded of a stereotypical Colonel, who is a cruel harsh person with militaristic cruelty. He is portrayed as a model villain. He has a German accent, which was a very common nationality for stereotypical villains of stories of the time. From the beginning, he is described as thin, mysterious and inhuman. These qualities can be seen from Conan Doyles description of Stark: he is man rather over the middle size but of an exceeding thinness. I do not think that I have ever seen so thin a man. His whole face sharpened away into nose and chin, and the skin of his cheeks was drawn quite tense over his outstanding bones. Yet this emaciation seemed to be his natural habit, and due to no disease, for his eye was bright, his step brisk, and his bearing assured. Using little but important description, he is able to build up a powerful image that has the ability to shock the reader. It is instantly believable and this serves the purpose of calming the reader into a false sense of security. When the whole truth is finally revealed it is more stunning and much more successful in entertaining the reader. The language of the time seemed to be as formal and as accurate English as it could be and much less slang was used. Holmes and Watson speak very typically posh English. Using a language like this gives the stories the atmosphere of that time. Conan Doyle established a tradition of detective fiction and as a result Sherlock Holmes became one of the most famous and popular detectives. When Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes, the public was devastated to read about the death of the detective. Men in London wore black armbands as a mark of protest. It got so bad that Conan Doyle even received death threats and as a result he re-introduced Sherlock Holmes. This just shows how popular, realistic and believable the Sherlock Holmes stories really are. The reason why Sherlock Holmes stories are popular is because of their fascinating and realistic characters and settings. The stories are very descriptive and it gives you a clear picture of what is happening in them. The settings create an entrancing and mysterious atmosphere from a fascinating period in time for the reader to be drawn into. Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Arthur Conan Doyle section.

The Pragmatic Theory Of Truth William James

The Pragmatic Theory Of Truth William James The Pragmatic theory of truth is made up of the accounts, definitions, and theories of the concept truth that distinguish the philosophies of pragmatism and pragmaticism. This concept of truth is the subject of many great thinkers ideas, who influenced this area of philosophy and whose theories, though different have common features. These thinkers were Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and John Dewey. Some of the most characteristic features can be identified as a relying on the pragmatic maxim to clarify meanings of difficult concepts, and also an emphasis, that belief, knowledge and truth are actually a product of the process: inquiry. As most pragmatic theories, this one has roots in the minds of earlier philosophers and their philosophies, especially the Golden Age, the Scholastics and Immanuel Kant. They provide a solid background for an invaluable insight into the twist and twirl of ideas that developed in the more modern time. Due to the fact that truth through the pragmatic prism is quite often confused with a number of other notions, I believe that underlining these will put the subject matter into the proper context to contrast. Truth is a term used to describe those beliefs that are capable of reliably guiding action to an expected outcome. We call a belief true when it successfully leads us to an anticipated experience. For example, my belief that there will be a full moon on the 30th of this month counts as true when, sure enough, I look at the sky that night and see a full moon. When that happens, we can certainly say this belief is now true, but we are naturally tempted to wonder if this belief was true a few weeks ago, when I first wrote these words. A classical conception of truth is that it is the good of logic, in a case in which logic is a normative science that is an examination into a good, or a value that looks for knowledge and ways to reach it. Most explorations of the very character of truth commence with the evaluation of the elements that make up that truth. In judging whether the carrier of information, meaning and significance are undeniably truth-bearers. If we take things into consideration in a very general matter, there are slim chances that the judgment of a work, proving to be either true or false, will become set in stone; it will most probably always remain a judgment call, as it is more commonly referred to. Nevertheless there are many properly delineated areas in which it is indeed useful to consider disciplined forms of evaluation and the observation of these leads to and permits the method to come into existence and further judge truth and falsity. Theories of truth can be depicted taking into account the several aspects of description that affect the quality of what is true. The truth predicates used in various theories can be classified by the number of things that condition the proper judgment of a sign, the sign being one of the very first things to be looked at. Formal logic calls this the arity of the predicate. Another division can be made in accordance with the subdivision of any number of more specific characters that theorists consider crucial A mondiac truth predicate is one that applies to its main subject typically a concrete representation or its abstract content independently of reference to anything else. In this case a truthbearer is true in and of itself. A dyadic truth predicate applies to its main subject only in reference to something else, a second subject. Most commonly, the auxiliary subject is either an object, an interpreter, or a language to which the representation bears some relation. The third form of truth predicate is the triadic one, which applies to its main subject only in reference to a second and third subject. In a pragmatic theory of truth, for example, one has to state clearly both the object of the sign, and either its interpreter or another sign called the interpretant, before it can be said that the sign is true of its object to its interpreting agent. Numerous requirements must regarded with respect to any fundamentally simple scheme of classification, as real practice rarely has any pure types, and there are