An Investigation into the Portrayal or Truth Within the Documentary Gen

As documentary by its very nature introduces itself as factual, concerns exist as to where the boundary between the truth of subject and the fiction produced by its creator emerges. As anything that has been edited has by definition removed certain aspects and enhanced others, there must be at best an innocent naturally occurring bias formed from individual perception, and at worst purposefully manipulated misinformation. Through researching various sources, I intend to discover the difference (if any) between these two methods making factually based programmes, to determine any variables that lie in the ‘grey area’ between the two extremes, and to ascertain the diverse forms of conduct in which truth (and in turn documentary) can be presented to an audience, and to what effect? This report aims to make light of certain elements of documentary making that are perhaps more susceptible to influence on the director’s part, and once again explore the effect of these decisions on the audience’s reaction to the information presented. Corner, J. ed., 1986. Documentary and the mass media. Suffolk: Richard Clay ltd This book contains, amongst other things, an insightful account into the foundations of documentary, in particular its British base and its early days via the medium of radio. It features quotations and journal extracts, as well as interviews with some of the prominent figures of early documentary programming during the first half of the 20th century, before leading into the mass observation experiments beginning in the late 30’s. The book describes the documentary format’s departure from its BBC London base under the guidance of Hilda Matheson and Charles Siepmann, who relocated their mobile recording units to what was kn... ... a documentary film by definition must include visuals, but Ames aspires to explain how an emphasis on certain imagery can be used to persuade as well as inform. Works Cited Corner, J. ed., 1986. Documentary and the mass media. Suffolk: Richard Clay ltd Davies, N. 2008. Flat Earth News. London: Random House Publishing Control Room, 2004. [Film] Directed by Jehane Noujaim. Iraq: World Cinema ltd. Waltz with Bashir, 2008. [Film] Directed by Ari Folman. Israel: Artificial eye. Tompkins, C., 2009. The paradoxical effect of the documentary in Walter Salles’s â€Å"Central do Brasil†. Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature 33 no1 p9-27 Zeitgeist, 2007. [Film] Directed by Peter Joseph. USA: Released via Internet. Available at http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com. [accessed 14/03/2010] Ames, E,. 2009 Herzog, Landscape and Documentary. Cinema Journal v. 48 no. 2 p46-69.

Personal Narrative- Life as a Journey Essay example -- Personal Narrat

Personal Narrative- Life as a Journey The journey of life follows a predetermined pattern; we evolve from needing influence and guidance to finally reaching that point where our lives are up to us. I consider myself very lucky up to this point in my journey. Some people become sidetracked and wind up on a far different course than initially planned, but the detours I made have only assisted in embellishing the individual instead of devouring it. According to Freud a person's most important period to grow personality ranges from birth to six years. In that span my biggest influences came from my family. When I think of that time before kindergarten, the single most important person to my development was my grandmother Carmen. She didn't graduate from college or sell wheat futures in the stock market, but she had wisdom and tenderness so few possess. My parents worked, so each morning my mother would drop me off at Grandma's house. I didn't realize it then but in retrospect, this woman has led a remarkable. She birthed three sons all by Caesarian section, lost a husband in middle age, and then all but raised a grandson for half a decade. She taught me how to walk and gave me my first piano lessons. She remains close to all her grandchildren yet her and I both know she holds a special place for the first one. When I began school, friends began to shape path for this journey. In the beginning we hardly know these classmates. Common interests and experiences bond or repel certain people to others. I didn't understand what friendship meant until August 16, 1997 though. That morning, I fell asleep at the wheel of my car and ran into two utility poles and a tree while going 40 miles per hour. An ambulance rushed me to Memorial... ...will become the ultimate test between temptation and my inner-strength and the morals I have placed for my own behavior. Possibly the biggest choice of any person's life remains what vocation to go into. Even areas people have skills in may not give enough satisfaction to turn into a career, whether that satisfaction stays financial or otherwise. Whatever occupation I choose, I sincerely hope that the trek will remain on its uncertain and awesome course. Throughout this journey of life many outside forces manipulate whom all of us become. Who created my personal connotation? Through every relative, friend, and composition it boils down to me. I have taken all these beliefs and crammed them into a 6 feet, 2 inch frame. The real journey lays ahead, the journey from young adulthood to old age. I only pray this journey includes many travels and few destinations.

