Influence of Music in the Major Religions of Asia

Influence of Music in the Major Religions of Asia Free Online Research Papers â€Å"Music gives us the capacity to express the deepest feelings of the human soul.† Worldwide, music has an important and varied range of application in religious practice. In the major religions of Asia, music is an especially vital part of theology and worship. In India and China, the most prominent religions are Hinduism, Daoism and Buddhism. Hindu religious chant and music are firmly rooted in theological principles of sacred sound. Taoist music is commonly used in the form of simple melodies and peaceful songs to aid in recitations and rituals. In Buddhism, sutras sung as hymns and other songs praising the virtues of the Buddhas have attracted and helped purify the hearts of countless disciples. With such large sects of the continent being members of these religions, it can be determined that music is used in worship and religious settings may affect the way music is played and listened to in the secular world. What does each religion bring to the table in its influence on the music of Asia? Hinduism is the major religion in India. Hindus make up approximately 85 % of the population in India. In Hinduism, music is recognized as a divine art that awards all four aims of human life to both the performer and the listener. These four aims are dharma, artha, Kama, and moksha. Dharma is the aim of righteousness. Artha is the aim of wealth and prosperity. Kama is the aim of enjoyment and moksha is liberation of the ways of the world. Music in Hinduism, from the earliest times was a source of not only moral but also spiritual achievement. The process of learning to play music is comparable to traditional Hindu spiritual discipline. There are 3 key elements to spiritual discipline that relate to music. First is the guru or disciple succession, meaning that one becomes a disciple of what he is learning. Second is vinaya or humility. Third is regular and disciplined practice. Hindu music is called sangeet and is associated with heavenly singers called Ghandharvas. The oldest Hindu musical texts were called Sana Veda, which had melodies that were used to in reciting hymns. Today music in Hindu worship consists of bhajan (hymns) and kirtan (chanting of mantras). Instruments used commonly in Hindu worship are drums (tabla and mridangas), the manjira (small hand cymbals), and the harmonium. Flute, vina, and sitar are also used in worship music. Predominantly, music heard on radios in India is â€Å"cine music†, or Indian pop music. A majority of these songs are from hit movies, and most movies in India are musicals. Songs from these musicals are a bizarre blend of eastern and western music. Characteristically, they involve choppy, hyperactive melodies, built around oriental scales, with a nasal singer. The rhythms sometimes are Latin, and the accompaniment can include trap set, organs, guitars, violins, bongos, traditional sitar and tabla, bamboo flute, and xylophones. Folk musicians and street performers play music that can be traditional folk music, like snake charmers using punjis or a gourd and reed bagpipe, or, it can have a slight western influence, using western instruments and ideas. Generally, all other music is connected with forms of worship. Seemingly, Indian music for worship and popular music doesn’t overlap. Principally, Hindu beliefs disagree with some forms of modern and popular music, esp ecially where western music is concerned. Daoism, or Taoism, is commonly practiced in China, and usually, if one is not Buddhist, then he is likely to be Taoist. Music in Daoism is said to reflect the pursuit of longevity and noninterference, which are two important principles of the Taoist belief. Melodies are solemn and peaceful, as well as seclusive and serene, as to exaggerate the religious atmosphere. Mostly Taoist music is calming and sets the mood and mindset for worship. Each day there are drum calls for morning and evening rituals. Music that is performed in both the morning and evening ritual is called pure and clear tune. It is performed to accompany recitation of scriptures. Its purpose is to purify the mind in preparation for cultivation of the scriptures. Other than everyday ritual, music is primarily used in Taoist worship for the praise of immortals and gods, praying for the blessing of the gods, releasing purgatory of the departed and practicing ascetics. Taoist music has undergone much change over the centuries. Music in Daoism was first utilized in the Southern and Northern Dynasties of China (420-589 CE). Original percussion used in worship included an L-shaped musical stone, bells, and drums. By the Five Dynasties period (907-1279 CE), wind and plucked instruments were added to the mix. During the Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE) string music was added to worship. With the Qing Dynasty (1368-1644 CE), Taoist music was standardized by imperial orders. Generally Taoist music today consists of two parts: vocal music and instrumental music. Vocal music can include vocal solos as well as unison singing. Instrumental music includes solo instruments as well as group playing. Both vocal and instrumental music is used as accompaniment to recitations as well as rituals and calls to worship. Buddhism is the largest religious sect of not only China but a large number of India’s population also practices Buddhism. Music is a large part of Buddhist teaching. In the Amitabha Sutra, nature sings its own melodies and harmonies with the breeze, and heavenly singing and chanting can be heard day and night. Buddhists believe that when one hears these sounds they become mindful of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. In Buddhism, sutras are sing as hymns and other songs are sung to praise the virtues of the Buddhas. Seemingly these songs have brought forth and purified many disciples of the Buddha. Buddhist believe that beautiful music will soften people’s hearts and in return, their minds are more receptive and easier to educate and transform. Therefore, music has been brought forth as a type of ceremonial offering made to the Buddha. Also, music is used in various forms for ceremonies including weddings and funerals. Buddhist music has undergone much development as it spread throughout Asia. From earliest times in India, Buddhist music began to include copper gongs, drums, flutes, conch horns and harps in its ceremonial music. When Buddhism was first introduced in China, focus was mainly on the translation between languages. This hindered the use of traditional hymns of India Buddhism. Consequently, monastics recomposed and adapted folk songs and court songs for royalty to create a Chinese Buddhist musical tradition. Today, traditional Buddhist hymns are performed alongside traditional Chinese music, as well as popular and western types of music like orchestras and small ensembles. China is the most populous country on the Earth with 1.3 billion people. For most of its history, China has been ruled by dynasties. Music has been regarded as an important part of political life, as it can be used to reflect and influence their ideals on Chinese order. When China came under the Nationalist Party, music was a key component of the reformation of Chinese social and cultural life. Mostly China has a kept a clear line between yayue, which is refined and elegant art music of the court and rituals, and suyue, common entertainment and folk music. Religious music, however, has proponents of each type of music, which makes it a common bond between the two aspects of Chinese music. Generally religious music does not affect the way mainstream music is played and listened to. Rather, the Buddhists and Taoists use influences of modern and mainstream music in their religious practice and rituals to attract and appeal new believers. Venerable Master Taixu of the Buddhist religion once said â€Å"Music gives the people of a society a means by which they can better communicate their moods and feelings with each other†¦For society to achieve some degree of integration, it is essential to be able to communicate and understand each other’s moods and feelings and as a result establish a sense of unity. This is one of the important functions of music.† Music today, either in religious or secular settings, undoubtedly influences the way people live their lives in Asia. Many achieve a balance between music of both worlds and, in return, reap the benefits of entertainment and spiritual comforts. Music is an important means by which Indian and Chinese peoples convey thoughts, beliefs, principles and feelings. Master Taixu also said â€Å"The capacity of music to capture people’s attention, touch then deeply, and tug at their heartstrings makes it one of the most beautiful forms of human expressions.† Research Papers on Influence of Music in the Major Religions of AsiaHip-Hop is ArtWhere Wild and West MeetCanaanite Influence on the Early Israelite ReligionPETSTEL analysis of IndiaAnalysis Of A Cosmetics AdvertisementGenetic EngineeringRelationship between Media Coverage and Social andMoral and Ethical Issues in Hiring New EmployeesThe Masque of the Red Death Room meaningsBringing Democracy to Africa

Standard State Conditions of Temperature and Pressure

Standard State Conditions of Temperature and Pressure Values of thermodynamic quantities are commonly expressed for standard state conditions, so it is a good idea to understand what the standard state conditions are. A superscript circle is used to denote a thermodynamic quantity that is under standard state conditions: ΔH ΔH °ÃŽâ€S ΔS °ÃŽâ€G ΔG ° Standard State Conditions Certain assumptions apply to standard state conditions. Standard temperature and pressure commonly is abbreviated as STP. The standard state temperature is 25 °C (298 K). It is possible to calculate standard state values for other temperatures.All liquids are pure.The concentration of all solutions is 1 M (1 molar).All gases are pure.All gases are at 1 atm pressure.The energy of formation of an element in its normal state is defined as zero. Sources International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (1982). Notation for states and processes, significance of the word standard in chemical thermodynamics, and remarks on commonly tabulated forms of thermodynamic functions. Pure Appl. Chem. 54 (6): 1239–50. doi:10.1351/pac198254061239UPAC–IUB–IUPAB Interunion Commission of Biothermodynamics (1976). Recommendations for measurement and presentation of biochemical equilibrium data. J. Biol. Chem. 251 (22): 6879–85.