circumstances in which it is useful to mention of a theory of truth that is almost k-adic, or that would be k-adic if specific features could be abstract away and neglected in a certain framework of discussion. William James was an original thinker in and between the disciplines of physiology, psychology and philosophy. His twelve-hundred page masterwork, The Principles of Psychology (1890), is a rich blend of physiology, psychology, philosophy, and personal reflection that has given us such ideas as the stream of thought and the babys impression of the world as one great blooming, buzzing confusion (PP 462). It contains seeds of pragmatism and phenomenology, and influenced generations of thinkers in Europe and America, including Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. James studied at Harvards Lawrence Scientific School and the School of Medicine, but his writings were from the outset as much philosophical as scientific. Some Remarks on Spencers Notion of Mind as Correspondence (1878) and The Sentiment of Rationality (1879, 1882) presage his future pragmatism and pluralism, and contain the first statements of his view that philosophical theories are reflectio ns of a philosophers temperament. William James argued a century ago for a conception of truth that establishes a clear middle way between the rigid logicism of contemporary analytical philosophy and the relativity of contemporary hermeneutics and deconstructionism. James argued for a humanistic and practical conception of truth, rooted in human experience and indexed to available evidence, and the perspective of human individuals or groups. His conception of the pragmatic theory is often summarized by his statement, that: the true is only is only the expedient in our way of thinking, just as the right is only the expedient in our way of behaving. Jamess take on truth and knowledge is a quite unique one. He separates two ways of knowing things, one being an intuitive knowledge, in direct experience, as a person would see an apple on the table, which he describes as an all around embracing of the object by thought, or one could know through an outer chain of physical or mental intermediaries connecting thought and thing as Europeans know the rainforests. James held that the intuitive form of knowledge was direct understanding, unmediated by anything, and truth for intuitive knowledge was a matter of direct consciousness in the flow of experience. For theoretical or representative knowledge, to know that a belief was true was to lead to it through a context which the world supplies Speaking about the truth and some theoretical representations of reality, it can be stated that a person has not the freedom to hypothesize any theories or facts he pleases, because of the complexity of the process: in direct experience of either an immediate and intuitive kind, or of an intellectual kind meaning processes within the circumstances the world supplies. These circumstances for creating rational ideas comprise processes in nature, representational systems, social world, and a connection between the stream of consciousness and all of the beforehand mentioned elements. These intellectual experiences offer a verification process and are integrated in the verification process of future truths as well. Beliefs at any time are so much experience funded. But the beliefs are themselves parts of the sum total of the worlds experience, and become matter, therefore, for the next days funding operations. So far as reality means experienceable reality, both it and the truths men gain about it are everlastingly in process of mutation-mutation towards a definite goal, it may be-but still mutation. Jamess metaphor linking the value of true knowledge with those of banking operations underlines the fact that truth must be advantageous. Experiences creating the basis of a truth must be interconnected themselves, thus theories and facts must be repeatedly modified if changes in circumstance occur. In Jamess words, the pragmatic theory of truth is True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. False ideas are those we cannot. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that, therefore is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known-as. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process, the process namely of its verifying itself, its verification. Its validity is the process of its validation. Starting from this idea, to James the truth and contexts of conscious experience, interaction with processes of the surrounding world, connection between things and ideas, also theories we have of the world and its mechanisms were inseparable. According to James there are on occasion two different explanations are in equal measure compatible with the facts, though there usually are not. Finding enough unruly facts will lead to a revision of theories, which will make people search for innovative facts and ideas. To obtain the notion of absolute truth one must look backward to the history of development of the notion and the history of corrections it suffered through the process of formation. Euclidean Geometry, Ptolemaic Physics and Astronomy, and Scholastic Logic and Metaphysics have all been replaced through the development of new systems of fact and theories. On the other hand, if we look into the future and see before our spiritual eyes an absolute truth toward which we are heading, we are clearly making a mistake and James said that new truth can exist only as consequences of new theories. For truths surface from facts, but they also move forward and add to them, out of which repeatedly new facts and new truths come into existence. James views rationalists conception that truth has no connection with practical reasoning as a mistake, just like the sentimentalist myth about morality. Kant argued that morality was a question of abstract, general truths discovered from pure reason through a categorical imperative. This suggests that acts can only be morel if they succumb to a logical rule and never because of certain feelings or positive consequences they will result in. In Kants point of view, only logical coherence with a categorical imperative counts in establishing morality, and that experience is irrelevant. Jamess take on this is that he holds that Kantian moralists could define and theoreticise about justice, but could not identify it in real life. He said both truth and morality have to be matters of practice in experience, otherwise they are basically meaningless. James also considered