Mona Hatoum :: Artist Mona Hatoum Essays

Mona Hatoum Most art scholars and critics examine the work of Mona Hatoum in relation to her ethnic and geopolitically charged background. In her own writings and interviews, however, Hatoum cautions against this "journalistic" approach. For her, the most important element of her art is its relationship to the body. When Hatoum immigrated from the Middle East to England, she immediately felt a sense of displacement when she perceived a mind/body disjunct that contradicted her own cultural experience: †¦it became immediately apparent to me that people were quite divorced from their bodies and very caught up in their heads, like disembodied intellectuals. So I was always very insistent on the physical in my work (Hatoum/Brett, 59). We relate to the world through our senses. You first experience an artwork physically†¦Meanings, connotations and associations come after the initial physical imagination, intellect, psyche are fired off by what you've seen (Hatoum/Archer, 8). I weigh this statement against theory by performance scholar Nelly Richard: The body is the physical agent of the structures of everyday experience. It is the transmitter of cultural messages†¦a repository of memories, an actor in the theatre of power, a tissue of affects and feelings. Because the body is at the boundary between biology and society†¦in terms of power, biography and history, it is the site 'par excellence' for transgressing the constraints of meaning (Richard, 208). Focusing on four works by Hatoum, I take a position that respects the artist's own intent and uses the body as a starting point for analyzing her work. However, I argue that it is necessary to consider her background in relation to the content of her art; it is because of her background as an exile from political violence that so much of Hatoum's work evokes a sense of danger by eliciting a visceral response from the viewer. I also argue that Hatoum's work insists that the viewer recognizes a second body, the implicit body of the oppressed. That insistence comes primarily from two elements of her background: her direct experience of living in the shadow of oppression, and her experience with feminist groups as an art student in London. Thus, in Hatoum's work, two bodies-the body of the viewer and an implicit body--engage in a dialectic. Necessarily then, I offer a brief glimpse into the background of Mona Hatoum. She is a Palestinian whose parents were exiled to Lebanon before she was born.

Japanese Management Essay

In the early 1980s, William Ouchi asserted in the U.S. soil the significance of Theory Z (1981), a Japanese management style that includes communal relationship in organizations and strong trust bonds as a more effective way to handle business as evidenced by the success of Japanese corporations.   This has made the interest and appreciation for the Japanese style of management and practices grow for the last twenty years, especially those successful Japanese companies who used unusual approaches (Lee and McCalman, 2008). For Japanese firms, the development of good relationship is a primordial interest. A Japanese firm may refuse to deal with another and ink a partnership regardless of the possible profits it may gain from the venture. The drive to develop a good relationship is primarily due to the very important principle called â€Å"tsuikiai† (socialization) (Lee and McCalman, 2008). Peer-to-peer relationship is more essential than relationship between levels as the Japanese believe that an organization draws strength from the former rather than from the latter. Hence, for American managers, it is only normal to assess their subordinates based on certain criteria. On the contrary, Japanese organizations tend to assess their employees based on their ability to work with their colleagues (Byham, 1993). Japanese managers get good evaluations if their subordinates can work well with each other. As such, Japanese firms give more emphasis on the ability of the employees to work with other employe es and not much on their performance. This is due to their belief that as long as a good relationship is established within the organization, the organization can handle other matters effectively (Lee and McCalman, 2008). For the Japanese, good relationships can be developed through the following: 1) After work dining & drinking session As previously mentioned, the principle of tsuikiai or socialization allow the Japanese to continue to incorporate good relationships as part of their corporate management style. Apparently, this can be seen in their popular practice of usually having dinner and drinking sessions amongst employees after office hours (Lee and McCalman, 2008). This is also the idea of the â€Å"communication plaza concept† wherein the executives meet their employees informally to have lunch or dinner and at the same time to listen to each other   (Otsubo, 1993). Through such engagements, employees have the chance to be more familiar with each other away from the four corners of their business premises. This positively affects the connections among the employees. This enables the Japanese organizations to create a warm and communal workplace where employees feel that they can communicate freely with everyone (Sullivan, 1992). Such practice is not the same with Americans where the latter would pr efer to   maintain the division between their personal and work life. According to Arenson (1993), the connection between U.S. workers and their companies are created by written contracts and the compensation that the companies renumerate to their employees. This complimented the observation rendered by   Rehder (1979) that Japanese managers treat their subordinates like their family members while western managers’ relationships with their subordinates are through contracts which makes the relationship depersonalized.   