Trip to Mexico Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Trip to Mexico - Research Paper Example The researcher states that Mexico is widely known as a suitable destination for those who want to immerse in ancient civilization, relax in pristine beaches, and indulge in its rich history. As a tourist, the researcher desire to know Mexico through its culture, history, music, food, and art, so he decided to visit Guadalaraja, Jalisco and Yucatan. The researcher plans to first visit Guadalajara, Jalisco, which features Mexico’s prominent traditions such as the mariachi music, tequila, and charros (â€Å"Guadalajara†). The researcher wants to roam around Guadalajara’s cathedral, which houses the mural of Bartolome Esteban Murrillo entitled â€Å"The Assumption of the blessed Virgin† and the second largest organ in the argon (â€Å"Guadalajara†). As an architecture enthusiast, it would be very exciting for me to witness the mix architectural styles in the Guadalajara’s Cathedral. The presence of numerous museums and theaters in the city will s urely enable me to grasp the history of the country. The researcher’s second destination would be the Chichen-Itza in Yucatan. Mexico boasts rich culture and tradition even before the Spaniards came into the country. Chichen-Itza is deemed by many as the most significant archaeological remnant of Maya-Toltex civilization. The researcher wants to walk in the cobblestone once walked by Toltecs and Putun Maya. I desire to witness the temples and ruins, which are the masterpieces of the Mesoamerican architecture. Then, the researcher plans to relax in the pristine beach of Maya Riviera. His trip to Mexico would not be complete without indulging its natural wonders. I plan to visit Mexico on May 5 to 10 as it’s a period suitable for tourists who want low accommodation prices and discounts as low season begins after Easter and ends at mid-December (â€Å"When to Go†). I found a website named explor-guadalajara.com that tackles the must-see places in Guadalajara such a s the cathedral, Teotro Degollado and the like. Meanwhile, whs.unesco.org presents information about the city of Chichen-Itza. Works Cited Baird, David. Frommer’s Cancus, Conzumel, and the Yucatan 2010. New Jersey: Frommer’s, 2009. Print. Guadalajara. Wiki travel. Web. 2012. When to Go to Mexico. Dummies.com. Web. 2012. 2.0 Annotated Bibliography Baird, David. Frommer’s Cancus, Conzumel, and the Yucatan 2010. New Jersey: Frommer’s, 2009. Print. The author has lived in various parts of Mexico for several years. Thus, he possesses an extensive knowledge about historical places in Mexico and its must-see places. A part of the book has tackled on the ruins of the Chichen-Itza. It highlights the monuments, temples, and plazas that will greet modern day visitors. In addition, it briefly tackled on dwellers of the ancient sites. It offers information that helps me appreciate the Chichen-Itza, the ancient civilization, and Mexico. This book, which is available at google books, caters to needs of tourists and college students. It provides relevant and current information; thus, I will give it a CRAAP score of 7. Chichen-Itza. National Geographic. Web. 2012. National Geographic is a database, which presents numerous articles about different topics. It provided information about the history of Chichen Itza. It specifically presented interesting information on the importance and accuracy of Mayan astronomy. The ancient Mayan exhibited its advanced astronomical skills through accurately predicting solar eclipses. In addition, the article highlighted the ancient tradition of sacrificing young women to the Mayan rain god. This article presents interesting information that makes me more excited in visiting Chichen Itza. This article can be found through google search. It provides helpful information for tourist, college students, and lay-person. Thus, I will give it 7 CRAAP score for its relevance and accuracy. Howells, John, and Don Merwin. Choose Mexico for Retirement: Information For Travel, Retirement, Investment, and Affordable Living. US: Globe Pequot, 2007. Print. John Howells has co-authored and authored nine travel-retirement books. He is residing at Pacific

Vodafone Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Vodafone - Essay Example Vodafone is a mobile system operator whose headquarter is in Newbury, England. It has been credited for being the biggest telecommunications network company all over the world with a market worth of close to hundred billion pounds. Currently, this company has equity benefit in twenty-five countries and associate network in forty-one countries. Vodafone’s current strategy in business is to develop through geographic extension, maintenance of present customers, attainment of fresh customers, and increase usage through technological innovation (McLoughlin and Aaker, 2010: 111). Vodafone’s results presented by the CEO on 19th May 2009 left everyone unimpressed. Before this report, it had been expected that the group would see free cash flow, increases in revenue, and adjusted profits (McLoughlin and Aaker, 2010: 111). Colao had been appointed as the CEO in July 2008with the intention that the company’s performance would boost significantly. Colao is currently employing strategies to improve Vodafone’s performance in the future. He intends to reduce costs by 1 billion dollars by the end of 2011. One of the current strategic issues is a revenue-boosting factor. This shall be guided by a push indented to convince more customers to purchase mobiles competent of linking to the internet (McLoughlin and Aaker, 2010: 111). A further strategy by the CEO is to trade telecoms services to other companies. There is a further strategy involving expansion of services to other countries. A resource based analysis of Vodafone involves an investigation of the capabilities and resources that results to its strengths and weaknesses. For a careful analysis of Vodafone’s current strategy, some essential issues affecting the company both externally and internally need to be examined. Some of these issues include political factors, infrastructure, economic factors, social-cultural factors,

US Electoral Process Essay Example for Free

US Electoral Process Essay One may be surprised to realize that in the elections of 1876, 1888 and 2000, the candidates who won the nationwide popular vote went on to lose the United States Presidential vote. This may cause one to doubt whether the electoral process is indeed democratic. ‘Democracy’ was derived from the Greek word ‘demos’ defined basically as the government in which the supreme power is vested in the people or simply as President Abraham Lincoln defined it; the government of the people, by the people, for the people. Therefore, if popular candidates are forced by the system to be the losers, the electoral process of the United States undermines democracy. Mayors, Senators and members of the House of Representatives are voted in directly by the people; but the problem arises in the presidential elections where the people vote for the ‘elector’ who has pledged to represent a certain candidate. Each state chooses a number of representatives that are referred to as the Electoral College; the number being stated in the constitution and determined by the population of each state. A good example is California that has 55 electoral votes while Utah has only five. In many States, if one wins the popular vote, he or she is assigned all the delegates even though he has worn by only one vote. This is ridiculous! However, few states allocate delegates to presidential candidates proportional to the popular vote that they get. This means that a presidential candidate can win in many of the smaller States but get less votes than the winning candidate in the States with more delegates. Therefore, in the overall count he or she will lose. This explains why Al Gore lost to President George Walker Bush though the former had won the popular vote in the year 2000. When a Gallup poll was conducted later, 83% of those interviewed said that they never accepted Bush as the legitimate president. The other short fall with the process is that while the President and the Vice President rule for four years, Congressmen serve for two years and Senators for six. This means that much money and time is lost in the election period. The President and the Vice President, just like the other leaders should be voted in directly by the people . The candidate who gets the majority votes becomes the President with his or her running mate becoming the Vice president. The terms of service for all the political leaders should expire after the same duration. This would mean that elections are held on the same day, saving much money used for the purchase ballot materials and the hiring of election officers every time the elections are held. Time used in voting will also be saved, as people will vote for all leaders at the same time.

An Analysis of Lilith (Bodys Beauty) :: Lilith Essays

An Analysis of Lilith (Body's Beauty) First published in 1868 in Swinburne's pamphlet-review, "Notes on the Royal Academy Exhibition," the sonnet entitled "Lilith" was written to accompany the painting "Lady Lilith." The poem and picture appeared alongside Rossetti's painting "Sibylla Palmifera" and the sonnet "Soul's Beauty," which was written for it. In 1870, both of these poems were published among the "Sonnets for Pictures" section of Rossetti's Poems. In 1881, however, "it occurred to Rossetti to contrast the two as representatives of fleshly and spiritual beauty," and thus he transferred them to "The House of Life" (Baum 181). The Lilith sonnet was then renamed "Body's Beauty" in order to highlight the contrast between it and "Soul's Beauty," and the two were placed sequentially in "The House of Life" (sonnets number 77 and 78). Because Rossetti originally named the sonnet "Lilith" and only changed the name to highlight the contrast between it and "Soul's Beauty," this study will refer to it by its original name. "Lilith" reads as follows: Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,) That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive, And her enchanted hair was the first gold. And still she sits, young while the earth is old, And, subtly of herself contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave, Till heart and body and life are in its hold. The rose and poppy are her flower; for where Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare? Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent And round his heart one strangling golden hair. (Collected Works, 216). Much like "Lady Lilith," "Lilith" celebrates the pleasures of physicality. As an enchantress, she "draws men to watch the bright web she can weave," but she does not invite them to be mere voyeurs of her charms (line 7). Instead, she invites them to her and then ensnares them in her "web" of physical beauty, ultimately causing their death (line 8). "Subtly of herself contemplative," a phrase echoing Pater's famous description of the "Mona Lisa," highlights Lilith's attitude of "voluptuous self applause," an attitude which was so visually apparent in Rossetti's painting (Baum 185).