truth-seeking a form of humanistic endeavor, rooted in human life. The moral, emotional and knowledge-seeking functions of human life can not be as radically divorced from one another as the Platonism inherent in math and science sometimes misleads abstractly-oriented people to believe. James said that all true processes must lead to the face of directly verifying sensible experiences somewhere. He also extended his pragmatic theory well beyond the scope of scientific verifiability, and even into the realm of the mystical: On pragmatic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, then it is true. True ideas are copies if their realities. Jamess other idea is that truth is not made for us, instead we jointly create, make truth. In this sense truth is mutable (changeable, variable) and relative to a conceptual scheme. Truth is not predefined in pragmatism, in Jamess perspective beliefs are not true until validated by verification. He believed propositions become true over the line of continuously proving to be useful in a persons specific situation. So, with James, and also Schiller, things are made true through verification this being largely rejected by most pragmatists. Nevertheless the idea that there can be no truths without some sort of conceptual scheme to express them, is a generally accepted one. Unless we decide upon how we are going to use concepts like object, existance, etc., the question how many objects exist does not really make any sense. But once we decide the use of these concepts, the answer to the above-mentioned question within that use or version, to put in Nelson Goodmans phrase, is no more a matter of convention. (Maitra 200 p. 40) The pragmatic theory of truth is an unmistaken result of the American pragmatic philosophical thinking of the early and mid twentieth century. As I stated before, through this prism the nature of truth is identified with the principle of action. An oversimplified way of putting it would be that truth, as such, does not exist in some conceptual, theoretical area of thought independent of social relationship or actions, but rather truth is a function of a dynamic process of engagement with the world and verification. Despite the fact that this notion is associated predominantly with the work of William James and James Dewey, some traces of the pragmatic theory of truth are present in the works of Peirce too, who says that there is no distinction of meaning so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference of practice. The gist of this is that a person cannot imagine a truth or belief, unless imagining I what way that matters in the world also. For example the truth of the idea that ice is cold cannot be comprehended or accepted without also understanding what coldness means in context with other objects too, like cold water, cold feet and so on. A consequence of this is that the discovery of truth happens only through interaction with the world. Truth cannot be found while sitting idly on a chair and thinking about things. People search for belief, not doubt, and this happens on every one of the numerous occasions we come in contact with the world, may that be while doing research or just putting ourselves out there, coming into contact with our surroundings. A number of significant changes were brought about by James in relation to a better understanding of truth. The most crucial being probably the revision of the public character of truth. William James made a number of important changes to the Pragmatist understanding of truth. He shifted the process of belief-formation, application, experimentation, and observation from the general to a more intimate level, that of the individual. In this way, a belief turned into truth, when it proved to have practical use in the life of the individual. His theory was that it took time until a person could get from pretending that a belief was true and acting as such, until it actually became useful, helpful and productive, and indeed seen and considered true. An important field of application of this theory of truth was that of religion, particularly the question of the existence of God. Taken from his book Pragmatism is a statement which is as follows: On pragmatic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true. While in The Meaning of Truth: The true is only the expedient in our way of thinking, just as the right is only the expedient in our way of behavior. Jamess theory and the pragmatic theory in general, as any other philosophical theory, can be confronted on a number of levels. Questions can be raised concerning the ambiguity of terms and of consequences and results. What does what works mean exactly, if taken as James suggests it in the widest sense of the word? Also how can one judge a complex paradigms truth value if it is not 100 percent inclining one way or the other? If we state something like It is useful to assume I will pass my exams., that is not at all the same as the statement that It is true that I will pass my exams. It doesnt work that way. True beliefs are not always useful, and vice-versa, useful ones are not always true. Nietzsche put it like this: The falseness of a judgement is not necessarily an objection to a judgment: it is here that our new language perhaps sounds strangest. The question is to what extent it is life-advancing, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps even species-breeding; and our fundamental tendency is to assert that the falsest judgements (to which synthetic judgments a priori belong ) are the most indispensable to us, that without granting as true the fictions of logic, without measuring reality against the purely invented world of the unconditional and self-identical, without a continual falsification of the world by means of numbers, mankind could not live that to renounce false judgements would be to renounce life, would be to deny life. To recognize untruth as a condition of life: that, to be sure, means to resist customary value-sentiments in a dangerous fashion; and a philosophy which ventures to do so places itself , by that act alone, beyond good and evil. (Beyond Good and Evil, 333) Now, Pragmatism may be a handy means for distinguishing truth from untruth. After all, that which is true should produce predictable consequences for us in our lives. In order to determine what is real and what is unreal, it would not be unreasonable to focus primarily upon that which works. This, however, is not quite the same as the Pragmatic Theory of Truth as described by William James.

