What is the Multiplier Effect - 1284 Words

During the time of economic crisis starting around 2010 different rationalities have been taken to try and continue economic growth while maintaining a stable government system that is helping and not hurting. When examining government spending and how it affects the growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) there seems to be disagreements on if it was helping or damaging the prospective growth that could be made. By using the Multiplier Effect the government can estimate how to adjust their government spending and how it effects the spending of the consumer, investments and spending of country’s exports. In time of economic crisis the government has a choice to cut spending or increase spending for public goods and services. â€Å"In 2009,†¦show more content†¦This is where the multiplier effect can be used. It give the government a way to measure the economy as a whole. Increasing the spending would then create a trend of spending increasing the economy ideally. B y increasing government spending it can also increase the stress on the tax payers unless there is a stimulus program that is increasing the incentive to spend. When the government increase taxes it also decreasing the consumers willingness to spend and to invest known as crowding out. This makes a reduction in the economy. The trend seen in Stratmann and Okolski is that the stimulus may work but it could also not live up to its expectation of saving the economy and actually decreasing the the process of growth. This happens mainly when money is allocated to areas that are not in need due to things like political gain. In the article â€Å"Should the Government Spend or Invest Money† by William Fulton, I like his approach to first explaining the difference in spending and investing. Spending has a short term positive effect on the economic condition at hand. So spending is letting go of money now and getting immediate action, investment is letting money go now and expecting a financial return. For example, when President Obama,like President Roosevelt, created a stimulus for theShow MoreRelatedJohn Maynard Keynes : Multiplier Effect1603 Words   |  7 Pages John Maynard Keynes: Multiplier Effect In 1931, a British economist named Richard Kahn introduced what is known as the multiplier effect. In Kahn’s article, â€Å"The Relation of Home Investment to Unemployment†, he first introduced the multiplier effect which in turn ended up being his most notable contribution to the field of economics (Richard Kahn, Baron Kahn.). The multiplier effect can be defined as how aggregate expenditure, for example government spending, causes an increase in output. AccordingRead MoreEcon: Multiplier Effect1343 Words   |  6 Pages6. To fully explain the multiplier effect, we need first to define the Injections and Withdrawals, preferably through the model of Circular flow of income: It is a simple economic model describing a circulation of income between producers (firms) and consumers (households.). It consists of direct inner flow between firms and households and outer flow. The outer flow is caused by the fact that households do not spend all of their income on consumption; part of their income is withdrawn as netRead MoreThe Concept of the Money Multiplier Effect719 Words   |  3 PagesThe concept of the money multiplier effect came into being early in the 20th century, on the heels of a significant change in monetary and banking policy occurring during 1929. Rampant news of bank failures during this time created panic among depositors, who withdrew their money in great numbers. Since there was no security against losses for depositors with banks that failed. News of such failures therefore caused depositors to rush to withdraw their money in an attempt to avert too great a lossRead MoreThe Marginal Propensity Of Consume762 Words   |  4 PagesThe margi nal propensity to consume, sometimes referred to simply as MPC, is used to determine what part of an entity s extra money is consumed, or spent. MPC indicates how consuming changes as income changes. It can be expressed as the ratio of an entity s change in spending over its change in income. For example, imagine a business began earning $200 extra per month. The business than begins to spend an extra $100 per month. The MPC is 50 percent; of each extra dollar the company earns, aboutRead MoreFiscal Policy On Employment, Potential Gdp, And The Economic Growth Rate935 Words   |  4 Pagesable to â€Å"describe the federal budget process and the history of tax revenues, outlays, deficits, and debts†. The second object is to â€Å"explain how fiscal stimulus is used to fight a recession†. The third objective is to â€Å"explain the supply-side effects of fiscal policy on employment, potential GDP, and the economic growth rate†. The federal budget has two main reasons it was created. The first is to fund the activities of the federal government. The second was and still is to attain macroeconomicRead MoreTravel Agent . Stage 2 Tourism: Task 1 Nature Of Tourism1072 Words   |  5 Pagesthrough a travel agent and also more people are travelling today than ever before so I believe that there is still a need for travel agents. Tourism sectors Tourism is divided into different sectors and although sources differ on how may there are and what they are called, generally they all agree on at least 5 â€Å"core† sectors. Several sites listed eight sectors, which are â€Å"Accommodation, Adventure Tourism and Recreation, Attractions, Events and Conferences, Food and Beverage, Tourism Services, TransportationRead MoreConventional and Unconventional Tools Used by Central Banks, A Basic Study Guide1320 Words   |  5 Pages(IMF) reported that the fiscal multiplier for the periphery of the Eurozone was roughly equal to 0.5. One year later, IMF recognised its mistake reporting that the fiscal multiplier was approximately equal to 1.7. Discuss the above statement explaining what the fiscal multiplier is. (b) The above statement states that in a 2012 study the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that the fiscal multiplier for the periphery of the EurozoneRead MoreEconomics and National Income1160 Words   |  5 Pages | (a) What is the current equilibrium level of national income? (b) What is the level of injections? (c) What is the level of withdrawals? (d) Assuming that tax revenues are  £7 billion, how much is the level of saving? (e) If national income now rose to  £80 billion and, as a result, the consumption of domestically produced goods rose to  £58 billion, what is the mpcd? (f) What is the value of the multiplier? (g) Given an initialRead MoreEssay about Eco/372 Final1144 Words   |  5 Pageseliminate unemployment was to A. eliminate labor unions and government policies that hold real wages too high 13) In the AS/AD model, an expansionary monetary policy has the greatest effect on the price level when it A. increases both nominal and real income 14) The Federal funds rate D. is an intermediate 15) What tool of monetary policy will the Federal Reserve use to increase the federal funds rate from 1% to 1.25%? B. Open-Market Operation 16) If the Federal Reserve increases the requiredRead MoreMacroeconomics and Equilibrium Level1394 Words   |  6 Pagesthe following equation: C = 200 + .5 YD, where YD = Y – T and T = 200. a. What is the level of consumption in this economy if YD = 0? Briefly explain how individuals â€Å"pay for† this consumption when YD = 0. b. Given the above parameters, calculate the level of consumption if Y = 1200. Suppose Y increases to 1300. What happens to the level of YD as Y increases to 1300 (i.e. calculate the change in YD)? What happens to the level of consumption when Y rises to 1300 (i.e. calculate the change

Rolling the Rs by R. Zamora Linmark - 435 Words

The United States is infamously branded as the â€Å"Great Melting Pot.† In R. Zamora Linmark’s Rolling the R’s, the reader recognizes that this legendary melting pot can also be a system that continually ensures some races and cultures remain inferior. Through a series of vignettes written with Pidgin English, the reader follows a group of Filipino-American fifth graders from Kalihi, Hawaii as they struggle with personal and sexual identities while they come of age. The characters in this novel are labeled as racially and sexually improper and are therefore shamed by their small, poverty-stricken Hawaiian community. This intolerance portrayed in Rolling the R’s coincides with America’s past when those who were different from the norm faced extreme difficulties and barriers to assimilate. This problem with integration is revealed throughout the novel by analyzing the various oppressions the children are forced to cope with on a daily basis. Am erican imperialism, organized religion, society’s view of sexuality, and the educational system all play a major role in suppressing groups of people who do not fit the traditional standard. When the U.S. finally granted Hawaii statehood, it affected both the economy and the culture of the Filipino people. In Linmark’s piece, the American culture is considered â€Å"privileged† in comparison to Filipino values and customs. The flow of American culture, products, and goods into the Hawaiian culture is referenced consistently byShow MoreRelatedRolling the Rs by R. Zamora Linmark841 Words   |  3 Pagesâ€Å"No†¦ we have a daughter, and I don’t want to break a holy vow† (Linmark 94). This is a perfect example of how religion has oppressed these people over time. Furthermore, this may contribute to the extreme discourse between the parents and the children throughout the novel. The children can see how religion has affected their parents a s they are virtually brainwashed by their spiritual beliefs and the children wish to avoid the oppressions of this institution. They do so by using their language

