Individual human identity Essay Example for Free

Individual human identity Essay It also means that importance of social class decreasing, but instead of class the role of status increased rapidly. For instance to show status people buy expensive cars and exclusive clothes. Differences in social classes could influence personal identity, because identity related to social groups to which the identity belongs, for example nationality, culture, ethnicity, sexuality, gender and class. First of all identity is a sense of self that develops as the child differentiates from parents and family and take a place in society (Jary and Jary, 1991:p665). Identity also formed through some combinations of individual choice and structured group membership (for example in Arab countries Muslim women can`t drive the car). In additional, people could express their aspects of identity in a different way. For example clothing, which clothes choose to wear to show gender, post modernism or class; language, which words to use when people speak with fiends to show class, educational background and gender. It is goes without saying that even though class no longer exists, but we could easily identify person`s class, status and possessions from their clothing and way of behaving. The principle of the identity is closely linked to the idea of culture. As I have already mentioned identities could also be formed through the cultures to which people belong to. Culture is the language, beliefs, values and norms, customs, dress, diet, roles, knowledge and skills which make up the way of life of an individual society (Ralph Linton, 1945). For example norms and diet, in the UK at 17 o`clock most people have their couple of tea. Culture includes teaching and learning such process like socialization. We gain our identity through socialisation. Socialisation is the process by which we, as individuals, become members of our society or culture. We are also active participants in this process we decide what to accept or reject. Process of learning culture or socialization includes family, school, peer, media and religion. For example: family, your parents give you name, first beliefs and tastes; school, teaches person rules and gives knowledge; religion, teach people to appreciate some values; peers, teach person how to socialize; media, gives people ideas about gender, status and class. Modern sociologists also think that being of a different class may involve differences in culture, economic circumstances, educational status, dietary preferences, housing conditions, property ownership and power. For example, differences in culture, people who are from middle and upper middle class in free time visit museums and theatres, whereas working class visits pubs. One of the important factors in peoples culture and identity is social mobility, the ability to move from one class to another. For example, moving from the working to the middle class. Nowadays class, gender, sex, race and kinship have less influence on human identity. It is becoming more important human`s talent, knowledge, ambition and hard working abilities for achieving a good position in the class system. World sociology has changed greatly, beginning of the XXI centuries gave to the UK a lot of new. New national socio economic classifying statistics (NS SEC), which replaced Registrar Generals classification. New sociologists have another view on dividing society into social classes. For instance class has been defined consisted of eight major classes. The first four is middle class, which include higher managerial and professional occupations, lower, intermediate occupations, small employers and own account workers. The other four is manual workers, including lower supervisory and technical, semi routine occupations, routine occupations and never worked people. A big and new tendency had happened in modern Britain: the number of manual workers declines year by year. If for example in 1911 a percentage of manual workers was about 81%, in the year 2000 this percentage twice declined and become about 40% of total workforce. This become possible first of all because of developing new technologies: technique makes most manual work. Secondly because of changing of economical situation such as increasing life standards and education system. Traditionally social classes have been the main concept for understanding society, its behaviour or social conflicts, and predict the main movements of social behavior. Today`s sociologists in developed countries see classes like a historical phenomenon. The same view on social classes has Pakulski and Waters. They thought that class is no longer important factor in a human identity. According to Pakulski, we could pick out four main features such as cultuaralism, fragmentation, autonomization and resignification. For instance autonomization, which means that today`s people are not told what to do, they do what makes sense to them. For example, British working class is less likely to vote for the British Labour Party than it once was. To sum up, in this essay we discussed the different aspects of inequalities; we have seen that the UK is one of the most unequal societies. Inequalities of wealth, which means that one tenth of the UK population owns more than seventy percent of total wealth. Inequalities of income are significant, but welfare policy of the government such as taxation does have a huge effect in reducing the incomes between rich and poor. Finally, because of the government policy and developing new technologies, class has lost its power in the collective sense, however class would still remain fundamental to culture and human.

The Jungle :: essays papers

The Jungle From the point of view of history, The Jungle, is both a comment on and a product of its own times. Those times most definitely need to be viewed in relation to what happened in the last half of the nineteenth century. This incredible time period saw the making of great industries and great fortunes (for those who were in control of the industries). So far as the relationship between business and government was concerned, it was a time of laissez-faire, where government had very little to do with what business was doing. If as Calvin Coolidge said in the 1920’s, ‘the business of America is business,’ what did this mean for individuals, their rights and expectations? The Jungle appeared in January of 1906. It is completely understandable to me that the reading public responded to details on meat production and plant sanitation instead of the conditions of workingmen or Sinclair’s Socialist message. In turn, The Jungle helped to do something completely different than what the book’s author meant for it to do. The Jungle helped to push the Pure Food and Drug Bill out of a House committee and force president Teddy Roosevelt to jump into action. Roosevelt quickly requested the Department of Agriculture to send an investigating committee and through additional pressure, including Sinclair’s personal appeal, Roosevelt sent in an additional committee (Neill-Reynolds Commission). Also, at the same time a Beef Inspection Act was submitted in the Senate, all of this with Roosevelt’s complete approval. Somehow, when the meat industry found out about all this they were able to get articles published which defended present practices. Since Roosevelt was not able to exert the pressure he himself felt, he released a portion of the Neill-Reynolds report, which basically confirmed the truths of the packinghouse conditions that were depicted in The Jungle. It is my opinion that the fact that The Jungle could cause such a large industry to fight back powerfully attests to its own power as a persuasive medium. Upton Sinclair’s often quoted remark about aiming for the heart and hitting the stomach definitely rings true when reading The Jungle. Most readers mistook it for another muckraking effort, on unsanitary conditions in the packinghouses. If Sinclair had not written the last three of four chapters of the book then it would have read much more like a social protest novel. Most definitely the purpose of The Jungle is to promote socialism as the only answer to the wage slavery enforced by capitalism.