Designing a Leaflet :: Leaflets Consumerism Essays

Designing a Leaflet Tasks: 1. Design Leaflet 2. Produce Pricing System 3. Create a website 4. Create a Labelling System Task 1: Analysis Design a leaflet containing the information of the content of the shop’s selling items, prices, opening and closing hours. Form of Output:  · Hand made leaflet on an A4 sized page, which will be photo copied many times and be posted off to companies, businesses, and near by houses. The leaflet will contain pictures of sandwiches and various drinks Information to be output:  · On the first page I will have the Lancre lunch box logo.  · Opening hours  · Closing hours  · Shop name  · Location  · Map with Location clearly labelled  · Pricing  · Vouchers giving a certain amount of cash off certain sandwiches, printed in each leaflet!  · Terms and conditions top using the vouchers. (In small print on the last page, not to waste space for other deals and advertisements.  · Information on different types of sandwiches, providing a different vegetarian alternative menu for vegetarian customers.  · Information on a large selection of meat sandwiches for the majority of customers who are meat eaters. Data for output:  · On the first page I will have the Lancre lunch box logo.  · Opening hours  · Closing hours  · Shop name  · Location  · Map with Location clearly labelled Desired outcomes: 1. Text must stand out 2. Details must stand out 3. Must be colourful 4. Must be easy to read 5. Information must be justified and look neat Task 1: Design: Leaflet I have designed 2 leaflets on paper. Shortly after I designed the first one, I surveyed the issues and problems that arose. I solved the problems and applied the changes to the second leaflet. I will be using Microsoft publisher to design the leaflet. This program will provide a solution because:  · It has a colour feature, which I will take full advantage of, to attract potential customers.  · It has the ability to show me my 3-page leaflet via a visual display unit (VDU).  · It is very user friendly in the way that it can easily interpret my desired outcomes. E.g. the leaflet feature used to create a leaflet.  · Will give me a good visualisation of the outcome!  · It is specially designed to create this type of outcome! (A leaflet)  · I can import colour graphic files! Why I have chosen the colours and effects that I have chosen for the leaflet: Front page:  · I will have an Ivy border due to the fact that it will create good contrast against the Lancre lunch box logo! It will also look very

Comparing Poe and Whittman Essay -- comparison compare contrast essays

Comparing Poe and Whittman  Ã‚     Ã‚   A successful writer is he who is able to transmit ideas, emotions, and wisdom on to his readers. He is cable of stirring emotions and capturing the reader's attention with vivid descriptions and clever dialogues. The writer can even play with the meanings of words and fuse reality with fiction to achieve his goal of taking the reader on a wonderful journey. His tools are but words, yet the art of writing is found in the use of the language to create though-provoking pieces that defy the changing times. Between the lines, voices and images emerge. Not everyone can write effectively and invoke these voices. It is those few who can create certain psychological effects on the reader who can seize him (or her) with inspiring teachings, frightening thoughts, and playful games with the language. These people are true writers†¦ In addition, authors frequently lack originality and simply take the reader on all-too-familiar voyages into politics, morals, or religion. Successful writers are those who risk and go on to write about topics that many times others have been less willing to address. The product of these extraordinary efforts is compositions richly enhanced by human feelings and real problems that we encounter and relate to our everyday lives†¦thought-provoking discussions about religion, philosophy, or politics. These pioneering authors are not afraid to write about evil, the perverse aspects of man, or even sexuality†¦Ã‚   Their true voices have risen from behind the words taking shape in the minds of the readers. Few have done this, but in the 19th Century two remarkable Americans produced compositions of unequal quality. Their styles and the way they approach the reader are different from t... ... something (AL 2139) Could it be that their originality sprouts from the fact that they have both been able to express so humanly the cries of the soul while at the same time leaving mysteries and ambiguity for the readers' minds to personalize to their own life experiences? Their distinct styles enabled them to expresses exactly what was on their minds with words, leaving behind all inhibitions. The themes of their compositions and the moral issues captured our attention. I think the reader was able to "feel" he was truly experiencing the story simply because so much was left as a mystery for our unconscious to reflect upon†¦ I am convinced that this is the key element that makes both Whitman and Poe successful writers.  Ã‚   Works Cited Reidhead J. ed.   (1998, Fifth Edition) The Norton Anthology of American Literature Volume 1: Norton & Company, New York