An Argument on Education Essay

Abstract Education is important to have with today’s economy in the shape that it is in. However, there are different ways that people define education. Some people believe that to be considered well educated they need to have the top education in the United States, the highest GPA, and the highest standardized testing scores! I firmly believe that your knowledge first comes from the Lord and that he will bless you in whatever area he has for you! There are many examples that we can use to see both sides and not just judging someone as well educated only through grades ad excellence in school. An Argument on Education Education is important for everyone to have growing up if they want to make it by in today’s modern world. However, everyone seems to determine how well educated someone else is in a different ways such as: their test scores, papers that they write, their grade point average, and their knowledge of knowing how to do things. In Alfrie Kohn’s Article (2003), â€Å"What does it mean to be well –educated† he cites a quote from an Alred Whitehead stating, â€Å"A merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on God’s earth. . .  . Scraps of information† are only worth something if they are put to use, or at least â€Å"thrown into fresh combinations. † There are parts of this quote that I agree and disagree on. I agree with Alred saying that men on this earth that just have bits and pieces of information are useless unless it can relate to their job that gets them by. Acquiring knowledge isn’t a bad thing, its just not always needed. I only disagree because I believe that if someone does know a large amount that it is not pointless, it just should not determine whether or not they are educated or not. Throughout the years I have had the chance to be in school I have learned and observed much through my own personal experiences as well as being surrounded by my peers at school and at home. Personally, I am one of those students who can learn the material I am asked to learn but when it comes to taking tests I freeze up and get extremely anxious, which allows me to do poorly on the tests. I had extremely low SAT scores and low-test scores from any big test, but I was also an honor graduate and gradated in the top one hundred out of six hundred students. Many people would consider me uneducated just because of low standardized tests when they do not think of other factors that could reason for why I get low scores. High-test scores alone and high GPA’s cannot determine whether or not someone is well educated. At the beginning of Alfrie Kohn’s article he gives a superior example of this by telling us that his wife who went to Harvard and does not even know her math or English well. â€Å"She will, however, freeze up if you ask her what 8 times 7 is, because she never learned the multiplication table. And forget about grammar (â€Å"Me and him went over her house today† is fairly typical) or literature (â€Å"Who’s Faulkner? †). Harvard is known as One of the top prestigious school in America, and because of that most people would assume that who ever goes to that school is well educated. This is example is similar to how it is with anything but what people do not realize is some of the world’s well-educated people did not even graduate from high school. I believe that being well educated means being able to put what you know to use and being able to use that knowledge to glorify the one who created me. As a strong believer in Christ, I believe my relationship with God and spreading his word is more important than knowledge. However, that does not mean that I believe a person should be uneducated. I believe that if given the opportunity to learn we should not take it for granted and that we should bring glory to God through it. I just believe that at the end of your days that God does not care about what degree you have in your hand but he cares about how you lived your life for him. â€Å"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. 11 For by me your days will be multiplied, and years will be added to your life† (Proverbs 9:10-11). Our good lord explains that education is first gained through God himself and that your purpose is to live solely for him. Gaining knowledge in Christ is the most important first and he will Bless you in every other area in your life that he feels you need. However, I do believe that getting a degree in something that God is calling you to do. For me, God is calling me to be a missionary Nurse overseas. I know in order to do that I have to get an education on how to be a Nurse in order to carryout God’s will for my life. Most people believe that you need to go to a good school to be considered well educated. I was going to a community college back at home and was learning much when people were questioning why I was going to a community college and that I could get a better education at a different college or university that was away from home. Alfrie Kohn’s wife attended Harvard and still did not know her multiplication tables and wasn’t good at grammar or literature. I believe this is a good example to my previous statement about how it shouldn’t matter what school you go to and that it should not determine how well educated he or she is just because of the title the school has. Everyone has his or her own view on what they believe is a well-educated person, but I feel as if not everyone looks at every viewpoint. They just go off what they know and what first comes to mind. Today because of the way our economy is set up people believe that the only way someone can be considered well educated is if they go to a college to further their degree. There are other ways that someone can get jobs such as enlisting in the military or even through taking over a family-owned business. Determining whether or not someone is educated through tests, and by what schools he or she attended is absurd. You can see that from taking a glance at the people in the world that are huge successes to back that statement up. If we determined whether or not someone was well educated by whether or not he or she graduated college than something is wrong. Bill Gates is a wonderful example because if it were not for him then a lot of today’s popular gadgets such as the Mac Books, iPhones, and iPods would not exist today. He is an intelligent man and has brought on huge changes in todays society. It is not our place to judge who is and who is not educated based on these assumptions References Kohn, Alfie. â€Å"What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated?. † Alfie Kohn author teacher lecturer www. alfiekohn. org. N. p. , n. d. Web. 2 Feb. 2012. . â€Å"Proverbs 9:10-11 ESV – The fear of the LORD is the beginning – Bible Gateway. † BibleGateway. com: A searchable online Bible in over 100 versions and 50 languages.. N. p. , n. d. Web. 4 Feb. 2012. . Outline 1. What does it mean to be well educated? * Definition * Articles definition * Personal definition 2. Test scores * Personal grades to back up statement * Quote insert from article * Wife from Harvard 3. Educated * Other ways to be educated 4. Knowledge thru Christ * Proverbs 9:10-11 * Living for Christ first * Honoring his will for out lives 5. Well-educated. * Bill Gates (Did not graduate high school and was still successful) Thesis Education is important for everyone to have growing up if they want to make it by in today’s modern world. However, everyone seems to determine how well educated someone else is in a different ways such as: their test scores, papers that they write, their grade point average, and their overall knowledge of knowing how to do things. In Alfrie Kohn’s Article (2003), â€Å"What does it mean to be well –educated† he cites a quote from a Alred Whitehead stating, â€Å"A merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on.

