Sunday, January 26, 2020

Durkheims Theory: Summary, Critique and Analysis

Durkheims Theory: Summary, Critique and Analysis This review is The Rules of the Sociological Method by Durkheim. I will try to summarise the concepts of it and indicate some of objections of Durkheims position which I encountered in this article and will highlight as I go along. Durkheim states that the behaviour, phenomena and other societal dogma influence one to think, act, feel and react. Durkheim dedicated few fundamental elements such as the relationship between the individuals and society to the nature and social bond. He identified the two types of the societies into mechanical and organic societies. He distinguished them in terms of their shared beliefs, governing laws, level of individualism and social ills. According to Durkheims main theory of social fact existed even before we were born; and as a result a social fact is every way of acting, fixed or not, capable of exercising based on the individuals external constraint given by the society (p. 13). He added that social structures have a coercive power over the individual, which means that we are coerced into subsequent established rules of our society. According to Durkheim, social facts have main features such as: an external to the individual, coercive of the individual and not attached to any particular individual. The author argues that the basic norms of social facts as things to examine and understand. Durkheim is key thinker of social science and his theory and methods of was positivism (holism/whole), and he considers that social structures exist independently of the individual, and the individual agent does not play a huge role in the social fact. He emphasised that social facts exist outside the individuals, and the manifestation of the individuals is a social fact. He also suggested that society gives people a role to play based on their rationality and choices, therefore, society has made the individuals. Durkheim also suggested that belief existed since birth, and he gave his account on several inherent habits. It has been noticed that people are taught to be abided by certain obligation set by the society which termed as law and custom. The actions of individuals are totally connected with the education that one derives from his family or learnt through religion and customs of the society. Therefore, it is duty served by any individual by being a brother, mother, son or a h usband or as a citizen which are defined as the education and the obligation set by the society. This shows these concepts and expectations did not come from the individuals but from the social community. Although we might hold these normative community behaviours and share its values, we still constrained its existence. So, people have selected the social facts with conscious mind and their rationality. This means that people use their mind and brain to accept and follow the customs. However, in contrary to our modern day people are more rational and use their own autonomy and choice based on their own desires and will. Therefore, they rebel the norms and customs. In this sense, Durkheim sat the social level apart from psychology, and he insists that sociology and psychology are different. Psychology and Sociology goes hand in hand. Since people use their mind, brain to select their desires around them as well as their rationality. Durkheim referred understanding of the social fact belongs to sociology and its different from biology and psychology. In this sense, both discipline affects human growth, their rationality, choices and relationships. If he used consciousness/unconsciousne ss, and the effects of the emotions, how can he spate the sociology and psychology? This is the gap that needs to be considered. Hence, the thoughts and the ideas that are controlling ones behaviour is not developed by any individuals, rather they are enforced by some outside power and are penetrated on the character of the individual. In our modern day, a constant constraint has been developed to make people aware that they are not only dependent upon themselves neither on the societal norms and customs, but law and legislations sat. In the past century, the social norms could not be challenged or denied. People consider the norms are important and those failed to follow can either formally or informally can be sanctioned through the law and legislation, or by the communities as social control. They get excluded and shamed them. However, this is no longer valid. In his century, people considered norms are vital and those failed to follow can either formally or informally can be sanctioned through the law/ legislation, or by the communities. They get ashamed, isolation and excluded. However, this is no longer valid. People resist against religion and norms, and they dont face punishments . For stance, marriage were very crucial: husband and wife and children via verse, and every individual expected to follow. However, today, all those are no longer essential, and whether an individual is one gender or another; or same sex marriage, bisexual or belong to LGB are acceptable now. Conventions, on the other