Hard Times as a Moral Fable Essay

The creative part is the fairy tale which often involves animals rather than humans. It speaks to our hearts as it entertains us; the ending is the logical, moral conclusion that satisfies our logical brains and seems â€Å"right†. The problem with all moral fables is that there are often 2 sides to the same story †¦ things are rarely so black and white in reality †¦ so there could be more than one ending †¦ e. g. here are times when speed is necessary over steadiness – of course, there also has to be good judgement. Although it is not appropriate to describe a work of art, which Hard Times undoubtedly is, as a moral fable or a morality play, yet the fact remains that there is a strong moral intention behind this novel. Hard Times is a satirical attack on some of the evils and vices of Victorian society. Satire has always corrective purpose and is therefore basically moral in its approach to the subjects it deals with. Apart from that, there are passages of direct moralising in this novel. Hard Times is a novel which from the moment of its publication aroused very different sentiments in the reading public. Dickens’s reasons for writing Hard Times were mostly monetary. Sales of his weekly periodical, Household Words, were low, and he hoped the inclusion of this novel in instalments would increase sales. Since publication it has received a mixed response from a diverse range of critics, such as F. R.  Leavis, George Bernard Shaw, and Thomas Macaulay, mainly focusing on Dickens’s treatment of trade unions and his post-Industrial Revolution pessimism regarding the divide between Capitalist mill owners and undervalued workers during the Victorian era The novel was written as a weekly serial story to run through five months of his magazine, Household Words, during 1854. Sales were highly responsive and encouraging for Dickens who remarked that he was â€Å"Three parts mad, and the fourt h delirious, with perpetual rushing at Hard Times†. Dickens had to force his story to fit the exigencies of a Procrustean bed and, in doing so, sacrificed the abundance of life characteristic of his genius. That, at any rate, was the general view of Hard Times until in 1948 F. R. Leavis, in his book The Great Tradition, suggested that it was a ‘moral fable,’ the hallmark of a moral fable being that ‘the intention is peculiarly insistent, so that the representative significance of everything in the fable – character, episode, and so on – is immediately apparent as we read. By seeing it as a moral fable, Dr. Leavis produced a brilliant rereading of Hard Times that has changed almost every critic’s approach to the novel. Yet a difficulty still remains: the nature of the target of Dickens’ satire. Both Gradgrind and Bounderby are emblematic, to the point of caricature, of representative early-nineteenth-century attitudes. Dickens tells us that Gradgrind has ‘an unbending, utilitarian, matter-of-fact face’; and the novel has been taken as an attack on the philosophical doctrine known as utilitarianism, the doctrine that the greatest happiness of the greatest number should be the guiding principle of conduct But utilitarianism can also mean the doctrine that utility must be the standard of what is good for man. Perhaps the two meanings come together in the famous Victorian phrase, ‘enlightened self-interest,’ the meaning of which will turn entirely upon the definition of ‘enlightened. Utilitarianism in the philosophical sense, as taught by the noble-minded John Stuart Mill, has had a profound and abiding influence on Western life and thought, and Dickens was certainly not competent to criticise it as a philosophical system. But if he was no philosopher, nor even a trained mind, he was something as valuable: ‘an astonishing diagnostician of life,’ as D. H. Lawrence has been called. ‘His sensitive nose could smell death a mile away. ‘ And it is precisely those elements of nineteenth-century economic thinking that denied life which he is attacking in Hard Times. He is, in other words, continuing his attack on what may be called the statistical conception of man, on human relations evaluated in terms of arithmetic, on what Thomas Carlyle called the ‘cash nexus’ that he had launched at the beginning of his career in Oliver Twist. There he had traced its consequences in official attitudes towards poverty and in the working of the New Poor Law In order to give a concrete shape to his moral purpose, dickens in this novel uses the characters here as symbols. Almost every character in this novel is an embodiment of a certain idea or concept or principle, good or bad. In fact, there are two groups of symbolic characters: one group symbolizing certain objectionable features of Victorian life, and the other group symbolizing certain moral qualities, of which we heartily approve. These two groups of characters, symbolizing opposite principle, are confronted with each other and it is this confrontation that constitutes the focus of