This is contrary to the belief of Japanese workers that they are obligated to the company they are working for because of the close relationship and bond that they have with their company and this creates mutual trust between the employees and the company. They likewise have a sense of shared focus to reach the goals of the organization. This management theory has been one of the core values of Honda from 1980s when they first established their operations in the United States and this was adopted by Nissan, Mazda and Toyota ( Sullivan, 1992). 2) Quite often meetings rather than electronic or paper work Americans would prefer to have everything first on paper before they can act on a project. Whereas Japanese prefer to do meetings rather than convey their messages through e-mails or doing paper works primarily as they despise memos and paper work (Arenson, 1993). According to Lee and McCalman (2008), it is through meetings that the workers would begin to know each other and determine the things that need to be done. This is most applicable in cases where there are no contracts or written documents involved and through meetings, the employees are able to worke on matters they need to attend to (Lee and McCalman, 2008). 3) Informal arranged agreements vs. legal agreements Before an American company would deal with another enterprise, it is not needed that the two companies develop a good relationship. It does not matter if a company would deal with a competitor provided that the two companies would gain mutual benefit. As a sense of security, American companies need to employ countless lawyers and execute numerous contracts before setting matters off. As a pre-requisite, everything needs to be laid out on paper before anything is started (Lee and McCalman, 2008). The mentality in America is that everything is governed by laws to make sure that people involved know what is set on the line (Arenson, 1993). It is ordinary for companies to deal with strangers and just develop a relationship during their venture (Lee and McCalman, 2008). This is not the case for Japanese companies as they require developing personal relationships before they transact with other business entities. This is because of their belief that it is important that a trusting relationship between two companies is developed before considering to have business venture   (Lee and McCalman, 2008). In Japan, there is less dependence on the laws and rather, more premium is placed in developing a trusting relationship before going into a business transaction. Unlike Americans that prefer to settle everything in a legal way or execute contracts first, Japanese are known to have healthy disdain for lawyers and legal or written actions. And unlike the Americans that would employ lawyers and execute contracts before the transaction, Japanese dislike being forced to deal just because of the contracts and in the process may just ignore some provisions thereto. They believe that the situations will have changed after signing the contract (Lee and McCalman, 2008). In fact, the two countries have a big difference in the number of lawyers as in the United States, there are over 800,000 lawyers as compared to Japan that has 15,000 lawyers only (Arenson, 1993). Moreover, Japanese would prefer to spend more time interacting with their potential customer or supplier before they would commit themselves   (Otsubo, 1993). 4) Networking- personal contacts Japan depends on networking as their society is very much a relationship-oriented one. Japanese would get things done though their personal contacts. For them, a man’s success or failure could be directly affected by their connections that he or she has developed over the years. In fact, a newly graduated Japanese would almost depend exclusively on his or her connections through university or from personal connections to land a job. That is why there is a high probability that the company recruiters would hire applicants coming from the same university as theirs because of the special connection that is existing between the recruiters and the university faculty and staff. This is what Japanese called â€Å"jinmyaku† or the web of human beings. Any internal or external undertaking to the company is accomplished through personal contacts (Lee and McCalman, 2008). It is then ordinary for an employee to develop extensive personal network within and outside the organization to protect his or her success rate especially that a person’s capability depends also on the extensiveness of the networks he or she may have   (Kase and Liu, 1996). Such mentality may affect the attitudes of the Japanese of not working with strangers. Through developing personal contacts takes time, once the networks have been created, everything is much easier as there is not much paperwork and lawyers involved. This principle makes it more difficult for foreign companies to penetrate Japan (Lee and McCalman, 2008). Japanese organizations would prefer hiring somebody who has a connection thereto because hiring a new employee is like welcoming a lifelong member of the corporate family. An individual applying for a position in a company by reason of an advertisement is considered a total stranger. As such, there is a possibility that Japanese companies may look after the personal attributes of an applicant rather than his or her technical attributes (Lee and McCalman, 2008).   