Effect of Presidential Elections on Businesses and Business Leaders

As the saying goes, â€Å"the only thing that is constant in life is change†. If we are not sure of anything, we should be sure of the fact that the outcome of the upcoming presidential election will bring about a change to the American economy. This impact will definitely spread across all sectors of the economy including U. S. businesses and business leaders. The question, however, is what the impacts foreseeable are? I would like to say that the impacts would be dependent on the presidential candidate that wins the election. If we are to go by what they have already highlighted as their plan if elected, Barack Obama winning the election might not be good news for U. S businesses and business leaders alike. In his campaign, he made it clear that his administration would offer tax cut to middleclass families and would definitely increase the tax of CEOs and corporations. If we are to judge from this, we might as well say that while this would be good news to the average American, it is the CEOs and the U. S. businesses who would bare the weight of the tax plan. Apart from this, Obama says he would hold corporations responsible for pensions and work conditions. This might be a back breaker for U. S businesses and business leaders on the whole. On the other hand, if it the election ends with Senator John McCain emerging victorious, then corporations and Business leader should be ready for a favourable tenure. Apart from the fact that Senator McCain promises to cut corporate tax, he claims that his administration would be on the side of U. S businesses and not in their way. He promised to cut corporate tax in order to maintain employment of workers in these corporations and he seems not to be concerned about U. S businesses using their resources to expand in other regions like Senator Obama. If we are judge from this, I think that U. S businesses and business leaders would flourish and expand if He assumes office. Summarily, the crux of the whole thing is that Senator Obama economic plan would favor the middleclass workers while it could be at the detriment of U. S businesses and business leaders. On the other hand, Senator John McCain’s economic plan seems favourable to U. S businesses and business leaders as he sees them as pivotal to keeping the jobs of Americans.

Socrates - 791 Words

In his comedy, Clouds, Aristophanes portrays Socrates as a Sophist: a duplicitous charlatan eager to take peoples money for teaching them to flout the laws and defy moral norms. The conflation of Socrates with the Sophists is based on a superficial similarity between the interests of Socrates and the sophists concerning education and virtue, but which fails to distinguish between the moral relativism of the Sophists and the belief in absolute moral standards held by Socrates (and his puppet-master Plato). The term sophist is derived from the Greek words sophos and sophia which are usually translated as wise and wisdom. The Sophists were itinerant teachers who claimed to teach wisdom; more specifically, Protogoras, one of the†¦show more content†¦As with any talent or skill, this capacity must be developed. Music masters help students develop skills in playing the lyre, while Sophists help students develop skills of citizenship and virtue. Protogoras also points to the role of social pressure in the development of virtue. Furthermore, the very existence of laws presupposes that virtue can be taught: laws provide a positive model for appropriate behavior, and laws operate negatively by punishing inappropriate behavior. According to Protogoras, deterrence rather than retribution is the purpose of the laws, and deterrence is an educational function. Since so much effort, both public and private, isdirected towards the encouragement of virtue, Protogoras declares that the wonder would be if [virtue] were not teachable. (Protogoras 326e). Protogoras arguments evidently did not convince Socrates; virtue and whether or not it could be taught is the central subject of a later dialogue, the Meno. The dialogue opens with Menos question: Can you tell me Socrates, can virtue be taught? Or is it not teachable but the result of practice, or is it neither of these, but men possess it by nature or in some other way? (Meno70a). Socrates replies that he must first know what virtue is before he can answer Menos question. Socrates claims complete ignorance of virtue; furthermore, Socrates has never met anyone who could give an adequate definition of virtue. TheShow MoreRelatedSocrates : The Suicide Of Socrates1405 Words   |  6 PagesSocrates was born in 470 BCE in Athens, Greece. His father was Sophroniscus, a sculptor and stone mason from Athens and his mother was a midwife by the name of Phaenarete (30 Interesting Socrates Facts 2014). Socrates original profession was masonry and sculpting, before becoming a philosopher. On a day in 399 BC, Socrates ( roughly 71 years at the time) went to trial.Now why would anyone want to send an old man to court? Three answer is that Socrates was accused of refusing to recognize theRead MoreSocrates And The Apology Of Socrates1322 Words   |  6 Pages Socrates is quite the unique individual compared to most, if not all, other Greeks at that time. 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