More Machine Now Than Man

Laura Frost, in her essay â€Å"Huxley's Feelies: The Cinema of Sensation in Brave New World,† states that â€Å"Brave New World has typically been read as â€Å"the classic denunciation of mass culture in the interwar years†Ã¢â‚¬  (Frost 448). This is true to an extent, as Frost points out. The novel explores the effects of mass culture and the implementation of eugenics and mass education to serve an industrialized society of consumption. Aspects of culture, such as the arts, have been reduced to pleasure seeking, and the population as a whole is kept within the machine of culture by means of pharmaceuticals.Much of this vision is drawn from Huxley’s experiences during the interwar period and for that reason, an exploration of his reactions to mass culture and his philosophy of culture prove useful in understanding the novel. This essay will be exploring Brave New World according to Huxley’s reactions to the culture of the 1920s and the early 1930s, es pecially to aspects of mass culture, consumerism and scientific and technological approaches to human growth and reproduction.Huxley wrote a number of essays in the late 1920s and early 1930s that deal with these issues and several of these serve as the primary focus of this essay. â€Å"Prophecies of the future,† writes Huxley in a 1927 essay, â€Å"if they are to be intelligent, not merely fantastic, must be based on a study of the present. The future is the present projected† (â€Å"The Outlook for American Culture† 187). This sentiment must be taken to heart if one is then to read a prophetic book by the author of the quote.Aldous Huxley was living and writing during the so-called â€Å"Jazz Age,† an age of increasing commercialism, consumerism and mechanization. The age saw a massive boost in the production of consumer goods and technologies, idealized in the streamlined assembly lines of Henry Ford, which provided goods for consumption, but demanded a larger worker class to fuel the boom. The further development of mass culture, thanks to the growth of music and film industries, was spurned by this growth in the working classes. Aldous Huxley’s novel is, at least to a degree, a product of this present.Consumerism and materialism are central to Brave New World; any work that features Henry Ford as a god figure would surely have to be. Huxley writes in 1931: The God of Industry supplies his worshipers with objects and can only exist on condition that his gifts are gratefully accepted. In the eyes of an Industriolater, the first duty of man is to collect as many objects as he can (â€Å"On the Charms of History† 131). Huxley acknowledges that capitalists and industrialists need people to want the stuff produced.He argues that Ford, to whom Huxley refers rather sarcastically as â€Å"the saint of the new dispensation,† and other industrialists have no choice but to hate history, literature, the arts and others because all these â€Å"mental activities†¦ distract mankind from an acquisitive interest in objects† (131-132). The Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning in the opening section of the novel speaks of how mental activities in the lower classes, in this case a Romantic notion of nature, are discouraged in the hyper-consumerist society in Brave New World: A love of Nature keeps no factories busy.It was decided to abolish the love of nature, at any rate among the lower classes; to abolish the love of nature but not the tendency to consume transport†¦ We condition the masses to hate the country†¦ but simultaneously we condition them to love all country sports. At the same time we see to it that all country sports shall entail the use of elaborate apparatus. So that they consume manufactured articles as well as transport (23). The goal in the society of the novel is to adhere to what Huxley argues is the first duty of man to industrialists, owning and using the g oods produced by industry.Every aspect of the World State is crafted to maintain production and/or to encourage consumption. Those aspects of culture that occupy surplus time, the time spent not producing, have two functions: the consumption of material or the sedation or comforting of the producer so that he or she will continue to produce. The latter function is expressed by the Twentieth-Century theorist, Theodore Adorno. Shane Gunster, in his book Capitalizing on Culture: Critical Theory  for Cultural Studies, summarizes Adorno’s theory involving this idea of â€Å"free-time† Bored by the endless repetition of the assembly line or sales counter, people want novelty in their leisure time†¦ While leisure masquerades as ‘free-time,’ it is an open secret that its true purpose is to replenish one’s working energies†¦Work and leisure are bound together in an unholy alliance: the culture industry openly celebrates its independence from prod uction, selling its products as ‘freedom’ from the drudgery of the everyday, all the while secretly delivering its consumers ever-deeper into the clutches of a world from which they so anxiously desire to escape (Gunster 42-43). This theory of the â€Å"culture industry,† feeding the consumer with entertainment during free-time so that the work will not suffer, is the driving force behind the Fordian culture that Huxley writes about in the 1920s and 30s and satirizes in Brave New World .Adorno, whose major works were not written until the Second World War, is analyzing a reality of mechanized society and mass culture that Huxley wrote of years before. As a writer during the â€Å"Jazz Age,† Huxley would bear witness to the rise of commercial music as the record industry created a popular music that Huxley viewed in a negative light.In a 1925 essay on music, Huxley describes a piece of popular music: There is a certain jovial, bouncing, hoppety little tune with which any one who has spent even a few weeks in Germany†¦ must be familiar. Its name is â€Å"Ach, du lieber Augustin. † It is a merry little affair in three-four time; in rhythm and melody so simple, that the village idiot could sing it after a first hearing; in sentiment so innocent that the heart of the most susceptible maiden would not quicken by a beat a minute at the sound of it. Rum-tiddle, Um tum tum, Um tum tum†¦ By the very frankness of its cheerful imbecility the thing disarms all criticism. (Collected Essays 173) Huxley finds this example of popular music simplistic and moronic, not even worth a real critique.He continues on the subject by comparing the tune to an eighteenth-century waltz of the same name and to all music prior to the mid-Nineteenth century: The difference between â€Å"Ach, du lieber Augustin† and any waltz composed at any date from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards, is the difference between one piece of music al most completely empty of emotional content and another, densely saturated with amorous sentiment, languor and voluptuousness. (173) Huxley then expands his critique to criticize all contemporary popular music as lacking the meaningful emotional content that was, he feels, characteristic of all pre-mid-nineteenth-century popular music.In his essay â€Å"The Music Industry,† published in 1933, the year after Brave New World’s publication, Huxley writes about the short life-span of popular music and declares his era as â€Å"an age of rapid technical progress, and the desire for incessant novelty is a natural product of environmental change† and adds that the tendency for novelty increases consumption and is therefore, â€Å"encouraged by manufacturers† (â€Å"The Music Industry† 101). The music show that Lenina and Henry attend towards the beginning of the novel echoes Huxley’s fears from â€Å"The Music Industry† regarding the need for novelty in popular culture. The advertisements for the show â€Å"invitingly† declare it, in all-capital letters, â€Å"LONDON’S FINEST SCENT AND COLOR ORGAN. ALL THE LATEST SYNTHETIC MUSIC† (BNW 76).There is an emphasis placed on the â€Å"latest,† favoring that novelty which fuels consumption. Again there is an echo in Adorno.Gunster looks at an essay Adorno published titled â€Å"On Popular Music†: On the one hand, he argues, the ‘fundamental’ property of popular music is that it is unremittingly standardized: ‘every detail is substitutable; it serves its function only as a cog in a machine’†¦ On the other hand, marketability demands that repetition be hidden beneath the illusion of individuality, difference, and novelty (Gunster 24). Adorno’s â€Å"culture industry† is again reflected in the popular music. His descriptions of popular music are very similar to way Huxley describes popular music as si mplistic and standardized. Likewise, both acknowledge that the culture industry markets its goods to consumers based on supposed novelty.Within Brave New World, Huxley’s critique of popular music comes through in his descriptions of the music of the World State. The music, like the example song Huxley described from Germany in 1925, is cheerful, with simple, formulaic, verses and chorus reeling with meaningless phrases and clichà ©. An excellent example of this is the Solidarity Hymn of â€Å"Orgy-porgy† Orgy porgy, Ford and fun, Kiss the girls and make them One. Boys at one with girls at peace; Orgy-porgy gives release. (BNW 84) This song not only contains little real meaning, a critique that Huxley aims at all popular music, but also contains, as most music in the novel does, strong sexuality.In that same essay on popular music, Huxley is critical of what he calls a â€Å"certain vibrant sexuality† of popular music describing it as â€Å"vulgar,† †Å"savage† and â€Å"barbaric† (Collected Essays 174-175) and maintains that the sexuality and barbarism are pervasive: Whether, having grown inured to such violent and purely physiological stimuli as the clashing and drumming, the rhythmic throbbing and wailing glissandos of modern jazz music can supply, the world will ever revert to something less crudely direct, is a matter about which one cannot prophesy. (175)This description of the clashing drums and glissandos certainly is echoed in the scene wherein Lenina and Henry watch â€Å"Calvin Stopes and His Sixteen Sexaphonists† with the sexaphones (clearly a play on one of staples of jazz music, the saxophone) â€Å"wail[ing] like melodious cats† with moaning tenors and altos â€Å"as though the little death were upon them. † (BNW 76). The implication is that of sex and orgasm in music form: Aldous Huxley’s vision of jazz music taken to the extreme of â€Å"purely physiological. † This critique of mass music is also repeated in a supposed alternative to mass culture, the â€Å"Savage Reservation.†Huxley, at the time of writing the novel, had never been to New Mexico, in spite of the fact that his friend D. H. Lawrence owned a ranch there beginning in 1924. Peter Firchow, in his essay â€Å"Wells and Lawrence in Brave New World† writes that the fact troubled Huxley, but quotes the author as having done â€Å"’an enormous [amount] of reading up on New Mexico’† since he had not yet been there (Firchow 272). Huxley relied on Lawrence’s writings about the Pueblo Indians as well as Smithsonian reports of the place (Firchow 272-273). In spite of of his relative inexperience with historical New Mexican native cultures, Huxley creates a culture for the Pueblo and, in doing so, creates one that is at times incredibly similar to World State.Lenina draws comparison between the drums of the Pueblo religious dancing to the music of the Solidarity Service hymns in the World States â€Å"religion† of Fordism. Lenina liked the drums. Shutting her eyes she abandoned herself to their soft repeated thunder, allowed it to invade her consciousness more and more completely, till at last there was nothing left in the world but that one deep pulse of sound. It reminded her reassuringly of the synthetic noises made at Solidarity Services and Ford’s Day celebrations. â€Å"Orgy-porgy,† she whispered to herself. The drums beat out just the same rhythms (BNW 113). Here we have a sexual response to music as Lenina abandons herself and allows the music to take her, in spite of it coming from a foreign place and culture.The drums here are strikingly reminiscent of the way that Huxley describes the Jazz and popular music of the 1920s. He talks about how popular culture has â€Å"grown inured to such violent and purely physiological stimuli as the clashing and drumming† and this he attributes to the influ ence of â€Å"barbarous people† (Collected Essays 175). By supplying the Indians and the mass culture of the world state with similar music, music that Huxley himself finds void of real emotion, he is equating the two cultures intellectually. The Reservation within Huxley’s novel becomes a mirror to the World State culture, an echo of Huxley’s fear of growing barbarism in popular culture. There are some points of contrast between the two.For instance, materials in the reservation are made by the individuals and are valued enough to be repaired rather than replaced as is the expectation in the World State when, say, an article of clothing becomes worn out. There is a passage on labor wherein John is working clay and through this action he becomes â€Å"filled with an intense, absorbing happiness† (BNW 134). However, these differences are superficial. There is still a value placed on productivity just as in the World State.John is made happier and feels mor e a part of his culture when he is allowed to work the clay. Just as the World State has the Community sings to promote â€Å"Community, Identity and Stability†, religion of the pueblo serves a function for productivity. John explains the whippings that Lenina and Bernard witness as being â€Å"For the sake of the pueblo – to make rain come and corn grow.