It is very vital for an organization to ensure that the person to be hired is a team player and will blend well within the group. This is in contrast with U.S. companies as they prefer to look at the technical attributes of the applicants and highly rely on grade-point averages and specific credentials or competencies (Lee and McCalman, 2008). Networking works wonders in cases where a manager tries to launch a new project and the project is not really within the expertise of the concerned department, managers that have a w ell-established network within the organization could use their connections to persuade their colleagues to support their projects and also use these connections outside the organization to help make the project successful (Kase and Liu, 1996). Japanese manufacturing companies were able to capitalize in their personalized networking system that they were able to establish when they internationalized their operations during the late 1970s and 1980s. The personalized networks developed between their head offices and subsidiaries made the flow of the information run smoothly and eventually positively affect the efficiency of the companies (Kase and Liu, 1996). Moreover, Japanese companies establish personal networking with other Japanese companies in other countries (Yu and Ohle, 2008) for their advantage. 5) Teaming up in everything they do One of the major difference between Japanese management and Western management is that the structure of the organization is loose or poorly defined whereas the structure of the organization of the western management is tight or the specific functions are associated with specific boxes (Rehder, 1979). Teaming is a very important aspect in the management of a project. That is why the composition of teams that will handle organizational projects are carefully selected (Lee and McCalman, 2008). Even in creating an organizational project, the composition of the team that will develop and plan the concerned project is carefully assembled from the different departments of the organization (Gray and Larson, 2003). And up to the time that the organizational project is already running after the planning stage, there are still some times that the personnel from the planning stage will coordinate with the functional managers and project managers of the actual operation of the project (Gray and Larson, 2003). As Japanese companies or the Japanese culture itself has high regard on the â€Å"web of human beings†, it is part of the establishment of trust within the team to develop close personal relationship among the team members. The trust created by the â€Å"tsuikiai† plays an important role in the accomplishment of the interconnected tasks of the team members. A high level of trust is necessary for the accomplishment and implementation of the various tasks that the manager is leading (Kezner, 2000). Every meticulous aspect of the project requires the highest level of cooperation and team work among the players performing the tasks. That is why it is the responsibility of the project manager to build and maintain a high level of trust within the team to ensure the successful operation of a project throughout its course (Kezner, 2000). This is where the American employees of some Japanese companies are impressed with how every Japanese members of the team would persist to wo rk together to collect and discuss data gathered and develop ways to respond to different situations and improve their performance (Sullivan, 1992). Another thing that shows the Japanese persistence to teaming up is their decision-making system, or also known as â€Å"ringi† or decision by consensus system. This enables the employees to be motivated to work together.   The term ringi actually came from two words: ‘ri’, which means to ask from below and ‘gi’ which means to deliberate (Ichiro, 1977). By the Japanese decision-making systems, the organization initially debates on the meaning of a certain question and determines its possible solutions until consensus if finally reached. The process of the decision making and even the initiation of the process are participated in by all levels of the organization, whether the process be a verbal or written one (Naotsuka, 1978). This is because the Japanese have a view that it is important to first debate the problem or the question to achieve full comprehension in its general corporate-wide perspective, after which is to establish a consensus to preve nt groups from taking sides on one solution or another hastily. In such case, clash between the prevailing and losing groups is prevented because conflicts will only weaken the implementation of the favored solution. This normative process is called by the Japanese as â€Å"nemawashi† (Naotsuka, 1978).