hand, are made by society to make people decide between the right and wrong, even if they are totally baseless. It has been analysed that if one tries to violate the rules set by the society, it acts against him and make him completely helpless to stand on his grounds. Furthermore, the society will ask him to anticipate his action if there is still time existed. In an alternative case, the society tries to nullify the action if it is considered to be reversible or make him pay a penalty if the action cannot be repaired. The restriction set by society causes an infringement in moral laws and ethics, special punishments are enforced to provide a check on the behaviour of the citizens which is seen a form of deterrence, p.2) However, there are some breach that goes against the ordinary convention of the society and treated less violently. Eventually, it has been examined that there are certain individuals who try to successfully break the rules forcing one to fight against them. Even if the forces of the society are overcome, they impose the power of virtue and moral constraints that will drive them to act and feel externally. They exercise control over the individuals and let them function the way they like. The actions represented by the society should not be confused with the organic and the physical phenomenon that does not exist in the human conscious mind. There are certain facts in the society which are termed to be really social as it is used without any clarity and accuracy in the society. The social facts generally cover the entire phenomenon and the occurrence within the society with the presence of little social interest of the people. Societies see each of the functions differently and are judged differently by all. His example on (p. 6), on constrain and convention, as he used an example of the outset of a childs life. I believe the growing process of every child is similar to any given society. Although, he concentrated in France. Children learn through role modelling and imitations. Therefore, one may argue the existence of the external power which Durkheim believes is coercive forces which shapes them, merely is temporary, and its rather can be general influences till child reaches a certain age. If they reach the ages of maturity, they can rebel and resist some of these norms and customs, as we experienced today. In accordance, the term social has gathered a new meaning that is the factor on which individualism depends on. The social fact that existed in the well-defined society has emerged as the new form that contains the same objectivity controlling the behaviour of the individual. Society creates a profound impact on the emotions and feelings of the individual so once the community of the society breaks up, it fails to influence the feelings of the individuals and fails to enforce its power on them. The feelings and the experiences that people faced while being exposed to the harsh system of the society are completely dissimilar to that experience while being alone. In this respect the law of society draws every harmless individual to its wicked and cruel act when they are exposed to the crowd and let people get introduced to the religious, political and the artistic matters that are constantly surrounding them. Form the very beginning of growing stage of the child, he is taught the way to eat, sleep in regular hours and maintain cleanliness, which is later observed as a power or force to mend his ways to become a respectable individual of the society. This gradually gives rise to tendencies and habits that forms the inner and outer characteristics of the indi vidual. The pressure of the society and the environment to which one is subjected to, helps to shape ones personality and behaviour since childhood. Conclusion: Even though, the concept of the individual agent is strictly limited, still there are ways of thinking, acting, feeling which external power of coercion to the individual is. However, this is mental controlling to the individuals and enforcing them to abide by, regardless of their mental capacity and rationality. Therefore, one can say there is no way that one can detach or separate sociology from psychology. He also viewed an individual is tool and contributes little to the sociological knowledge. There are some premises are justified, however society evolved and transformed. Therefore, his argument are not fully compelling, when you look at other theories which makes a lot more sense. His clarification is functional but limited. The author failed to consider other possibility of the future change overtime. Therefore, there are many transformation took place now. Due to lack of integrations and technologies on his century, he failed to reflect on other societies which might happened to be different from France, such Europe and the global in general. Therefore, historical diversity is limited. The gap is not only the weakness of his argument it rather lacks the awareness of other societies outside France, which show the weaknesses of his premises, which not fully convincing. Reference: E. Durkheim, The Rule of Sociological Method, (New York: The Free Press, 1938. Ch.1.