†Adherence to religion provides Stability and Community for the Indians. To further the comparison between the Savage culture and the World State, Huxley gives the Indians their own drug, mescal, to help cope with life just as soma does the job for the World State citizens. Similarly, John’s position within, or rather without, the Pueblo society is similar to Bernard’s position within the World State culture. Both are outcasts for their appearances and therefore both seem more alone than the others; â€Å"If one’s different, one’s bound to be lonely. They’re beastly to oneâ₠¬  (137). This mentality mirrors the values of Community and Identity contained within the World State’s motto.Identify as an individual and you are hurting the community; â€Å"when the individual feels, the community reels† is what Lenina recites, which is most likely some hypnopaedic verse (94). These characteristics, exemplified most clearly by the music of the two cultures, show that the reservation society is not a true alternative to the degradation of culture prevalent in the World State; it is just many of the same processes in a different form and to a different extent. A second form of mass culture within the World State is the â€Å"feelies. † Laura asserts that â€Å"[t]he ‘feelies’, a cinema of titillating, pansensual stimulation, are clearly a response to the ‘talkies,’† and that Huxley is extending the inclusion of sound in film to the rest of the senses (Frost 447).Huxley’s reaction to the â€Å"talkies, † specifically to the first â€Å"talkie† The Jazz Singer, expressed in an essay titled â€Å"Silence is Golden† is, as Frost points out, one of â€Å"scorn and fury† (Frost 443). He is absolutely disgusted by the film as he writes: Oh, those mammy-songs, those love-longings, those loud hilarities! How was it possible that human emotions intrinsically decent could be so ignobly parodied? I felt like a man who, having asked for wine, is offered a brimming bowl of hog wash. And not even fresh hog wash. Rancid hog wash, decaying hog wash. (â€Å"Silence is Golden† 21) He sees in film the same degeneration of human emotion and integrity that he sees in popular music.That the first â€Å"talkie† he saw was about a singer of popular music only solidified his dislike and in the end he feels â€Å"ashamed for [himself] for listening to such things, for even being a member of the species to which these things are addressed† (â€Å"Silence is G olden 23). The feelies in Brave New World are described in similar fashion as Huxley’s description of The Jazz Singer. The film that John and Lenina see, â€Å"Three Weeks in a Helicopter,† is described as having an â€Å"extremely simple† plot, with the real focus placed on the effects of the movie, as with the â€Å"famous bearskin†¦ every hair of which could be separately and distinctly felt† (168).The images and effects come off as â€Å"more solid-looking than they would have seemed in actual flesh and blood, far more real than reality† just as Huxley, whose vision had worsened following an eye infection during his teenage years, described the images in the â€Å"talkie† A beneficent providence has dimmed my powers of sight, so that, at a distance of more than four or five yards, I am blissfully unaware of the average human countenance. At the cinema, however, there is no escape†¦ Nothing short of total blindness can preserve one from the spectacle. The jazzers were forced on me; I regarded them with fascinated horror. (â€Å"Silence is Golden† 21) â€Å"More solid-looking† than real life is exactly the reaction Huxley had to seeing the film, since the real world was not that solid to him because of his impaired vision.Frost accepts that Huxley is at least â€Å"half feigning† his reactions to the films (Frost 443) but she points to a moment in Huxley’s â€Å"Silence is Golden† when he condemns film as â€Å"the latest and most frightful creation-saving device for the production of standardized amusement† (â€Å"Silence† 20). The standardization of amusement is what frightens Huxley, be it in music or film or in literature. In his fictionalized culture, these devices for amusement standardization are taken to the extremes. They are â€Å"more than human,† more real than reality at the same time that they are void of substance. The subject of substan ce within art is brought to the foreground in the conversation between John and Mustafa Mond in the later parts of Brave New World. The Controller argues, â€Å"You’ve got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art,† and he concludes â€Å"We’ve sacrificed the high arts.We have the feelies and the scent organ instead† (BNW 220). There is a hierarchy wherein pleasure replaces the need for aesthetics. John responds by stating that the â€Å"feelies† and the other elements of mass culture in the World State do not mean anything. Mond then replies that these things â€Å"mean a lot of agreeable sensations to the audience† (221). The feelies are horrifying to John because the end result is not knowledge of the human condition, but rather pleasure seeking. And in the world of hyper-pleasure, it is difficult to find anything on which to base meaningful art. That is the problem Helmholtz Watson struggles with: â€Å"writing w hen there’s nothing to say† (221).In an essay from 1923, Huxley writes â€Å"The poetry of pure sensation, of sounds and bright colors, is common enough nowadays; but amusing as we may find it for the moment, it cannot hold the interest for long† (Collected Essays 93). One can easily draw comparison to the â€Å"feelies† and the music of the World State here as something that amuses but that fails to, as John or even Mustafa Mond might say, mean anything beyond itself. The inclusion of Helmholtz Watson brings up another issue of mass culture, namely the place, if there is one, for the intellectual or the artist within mass culture.Towards the end of the novel, Bernard and Helmholtz are to be sent to an island. Mustafa Mond speaks of Bernard’s fate He’s being sent to an island. That’s to say, he’s being sent to a place where he’ll meet the most interesting set of men and women to be found anywhere in the world.All the peop le who, for one reason or another, have got too self-consciously individual to fit into community-life. All the people who aren’t satisfied with orthodoxy, who’ve got independent ideas of their own. Every one, in a word, who’s any one (BNW 227). This is a clear separation between the intellectual free-thinkers and the mass population. As Mond points out, there is no room in the World State for individuality and the search for truth and meaning since â€Å"truth’s a menace. † He concludes by adding that Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can’t (228).In the movement towards mass culture, artists and intellectuals, like the aspiring poet Helmholtz Watson, and individualists have no place. In a 1929 essay Huxley raises this question of the possibility for the individual in a mechanized state Is it possible for a human being to be both a man and a citizen of a mechanized state? Is it possible to combine the material advantages which accrue to those living in a mechanized world with the psychological advantages enjoyed by those who live in pre-mechanical surroundings? Such are the questions which future politicians will have to ask and effectively answer in terms of laws and regulations. What sort of answers will they give? Who knows? Not I at any rate.I am even a little doubtful whether the questions are answerable (â€Å"Machinery, Psychology, and Politics† 221). Huxley sees the war between individual and the industrialized state but provides no solutions to this issue and even has doubts whether the issue will ever be resolved. In his novel he has the rulers simply separate those that become too individualistic from the mass-minded because they are dangerous to the sedated, pleasure-driven masses. Furthermore, Huxley fears that through mass educ ation, those intellectuals might be eliminated. In a 1927 essay titled â€Å"Education† Huxley writes on the defects of Mass education Under the present system of mass education by classes too much stress is laid on the teaching and too little on active learning.The child is not encouraged to discover things on his own account. He learns to rely on outside help, not on his own powers, thus losing intellectual independence and all the capacity to judge for himself. The over-taught child is the father of newspaper-reading, advertisement-believing, propaganda-swallowing, demagogue-led man†¦ (â€Å"Education† 205-206) This analysis of mass education makes the learner dependent upon the system, which Huxley sees as fueling advertising and propaganda. Huxley wrote in 1929 on the effects of mass education on society We have had universal education for about fifty years; the supply of [Isaac] Newtons, however, has not perceptibly increased.Everybody, it is true, can now r ead – with the result that newspapers of an unbelievable stupidity and baseness have circulations of millions. Everybody can read – so it pays rich men to print lies wholesale. Everybody can read so men make fortunes by inventing specious reasons why people should buy things they don’t really want (â€Å"The New Salvation† 212-213). Huxley’s view on mass education is that it does not better society. No more geniuses are to be found in a wholly educated society as in a partially educated one. The effect in his mind is that capitalists have more means through which they can influence people into desiring and buying the goods they produce.His obvious prejudices and elitism aside, the note about separate newspapers that target certain intellectual class levels of society is reflected in the various periodicals aimed at the classes of the World State like The Delta Mirror or The Gamma Gazette. The process is taken one step further in Brave New World by having the education system emphasize the value of consumption of goods, rather than that consumption value being pushed by the writers of the newspapers as Huxley wrote about in 1929. Consumerism is more standardized. Education is not the only means of control of the masses employed to maintain production, the population itself is in the management of the state.The populous is bred systematically in a process much like that of a Fordian assembly line: using bottles and genetic manipulation instead of the natural process of human reproduction. With the bottling, the creation of the sterile â€Å"free-martins† and the rigid implementation of contraceptives like the â€Å"Malthusian belts,† the population of the world is entirely in control of the industrialized state. This culture also employs scientific methods such as â€Å"Bokanovsky’s Process† and Pavlovian conditioning to carefully craft a society of rigid castes. The function of education is to teach the members of those castes their respective roles and the roles of others and the necessity of these roles in the greater context.This process of industrialized reproduction makes raising and educating citizens much easier for the World State since they can begin that conditioning during the embryonic stage of production. Additionally, the levels of society, the castes alpha through gamma, can be predetermined and separated strictly. Education is begun at the fetal level, thanks to hypnopaedia, saving time. Since reproduction is standardized and contained wholly within a factory, the leaders of the mechanized society do not have to wait until a semblance of character starts to show in people to condition them towards a certain way of life; the genetics do that for them. This process reflects Huxley’s views of the potential of science from his 1930 predictive essay â€Å"Babies – State Property.