Assimilation the Risk of Losing Culture and Identity free essay sample

Blacks should not assimilate with the popular dominant culture but instead maintain their own sense of cultural heritage. The black person who makes the choice to integrate into the dominating culture really must be honest with his or her self and admit that all their pronouncements of concern for the welfare of the black community take a backseat to their personal desire to assimilate. These black people are more of a role model to other black people on how to assimilate or integrate into the colorless and racially generic whole of American culture that just so happens to be controlled and dominated from the white community. Although it may sound wonderful to hear someone say that they don’t notice people’s skin color, reality says that people notice color all the time. The pressure placed on blacks by the dominant culture forces them to move toward assimilation hooks urges. ell hooks states that â€Å"One of the most tragic manifestations of the pressure black people feel to assimilate is expressed in the internalization of racist perspectives† (227). We will write a custom essay sample on Assimilation the Risk of Losing Culture and Identity or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Young blacks need to realize that conforming to the dominant culture is not necessary to exist within it. hooks says that â€Å"It is crucial that those among us who resist and rebel, who survive and succeed, speak openly and honestly about our lives and the nature of our personal struggles† (221). In order to resist assimilation black people as a hold need to be more open and honest about the struggles that take place striving for education and success, those who have blazed the trail need to reach back and help those striving to get there. An excellent job is done by hooks in getting the point across about assimilations effects, and also gives those who have chosen to assimilate something to think about, what cost is one willing to pay, is one willing to break family ties and friendship because of the pressure from the dominant culture to assimilate. The pressures of trying to maintain family and community ties and succeeding in life are difficult, these issues gives us some groundwork to fix some of the problems. While it is difficult to achieve education and success while keeping community ties it is possible, hooks says that â€Å"The most powerful resource anyone can have to study and teach in university settings is full understanding and appreciation of the richness, beauty, and primacy of our familial and community backgrounds† (228). ooks has some very valid points, everyone has to look at them and put them into perspective on how it can fit into their lives. There is not one right answer or solution to this problem, everyone has to search within to find a solution, but those whom have traveled on this road less taken have an obligation to teach those who follow. It is imperative to let the youth know that their struggles for identity and success or not in vein and show them that they are appreciated within the comm unity. Without the bounding and nourishment needed to continue the ties, youth will continue to choose to assimilate and take the easy road with less pressure and headaches to deal with. Blacks could better serve the community by assimilating to the dominant culture forces, the melting-pot theory. This view is advantageous to both a government and its people. It is believed that the nation has reached its present state of development because it has been able to forge one national identity. Separating citizens by ethnicity or race and providing special privileges to Blacks can be harmful, where assimilation tends to put everyone on an even playing field. By keeping ties to community and family Blacks draw attention to differences and the dominant culture fosters resentment towards their culture. Blacks in society that make a full effort to be incorporated into the mainstream naturally reciprocate the benefits and approval from mainstream America. Blacks become successful by shedding their cultural heritage and adopting the ways of the popular dominant culture. Typically Blacks absorbed by the ways of the host society, while loosening to varying degrees their connection to their native culture become highly successful. Through this process Blacks are accepted into society and become a part of the dominant culture and national unity is retained. Works Cited: Assimilation: Does it hurt Black people? (2007) Retrieved on 2/10/2008, from www. topix. com/forum/afam/TPIKF7CB1VN57ONEJ Bell Hooks (2000), Where We Stand: Class Matters, By Routledge

We Are Starting a Bug Bounty Project Log and Announce the First Winner!

We Are Starting a Bug Bounty Project Log and Announce the First Winner! Hi all. It has been a month since we started a Bug Bounty project at robotdon.com, our essay writing and editing tool. And now we are ready to make several important announcements,  expand the program and announce the first winner! All right, during this month we have received vulnerability reports from 32 persons all together. Not much, yeah? This is why we were held back from starting an official communication with all participants. Yet, it’s time to come up with the Project’s Log. Hopefully, we will be updating the Log once a week and informing about interesting submission, ideas, reward giveaways, etc. Also, contrary to our initial design many submission came from professionals, not students. This is why we decided to take off eligibility requirements in that to qualify for a contest a report must come from a student. IMPORTANT NOTICE: now anyone can participate (students and not-students alike). Additionally, most of you have sent vulnerability reports BOTH for robotdon.com and (our main project). This indeed is a great idea! We really liked that. And, we must tell you, some of them were really good. IMPORTANT NOTICE: now you can submit vulnerability reports on both robotdon.com and Also, contrary to our initial idea, we have found that in most of you send 1-2 [minor] vulnerabilities. And due to their scope and nature they don’t fully qualify for a reward. Yet, to keep the project going AND to give more rewards we decided to amend the rewards range: now we want to give $250 $2500 rewards. Hopefully, it will help inaugurate more winners and spur an additional interest in the Bug Bounty Program. IMPORTANT NOTICE: reward amount amended, now we give away $250 $2500 rewards. Finally, we are happy to announce our first winner Shay Shavit, a student of NED University of   Engineering and Technology (Karachi, Pakistan). Shay has pointed out to SQL injection vulnerabilities on Reward granted: $250 Congratulations to Shay! Keep it up! P.S. To inaugurate more contributors to RobotRon Bug Bounty Program we decided to open a HALL of FAME. Please check may be your name is there?!

Free Essays on Women Of 9

Women Of 9/11 September 11, 2001, will be remembered as one of the most horrific and unbelievable days ever experienced in the United States. The events of this day certainly changed every American, and likely affected every person in the world in some way, form or fashion. The events that occurred on September 11, 2001: Four commercial airliners are hijacked by an organized group of terrorists. Two of the airliners crash into and obliterate the twin World Trade Center towers in NYC. One airliner crashes into the Pentagon in Washington DC and destroys a side of the building. These terrorist acts were meant to bring on the demise of America, bring a country so strong to its knees. They succeeded in their mission they brought America to her knees, but what happened next no one expected. America stood up and came together like never before. We regained our composure the men of America came to the plate and performed. The men of the NYFD and NYPD came together and held the country together. Wait a minute where were the women while all this was happening? This is what the media failed to show. When we turned on the television we didn’t see the women digging through the rubble or carrying out survivors, but they did. I am happy that I went to see Women of 9/11 because the thought of women helping never crossed my mind. Its funny how all the women were left out by coincidence, something about that just doesn’t seem right. It would seem that it would make the women involved bitter about it, but that’s not the case at all. The two women who came and spoke were the nicest ladies I have met. They didn’t say anything negative about media stations or other media outlets, they just came to let us know the truth. They came to let us know that the same work we seen the men on the cover of â€Å"Time† or â€Å"Newsweek† doing their were women right besides them....

Timeline of the Scottsboro Boys Case

Timeline of the Scottsboro Boys Case In March of 1931, nine young African-American men were accused of raping two white women on a train. The African-American men ranged in age from thirteen to nineteen. Each young man was tried, convicted and sentenced in a matter of days. African-American newspapers published news accounts and editorials of the events of the case. Civil rights organizations followed suit, raising money and providing defense for these young men. However, it would take several years for these young mens cases to be overturned. 1931 March 25: A group of young African-American and white men engage in a scuffle while riding a freight train. The train is stopped in Paint Rock, Ala and nine African-American teens are arrested for assault. Soon after, two white women, Victoria Price, and Ruby Bates charge the young men with rape. The nine young men are taken to Scottsboro, Ala. Both Price and Bates are examined by doctors. By the evening, the local newspaper, Jackson County Sentinel calls the rape a revolting crime. March 30: The nine Scottsboro Boys are indicted by a grand jury. April 6 - 7: Clarence Norris and Charlie Weems, were placed on trial, convicted and given the death sentence. April 7 - 8: Haywood Patterson meets the same sentence as Norris and Weems. April 8 - 9: Olen Montgomery, Ozie Powell, Willie Roberson, Eugene Williams, and Andy Wright are also tried, convicted and sentenced to death. April 9: 13-year-old Roy Wright is also tried. However, his trial ends with a hung jury as 11 jurors want the death sentence and one vote for life in imprisonment. April through December: Organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as well as the International Labor Defense (ILD) are astonished by the age of the defendants, length of their trails, and sentences received. These organizations provide support to the nine young men and their families. The NAACP and IDL also raise money to for appeals. June 22: Pending an appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court, the executions of the nine defendants are stayed. 1932 January 5: A letter written from Bates to her boyfriend is uncovered. In the letter, Bates admits she was not raped. January: The NAACP withdraws from the case after the Scottsboro Boys decide to let the ILD handle their case. March 24: The Alabama Supreme Court upholds the convictions of seven defendants in a vote of 6-1. Williams is granted a new trial because he was considered a minor when he was originally convicted. May 27: The United States Supreme Court decides to hear the case. November 7: In the case of Powell v. Alabama, the Supreme Court ruled that the defendants were denied the right to counsel. This denial was considered a violation of their right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The cases are sent to the lower court. 1933 January: Noted attorney Samuel Leibowitz takes the case for the IDL. March 27: Pattersons second trial begins in Decatur, Ala before Judge James Horton. April 6: Bates comes forward as a witness for the defense. She denies being raped and further testifies that she was with Price for the duration of the train ride. During the trial, Dr. Bridges says that Price showed very little physical signs of rape. April 9: Patterson is found guilty during his second trial. He is sentenced to death by electrocution. April 18: Judge Horton suspends Pattersons death sentence after a motion for a new trial. Horton also postpones the trials of the eight other defendants as racial tensions are high in town. June 22: Pattersons conviction is set aside by Judge Horton. He is granted a new trial. October 20: The cases of the nine defendants are moved from Hortons court to Judge William Callahan. November 20: The cases of the youngest defendants, Roy Wright, and Eugene Williams, are moved to Juvenile Court. The other seven defendants appear in Callahans courtroom. November to December: Patterson and Norris cases both end in the death penalty. During both cases, Callahans bias is revealed through his omissions- he does not explain to Pattersons jury how to deliver a not guilty verdict and also does not ask for the mercy of God upon Norris soul during his sentencing. 1934 June 12: In his bid for re-election, Horton is defeated. June 28: In a defense motion for new trials, Leibowitz argues that qualified African-Americans were kept off jury rolls. He also argues that names added on the current rolls were forged. The Alabama Supreme Court denies the defense motion for new trials. October 1: Lawyers associated with ILD are caught with $1500 bribe that was to be given to Victoria Price. 1935 February 15: Leibowitz appears before the Supreme Court of the United States, describing the lack of African-American presence on juries in Jackson County. He also shows the Supreme Court justices the jury rolls with forged names. April 1: In the case of Norris v. Alabama, the United States Supreme Court decides that the exclusion of African-Americans on jury rolls did not protect African-American defendants of their rights to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. The case is overturned and sent to a lower court. However, Pattersons case is not included in the argument because of filing date technicalities. The Supreme Court suggests that lower courts review Pattersons case. December: The defense team is reorganized. The Scottsboro Defense Committee (SDC) is established with Allan Knight Chalmers as chairman. Local attorney, Clarence Watts serves as co-counsel. 1936 January 23: Patterson is retried. He is found guilty and sentenced to 75 years in prison. This sentence was a negotiation between the foreman and the rest of the jury. January 24: Ozie Powell pulls a knife and slashes a police officers throat while being transported to Birmingham Jail. Another police official shoots Powell in the head. Both the police officer and Powell survive. December: Lieutenant Governor Thomas Knight, the prosecuting attorney for the case, meets with Leibowitz in New York to come to a compromise. 1937 May:Â  Thomas Knight, a justice on the Alabama Supreme Court, dies. June 14:Â  Pattersons conviction is upheld by the Alabama Supreme Court. July 12 - 16: Norris is sentenced to death during his third trial. As a result of the pressure of the case, Watts becomes sick, causing Leibowitz to steer the defense. July 20 - 21: Andy Wrights is convicted and sentenced to 99 years. July 22 - 23: Charley Weems is convicted and sentenced to 75 years. July 23 - 24: Ozie Powells rape charges are dropped. He pleads guilty to assaulting a police officer and is sentenced to 20 years. July 24: The rape charges against Olen Montgomery, Willie Roberson, Eugene Williams, and Roy Wright are dropped. October 26: The United States Supreme Court decides not to hear the appeal of Patterson. December 21: Bibb Graves, the governor of Alabama, meets with Chalmers to discuss clemency to the five convicted defendants. 1938 June: The sentences given to Norris, Andy Wright, and Weems are affirmed by the Alabama Supreme Court. July: Norris death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment by Governor Graves. August: A denial of parole is recommended for Patterson and Powell by an Alabama parole board. October: A denial of parole is also recommended for Norris, Weems, and Andy Wright. October 29: Graves meets with the convicted defendants to consider parole. November 15: The pardon applications of all five defendants are denied by Graves. November 17: Weems is released on parole. 1944 January: Andy Wright and Clarence Norris are released on parole. September: Wright and Norris leave Alabama. This is considered a violation of their parole. Norris returns to jail in October 1944 and Wright in October 1946. 1946 June: Ozie Powell is released from prison on parole. September: Norris receives parole. 1948 July:Â  Patterson escapes from prison and travels to Detroit. 1950 June 9: Andy Wright is released on parole and finds a job in New York. June: Patterson is caught and arrested by the FBI in Detroit. However, G. Mennen Williams, governor of Michigan does not extradite Patterson to Alabama. Alabama does not continue its attempts to return Patterson to prison. December: Patterson is charged with murder after a fight in a bar. 1951 September: Patterson is sentenced to six to fifteen years in prison after being convicted of manslaughter. 1952 August: Patterson dies of cancer while serving time in prison. 1959 August: Roy Wright dies 1976 October: George Wallace, governor of Alabama, pardons Clarence Norris. 1977 July 12: Victoria Price sues NBC for defamation and invasion of privacy after its broadcast of Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys airs. Her claim, however, is dismissed. 1989 January 23: Clarence Norris dies. He is the last surviving Scottsboro Boys.