interest in the novel. The characters here are therefore like the ‘dramatis personae’ in a morality play; there is an allegorical intention behind the character-portrayal. However, this novel is different from a moral fable or morality play in one striking respect. While the characters in amoral fable or a morality play are purely embodiments of certain qualities, good or bad; in this novel the characters, in addition to their function as symbols of certain good or bad qualities, are also individuals in their own right. Each character here is made to live as a separate individual, sharply distinguished from the other; yet their symbolic roles cannot be questioned. Coketown itself is treated as a symbol in the novel. This industrial town represents the industrial ugliness, industrial callousness, the mechanical and monotonous life which the workmen or the â€Å"hands† are compelled to lead under a system governed by utilitarianism and laissez faire. All the passages which describe this town or its people are written in an ironical vein and have an obvious moral purpose. In the main, however, the best writing in Hard Times is a result of this tour-guide mentality, as his wonder, horror and awe lead to vivid evocations of the landscape. Many critics have made the link between Coketown and a kind of Dantesque Inferno, and his vision of industrial society is â€Å"full of horror, but possessing also a weird beauty†. The key to the weird beauty latent in the horror are the ‘melancholy mad elephants’ of machinery – Dickens was as fascinated by industry as he was repulsed by it. The industrial artefacts of Coketown are endowed with all the life drained from its inhabitants, the dehumanised ‘hands’. Like Marx, Dickens could see an â€Å"inverted world characterised by the personification of things† and as a result the inanimate objects of Coketown abound with vitality, while the people within it are cogs in a machine, â€Å"people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom everyday was the same as yesterday and tomorrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next† . Treating the factory as a living thing leads to mental links being forged between the ever coiling â€Å"interminable serpents of smoke† and the smokescreens that people use to hide themselves from the world, or indeed the world from them, most notably Gradgrinds inability to see past his system, and Bounderby’s deliberate hiding of his past. There are also links made between the fire in the â€Å"fairy palaces† and the fire of human passion, and aptly it is the mechanical Louisa who notices this, most likely fascinated at how a non-living thing has more life than she does – â€Å"There seems to be nothing but languid and monotonous smoke. Yet when the night comes, Fire bursts out, father! † [I, xv]. Not only is this reversal of death and life hellish, but these descriptions of zombie workers in a living factory are written in a prophetic style which almost invites one to place an ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here! sign on the factory gates. All of the images of smoke, ashes, and fire â€Å"suggest that death is ever-present in the hell of Coketown†, as does the reference to the black ladder so often in use in the working class quarters [I, x]. Michael Wheeler points to the significance of Biblical imagery in the text, stating that the New Testament is the â€Å"yardstick by its modern usurpers are measured and found wanting†, and that this is the ultimate condemnation that Dickens can heap upon it. However, I cannot help but feel that passages proclaiming that â€Å"all those subtle essences of humanity which will elude the utmost cunning of algebra until the last trumpet ever to be sounded will blow even algebra to wreck† , while suggesting that Gradgrindery and the interlocking forces of industry are to be judged and condemned, they also make it clear that they will be left well enough alone until the Judgement Day. Coketown is painted as a hell on earth, consuming the lifeblood of its inhabitants, and the fact that it itself will be destroyed in the end is of monumental insignificance for the countless generations who will have to toil there until then. On the other hand The Circus is represented as a symbol of â€Å"Humanity† as Well as Art. The circus is very important as a sybol in the scheme of this moral fable. The circus people symbolize not only art but also humanity: they are embodiments of those simple virtues of sympathy and helpfulness to others for which gradgrind’s philosophy has no use and Bounderby’s hardened heart, no room. There is a remarkable gentleness about these people, a special inaptitude for any kind of sharp practice, and an untiring readiness to help and pity one another. The moral of this novel as a whole is put by dickens in the mouth of Mr. Sleary of the circus. After giving an account of the death of siss’s father to gradgrind, Mr. Sleary comes to the conclusion that there is a kind of love in the world which is not self-interest afterall, but something very different, and that this love has a way of its own of calculating or not