†He writes Psychologists having shown the enormous importance in ev ery human existence of the first years of childhood, the state will obviously try to get hold of its victims as soon as possible. The process of standardization will begin at the very moment of birth – that is to say, if it does not begin before birth! (231). He goes on to predict that this process of standardization at or before birth will be destructive to the family. But, unlike in his novel, he predicts that the family â€Å"will emerge again when the danger is past† (231). This careful selection of genetic material is the idea of eugenics, a term that is hard to separate from the fascists of the 1930s and 1940s, especially the National Socialists in Germany. Prior to that period though, Huxley often expounded on the ideas of eugenics.In a 1927 essay called â€Å"A Note on Eugenics† Huxley expresses a common fear of the time period that scientific and technological processes were preserving â€Å"physically and mentally defective individuals† and that the quality of human reproduction was diminishing (â€Å"A Note on Eugenics† 281) In her essay â€Å"Designing a Brave New World: Eugenics, Politics and Fiction,† Joanne Woiak addresses this subject by writing â€Å"[Huxley’s] ongoing support for so-called race betterment was typical of left-leaning British intellectuals in the inter-war period† (Woiak 106).Huxley’s own feelings on the subject seem mixed. Also in 1927, Huxley wrote an essay dealing with the subject of equality and democracy We no longer believe in equality and perfectibility. We know that nurture cannot alter nature and that no amount of education or good government will make men completely virtuous and reasonable, or abolish their animal instincts. In the Future that we envisage, eugenics will be practiced in order to improve the human breed and the instincts will not be ruthlessly repressed but, as far as possible, sublimated so as to express themselves in socially harmless ways (â€Å"The Future of the Past† 93).He continues to predict that education will not be the same for everyone and that this education system will teach â€Å"the members of the lower castes only that which is profitable for the members of the upper castes that they should know† (93). Huxley is arguing that the nineteenth-century ideals of democracy and universal equality are not a reality and predicts a future of selective reproduction and a defined caste system based on genetic stock. Brave New World certainly reflects this prediction; eugenics policies have been implemented but there are certainly instinctual processes, like violent passions, that have to be expressed in â€Å"socially harmless ways† – the Violent Passion Surrogates.But that sort of hope-filled view of the possible benefits of eugenics is not wholly what is at work in Huxley’s Brave New World. In that 1927 prediction, the intellectuals control the selective processes for determini ng the caste system. However, in 1932, the year of Brave New World’s publication, Huxley returns to the issue of eugenics by writing that â€Å"The humanist would see in eugenics an instrument for giving to an ever-widening circle of men and women those heritable qualities of mind and body which are, by his highest standards, the most desirable† (â€Å"Science and Civilization† 153). This is in line with his earlier views on the possible benefits of eugenics.But Huxley acknowledges that it might not be the humanist that is in charge of the process. But what of the economist-ruler? Would he necessarily be anxious to improve the race? By no means necessarily. He might actually wish to deteriorate it. His ideal, we must remember, is not the perfect all-around human being, but the perfect mass-producer and mass-consumer. Now perfect human beings probably make very bad mass-producers. It is quite in the cards that industrialists will find, as machinery is made more f oolproof, that the great majority of jobs can be better performed by stupid people than by intelligent ones (154). This is the society of Brave New World.As Mustafa Mond puts it, â€Å"The optimum population†¦ is modelled [sic] on the iceberg – eight-ninths below the water line, one-ninth above† (BNW 223). The population, as mentioned earlier, is conditioned to consume and to produce, and the eugenics policy helps create the society can perform the necessary tasks. Taken that way, the novel seems to be a satire and condemnation not of eugenics, but of eugenics run by the industrialist to create masses of dumber humans to buy and consume stuff. This then returns the mind to Huxley’s 1927 prediction of eugenics and those instincts that have to be expressed in â€Å"socially harmless ways† (â€Å"The Future of the Past† 93).Realizing the necessity for emotion, they employ â€Å"Violent Passion Surrogates† to â€Å"flood the whole system w ith adrenin† in order to satisfy what Mustapha Mond calls â€Å"one of the conditions of perfect health† (Brave New World 239). In short they are simulating the dangers of life in a safe and systematic way. Freedom of sex covers the sexual instincts and has the benefit also of providing pleasure during free-time. One of the greatest forces of keeping the workers producing is through the drug soma. â€Å"The perfect drug†¦ Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly hallucinant†¦ All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of the defects† (BNW 53-54). Soma is the release and the reward for the obedient mechanized worker of the world state.Combined with the â€Å"feelies† and all the other aspects of mass culture in the World State, soma helps keep the society in order by keeping the workers pleased. â€Å"Industrial civilization,† as Mustafa Mond puts it, â€Å"is only possible when there’s no self-denial. Self indulgence up to the very limits of imposed hygiene and economics. Otherwise the wheels stop turning. † (BNW 237). As with eugenics, Huxley’s writings on drug use varied, especially following the Second World War with his explorations into psychedelic drugs in The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell. But even around the time of Brave New World’s publication he often was writing on drug use.In 1931 he addressed the issue of drug as an escape in a brief essay titled â€Å"Treatise on Drugs† Everywhere and at all times, men and women have sought, and duly found, the means of taking a holiday from the reality of their dull and often acutely unpleasant existence. A holiday out of space, out of time, in the eternity of sleep or ecstasy (â€Å"A Treatise on Drugs† 304). For Huxley, drug use seems inevitable. This holiday is certainly mirrored in Brave New World. â€Å"The cause of drunkenness and drug-taking is to be found in the general dissatisfaction with reality,† h e writes in a 1932 essay titled â€Å"Poppy Juice,† an essay talking about the effects of drug policing. But Huxley continues by including the sort of people that might not be dissatisfied with life and the possibility of drug use among them.Alcohol and drugs offer means of escape from the prison of the world and the personality. Better and securer conditions of life, better health, better upbringing, resulting in more harmoniously balanced character, would do much to make reality seem generally tolerable and even delightful. But it may be doubted whether, even in Utopia, reality would be universally satisfying all the time. Even in Utopia people would pine for an occasional escape, if only from the radiant monotony of happiness (â€Å"Poppy juice† 317). This idea of people using drugs to escape monotonous Utopia seems one of the probable reasons for soma’s pervasiveness in the World State.The hypnopaedic chorus â€Å"A gramme is better than a damn† refle cts those moments when reality might not wholly satisfy; rather than cursing the situation, just take soma to escape on holiday. But escapism is not the only use of soma. Or rather, the effect of escapism soma has is not just beneficial for the individual. John Hickman, in his essay â€Å"When Science Fiction Writers Used Fictional Drugs: Rise and Fall of the Twentieth-Century Drug Dystopia,† writes that â€Å"[The] use of the recreational drug soma is one of several aspects of dehumanization made possible by the scientific expertise wielded by amoral elites† (Hickman 144). Whether or not the industrialists of Brave New World are â€Å"amoral† is beyond the scope of this essay.Nonetheless, Hickman’s point about the dehumanizing effects of soma remains true. The drug is used by the World State to keep the masses in check. One of the hypnopaedic lessons Lenina recites is â€Å"Was and will make me ill†¦ I take a gramme and only am† (BNW 104). Th e sentiment here is that thinking of past occurrences or having ambitions or fear does not help, and that soma can help keep you in the present. There is no need for rebellion or trying to better one’s position if soma can take the individual out of the negative moments. The lack of downside and the steady stream of governmental supply of soma ensure that the citizens are kept in a pleasure-filled world so that they might continue to produce and consume more.Hickman concludes, based on those later novels by Huxley and on the comparison with the mescal used in Pueblo society, that Huxley is not against drug use â€Å"as a more direct route to spiritual development, but was instead opposed to recreational drug taking that would render a population docile† (Hickman 145). In the 1931 â€Å"Treatise on Drugs†, Huxley was dreaming of a super soma-like drug when writing about the history of drugs and how all of the drugs present in the world are â€Å"treacherous and harmful†: The way to prevent people from drinking too much alcohol, or to becoming addicts to morphia or cocaine, is to give them an efficient but wholesome substitute for these delicious and (in the present imperfect world) necessary poisons†¦ The man who invents such a substance will be counted among the greatest benefactors of suffering humanity (â€Å"Treatise on Drugs† 304-305).Huxley’s perfect drug was achieved in the fictional soma. But as was the case with eugenics policies, this too fell into the hands of the industrialists who used it to benefit the mechanized society by keeping the mass culture satiated with pleasure and escapist trappings. The drug, as Hickman points out, is used to keep the masses producing and consuming, just as all other aspects of the culture had those goals in mind. Brave New World is a vision of a future that is based on Huxley’s reactions and interpretations of the 1920s. His strong favoring of an intellectual cultu re over a mass-produced comfort driven culture is abundantly made clear in the novel.In a different 1931 essay titled â€Å"To The Puritan,† Huxley pushes the idea that Fordism as a philosophy could prove destructive to humanity if pursued fully. There is no place in the factory, or in that larger factory which is the modern industrialized world, for animals on the one hand, or for artists, mystics, or even, finally, individuals on the other. Of all the ascetic religions Fordism is that which demands the cruellest [sic] mutilations of the human psyche – demands the cruellest [sic] mutilations and offers the smallest spiritual returns. Rigorously practiced for a few generations, this dreadful religion of the machine will end by destroying the human race (â€Å"To the Puritan† 238-239).