Friday, January 17, 2020

Cartoon and Japanese Society Essay

Japan’s animation boom began in the summer of l977, when the movie Uchu Senkan Yamato (Space Cruiser Yamato) captivated teenagers and young adults to emerge as a major box-office hit. The success of this sci-fi â€Å"anime† prompted a fundamental shift in the cultural status of animation. Even before Space Cruiser Yamato, Japan had produced a considerable number of animated films, but they were generally regarded as children’s fare or, at best, family entertainment; the few adult-oriented animated movies were not successful commercially. Space Cruiser Yamato was the first anime to demonstrate that the medium need not restrict itself to kiddies fare. Following suit, from the late l970s, Japan put out a steady stream of animated films geared to young adults, including Ginga Tetsudo 999 (Galaxy Express 999) and Kido Senshi Gandamu (Mobile Suit Gundam). Most of these were commercial successes as well, although critics dismissed these as exploitation films pandering to teenage taste. The attitude of film critics changed abruptly, however, with the 1984 release of Kaze no Tani no Naushica (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind), a film whose artistic quality was widely regarded as more than sufficient to hold the attention of adults. With this movie, writer-director Miyazaki Hayao overturned the conventional image of the anime director as a versatile hack, and was soon crowned as anime’s first genuine auteur. Of course, not all anime rose to the level of non-juvenile entertainment or art. In fact, in the late 1980s, with young adult anime showing signs of staleness, the focus began to revert to children’s films. Nevertheless, the genre never relinquished the commercial foothold it had gained during the young adult anime craze; furthermore, Miyazaki began to enjoy a large degree of freedom in his filmmaking, as did several other directors who subsequently achieved the status of anime auteur. The results of those efforts, particularly the anime produced by Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli, are not simply movies with high box-office potential; they are in many instances artistically superior to the live-action films made in Japan, and they have won growing legions of fans overseas. During the 1990s, animation, spearheaded by the work of a few anime auteurs, emerged as the face of Japanese film, positioning Japan as the worlds undisputed â€Å"anime superpower. † And in 1997 — a full twenty years since anime took off — animation’s preeminence over live-action films in Japan was more apparent than ever. In a matter of months after its release, Mononoke-hime (Princess Mononoke), Miyazaki’s latest film to date which was then alleged to be his last directorial effort, broke every box-office record to become the biggest domestic movie hit of all time in Japan. In the languishing field of young adult anime, the avant garde sci-fi work Shin Seiki Evangerion (Neon Genesis Evangelion) scored a major box-office hit and won a huge cult following. Moreover, children’s anime are as popular as ever. In all, it appears that anime has taken center stage in the Japanese film industry, pushing live-action movies into the wings. Kenji (2002) opined that Animation became popular in Japan as it provided an alternative format of storytelling compared to the underdeveloped live-action industry in Japan. Unlike America, where live-action shows and movies have generous budgets, the live-action industry in Japan is a small market and suffered from budgeting, location, and casting restrictions. The lack of Western-looking actors, for example, made it next to impossible to shoot films set in Europe, America, or fantasy worlds that do not naturally involve Asians. The varied use of animation allowed artists to create characters and settings that did not look Japanese at all Now a bit about how animation gets to wherever you are today. In the dusty yet not-so-long-ago time, when old cities began to get overweight and thus suburban areas started to be a new synonym for the term ‘eyesore’, the post-LSD generation of the Northern hemisphere imported anime from the Land of the Rising Sun at approximately the pace of a snail-mail package sent from Alabama to Tibet. The riotous 1970’s has just received enlightenment in this field of concern — the quicker-witted Americans in the industry started to stop calling non-human-non-nature-non-animal motion pictures ‘cartoons’ and have used the word ‘animation’. Naturally the content of slim boxes of taped animation movies embarking there was then called ‘Japanese animation, and for the convenience of those who tend to misspell anything more than three-lettered it was promptly squeezed into ‘Japanimation’, so no wonder that they still misspell it. Anyway, no derogatory wink was involved in the term ‘Japanimation’ — it’s just a matter of geoprofile for the product that has come in faster and in bulk during 1980’s. The malicious intent is not there, if you really are so paranoid about such things; it is for instance in the term ‘Japornimation’, for which the Yoshiwara might have had an influence (i. e. modern sexually explicit and repulsively bloody anime movies). Meanwhile, in 1990’s someone (probably the same person who snail-mailed from Alabama to Tibet) informed the Northerners that the Japanese themselves have always called the thing ‘animation’. From then on ‘animation’ often replaces ‘Japanimation’ in the lexicon, but it didn’t blast the old word out of circulation — usually attached to the ‘Old School’ of diehard, seasoned, loyal and zealous anime fans (‘otaku’) among the Americans, it is still valid to use ‘Japanimation’ today in any case of generally useless elaboration such as this, plus the term ‘anime’ is seen as too wide to refer to just the characteristic Japanese product — ‘anime’ could mean the entire baggage this planet must carry in the form of every kind of animation, including Beavis & Butthead.