A Year In The South(BOOK) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

A Year In The South(BOOK) - Essay Example What follows then is a compelling story of hope, despair and tribulations during the collapse of the confederacy and the raise of a new south to show, that the end of the civil war impacted heavily across all persons from different backgrounds and classes. The end of the civil war brought with it an overwhelming financial crisis. Poverty was widespread and all the southerners were undergoing a turbulent time in making their ends meet. In the book, Cornelia was one of the vast refugees who fled as a result of lack of food during the civil war era (Brown, p.4). Even in her new home, Lexington Virginia, she still had to struggle to obtain food for herself and her seven children. In public she casts herself as a cheerful and jovial figure but when alone she says that she would, â€Å"go up the stairs and throw myself on my knees and cry to God for food† (Ash, p.167). Louis Hughes, on the other hand, is a freed slave battling to gain independence and self-sufficiency for him and his family by envisioning that the end of the war would mark his independence together with the other slaves. He thus engages in the business of selling tobacco plugs within the slave community. The business was booming at the beginning, but with the collaps e of the confederate authority in the state he says that his, â€Å"happy interlude† came to an end (Ash, p.28). Besides the economic downturn caused by the confederate war, Steven V. Ash also manages to capture the social, as well as the political turmoil that were taking shape upon the demise of the confederate south. Samuel Agnew, being the son of a minister and later a minister himself, was exempt from conscription into the confederate military. However, towards the end of the war Agnew is forced to accept the political changes that were taking place in the south. He was forced to accept the freedom of all slaves who toiled in his

The 1920-1929 Boom to Bust Period in America Essay

The 1920-1929 Boom to Bust Period in America - Essay Example The researcher states that the boom to burst period is of great importance inciting the US history. This is the period that transformed many things in America ranging from cultural, political, economic activities and the general social life. It is cited as the origin of the America we know today in a wide view. Impacts of 1920-1920 Boom to Burst on U.S Society. This period explains how Americans acquired the notions attached to them today. It helps us understand the America history and in turn voyage the present and the future. It illustrates how US transformed over a short period in terms of the notions of power, liberty and equality. It also shows how the changes in America affected the world at large. The historical changes brought about within this period can be resumed under the following headings. Economy: This period brought with it much economic advancement, which helped shape the future of the American economy. Many economic policies came up such as credit purchase, small go vernment and supply-side economics proved a great success. The reduction of main taxes gave entrepreneurs an incentive to work, invest and save leading to innovations and new discoveries due to venture in risky businesses. Later improved policies such as the fiscal and expansionary policies were introduced. Technology: The boom to burst period is the basis of U.S technological and infrastructural development. It saw the discovery of electrification that made it possible for other innovations for instance radio and motion pictures. The availability of money provided people with security and therefore, they were not afraid to try many things. This period also saw the construction of new infrastructure such as roads, bridges and tunnels. Culture and lifestyle: There was introduction of a new culture and way of life that would dominate the rest of the twentieth century. The economic prosperity provided many Americans more spending money and more leisure time, which they directed to maki ng their lives enjoyable for instance theatre, music and other forms of entertainment. Most people in the rural areas migrated to the urban areas in search of jobs. Accumulation of wealth also led to rise of classes due to unequal distribution of income. This led to segregation and clustering of people in different areas according to their classes. Gender Equality: This period saw the rise of women from being discriminated and undermined due to their gender. The expanding markets provided an opportunity for women to get jobs and get paid. Many single working class women held their jobs for the wages and their families. Some held jobs in order to free from parental authority and develop a personal identity. In addition, women also attended colleges and this led to the fading away of the traditional notion about women. All these factors enabled women to become more independent and achieve women rights in the constitutions. Entertainment: In this period, a lot of things changed in the world of entertainment and many others came up. One example is the film industry when Hollywood came to light. Music also advanced with the introduction of the Jazz music by Louis and Duke. Many sports such as boxing, golf and baseball, also rose to new heights of popularity. These led to rise of heroes like Babe Ruth in baseball and Jack Dempsey in boxing.