Critical period in language development Essay

The concept of a critical period is well in nature. In human beings there seems to be a critical for the first language acquisition. Research shows that any human who is not exposed to any language before puberty, becomes completely unable to the syntax of their first language later in life. From my personal experience I have learnt that any individual who learns their first language at infancy and later (at puberty) gets to move from their motherland to foreign land where no one speaks their language, no matter how long these individuals stay from home they can never forget their mother tongue. Accent may change but they will always remember their first language Here is another practical example to prove that there is a critical period in language development. I happen to be living in Africa; my bosses are Italians (man and wife) they have had to learn English and Kiswahili for easy communication with the locals. They have a five year old baby. When the baby is with her parents they always speak in their first language; when she is left behind with the nanny she is spoken to in Kiswahili all the time. The nanny knows no other language apart from her mother tongue and Kiswahili. This baby has been looked after by this same nanny since she was born. At the age of three a teacher from America was employed to teach this girl. She knew no other language but English. Now look at this closely; the baby is now very fluent in two languages; her first one Italian and her second one; Kiswahili. She is so fluent that she corrects her parents on it! She seems to be doing just fine in English for the last two years she has been taught. Interestingly her teach who is very interested in learning Kiswahili asks her enough times to translate to her in English what has been said in Kiswahili by colleagues. I would say that all depends with the stage at which the language was introduced to an individual. The stage in life. †¢ Kiswahili is a language for the East African state and some of the West African.

Chattel Slavery as a Institution

St. Vincent and the grenadines community college| The Caribbean: A history of Chattel Slavery and what it brought to the Caribbean| An Internal Assessment| | Okieve Graham| 12/1/2011| â€Å"By the 19th century the slave ship had brought much more than chattel slaves to the Caribbean. †| Introduction: Chattel Slavery affected the Caribbean by bringing it from its Mesoamerican roots to the vibrant mix of races that coexist and cohabitate it today. The Africans and other races brought their art, music and their very way of life to the Caribbean. I am researching this topic to go in depth and examine how the Caribbean came to be what it is today. I am driven to research this topic because it means something to us as a people, something that is worth knowing, and something that is worth remembering. It will bring the bond with our ancestral ties stronger than ever before. Knowledge is power and knowing our past will make us linked to one another. This is a step to unity to us in the Caribbean. There are arguments against this view and blatant disregard for the obvious changes in the world have been made. There are some with the beliefs of White supremacy but all this adds in the mix of different beliefs in the Caribbean. Never before in history have an entire society and race of people have been affected in such a large scale. Nonetheless, one can give thanks to our European forefathers, if those events did not occur, the Caribbean could not be the community as we knew it today. Chattel slavery not only brought commerce to its geographically unique location but it also resulted in a rich and colorful world, complete with its own mix of cultures, music, art and belief systems. Chapter 1: Origin of Chattel Slavery in the Caribbean The term â€Å"chattel† is defined as an article of tangible, personal property. One can therefore see the underlying effect of the choice of words in comparison to how the Europeans viewed the black race. They viewed the African race as a sub-species, animalistic and inhumane. This was because of their color and their religion and way of life. One must remember the Europeans believed that their religion was the only one and true way so that means their way of life was viewed as pagan. Eric Williams however stated that â€Å"Slavery was not born of racism: rather, racism was the consequence of slavery. Unfree labor in the New World was brown, white, black and yellow; Catholic, Protestant and Pagan† (7) It is his opinion that racism was not a beneficial factor in the creation of the institution of Slavery but in my further studies, race did in fact play an important role in the enslavement of the African people. Also, one can see from Williams’ deduction that religion also played a role, it was categorized according to what race you were. The labor force however comprised of the Mesoamerican inhabitants of the Caribbean, White indentured servants from Europe and Africans. White indentured servants were whites who worked in the Caribbean. There is a notable difference in their title in that, they were called servants instead of slaves. Again, white supremacy reigned in the society at that time. There was an economic need for cheap labor, hence Africans were in high abundance and it was quite cheap to acquire them and ship them across through the Atlantic to the New World. They were also a form of human capital, being property; a value was put over their head. The money which procured a white man’s services for ten years could buy a Negro for life. The economic superiority of free hired labor over slave is obvious even to the slave