calculating. This is the supreme message which the novel has for us. In these few words we find a condemnation of all that Gradgrind, Bounderby, and Mrs. Sparsit symbolize, and an acceptance and approval of what Stephen and Rachel, Sissy, and Mr. Sleary himself, symbolize. There are, thus, strong grounds for calling this novel a Moral fable or a morality play with the characters functioning partly as individuals but chiefly as symbols. Finally, there are passages of direct moralizing which lend to the novel the character of a novel fable or morality play. At one point, for instance, dickens warns the â€Å"commissioners of fact† and the utilitarian economists that if they do not attend to the instincts and emotions of the poor people, reality will take a wolfish turn and make an end of everything. At another point Dickens offers an ironic commentary, with an obvious moral, upon the effects of Gradgrind’s system of education on Bitzer’s outlook. And then, of course, there is a plain and straightforward maoralizing in the final chapter when the author comments upon the ultimate fate of each of the characters.

Communication Styles †Analysis of a Special Interaction Essay

The paper is an analysis of the special interaction between a Noble and a Reflective. The analysis is a process to see how communication styles affect the interaction, and how changing one’s style when communicating with another style can result in different outcomes. This paper illustrates how I adjusted my communication style to adapt my boyfriend’s communication style and how the result changed. The paper addresses the following: 1) A description of the interaction, 2) An analysis the interaction, and 3) Conclusion. see more:describe how to support different communication abilities and needs of an individual with dementia A description of the interaction The specific interaction I want to demonstrate is the interaction between my boyfriend, Tony, and me. Because we have different communication styles, we sometimes argue and get mad at each other. He is a straight forward person; he tells me right away what I am doing wrong. As a Noble, Tony is very decisive. He likes to be center of every discussion. In contrast, I have a Reflective style; I tend to be quiet. I love spending time alone; I think deeply and do not make decisions quickly. The interaction The following scenario is an illustration of our communication styles. The interaction took place late at night two weeks ago at the Home Depot store where Tony and I went to buy some fixtures for my room. We went inside the store; he grabbed the products he needed quickly, while I took my time looking around. I showed him the light I had chosen and he said, â€Å"It is not a night light. Let’s go over another row†. He held my hand and tried to move quickly to another row, but I pushed his hand away and stood in the same area. He went by himself and said, â€Å"We have to hurry up, or we can come back tomorrow†. I was very angry, but I did not say anything. Finally, I went to the cashier, and I saw him holding a pretty night light in his hand. The impact of different communication style Although he still helped me choose the night light, his behavior made me feel like he was rushing me and did not care about me. He thinks he knows what I want, and he should have asked me what kind of light I needed. If I chose the wrong one, he should have explained what kind of light I needed. He acted as if he needed to make the decision for me because I was taking too long. An analysis of the interaction Last week, Tony helped me repaint my room and we went to the Home Depot to purchase colors and painting tools. Tony was very unhappy because I took too long to decide the paints. He also complained why I did not plan ahead of time. In the meantime, I decided to speak out what I was thinking instead of being quiet and doing my own thing. I told Tony that he should have helped me on selecting the paints because the color I wanted was not available and the instruction of choosing and mixing colors in the store was confusing me. I described what kind of color I wished to use for my room and asked him for advice. I also talked to Tony directly that I tried to ignore his offended comments, but those unconscious words irritated me. Tony realized his unintentional attitudes made me upset and he said apologize to me. We both felt like we removed the communication style barrier between us after the frank conversation and we finished shopping and painting my room successfully. I will remind mys elf to use this method in our future conversations to prevent conflicts and arguments. Conclusion Learning the communication styles concept has helped me better understand the way people interact. Each person has a distinct style of communication which has both good and bad aspects. Any miscommunication can cause unexpected outcomes, but if I can adjust or control my communication style, I can predict the result of most interactions. Therefore, I recognize that learning and understanding other styles and applying what I have learned in real life will help to bring good results.