Thursday, January 9, 2020

Canadian Provinces and Territories Translated to French

Canada is officially a bilingual country, so each Canadian province and territory has both an English and a French name. Notice which are feminine and which are masculine. Knowing the gender will help you choose the correct definite article and geographical prepositions to use with each province and territory. In Canada, since 1897, names on official federal government maps have been authorized through a national committee, now known as the  Geographical Names Board of Canada  (GNBC). This includes both English and French names  since both languages are official in Canada. 10m of 33.5m Canadians Speak French According to the countrys  2011  Census of Population, in 2011, close to 10  million in a total national population of 33.5  million reported being able to conduct a conversation in French, compared with less than 9.6  million in 2006.  However, the proportion of those being able to speak French declined slightly to 30.1% in 2011, from 30.7% five years earlier. (The total Canadian population is estimated to have grown to  36.7  in 2017 since the 2011 Canadian census.) 7.3m of 33.5m Canadians Call French Their Mother Tongue Approximately 7.3  million Canadians reported French as their mother tongue  and 7.9  million spoke French at home at least on a regular basis. The number of Canadians  with French as their first official language spoken increased from 7.4  million in 2006 to 7.7  million in 2011. Canadas francophonie  is centered in Quebec, where  6,231,600, or 79.7 percent of Quebecers, consider  French their mother tongue. Many more speak French at home:  6,801,890, or 87 percent of the Quebec population. Outside Quebec, three-quarters of those reporting they speak French at home live in  New  Brunswick or Ontario, while the presence of French has grown in Alberta and British Columbia.​ The 10 Canadian Provinces   French English L'Alberta Alberta La Colombie-Britannique British Columbia Le Manitoba Manitoba Le Nouveau-Brunswick New Brunswick La Nouvelle-Écosse Nova Scotia L'Ontario Ontario Le Quà ©bec Quebec La Saskatchewan Saskatchewan La Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador ÃŽle-du-Prince-Édouard Prince Edward Island The 3 Canadian Territories French English Le Nunavut Nunavut Les Territoires du Nord-Ouest Northwest Territories Le Yukon (Territoire) Yukon (Territory) ​