owner. Slave labor is given reluctantly, it is unskillful, and it lacks versatility. Not so much that the Europeans were the only ones playing apart in enslaving the Africans, but it was also African sons and brothers who helped to facilitate this. There were the men who were paid to acquire the required persons for shipment. They were known as middlemen, so one can see, whereas one African might think he was one of his own, they came to enslave and doom their own. In return for capturing the Africans, the Europeans provided those sub-par weapons and tools, not worth the total price but to the foolish middlemen, they were of the best quality. In essence, Greed was a major player in this. Eric Williams stated in his work that â€Å"Here, then is the origin of Negro slavery. The reason was economic, not racial; it has to do not with the color of the laborer, but the cheapness of labor. As compared with Indian and white labor, Negro slavery was eminently superior. † (19) From his perspective, an economic one, his deductions has all the truth attached to it. Negro slavery is indeed superior to all other races of slavery but from another view, the Europeans did have pre-existing prejudice towards the Negroid people, their hate and prejudice towards them was just amplified when encountered the Negros. This view have even been backed by Hilary Beckles and Verene Shepherd when they stated â€Å" This was a unique form of domination in which one group was defined and used another group as property; in which people were targeted for slavery because of their race; they were described as sub-human, and they were bonded to each other for life. Chattel slavery brought economic power to the Caribbean and the lives of the Negroid people has been scarred ever since the advent of African Slavery. Chattel slavery brought much more than a few million people, a whole new race to our shores. Hilary Beckles and Verene Shepherd expressed â€Å"the enslaved people survived and they protected their humanity and identity; and over time they redefined themsel ves as a new, vibrant cultural force. † (137) Chapter Two : Culture, Art, Music & Religion The voyage across the Atlantic Ocean was a perilous one. Tribes from all over West Africa such as the Mande and the Mandingo congregated and stacked like sardines in one deck. They were separated from the rest of civilization and their family. Often, they could not speak to one another, whether it is by difference in language or values. Never the less, the African people adapted and they banded together, took on cultural customs and traditions that strengthened their ethnic identity. They developed attitudes and practices that shaped the Caribbean civilization as we know it today. The main idea to understand is that they were scattered. No one African was acquainted with another upon arrival, meaning they were of different tribes, different backgrounds, cultural beliefs and language. They may have had knowledge of these people before but for the first time in their life, this is where they got to be acquainted with each other. There, they shared views, beliefs, customs and their languages. For some, it was the first time they had encountered the Europeans. Rather, some had previous knowledge of the Europeans through trade, migration and war. As a result of this, some may have had knowledge of Christianity and European languages even before arrival in the Caribbean. This cultural reshaping that Africans and Europeans experienced is called ‘creolisation’. Thus, those combined with the culture of Africans and Europeans, born into the Caribbean became known as Creoles. They procured rites and rituals that exist even to this day. Simple events that we know of today are because of the forerunners, our ancestors. They observed and preserved the rites and rituals that were a part of life in Africa. The coming together of these African and Post-African ideas came together to create an Afro-Caribbean community as we know it today. Rituals such as lighting up the grave, an event that we are fond of at the end of October were part of African culture. It was a part of paying respects to our ancestor and warding our own selves from harmful spirits. Similar to this are funeral procedurals. The Africans believed that death was just the start of a journey to pass over from toil to reward and in their case at the time, a life of slavery to an eternity of freedom. Beckles and Shepherd stated in their book that â€Å"the power of ancestors was central to African-Caribbean culture. To know ancestors was to know one’s cultural identity. (140) They procured dances and music as rituals that again pay respects to their ancestors and celebration of them. It was an intense ritual in which it was said the person was possessed in order to feel the waves and moves of the dance. This was their way of attributing their ancestors, to demonstrate that in the Caribbean Africans had their own recognized ancestral culture that w as still important to them. Events on holidays and labor free days were a time of friendship and kinship. It was a time of sharing with their enslaved brothers in times of despair. They often danced on evenings (which became a part of the African-Caribbean culture). They even formed festivals where they danced and celebrated, one notable festival is the Crop-Over festival in Barbados, one that is still happening even today. They had even more established festivals and rituals where they danced such as the Gombay festival, John Canoe dance and the Kumina dance. There are even more dances each that are identifiable to each different colony in the Caribbean. They incorporated their religion from Africa in the