Biography of Marlo Morgan Essay Example

Biography of Marlo Morgan Essay Example Biography of Marlo Morgan Paper Biography of Marlo Morgan Paper Marlo Morgan was born in the USA . She is a doctor and is very interested in health care. Once she had the possibility to go to Australia and she decided to spend a few years with the aborigines in the outback. Today she lives in Missouri and she has got two children who supported her to write â€Å"Message from forever† â€Å"Mutant Message Down Under† about her experience with the â€Å"Real people†, an aboriginal tripe in the desert. The topic: The message from forever outlines aboriginal philosophy and the principles of good living. Geoff and Beatrice are twins and have no idea who they are because they were taken away from their mother after their birth. It’s difficult for them to follow the white people’s ideas and they both have lots of problems. The plot: Two Australian aboriginal twins are taken from their mother by Christian missionaries. The baby boy is sent to a sheep ranch. There he grows up with little supervision and random affection. He enjoys watching the butterflies and the ants in the garden and he always has to entertain himself because everybody on the ranch is very busy with work. His name is Geoff and he often climbs up a tree to watch the beautiful birds and at early age he begins two paint. At the age of five he is adopted by an American minister and is raised in the USA with little sense of who he is or of his cultural heritage. Geoff knows that he isn’t loved by the minister’s family because he is alone most of the time. Nevertheless, he is the best ball player at school and learning comes easily to him. He always wins the class spelling bee, but no boy in his class admires or likes him because their parents tell them that Geoff was too dark in colour to be a friend. ! His sister (Beatrice) is brought up by nuns in an Australian orphanage where she encounters continual racism for the first years of her life. From an early age Beatrice somehow seems to know her role as peacemaker. When arguments start among the children or someone is left out and feels lonely, it is natural for her to step in to soothe, to try to bring understanding to both sides. She is always aware of other people’s feelings, she can tell from listening to their voices, not necessarily to their words, and by paying attention to their eyes. As they become adults, Beatrice renounces her western lifestyle and joins a small group of aboriginals on a walkabout. After decades of learning about the people of the outback, she becomes a ‘runner between both worlds’ and steps into the political area to fight for the rights of aboriginal people.

How To Write Better Content In A Competitive Blog Niche

How To Write Better Content In A Competitive Blog Niche Earlier this year, we took a survey of you, dear users, and asked about some of your content marketing pain points. Here’s what you told us, in order, were the top three hand-wringing struggles for you: Finding enough time to create content. Planning that content. Creating really good content. I second these pain points; I’m with you. That third pain point is pretty wide open. What is really good content? Is it content you feel proud of? Content that performs well? Content that gets a lot of comments and engagement? Content that becomes an evergreen stalwart in your stable? Content you put a lot of work into? Content you learned from? In other words, how do you define â€Å"good content?† How To #Write Better Content In A Competitive #Blog Niche via @JulieNeidlingerDo You Want To Be Liked, Or Do You Want To Learn? Sometimes good content stems from rather bad content. When I studied art in college, I found that, at the end of college, I had come to view a piece of art as a success based on two things: Its likability. These are pieces that I liked, and/or viewers liked. They were visually pleasing in whatever niche they belonged in. For example, I used to do pet portraits for people. I didn’t always love the result in that after a while it felt like yet another dog painting. But, for the client, the likability was clearly there. Its teachability. There are pieces that I hated when I finished (if I finished them), or that took me a long time- sometimes years- to start to like. Yet I considered them a success because I learned something from doing them. Maybe I found a new way to handle a particular medium, or I discovered something about color and shadow. Whatever it was, the image itself didn’t tell the viewer what I learned, necessarily, so the teachability of a piece of art was generally something only I, the artist, could know was in play. I am often proud of pieces that others don’t care for, simply because I know what it taught me. Whee, do I have some uuugleee pieces of art. â€Å"Just light that match. Put it out of its misery.† But those flaming monstrosities taught me something useful and helped me make future likable pieces. I’m guessing, for the most part, that when you told us you wanted to write better  content, you were mainly talking about its likability. You want your audience to like it, talk about it, share it. But here’s the dangerous thing: You can consistently create good content (and good art) without learning anything new. And as a content marketer, failing to always keep learning means one day you are suddenly eons behind everyone else, even though things had been quite successful up to that point. By failing to learn, one day you are suddenly eons behind everyone else. #bloggingMy painting style has changed considerably from college, for example, but I know of another artist from the same background whose style has remained pretty much the same in the past twenty years. There’s nothing wrong with that; her art is quite popular with the public, has a loyal following, and it clearly hits the likability zone. Because her style hasn’t changed much, her audience knows exactly what to expect, and it is a profitable audience. Her art is easily identifiable and has helped establish a kind of creative â€Å"brand† for her. It’s admirable. But it can also be predictable, and tiring. If you hold teachability (i.e. learning from mistakes and taking creative risks) as an aspect of your definition of â€Å"good content†, you will likely see changes in what you create. You will see your audience fluctuate and see dips in your measurable numbers, but you will constantly be pressing into fresh water instead of the same pool. So. Do you want your content to be liked? Or do you want to learn? These two aren’t always exclusive of each other, but in quite a few situations, they are. I would posit that if you want to be a great content creator in the long haul, you have to sometimes give up on your content always being liked and accept the dogs that come from your pen. Those new dogs can teach you something. Sometimes, the best #ContentMarketing comes from your failures. Learn from them to improve.Once you are willing to take a leap and write outside of your current state of likability, you’re ready for the next step. Do You Remember To Look Up To Others? Our own Content Marketing Lead, Nathan, prefers a particular technique that requires a bit of online research to find the top performing content in your niche. â€Å"There are a few ways to write better content, but I only really use the skyscraper technique,†Ã‚  he’s told me, and it makes pretty good sense. As Garrett outlined on an earlier blog post, the skyscraper technique is, at its most basic, a three-step process: Find top performing content. Write  better content than the current top performers. Try to get a bunch of people to link to your new content. It’s the second step, I’m guessing, where the questions lie. How do you write  Ã¢â‚¬Å"better† content than someone else? As Garrett points out (and as I’ve mentioned before), you have to dissect the content. (Who knew dissection was such a thing for content marketers!) He suggests looking for: Average content length. Average number of images. Overall quality of content (rank from 1–10). Specific keywords/key-phrases used. You might also consider other more abstract aspects of the content as to what makes it a success, such as: Hierarchy:  Expert or beginner? Proximity: Did the content succeed because it was so dead-on accurate for a specific audience? Would that approach work as well for yours? Impact:  How did the content directly impact the reader’s life topically or anecdotally? Trendiness:  Is the content evergreen, or was it successful for a certain time frame only? Strangeness:  Is the content so unexpected that people are thrilled to see something new and unusual? Conflict:  Are there â€Å"warring factions† in the content, opposing ideas, and anything that stirs up passion and engagement? Humanity:  Is the content appealing because of its human interest component, stirring up empathy? Essentially, you are trying to figure out what makes a winning, popular, and successful piece of content tick. If it’s outside of your usual style or approach, this will be challenging. You’ll have to rethink why that piece of content is so good. One thing that’s important to note is that if you are trying to track and rate content, you are going to have to create standards (your own, or someone else’s recommendations) and assign numerical values for anything that is abstract in nature. For example, Garrett suggested you assign, on a scale of 1–10, a quality rank. Perhaps you define quality based on typos, grammar, whitespace, unique research, interviews, or some other characteristic. Whatever scale you use, and whatever standards you set for yourself, you will need to be consistent. Research what content already exists, then plan to #write something even better. Here's how.Once you figure out why a piece of content did so well for someone else (and you have concrete measurements even for the abstract), you can be that person who always has to top everyone  and who goes and writes even better content. Are You Always Scanning The Horizon? My first car was a Chrysler Plymouth Horizon, and if I wanted to get good radio reception, I had to roll down the front passenger window. Fine in the summer, excruciating in the winter. In order to bear the cold air, I had to turn up the heat. The heater fan was so loud, that I had to turn up the radio. It was a vicious cycle that meant, by the time I pulled into the yard on the drive home from school, I was one of those ridiculous people whose radio is so loud that all the plastic parts of the car are rattling. Take a look at this beauty. That is not the Horizon you should be on the lookout for. In the previous step, you were to look up to individual examples of top performing content, figure out why it was up there so high, and do your own version but better. Most bloggers have peaks and valleys of content success; you might have found a few one hit wonders in your skyscraper analysis. And then there are bloggers who are consistently creating good content. They might have had a few skyscraper pieces, but maybe not. What they generally have is authority, and authority is less susceptible to peaks and valleys, and more even-keeled. How do you become an authority on something? GEORGE: Wow, Keith Hernandez. He's such a great player. JERRY: Yeah, he's a real smart guy too. He's a Civil War buff. GEORGE: I'd love to be a Civil War buff. ... What do you have to do to be a buff? JERRY: So Biff wants to be a buff? ... Well sleeping less than 18 hours a day would be a start. - From Seinfeld â€Å"The Boyfriend (1)† There are people who are an authority, and there are people who call themselves an authority. There are some who might say that being an authority is more than just being an expert. An expert merely knows a lot, while an authority has the power to wield that expertise. Let’s take that approach, then, with the idea being that you first have to be an expert before you can be an authority. Becoming an expert. What does an expert look like to you? For me, it’s someone who: Has â€Å"paid their dues† and worked a long time at something. Has a broad variety of experiences in their niche, with lots of useful anecdotes to tell about them. Talks about what they’ve learned in a transparent way. Can show actual success and that they practice what they preach. Backs up their claims. Shares ideas, interpretations, facts, and knowledge that aren’t commonly found elsewhere. You can become an expert, then, by hard work, constant learning, willingness to make mistakes, and an openness to talking about what you’ve learned and what you’re still learning. Reading books, taking classes online, attending conferences, working a job where you gain experience, finding a mentor, teaching others so you learn as you teach, and having the patience to stick with it over time- this is how you build expertise. Becoming an authority. Being an authority is almost a state of being where people have given you permission to direct how they think. That sounds a bit creepy, but it’s not far off. You can holler and scream that you are an authority all you want, but if no one is listening to you, it’s clear you are not. How do you get people to give you permission to be an authority over them in your niche? Don’t be a jerk, but don’t be a doormat.  Have an opinion based in your expertise, and be willing to voice it. And then, if things go poorly... Take the high road.  Be willing to leave an ugly argument with respectful words and grace. Be an encourager, and be respectful.  Engage with people in an individual, helpful, and honest way. Don’t get a reputation for being a brash loudmouth who insults people. You might get fame, and you might get known, but you won’t really be an authority. Don’t chase after fame.  Using sketchy tactics to get momentary shares, attention, and fame is not the behavior of someone who is authority material, someone who is confident enough in their skills, patience, and ability. Be consistent. We are always preaching consistency and planning here at (hence the editorial calendar!), and consistency is part of being an authority. People trust the authority, and they build trust based on the sense that they know what to expect from you. Consistent content, social media presence, and engagement are crucial. Step out of the limelight.  Curation  is a powerful aspect of authority. It’s you, sharing and promoting the good work of others. It shows you’re not a glory hog, and that you’re not in it for yourself. Ask for help.  Reach out to other people and ask for their genuine  help or their opinion. It humanizes you. Be helpful first, self-promotional last.  How many times do you use the word â€Å"I† in your copy? Are you about you, or are you about others? This is a bit tricky. Authority isn’t necessarily being well-known (though it can be), but is that peculiar state where people stop and listen when you start to speak. If you want authority so bad you can taste it, chances are you won’t get it. Authority flows out of you having a genuine desire to be an expert and a genuine desire to use that expertise to help other people. How Will You Write Better Content To Stand Out From Your Competition? In summary, there are a million ways to approach the question, â€Å"How do I write better  content?†, but for this post, I wanted to give you a three-step personal assessment: Do you want to be liked, or do you want to learn? Do you know, and can you define, what successful content looks like? Have you put in the time to be an expert, and the personality to be an authority? There are so many great content creators out there. Which do you consider to be an authority, and why?