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

The French And Indian War - 1556 Words

The French and Indian War/Seven Years War began in response to the British unapologetically impinging on the French and the Indian territory. After the seven years of war, the French and British negotiated the Treaty of Paris. The Treaty of Paris effectively ended the French and Indian War/the Seven Years War. It was put into practice in 1763. The immediate results included the French loss of all territory in the Americas except some islands in the Gulf, the Spanish receiving all land west of the Mississippi River (including the previously French Louisiana), and the colonists/Britain getting all land east of the Mississippi River. The impact of the Treaty varied for each group and also varied within the parameters of the groups of constituents. The â€Å"British† colonies were slowly considering themselves a separate entity altogether – they had over a century’s worth of history. After the signing of the treaty, the colonists realized that they had different ideals and intentions for themselves than the British Parliament did. The Parliament had a virtual representative speaking out for the needs and wants of the colonists, so in result of that the colonists were not getting the things they wanted, or felt that they needed. What this means for the colonists was that they now had a common enemy – none of the colonists wanted to be spoken for, thus they needed to attempt to unify and make their own nation. With the result of the Treaty of Paris being the extension of theShow MoreRelatedThe French And Indian War1095 Words   |  5 PagesThe French and India war was a war that took place in today’s Pittsburgh. The war was both caused by the English and French. The English and the French both felt that they were entitled to land and each was to willing to fight and they were also, willing to go into war so they could prove that they owned the land. (odellreads.com) The French and India war started out as a dispute over land in the Ohio River Valley area, both the French and English settlers moved towards colonization of that areaRead MoreThe French And Indian War1195 Words   |  5 PagesSince the beginning of history, wars have been fought to gain territories, independence, or to fight against those who take away one’s rights. The French and Indian War was fought in North America over the Ohio Valley, however, it is much more than just a war to gain territory. This war opened doors to the colonists who decided that fighting for independence was something they were in need of doing. The French and Indian War was the portion of the Seven Year’s War that was fought in North AmericaRead MoreThe French And Indian War967 Words   |  4 Pages 2014 During the French and Indian War of 1754-1763, the French and the British were competing for land throughout the Ohio Valley, the Mississippi River, and the St. Lawrence River and for trading rights in North America. Both nations saw this territory as a necessity to increase its own power and wealth while simultaneously limiting the strength of its rival. Although, after the French and Indian War the British gained all of the French land in North America. Following the war the British governmentRead MoreThe French And Indian War877 Words   |  4 Pageshistory; wars, such as the French and Indian war altered the perception of the American people. These events and people were some of the many that facilitated the colonists’ defiance against the British. Altercations they encountered turned the people of the newly formed Americas against the British aiding in their quest for independence. During the time of 1763-1775, one of the occurrences that happened to affect the colonists’ perception of the British was the French and Indian War. The war itselfRead MoreThe French And Indian War895 Words   |  4 PagesMany wars were fought between the English and the French. The French and Indian War was an important factor in the writing of the Declaration of Independence. The war was very costly for the British. After the war ended the British thought of ways to gain money from the colonists to help replenish funds lost from the war. This usually was in the form of taxes. The colonists were not happy with the British government and made their feelings and opinions known. The colonists wanted their freedom andRead MoreThe French And Indian War938 Words   |  4 PagesThe French and Indian War was a long and bloody war fought by both colonial and British soldiers. By the end of the war, both Britain and the colonies were changed, and so their relationships were changed a s well - mostly in negative ways. After the war, political, ideological and economic relations between the colonies and Britain would never be the same. Many colonists realizing their lack of representation in Parliament, which created political tension; British taxation of the colonies createdRead MoreThe French And Indian War1731 Words   |  7 PagesAmerican Revolution was fought from 1775-1783, the war happened because of the tension that was building between Great Britain and their thirteen colonies. From 1607 to 1763, Britain gave the thirteen colonies benign and salutary neglect. Even though the colonists lived under the Mercantilist doctrine, they were still allowed to prosper while under Great Britain’s authority. The French and Indian war changed their relationship.Great Britain going to war with France caused them to accumulate a lot ofRead MoreThe French And Indian War1337 Words   |  6 Pagesbeen many wars, some wars were fought for world domination and others were fought for independence. One war that fought for independence was the American Revolution. The American Revolution was fought between the colonists and the English with the French aiding the colonists. There are many causes for the American Revolution some of the causes are the French and Indian War, The Sugar and Stamp Act, The Boston Massacre, The Boston Tea Party, and the Intolerable Acts. The French and Indian War, also calledRead MoreThe French And Indian War1310 Words   |  6 Pagescommencement of the revolution. The discussion below critically exploits and explores various reasons that led to the start of the revolution. The French and Indian War The wars which happened between 1754 and 1763 had a high impact on the colonies that were initially proud to be part and parcel of Great Britain. However, as it was noted later after the war, most colonists got increasingly bothered by various Acts passed by the Britain Parliament such as the Currency Acts that were made between 1751Read MoreThe French And Indian War1183 Words   |  5 Pages1773 Britain defeated France in the French and Indian war.The colonists had secretly been bringing in tea into the area from dutch, the tea was cheaper and not taxed, this helped many families in America. It caused parliament to be short of money. In effort to replenish. Victory in the french and indian war was costly for the british. At war’s conclusion in 1763, king George 111 and his government looked to taxing the American colonies as a way of recouping their war cost, they thought that people want