West Indies. They brought their spirit based religions such as obeah or voodoo and myal. It was the belief of the people that it was possible for the living to use ancestral spirits to determine the future and to shape the nature of social events. The myal and obeah religion was a high prolific aspect in the community. It was used for removing curses, cures for illnesses, bless children and curious insights. Incorporation with European beliefs and African gave birth to what we know as the Baptist Faith today. This aspect of religion is still up today and continues to make its mark on the community. It’s not going anywhere time soon, even now; most grand-parents and parents believe and attend Baptist churches across the nations of the Caribbean. Notably however, West Indian Cricket became an important aspect in their communities. Cricket was invented by the English and thus it founds it way into the Caribbean during a period of war between Britain and France. The Africans observed it and began to practice it. Cricket quickly became incorporated in their communities as entertainment away from the hard days of field work. In conclusion of this chapter, the Africans brought a host of their art, religions, beliefs and cultures. They mixed and nurtured the combination of cultures that clashed in the Caribbean. They formed it to be their own and formed a new way of life. The cultural rites and rituals that exist today, that pay respect to their Ancestors while carving a path to the future, the dances that provided entertainment that procured kinship and friendship among the communities and the wider area the colonies, the art and music that is unique to the Caribbean, the only place in the world, forms a cultural boom that wavelengths across the Caribbean and make what makes the Caribbean our home. Bibliography: 1. Hilary Beckles, Shepherd, Verene. Liberties Lost: Caribbean Indigenous Societies and Slave Systems. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 2. Williams, Eric. Capitalism and Slavery. United States of America: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994. 3. Verene Shepherd, Beckles, Hilary. Caribbean Slavery in the Atlantic World. Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, 2000 ——————————————– [ 1 ]. Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery. United States of America, The University of North Carolina Press, 1994, 19 [ 2 ]. Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery. United States of America, The University of North Carolina Press, 1994, 6 [ 3 ]. Hilary Beckles, Liberties Lost: Caribbean Indigenous Societies and Slave Systems. United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 2004, 137 [ 4 ]. Hilary Beckles, Liberties Lost: Caribbean Indigenous Societies and Slave Systems. United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 2004, 138 [ 5 ]. Hilary Beckles, Liberties Lost: Caribbean Indigenous Societies and Slave Systems. United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 2004, 147

Essay on Liberty and Society

The good society. In a good society, an individual can experience both freedom and justice. But these ideas, freedom and justice, are still debatable. Could these ideas really exist with each other? The existence of both freedom and justice are both limited by many factors. Freedom is to be able to exercise your desires, to freely express your feelings, you expressions, and to be able to live your life in a way that you enjoy it. The limitation though, is when your freedom overlaps other people’s freedom, whether negatively or positively. Like freedom of expression, when you do so it affects other people, like their freedom to choose a religion; then there is injustice there. That is where the concept of justice enters. Justice is there to correct people’s mistakes, so that they would not further step on other people’s freedom. It is not punishment, but it could be a means to punish. Justice is the idea that sets guidelines to one’s freedom. It is there to make sure that you remain fair and observe law and order. This is all for the good of all, not only for yourself, but of the community. Different views. Henry George and John Stuart Mill are both brilliant people with different views of society and how people should live. They have almost inverse, opposing ideas about the way people should go about their lives and their communities. Majority Rules. For Mill, it is the majority that rules, wherein they are the ones who impose a law on questions of duty to others, regarding their own self interest, and   so be able to impose economic injustice to minority individuals and to groups(Mill, p.4). For George, it is not the majority that rules and must decide on rules to impose on others. It is the interest of the people that we should decide on what rules we impose. For George, the movement towards equality is important, wherein the majority or the rich are not the ones who have the power to make rules. George states that when you remove the root of all problems, which is the individual right to land, you are taking it away from priority of occupation, the most illogical ground where land ownership is defended. According to Henry George, â€Å"Priority of occupation give exclusive and perpetual title to the surface of a globe on which, in the order of nature, countless generations succeed each other! Had the men of the last generation any better right to the use of this world than we of this? Or the men of a hundred years ago? Or a thousand years ago? Had the mound-builders, or the cave-dwellers, the contemporaries of the mastodon and the three-toed horse, or the generations’ still further back, who in dim aeons that