Minority Group and Multiculturalism Essay Example for Free

Minority Group and Multiculturalism Essay This research was commissioned by the Transatlantic Council on Migration, an initiative of the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), for its seventh plenary meeting, held November 2011 in Berlin. The meeting’s theme was â€Å"National Identity, Immigration, and Social Cohesion: (Re)building Community in an Ever-Globalizing World† and this paper was one of the reports that informed the Council’s discussions. The Council, an MPI initiative undertaken in cooperation with its policy partner the Bertelsmann Stiftung, is a unique deliberative body that examines vital policy issues and informs migration policymaking processes in North America and Europe. The Council’s work is generously supported by the following foundations and governments: Carnegie Corporation of New York, Open Society Foundations, Bertelsmann Stiftung, the Barrow Cadbury Trust (UK Policy Partner), the Luso-American Development Foundation, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and the governments of Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. For more on the Transatlantic Council on Migration, please visit: www. migrationpolicy. org/transatlantic.  © 2012 Migration Policy Institute. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Migration Policy Institute. A full-text PDF of this document is available for free download from www. migrationpolicy. org. Permission for reproducing excerpts from this report should be directed to: Permissions Department, Migration Policy Institute, 1400 16th Street, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20036, or by contacting [emailprotected] org. Suggested citation: Kymlicka, Will. 2012. Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. Table of Contents Executive Summary. 1 I. Introduction.. 2 The Rise and Fall of Multiculturalism. 3 . II. What Is Multiculturalism?.. 4 A. Misleading Model. 4 . B. Multiculturalism in Context 5 . C. The Evolution of Multiculturalism Policies.. 7 III. Multiculturalism in Practice. 10 A. The Canadian Success Story 10 B. The European Experience. 13 . IV. The Retreat from Multiculturalism.. 14 A. Rhetoric versus Reality .. 14 B. Proliferation of Civic Integration Policies. 15 . V. Conclusion:The Future of Multicultural Citizenship. 21 Appendices 26 Works Cited 28 About the Author.. 32 MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE Executive Summary Ideas about the legal and political accommodation of ethnic diversity — commonly termed â€Å"multiculturalism† — emerged in the West as a vehicle for replacing older forms of ethnic and racial hierarchy with new relations of democratic citizenship. Despite substantial evidence that these policies are making progress toward that goal, a chorus of political leaders has declared them a failure and heralded the death of multiculturalism. This popular master narrative is problematic because it mischaracterizes the nature of the experiments in multiculturalism that have been undertaken, exaggerates the extent to which they have been abandoned, and misidentifies not only the genuine difficulties and limitations they have encountered but the options for addressing these problems. Talk about the retreat from multiculturalism has obscured the fact that a form of multicultural integration remains a live option for Western democracies. This report challenges four powerful myths about multiculturalism. First, it disputes the caricature of multiculturalism as the uncritical celebration of diversity at the expense of addressing grave societal problems such as unemployment and social isolation. Instead it offers an account of multiculturalism as the pursuit of new relations of democratic citizenship, inspired and constrained by human-rights ideals. Second, it contests the idea that multiculturalism has been in wholesale retreat, and offers instead evidence that multiculturalism policies (MCPs) have persisted, and have even grown stronger, over the past ten years. Third, it challenges the idea that multiculturalism has failed, and offers instead evidence that MCPs have had positive effects. Fourth, it disputes the idea that the spread of civic integration policies has displaced multiculturalism or rendered it obsolete. The report instead offers evidence that MCPs are fully consistent with certain forms of civic integration policies, and that indeed the combination of multiculturalism with an â€Å"enabling† form of civic integration is both normatively desirable and empirically effective in at least some cases. To help address these issues, this paper draws upon the Multiculturalism Policy Index. This index 1) identifies eight concrete policy areas where liberal-democratic states — faced with a choice — decided to develop more multicultural forms of citizenship in relation to immigrant groups and 2) measures the extent to which countries have espoused some or all of these policies over time. While there have been some high-profile cases of retreat from MCPs, such as the Netherlands, the general pattern from 1980 to 2010 has been one of modest strengthening. Ironically, some countries that have been vociferous about multiculturalism’s â€Å"failure† (e. g. , Germany) have not actually practiced an active multicultural strategy. Talk about the retreat from multiculturalism has obscured the fact that a form of multicultural integration remains a live option for Western democracies. However, not all attempts to adopt new models of multicultural citizenship have taken root or succeeded in achieving their intended effects. There are several factors that can either facilitate or impede the successful implementation of multiculturalism: Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future 1 MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE Desecuritization of ethnic relations. Multiculturalism works best if relations between the state and minorities are seen as an issue of social policy, not as an issue of state security. If the state perceives immigrants to be a security threat (such as Arabs and Muslims after 9/11), support for multiculturalism will drop and the space for minorities to even voice multicultural claims will diminish. Human rights. Support for multiculturalism rests on the assumption that there is a shared commitment to human rights across ethnic and religious lines. If states perceive certain groups as unable or unwilling to respect human-rights norms, they are unlikely to accord them multicultural rights or resources. Much of the backlash against multiculturalism is fundamentally driven by anxieties about Muslims, in particular, and their perceived unwillingness to embrace liberal-democratic norms. Border control. Multiculturalism is more controversial when citizens fear they lack control over their borders — for instance when countries are faced with large numbers (or unexpected surges) of unauthorized immigrants or asylum seekers — than when citizens feel the borders are secure. Diversity of immigrant groups. Multiculturalism works best when it is genuinely multicultural — that is, when immigrants come from many source countries rather than coming overwhelmingly from just one (which is more likely to lead to polarized relations with the majority). Economic contributions. Support for multiculturalism depends on the perception that immigrants are holding up their end of the bargain and making a good-faith effort to contribute to society — particularly economically. When these facilitating conditions are present, multiculturalism can be seen as a low-risk option, and indeed seems to have worked well in such cases. Multiculturalism tends to lose support in high-risk situations where immigrants are seen as predominantly illegal, as potential carriers of illiberal practices or movements, or as net burdens on the welfare state. However, one could argue that rejecting immigrant multiculturalism under these circumstances is in fact the higher-risk move. It is precisely when immigrants are perceived as illegitimate, illiberal, and burdensome that multiculturalism may be most needed. I. Introduction Ideas about the legal and political accommodation of ethnic diversity have been in a state of flux around the world for the past 40 years. One hears much about the â€Å"rise and fall of multiculturalism. † Indeed, this has become a kind of master narrative, widely invoked by scholars, journalists, and policymakers alike to explain the evolution of contemporary debates about diversity. Although people disagree about what comes after multiculturalism, there is a surprising consensus that we are in a post-multicultural era. This report contends that this master narrative obscures as much as it reveals, and that we need an alternative framework for thinking about the choices we face. Multiculturalism’s successes and failures, as well as its level of public acceptance, have depended on the nature of the issues at stake and the countries involved, and we need to understand these variations if we are to identify a more sustainable model for accommodating diversity. This paper will argue that the master narrative 1) mischaracterizes the nature of the experiments in multiculturalism that have been undertaken, 2) exaggerates the extent to which they have been abandoned, and 3) misidentifies the genuine difficulties and limitations they have encountered and the options for addressing these problems. 2 Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE Before we can decide whether to celebrate or lament the fall of multiculturalism, we need first to make sure we know what multiculturalism has meant both in theory and in practice, where it has succeeded or failed to meet its objectives, and under what conditions it is likely to thrive in the future. The Rise and Fall of Multiculturalism The master narrative of the â€Å"rise and fall of multiculturalism† helpfully captures important features of our current debates. Yet in some respects it is misleading, and may obscure the real challenges and opportunities we face. In its simplest form, the master narrative goes like this:1 Since the mid-1990s we have seen a backlash and retreat from multiculturalism. From the 1970s to mid-1990s, there was a clear trend across Western democracies toward the increased recognition and accommodation of diversity through a range of multiculturalism policies (MCPs) and minority rights. These policies were endorsed both at the domestic level in some states and by international organizations, and involved a rejection of earlier ideas of unitary and homogeneous nationhood. Since the mid-1990s, however, we have seen a backlash and retreat from multiculturalism, and a reassertion of ideas of nation building, common values and identity, and unitary citizenship — even a call for the â€Å"return of assimilation. † This retreat is partly driven by fears among the majority group that the accommodation of diversity has â€Å"gone too far† and is threatening their way of life. This fear often expresses itself in the rise of nativist and populist right-wing political movements, such as the Danish People’s Party, defending old ideas of â€Å"Denmark for the Danish. † But the retreat also reflects a belief among the center-left that multiculturalism has failed to help the intended beneficiaries — namely, minorities themselves — because it has failed to address the underlying sources of their social, economic, and political exclusion and may have unintentionally contributed to their social isolation. As a result, even the center-left political movements that initially championed multiculturalism, such as the social democratic parties in Europe, have backed 1 For influential academic statements of this â€Å"rise and fall† narrative, claiming that it applies across the Western democracies, see Rogers Brubaker, â€Å"The Return of Assimilation? † Ethnic and Racial Studies 24, no. 4 (2001): 531–48; and Christian Joppke, â€Å"The Retreat of Multiculturalism in the Liberal State: Theory and Policy,† British Journal of Sociology 55, no. 2 (2004): 237–57. There are also many accounts of the â€Å"decline,† â€Å"retreat,† or â€Å"crisis† of multiculturalism in particular countries. For the Netherlands, see Han Entzinger, â€Å"The Rise and Fall of Multiculturalism in the Netherlands,† in Toward Assimilation and Citizenship: Immigrants in Liberal Nation-States, eds. Christian Joppke and Ewa Morawska (London: Palgrave, 2003) and Ruud Koopmans, â€Å"Trade-Offs between Equality and Difference: The Crisis of Dutch Multiculturalism in Cross-National Perspective† (Brief, Danish Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen, December 2006). For Britain, see Randall Hansen, â€Å"Diversity, Integration and the Turn from Multiculturalism in the United Kingdom,† in Belonging? Diversity, Recognition and Shared Citizenship in Canada, eds. Keith G. Banting, Thomas J. Courchene, and F. Leslie Seidle (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 2007); Les Back, Michael Keith, Azra Khan, Kalbir Shukra, and John Solomos, â€Å"New Labour’s White Heart: Politics, Multiculturalism and the Return of Assimilation,† Political Quarterly 73, No. 4 (2002): 445–54; Steven Vertovec, â€Å"Towards post-multiculturalism? Changing communities, conditions and contexts of diversity,† International Social Science Journal 61 (2010): 83–95. For Australia, see Ien Ang and John Stratton, â€Å"Multiculturalism in Crisis: The New Politics of Race and National Identity in Australia,† in On Not Speaking Chinese: Living Between Asia and the West, ed. I. Ang (London: Routledge, 2001). For Canada, see Lloyd Wong, Joseph Garcea, and Anna Kirova, An Analysis of the ‘Anti- and Post-Multiculturalism’ Discourses: The Fragmentation Position (Alberta: Prairie Centre for Excellence in Research on Immigration and Integration, 2005), http://pmc. metropolis. net/Virtual%20Library/FinalReports/Post-multi%20FINAL%20REPORT%20for%20PCERII%20_2_. pdf. For a good overview of the backlash discourse in various countries, see Steven Vertovec and Susan Wessendorf, eds. , The Multiculturalism Backlash: European Discourses, Policies and Practices (London: Routledge, 2010). Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future 3 MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE away from it and shifted to a discourse that emphasizes â€Å"civic integration,† â€Å"social cohesion,† â€Å"common values,† and â€Å"shared citizenship. †2 The social-democratic discourse of civic integration differs from the radical-right discourse in emphasizing the need to develop a more inclusive national identity and to fight racism and discrimination, but it nonetheless distances itself from the rhetoric and policies of multiculturalism. The term postmulticulturalism has often been invoked to signal this new approach, which seeks to overcome the limits of a naive or misguided multiculturalism while avoiding the oppressive reassertion of homogenizing nationalist ideologies. 3 II. What Is Multiculturalism? A. Misleading Model In much of the post-multiculturalist literature, multiculturalism is characterized as a feel-good celebration of ethnocultural diversity, encouraging citizens to acknowledge and embrace the panoply of customs, traditions, music, and cuisine that exist in a multiethnic society. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown calls this the â€Å"3S† model of multiculturalism in Britain — saris, samosas, and steeldrums. 4 Multiculturalism takes these familiar cultural markers of ethnic groups — clothing, cuisine, and music — and treats them as authentic practices to be preserved by their members and safely consumed by others. Under the banner of multiculturalism they are taught in school, performed in festivals, displayed in media and museums, and so on. This celebratory model of multiculturalism has been the focus of many critiques, including the following: It ignores issues of economic and political inequality. Even if all Britons come to enjoy Jamaican steeldrum music or Indian samosas, this would do nothing to address the real problems facing Caribbean and South Asian communities in Britain — problems of unemployment, poor educational outcomes, residential segregation, poor English language skills, and political marginalization. These economic and political issues cannot be solved simply by celebrating cultural differences. Even with respect to the (legitimate) goal of promoting greater understanding of cultural differences, the focus on celebrating â€Å"authentic† cultural practices that are â€Å"unique† to each group is potentially dangerous. First, not all customs that may be traditionally practiced within a particular group are worthy of being celebrated, or even of being legally tolerated, such as forced marriage. To avoid stirring up controversy, there’s a tendency to choose as the focus of multicultural celebrations safely inoffensive practices — such as cuisine or music — that can be enjoyably consumed by members of the larger society. But this runs the opposite risk 2 For an overview of the attitudes of European social democratic parties to these issues, see Rene Cuperus, Karl Duffek, and Johannes Kandel, eds. , The Challenge of Diversity: European Social Democracy Facing Migration, Integration and Multiculturalism (Innsbruck: Studien Verlag, 2003). For references to â€Å"post-multiculturalism† by progressive intellectuals, who distinguish it from the radical right’s â€Å"antimulticulturalism,† see, regarding the United Kingdom, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, After Multiculturalism (London: Foreign Policy Centre, 2000), and â€Å"Beyond Multiculturalism,† Canadian Diversity/Diversite Canadienne 3, no. 2 (2004): 51–4; regarding Australia, James Jupp, From White Australia to Woomera: The Story of Australian Immigration, 2nd edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); and regarding the United States, Desmond King, The Liberty of Strangers: Making the American Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), and David A. Hollinger, Post-ethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism, revised edition (New York: Basic Books, 2006). Alibhai-Brown, After Multiculturalism. 3 4 4 Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE of the trivialization or Disneyfication of cultural differences,5 ignoring the real challenges that differences in cultural and religious values can raise. Third, the 3S model of multiculturalism can encourage a conception of groups as hermetically sealed and static, each reproducing its own distinct practices. Multiculturalism may be intended to encourage people to share their customs, but the assumption that each group has its own distinctive customs ignores processes of cultural adaptation, mixing, and melange, as well as emerging cultural commonalities, thereby potentially reinforcing perceptions of minorities as eternally â€Å"other. † This in turn can lead to the strengthening of prejudice and stereotyping, and more generally to the polarization of ethnic relations. Fourth, this model can end up reinforcing power inequalities and cultural restrictions within minority groups. In deciding which traditions are â€Å"authentic,† and how to interpret and display them, the state generally consults the traditional elites within the group — typically older males — while ignoring the way these traditional practices (and traditional elites) are often challenged by internal reformers, who have different views about how, say, a â€Å"good Muslim† should act. It can therefore imprison people in â€Å"cultural scripts† that they are not allowed to question or dispute. According to post-multiculturalists, the growing recognition of these flaws underlies the retreat from multiculturalism and signals the search for new models of citizenship that emphasize 1) political participation and economic opportunities over the symbolic politics of cultural recognition, 2) human rights and individual freedom over respect for cultural traditions, 3) the building of inclusive national identities over the recognition of ancestral cultural identities, and 4) cultural change and cultural mixing over the reification of static cultural differences. This narrative about the rise and fall of 3S multiculturalism will no doubt be familiar to many readers. In my view, however, it is inaccurate. Not only is it a caricature of the reality of multiculturalism as it has developed over the past 40 years in the Western democracies, but it is a distraction from the real issues that we need to face. The 3S model captures something important about natural human tendencies to simplify ethnic differences, and about the logic of global capitalism to sell cosmopolitan cultural products, but it does not capture the nature of post-1960s government MCPs, which have had more complex historical sources and political goals. B. Multiculturalism in Context It is important to put multiculturalism in its historical context. In one sense, it is as old as humanity — different cultures have always found ways of coexisting, and respect for diversity was a familiar feature of many historic empires, such as the Ottoman Empire. But the sort of multiculturalism that is said to have had a â€Å"rise and fall† is a more specific historic phenomenon, emerging first in the Western democracies in the late 1960s. This timing is important, for it helps us situate multiculturalism in relation to larger social transformations of the postwar era. More specifically, multiculturalism is part of a larger human-rights revolution involving ethnic and racial diversity. Prior to World War II, ethnocultural and religious diversity in the West was characterized by a range of illiberal and undemocratic relationships of hierarchy,6 justified by racialist ideologies that explicitly propounded the superiority of some peoples and cultures and their right to rule over others. These ideologies were widely accepted throughout the Western world and underpinned both domestic laws (e. g. , racially biased immigration and citizenship policies) and foreign policies (e. g. , in relation to overseas colonies). 5 6 Neil Bissoondath, Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada (Toronto: Penguin, 1994). Including relations of conqueror and conquered, colonizer and colonized, master and slave, settler and indigenous, racialized and unmarked, normalized and deviant, orthodox and heretic, civilized and primitive, and ally and enemy. Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future 5 MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE After World War II, however, the world recoiled against Hitler’s fanatical and murderous use of such ideologies, and the United Nations decisively repudiated them in favor of a new ideology of the equality of races and peoples. And this new assumption of human equality generated a series of political movements designed to contest the lingering presence or enduring effects of older hierarchies. We can distinguish three â€Å"waves† of such movements: 1) the struggle for decolonization, concentrated in the period 1948–65; 2) the struggle against racial segregation and discrimination, initiated and exemplified by the AfricanAmerican civil-rights movement from 1955 to 1965; and 3) the struggle for multiculturalism and minority rights, which emerged in the late 1960s. Multiculturalism is part of a larger human-rights revolution involving ethnic and racial diversity. Each of these movements draws upon the human-rights revolution, and its foundational ideology of the equality of races and peoples, to challenge the legacies of earlier ethnic and racial hierarchies. Indeed, the human-rights revolution plays a double role here, not just as the inspiration for a struggle, but also as a constraint on the permissible goals and means of that struggle. Insofar as historically excluded or stigmatized groups struggle against earlier hierarchies in the name of equality, they too have to renounce their own traditions of exclusion or oppression in the treatment of, say, women, gays, people of mixed race, religious dissenters, and so on. Human rights, and liberal-democratic constitutionalism more generally, provide the overarching framework within which these struggles are debated and addressed. Each of these movements, therefore, can be seen as contributing to a process of democratic â€Å"citizenization† — that is, turning the earlier catalog of hierarchical relations into relationships of liberaldemocratic citizenship. This entails transforming both the vertical relationships between minorities and the state and the horizontal relationships among the members of different groups. In the past, it was often assumed that the only way to engage in this process of citizenization was to impose a single undifferentiated model of citizenship on all individuals. But the ideas and policies of multiculturalism that emerged from the 1960s start from the assumption that this complex history inevitably and appropriately generates group-differentiated ethnopolitical claims. The key to citizenization is not to suppress these differential claims but to filter them through and frame them within the language of human rights, civil liberties, and democratic accountability. And this is what multiculturalist movements have aimed to do. The precise character of the resulting multicultural reforms varies from group to group, as befits the distinctive history that each has faced. They all start from the antidiscrimination principle that underpinned the second wave but go beyond it to challenge other forms of exclusion or stigmatization. In most Western countries, explicit state-sponsored discrimination against ethnic, racial, or religious minorities had largely ceased by the 1960s and 1970s, under the influence of the second wave of humanrights struggles. Yet ethnic and racial hierarchies persist in many societies, whether measured in terms of economic inequalities, political underrepresentation, social stigmatization, or cultural invisibility. Various forms of multiculturalism have been developed to help overcome these lingering inequalities. The focus in this report is on multiculturalism as it pertains to (permanently settled) immigrant groups,7 7 There was briefly in some European countries a form of â€Å"multiculturalism† that was not aimed at the inclusion of permanent immigrants, but rather at ensuring that temporary migrants would return to their country of origin. For example, mothertongue education in Germany was not initially introduced â€Å"as a minority right but in order to enable guest worker children to reintegrate in their countries of origin† (Karen Schonwalder, â€Å"Germany: Integration Policy and Pluralism in a Self-Conscious Country of Immigration,† in The Multiculturalism Backlash: European Discourses, Policies and Practices, eds. Steven Vertovec and Susanne Wessendorf [London: Routledge, 2010], 160). Needless to say, this sort of â€Å"returnist† multiculturalism — premised on the idea that migrants are foreigners who should return to their real home — has nothing to do with multiculturalism policies (MCPs) premised on the idea that immigrants belong in their host countries, and which aim to make immigrants 6 Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE but it is worth noting that struggles for multicultural citizenship have also emerged in relation to historic minorities and indigenous peoples. 8 C. The Evolution of Multiculturalism Policies The case of immigrant multiculturalism is just one aspect of a larger â€Å"ethnic revival† across the Western democracies,9 in which different types of minorities have struggled for new forms of multicultural citizenship that combine both antidiscrimination measures and positive forms of recognition and accommodation. Multicultural citizenship for immigrant groups clearly does not involve the same types of claims as for indigenous peoples or national minorities: immigrant groups do not typically seek land rights, territorial autonomy, or official language status. What then is the substance of multicultural citizenship in relation to immigrant groups? The Multiculturalism Policy Index is one attempt to measure the evolution of MCPs in a standardized format that enables comparative research. 10 The index takes the following eight policies as the most common or emblematic forms of immigrant MCPs:11 Constitutional, legislative, or parliamentary affirmation of multiculturalism, at the central and/ or regional and municipal levels The adoption of multiculturalism in school curricula The inclusion of ethnic representation/sensitivity in the mandate of public media or media licensing Exemptions from dress codes, either by statute or by court cases Allowing of dual citizenship The funding of ethnic group organizations to support cultural activities The funding of bilingual education or mother-tongue instruction Affirmative action for disadvantaged immigrant groups12 feel more at home where they are. The focus of this paper is on the latter type of multiculturalism, which is centrally concerned with constructing new relations of citizenship. 8 In relation to indigenous peoples, for example — such as the Maori in New Zealand, Aboriginal peoples in Canada and Australia, American Indians, the Sami in Scandinavia, and the Inuit of Greenland — new models of multicultural citizenship have emerged since the late 1960s that include policies such as land rights, self-government rights, recognition of customary laws, and guarantees of political consultation. And in relation to substate national groups — such as the Basques and Catalans in Spain, Flemish and Walloons in Belgium, Scots and Welsh in Britain, Quebecois in Canada, Germans in South Tyrol, Swedish in Finland — we see new models of multicultural citizenship that include policies such as federal or quasi-federal territorial autonomy; official language status, either in the region or nationally; and guarantees of representation in the central government or on constitutional courts. 9 Anthony Smith, The Ethnic Revival in the Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 10 Keith Banting and I developed this index, first published in Keith Banting and Will Kymlicka, eds. , Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Many of the ideas discussed in this paper are the result of our collaboration. 11 As with all cross-national indices, there is a trade-off between standardization and sensitivity to local nuances. There is no universally accepted definition of multiculturalism policies and no hard and fast line that would sharply distinguish MCPs from closely related policy fields, such as antidis