Female Genital Mutilation Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Female Genital Mutilation - Research Paper Example The present research has identified that F. G. M is a procedure that has no health benefits on girls or woman, causes severe psychological and physiological problems and it is mostly practiced in Africa as a nonreligious, cultural ritual. Some scholars such as Elizabeth Bransfield in her case studies involving Female Genital Mutilation in Gender, Anthropology, and Religion argues that it is a religious ritual and cultural issue, while it is overlooked that the ritual has no medical reasons because the female body is adversely harmed. Psychologically, the victim of F.G.M suffers a lot of pain during the procedure which is done mostly in unhygienic conditions and without anesthetic. The removal of the clitoris to is painful due to its having a lot of nerve endings. Injury to the genital area could also scar the victim for life considering that the procedure is undertaken mostly unprofessionally, in poor lighting and at times in the bush. The thrashing, fearful and screaming victim coul d also aggravate the injuries due to the being done by personnel who are not trained in handling medical cases. Lack of medical facilities could also result in dire consequences including death in case of complications. Infection due to unhygienic procedures is a common feature due to the use of unhygienic tools, dirty herbs or untested traditional medicines. Death or very major medical complications conditions could result due to the many underlying conditions under which F.G.M is done. When the procedure involves infibulation, which involves the bidding of the legs for some time, urine and faces are retained in the wound and the damp conditions in the wound could develop into a very septic wound.

Environmental Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Environmental Ethics - Essay Example Ecofeminist has different perspectives and argue on various basic concepts that build up the philosophy. Today, many feminist supports that our environment is apparently a feminist issue. This philosophy has been really popular and many relate the ethics of the environment to feminism and have their contradictions over the patriarchal issue and the biases as well as the dominance that comes in hand with the situation. One needs to understand in depth the basis of this philosophy. "A feminist uses gender analysis as the starting point; gender is the lens through which the initial description and analysis occur." Similarly like feminism, many forms of ecofeminism prevail. Ecofeminism is basically a name given to various feminist practices and philosophical ideas. These various approaches not only represent feminism but also how different forces of nature play and how they can overcome environmental concerns. Some examples of different perspective are liberal, Marxist, black etc. Theref ore various environmental philosophical positions that accept feminine issues and support feminism are generally referred to as ecofeminist positions. "Views which uncritically embrace unified or one stance views of feminine sides of gender dichotomies are not feminist; they are better understood as ecofeminine than ecofeminist. They are, in fact, dangerous views from a genuinely feminist perspective." (Darion, 1999) The question here arises that what does one perceive about ecofeminism? What makes this philosophy so concrete that it stands as a complete concept which deals with its theoretical support or the political movement? Although there are significant differences between ecofeminism and feminism from which it has actually rooted, but all ecofeminist agree about certain things which are prominent in feminism. For instance, there is always a significant link between the dominant forces of nature and women, which is essential to understand three things that is feminism, philoso phy of the environment and environmentalism. The major reason to establish this movement is to highlight the links between nature and women and how dangerous these connections can be at times. Ecofeminist have been successful in identifying eight different sorts of links. The links between these two intriguing forces are at times due to competition, at times they are complementing each other or can also be supportive, all this can eventually sum up to analyze forces of nature and the dominance between the two i.e women and nature. The eight connections are as follows: 1. Historical connection (causal): a link between women and nature can be historical. One of the causals is the historic data that develop and nurture theories which deal with the initialization and connection between the domination of women and nature. This concept is so concrete that Ariel Salleh claim's that ecofeminism is particularly a cent progress in the feministic approach and believes that the recent crisis th at has occurred globally and environmentally is basically because of the prevailing culture of patriarchal. (katz,2000) 2. Concept based Connections: Most of the scholars that study ecofeminism believe that the dominant power between women and nature is because of the causal connection which basically stems from causal links which take their branches from concept based structures of domination that develop and nurture women and nature in a social system which consist of male biases. 3.