we can think of only geologic periods, followed each other on the earth we now tenant for our little day? ( George, VII.I.28)† George points out those imposing rules such as individual rights to land would greatly induce poverty, thus creating inequality. When there is inequality, there is abuse from the people above, thus creating injustice in the system. Who would want to experience injustice? The real problem lies on the hands of the people who are on top, who are manipulating the situation for their benefits. It is a great burden to carry for the people affect, the masses, the poor people who are work-stricken in order for them to live, the ones who are sweating it all out, while the real people benefiting are on their warm offices relaxing, waiting for the money to come to their pockets. George stresses that these inequalities must be resolved, and offers us a solution. That is to make the land a a common property, a property for all, not only for the rich, thus reducing the terms rich and poor, to a term better known as equals. These equal rights not only promote the availability of these resources to everyone, but also the respect to other people’s rights. He appropriates his rights to the land with respect to what other people have, thus being able to distribute the use of these resources with the other people. Land Distribution. For Mill, a free society doesn’t have laws that states that the government should take land from the rich people to give to the poor. Land distribution, or the distribution of the wealth of these rich people is not a law in a free society. The government has no right to take away these lands in order to give to the poor. That kind of action is not a manifestation of freedom because you are imposing that the lands be distributed. Freedom is being able to own lands that you desire, in a means that is lawful and does not violate any laws. Freedom does not entail that the government takes away if you have much of that something. Freedom is letting you own what you are able to own, not distributing it to others. But George has a different point of view. He said that the unequal distribution of wealth is the real problem of the modern civilization. He then stated that if you look at it carefully, it is clear that this unequal distribution of wealth traces back to the institution of private property in land. George said that because of this institution, there is no increase in productive power that is beneficial for all the people, and the existence of this institution further worsens the situation. But for George, distribution of this private property, private ownership of land, doesn’t pose any good effects or is impracticable (George, VI.II.1). But he proposes a way on how to deal with this problem, a way to remove an evil, he said, is by removing its cause. He explained that poverty intensifies as wealth increases, and wages are decreased while the productive power rises. The cause of all these is the monopoly of land, which is where the money comes from, the field of labor. So in order to rid us of this poverty, to level of the wages, only the way the law states that they should be, then the individual ownership of land should be ceased, thus substituting common ownership (George, VI.II.2). He then concluded that the chain of reasoning has led to this decision, wherein both by deduction and induction breaks down to the unequal ownership of land means unequal distribution of wealth. Unequal ownership would then be associated to the private ownerships, individual property in land. Thus, it follows that when you make land a common property, it removes the problem of unequal distribution of land. Money allocation. For Mill, he stressed that in a free society, the government – as the public’s representative, should not have a veto on the way a person or a member of the society spends their money (Mill, p.97). But for George, he presents yet another different point of view. For him, the universe is in harmony, and so must be everything within it. Equality should be practiced and if we are to hope for equality, we must associate this with social development and must have harmony with other reforms. He proposes to show that the universe does not deny people to aspire for something, does not deny the people to want something, yet in order for the society to have progress, there must be equality, wherein all motives must lead towards equality, not inequality. Even though there are objections, George sees it as a part of the solution, wherein the eradication of this evil is to provide equality, to stop the unjust distribution of wealth, the people should have equality. What we spend is also affected, for George; we must work on towards that equality. Henry George said, â€Å"All this I propose to show. I propose to meet all practical objections that can be raised, and to show that this simple measure is not only easy of application, but that it is a sufficient remedy for all the evils which, as modern progress goes on, arise from the greater and greater inequality in the distribution of wealth – that it will substitute equality for inequality, plenty for want, justice for injustice, social strength for social weakness, and will open a grander and nobler advances of civilization.(George, VI.II.8)† George proposes that everyone practice equality in order to maintain the justice for all. This includes all the actions towards people’s wants, including their budget and expenditures, wherein they are responsible for watching it closely. References: George, Henry. Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1879. Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. Pelican Books, 1859.