Of Mice and Men :: essays research papers

In the book, Of Mice and Men, a duo of friends tries to reach their utopia but their dream is shattered by a man's weak mind. Throughout the book, Lennie and George stick by each other through hard times and harsh characters. When Lennie was chased by a gang of angry people, George did the only thing he knew possible to help Lennie escape from these people. When George shot Lennie, at first I thought that he was being unreasonable. Lennie could've gone to an asylum or a shelter, but he didn't need to be killed. However, by killing Lennie, George saved him from the horrible death by the mob and perhaps more from the reality of their unreachable utopia. I don't know if I could do the same to try to help a weak friend. If someone dear to me even asked me to kill them to relieve them from something, I still don't think I could do it. But George showed a kind of courage by saving Lennie. He let Lennie go to the only reachable utopia he knew that Lennie could possibly attain: heaven. I was also very sad when Candy's dreams were shattered. Even Crooks, the old black man, had a part in this dream of the perfect ranch, but because of one adulterous, flirtatious woman, his hopes of making something better of himself flew away. I hate it when something that would do so much good is not possible. If Candy, George, Lennie, and Crooks ever actually got this utopian ranch, it would make Lennie happy, Candy content, and would give Crooks something to do other than mope. But because Lennie's feeble mind caused him to make mistakes, this dream was destroyed. I pity every single person in this book, even thought the setting was not horrible. What makes the book so melancholy was that the characters could do so much more with themselves if they just tried.

Development of Communities

Communities, like tribes, were traditionally considered to be the second stage of human grouping, right after families. They however now mean different things to different people, making the definition of community too broad and incapable of clear description. The notion of community, as per the Oxford English Dictionary, is defined to be â€Å"the people of a country (or district) as a whole; the general body to which all alike belong. † This definition is however largely inadequate, considering the many contexts in which the word is used today.At one level communities stand for clusters of persons, larger than families, who are related by specific common features like the language they speak, the gods they worship, the ethnicity they belong to, the traditions they practice and the place they stay in. Again whilst communities represent human groupings that are more populous than families, many extended families like the tribes that people the islands of the Indian Ocean can e asily qualify to be treated as communities.Communities are further known to have the same social standards, plainly discernible structures and come from specific locations. Communities are powerful entities and have on many occasions achieved remarkable goals in self determination and the pursuit of autonomy, ergo the many struggles for independence in Asia and Africa in recent decades. The sustained struggle of the Tamil community in Sri Lanka in the face of the most horrendous deprivation captures the essential resilience of community feeling and the extent to which it binds community members.Much of this internal strength comes from the sense of solidarity, identification and support that exists within these structures, the instilling of social values, and the development of attitudes and common strengths. The growth of terrorism is clearly linked to the influence of community attitudes and values; the London bombers, for example, owe their religious fanaticism to community feeli ngs, which superseded the influence of factors like education and financial and social well being and led them to take plainly irrational decisions.Whilst the notion of community has attracted attention and debate from the time of Aristotle, the social, economic, and political developments that have occurred on the global platform since the 1980s have put the relevance of community into sharper focus. Globalization, a phenomenon that took off in the 1980s after the collapse of the Soviet Union and entailed the breakdown of physical, economic, and trade barriers between peoples of different regions has truly made the world a much smaller place.Apart from the much greater interconnectedness that has happened in areas of business, trade, economics, education, travel and other areas of human activity, globalization has also led to substantial migrations of peoples from their native lands, Bangladeshis into India, East Europeans into the UK, people from South and Southeast Asia into the US and UK, and an ever increasing stream of Mexicans into the US.Spurred on by the desire for better living standards, people from economically backward and politically unstable countries are moving into neighboring or distant areas, putting up base, and settling down, changing local demographic structures, interacting with the original inhabitants, bringing their culture and tradition with them, influencing and being influenced by their adopted lands.By no means is this phenomenon restricted to the affluent countries, (viz.  global magnets like the USA and the UK), which have traditionally attracted the deprived with their economic affluence and individual freedoms. Bangladeshis, Tibetans and Nepalese, for instance, have crossed their porous borders with neighboring India and spread out all over the country, offering cheap labor at construction sites, restaurants, and to security companies, changing local equations, provoking sympathy as well as hostility and resentment.The Unite d States, which has for long been known to be a multicultural and welcoming haven for the poor and needy of the world is now home to millions of people from the Latin speaking countries of South America, Asia and the Pacific Rim, who have settled down in large numbers and significantly changed what was essentially a society dominated by whites, with peripheral roles played by African Americans. The inflow of these outsiders has led to the establishment of communities, where people with commonalities cluster together, sustaining and supporting each other, and interacting in various ways with the larger society around them.This study examines the issue of survival of such communities in the era of globalization, using readings from two distinguished and well known books, â€Å"Becoming neighbors in a Mexican American Community† (2004) by Gilda L. Ochoa and â€Å"The Politics of Diversity: Immigration, Resistance and Change in Monterey Park, California† (1997) by John Hor ton. Commentary and Analysis Gilda Ochoa, a professor of sociology at the California State University at Los Angeles picks up an intriguing subject, the relationships and interaction between Mexican Americans, for detailed investigation and analysis.Referring to a variety of sources like direct interviews, observations from participating in group discussion sessions, minutes of board meetings of local schools, and other relevant papers, Ochoa presents a vivid and disturbing picture of the relationships that are emerging between established Mexican Americans and the new immigrants from Mexico, who are pouring in, legally and illegally, from across the southern border of the United States in hundreds of thousands every year.Whilst the two communities of Mexican origin do have common historical, cultural, ethnic and religious traditions, their relationships and interaction are characterized by a number of contradictions and insecurities that include sympathy, helpfulness, and cooperati veness, as well as resentment, fear, and mistrust.Apart from emphasizing the role played by women in the construction of communities, Ochoa deals with issues pertaining to the use of Spanish at home and English in the outside world, the formation of identity and the dynamics of group working during the interactions of the two communities in commonly frequented public places in the small and predominantly working class city of La Puente, 20 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles in Los Angeles County.John Horton’s book focuses on the small (just 60,000 inhabitants) town of Monterey Park; which in recent years has generated substantial media and researcher interest. At one time Monterey Park was a suburb located some distance east from downtown Los Angeles. Immigration from China, Hong Kong and other Pacific Rim countries that began in the early 1970s and gained momentum thereafter led to the city becoming the first in the United States with a majority of Asian inhabitants.Hor ton’s book is actually one of a duo on the subject, the other being authored by Timothy Fong. The evolution of Monterey Park into an Asian majority city in the United States is important for the social and economic ramifications that arise out of the coming together of people of different races, different ethnic backgrounds and different classes in a nation that is becoming increasingly diverse in terms of cultures, languages, religions and income groups.Horton refuses to see Monterey Park as another Chinatown and views it in terms of a bustling and diverse location that has witnessed the political changes that arose from the interaction of immigrants and earlier residents of Asian, Latino and Anglo American lineage; he uniquely showcases the political battles that started off on the basis of ethnicity and race, which were thereafter gradually abandoned in favor of accord and harmony.The steady evolution of a multicultural, multiracial, and multiethnic society in the United S tates has led to significant demographic shifts and political changes. With the Latina/o population in Los Angeles expected to outstrip the white population by 2 million by 2010, the city is already known as the Chicano capital of the US. Such events have led to the development of complex relationships between the original inhabitants and newcomers and to the emergence of feelings of conflict as well as solidarity between different population segments.Whilst the entry of large numbers of migrants is bound to lead to the development of complex local relationships, the impact of globalization on the modern day economy and the consequent migration of industries and jobs to low wage areas in South America and from other parts of the world have also led to escalation in hostility, resentment and the tendency to lay the blame for difficulties arising out of such events on the influx of immigrants.Ochoa uses a number of research techniques to investigate the evolution of the Mexican immigr ant community in La Puente in the face of white resentment and hostility, the many obstacles and difficulties that characterized their lives in the city and the strange and complex relationships that developed between the incoming Mexican immigrants and the established Mexican Americans who had arrived earlier, put down their roots, brought up their children, and built their homes in the face of white resistance.Her investigations lead to the development of a piquant tale, warm and heartbreaking, and documents events that often go completely unnoticed by members of the majority and older community, for whom the newcomers often represent nothing more than unwelcome intrusions who clutter residential areas, litter streets, strain existing infrastructure, and take away jobs.Ochoa recounts, through a number of personal interviews, the travails of the Mexican community in the face of a dominant white population that felt strongly enough about immigration to enact laws seeking to deny und ocumented Mexicans â€Å"access to public services, such as excluding children from the public school system, another that denied affirmative action in schools and workplaces, and a third that stemmed from the larger English-only movement and aimed to eliminate bilingual education† (Ochoa, 2004, 3).Ochoa’s work is unique in the sense that most studies on the Mexican community until now have been quantitative in nature, have focused on demographic and work related issues and have not, like her study, taken cognizance of the impact of the environment and local interaction on the evolution of the Mexican community. Working purely within the confines of La Puente, Ochoa addresses issues that affect the evolution of the Mexican American community and the complex attitudes and behaviors that characterize the relations between Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrant newcomers.Her investigation also throws up the impact of the dominant culture on immigrant cultures and the pro bability of new cultures and new communities becoming assimilated in the culture of the majority community. With most assimilative and integrative methods practiced through local schools, Ochoa’s work focuses strongly on the working of schools and school boards, on the attitudes and impressions of local parents and how control of schooling provides the dominant community with strong weapons to suppress the expression of newer communities, take away from them the language of their forefathers and break their links with their ancestors.Apart from the pernicious effect of schooling on the latent aspirations of incoming communities, Ochoa’s investigation of interaction between Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants brings out the areas of conflict as well as solidarity and the extent to which the constant flow of immigrants can affect the assimilation process of older and established inhabitants from the same ethnic and geographical background. Immigrant communities from different cultures have to often face resistance to their traditions, language, and customs in their adopted homes from members of the home community.A phenomenon that has repeatedly expressed itself in the past in various settings, it has led to the immigrant community assimilating itself with the culture of the local community, adopting their way of life, language, customs and traditions. The United States has itself played host to impoverished immigrants from Ireland and other countries of Europe like Poland and Germany, who have over decades learnt English, Anglo traditions and customs, conformed to local expectations and become Americans.Assimilation of foreigners is not restricted to the United States and expresses itself in all societies that play host to immigrants. The United Kingdom for example is redrawing immigration procedures that now require all immigrants to take tests on their knowledge of England, English, and English society. Much of this assimilation is carried out at the level of local schools, where school policies are predominantly weighed in favor of maintaining the local language and local culture to the exclusion of alien languages and cultural influences.Ochoa makes the point that with schools being reproductions of the larger surrounding society, their structure, policies, procedures, and regulations, in La Puente, work towards strengthening the established values, attitudes, ideologies and inherent discriminatory attitudes of the American way of life; their socialization process emphasizes the integration of children of immigrants and other colored people by teaching and inculcating values, norms, attitudes and expectations of the dominant class.The emphasis on English to the exclusion of all other languages, including Spanish, is one of the most important tools for the gradual elimination of Mexican identity and the assimilation of children of different communities into the Anglo way of life that characterizes American society. L a Puente’s investigations also lead to the inescapable conclusion of immigrant communities having to do with poorer school quality and the routing of their children to inferior career paths, conditions that tend to perpetuate existing hierarchical and power structures.Such discomfort, which is supposedly normal in the early years of immigrant arrival in terms of the assimilationist paradigm, (Ochoa, 2004, 21) is expected to gradually lead to a betterment of conditions; the Mexicans are expected to follow in the footsteps of the Irish, Jewish, and Italian communities who came before them and gradually shed their community attributes and adopted the American way of life, i. e. entered into the activities and general life of the dominant community.The assimilationist paradigm further postulates that with immigrant communities expected to become less distinguishable from the dominant community with the passage of generations, such assimilation leads to greater acceptance and less er hostility and a gradual easing of difficult living conditions. Apart from the tactics of assimilation practiced in schools, Ochoa also documents the complex and dichotomous relationships that exist between Mexican Americans and immigrant Mexicans, with the reactions of Mexican Americans moving from feelings of distaste, shame and rejection to cooperation, assistance and solidarity.With the responses of Mexican Americans being shaped by (a) their feelings about California once being part of Mexico and now occupied by Americans, (b) their experiences in La Puente, their adopted homeland, their struggles and the hostility they faced in their efforts to settle down in La Puente (c) their affinity towards their people from Mexico, and (d) their feelings of embarrassment arising out of the backwardness of the new entrants, their reactions are contradictory and, going by the interviews with Mexican immigrants, veer from goodwill and cooperation to rejection and hostility.Much of the neg ative attitudes can presumably be put down to insecurity that could stem from feeling that their acceptance in American society could be adversely affected by the buildup of negative perceptions in the face of continuing influx. Ochoa also documents the struggles the Mexican community has faced and is facing in preserving their language and culture from established institutional and social culture and their need for preservation of their cultural and social identity.Horton’s book focuses on the emergence of diversity in politics in Monterey Park from one and a half decades (mid 1980s to late 1990s) of interaction between immigrants and native residents. Employing techniques like ethnography, the use of exit polls and interviews, Horton is able to represent the process of change, which encompasses the giving way of established networks of loyalty, the increasing importance of women, minorities and newcomers, and the makeover of identities.Horton examines the municipal election s of 1988, 1990 and 1992 to show that voters made their election choices in the first 2 elections mostly on the basis of ethnicity. By 1992 feelings of ethnic solidarity appeared to have diluted significantly and voting patterns did not appear to move along ethnic lines.Horton furthermore also investigates areas other than those concerning politics like civic organizations and social events to assess the results of interaction between the city’s multi-ethnic residents, and seeks to show that whilst ethnicity was an important political force, it was in a state of fluidity and was mined and modified for political advantage.Elaborating on the divisive and essentially racist approach of the Slow-Growth and the Official-English movements, (Horton, 1997, 121) Horton also points out the importance of class stating that integration at Monterey Park was furthered because both native inhabitants and immigrants belonged to the middle class. The middle class resources of the newcomers an d the middle class status of the established inhabitants helped in reducing differences between the two groups. This point is extremely valid; it reinforces the force of class as a divisive factor in society and its power to overcome differences in culture, traditions and ethnicity.Based upon a wide range of data that comprised of reviews of newspapers, exit polls, interviews and eyewitness accounts, Horton compares the issues of ethnicity, immigration and race in Monterey Park with larger regional, national, and global contexts. Opposing the view that that cultural diversity will lead to disunity among American people, Horton makes the point that diversity does not inescapably lead to lasting competition and conflict (Horton, 1997, 182) and that moreover the politics of diversity based on alliances between different ethnic groups can bring about unity and harmony.His effort is important for the analysis that interethnic politics lead to the redefinition of ethnic identities. A comm unity is far more than a collection of individual humans with some common bonds or purposes, such groups being more appropriately described as associations. Communities develop mores and are characterized by a sense of self identity that comes about from a common and shared past as well as a collective vision of the future, an identification with the concept of â€Å"us† and â€Å"them†, and finally of collective thought and attitudes, (features of community characteristics that are brought out very clearly both by Ochoa and Horton).Again communities need individuals to be integrated by principles, be active, and participate strongly in the pursuit of its interests. Communities, experts say, are united by an identifying principle, which represents the value, the ideal, and the good that the community revolves around for its sustained survival, and shapes the processes for assessing such principle.With the establishment of the values and principles and the organization of the community requiring its members to participate in such processes, interaction between community members is dependent upon communication, an essential feature of community life that is destroyed through negation of the use of ethnic languages by assimilative processes. Communities require communicating to grow and consolidate. With humans living in communities by virtue of the things they share and possess, ideal communities are restricted in size and distinguished by strong communication between its members.Globalization, migration, and assimilation of traits of other cultures obviously work against the strengthening of communication bonds between community members and affect its furtherance. The subject of globalization and its repercussions have come to the vanguard of socio-political debate and discussion, there being a growing concern that globalization, through its various manifestations, is wiping out communities and cultures and creating an ugly similarity all over the world.Events like the protests against the WTO in Seattle during 1999, the objection to the entry of McDonald’s in various parts of the world and other insurrections, suggest that the concept of a unified world is not just difficult but also unwanted by many peoples. It however needs to be realized that the personal and cultural impact that globalization is having all over the world is as important as its economic impact. The creation of a global society actually needs diversity in its constituents, the diversity in a society adding to its novelty and, hopefully, to its ability to be flexible.The integrating principle of a global society should not just reject sameness but should try to represent the views of all those involved in its creation and maintenance There is an increasing feeling that globalization can lead to the destruction of a myriad ethnic cultures in favor of one common culture, which most people feel will be predominantly Euro-American, considering the soft and hard powers of the western nations and their domination of global media.In both La Puente and Monterey Park, the cultures of ethnic communities have been subjected to a fierce assault by the dominant culture, much of which is played out in schools and by the imposition of the English language. The all pervasive effect of American advertising and television programs is also seen as a strong culturally invasive force, not just with immigrant communities in the US but all over the world; the concern about loss of cultural identity and local uniqueness is substantial and is caused by the perception of the imposition of cultural hegemony through all possible means.With globalization impacting the world at all levels, society, community, and individual, it is not difficult to foresee that the assimilation of individual cultures and unique community traits into the folds of the dominant community can have a negative impact upon community life. It however remains a fact that the homogen ization of the world, as also of different communities in the United States, is happening at a fast clip, a phenomenon that is adversely affecting the independence, growth and sustenance of a myriad communities. A number of reasons are behind this decline in community life.With globalization involving travel and migration of labor forces in large volumes from areas of deprivation and excess labor availability to those deficient in workforce and willing to pay for the same, it is become progressively difficult for communities to retain their distinguishing characteristics in the new areas that some of their members decide to make their homes in. Whilst increases in communication technology and cheaper air travel are making communication cheap and easy between people in different areas, the absence of direct face to face communication that existed in the past is bound to affect the integrity of community life.Limited communication will not allow for the development of relationships to levels that are needed for the continuance of communities. Apart from the deterioration in 121 relationships, community spirits are also hurt by cultures of consumption, market cultures and the cultures of dominant communities, all of which lead community members, especially those who are young to conform to what they feel to be the most popular, acceptable and esteemed culture. Market cultures affect community life adversely, leading to the dominance of commodification and the decline of neighborhoods, communities and common links of history and tradition.The adoption of the cultural mores and ways of life of the dominant community by immigrant communities is, in many cases, as highlighted by Ochoa, due to need for increasing the self esteem and self worth of members of immigrant communities. Such feelings in the minds of new immigrants are moreover reinforced by seeing people of the same community, who had come earlier, having already adopted the culture of sameness, and conseque ntly lead to greater assimilation with dominant communities and submersion of individual community traits.Homogenization of individuals into persons with similar behavioral and cultural norms arises from (a) environmental forces that do not appreciate and do not tolerate any deviation from accepted norms and (b) the erroneous notion that social or national unity requires all individuals to follow the same culture; much like the concept of organizational culture in the private sector. A nation or a society is however significantly different from a private sector corporation and such notions lead to the creation of utmost confusion over concepts of homogeneity and unity.Strong unity, most policymakers and intellectuals assert, comes from the affirmation of diversity in the context of similar objectives. Homogeneity in fact leads to dogma, intolerance, prejudice, and divisiveness and works against the concept of unity and effective progress towards common goals. Diversity has time and again been shown to be associated with the successful working and goal attainment of most groups of people.Communities and larger societies thrive on diversity and the underlying objective for the achievement and establishment of a beneficial structure, concepts and ideas that cannot progress in the absence of tolerance for other ideas and perspectives. The necessity of changing with the times is critical for all communities and larger societies. Globalization is also steadily eliminating the sense of responsibility necessary for the growth, purpose and consolidation of community life, with most community affairs being decided by state or national governmental bodies, and even by large corporate organizations.All this as well as the process of assimilation is leading to the steady deterioration of community life and the construction of associations that are characterized by sameness to the exclusion of oneness in the reinforcing presence of diversity. Lack of diversity, tolerance, a nd communication, leads to the stifling of communities. In actual fact, the concept of a truly global society allows communities to grow and flourish; it takes strength and sustenance from their various inputs and features, even as it strives for the achievement of common and not selective good.Such a society will work optimally only after the striking of a proper balance between the needs of globalization and the dominant and minority communities in areas of political, social and economic activity. Whilst globalization does not appear to be a reversible phenomenon, actions need to be taken to ensure that it is not allowed to destroy the notion of community. Both the studies, by Ochoa and Horton, reveal that whilst immigrant communities come under enormous pressure in early years, such strains disappear with the progress of assimilation.Although most community members show mixed approaches to the process of assimilation, resenting the taking away of the characteristic features of th eir life and at the same time wishing to be held in esteem by members of the dominant host community, the preservation of communities depends greatly upon the tolerance and openness of establishment members and the extent to which they are ready to respect the uniqueness of newcomers in their midst.Assimilation can actually instead of leading to unity result in a false sense of sameness, and such societies, which press for the establishment of sameness rather than diversity, can lead to the suppression of growth and sustenance of communities. Conclusion The continuance of communities in a fast globalizing world, as is evidenced from the foregoing discussion, depends to a large extent upon the tolerance and open-mindedness of dominant communities.Whilst most communities are formed over the ages and are by nature extremely resilient, excessive fragmentation, migration and exposure to more politically and economically powerful cultures that are furthermore negatively disposed towards a lien communities can put such communities under immense strain and lead to irreversible changes.Horton makes the point that modern day society, whilst containing elements of dogma and intolerance, are by nature receptive to the concept of multi ethnic structures; they are open to being shaped by and responding to external influences, and to the creation of freer and more vibrant social structures. The concept of a globalized world allows communities to retain their distinguishing and reinforcing features, even while it strives for the betterment of the common good.The successful progression of such social structures work towards the advantage and benefit of the many communities that sustain its diversity and multifaceted nature and it becomes the responsibility of all individuals to ensure that diversity is not sacrificed at the altar of sameness. Communities are critical to the successful progression of human society; they facilitate the establishment and sustenance of bonds betwee n humans at elemental levels, lead to joint and cooperative action for the betterment of society and to the continuation of different identities and cultures that have grown over centuries.Such features of diverse and multiethnic societies need to be valued and not extinguished by narrow and insecure parochialism and the desire to create a globally similar society. Unthinking efforts to assimilate separate cultures and extinguish their unique characteristics in favor of the establishment of uniformity can lead to nothing but the detriment of globalization efforts and society needs to be ever vigilant against such regressive tendencies.Recognizing the impact of globalization on communities and making of concerted efforts to preserve them is an imperative for the establishment of a truly globalized society and should be a priority of leading world societies. Globalization need not lead to the decline of community. Shifting of short sighted perspectives will help in the preservation, s ustenance and growth of unique communities and to the diversity and strength of a truly globalized society. References Ochoa, G.L, (2004), Becoming Neighbors in a Mexican American Community: Power, Conflict, and Solidarity, University of Texas Press Horton, J, (1997), The Politics of Diversity: Immigration, Resistance, and Change in Monterey Park, California, Temple University Press

Tok Bias Essay (Gavin Menzies, Jared Diamond, Etc.)

Theory Of Knowledge To what extent can disagreement aid in our understanding of history? October 2012 International School of Curacao Wordcount: 2,691 Historical Disagreements To what extent can disagreement aid in our understanding of history? Disagreement has been present in the world ever since the first biotic and abiotic factors roamed the Earth. In order to understand what the question is asking, we must define its key words. Disagreement is defined as a difference in opinion and diversity.Even though the word disagreement has a negative tone, it does not necessarily have to be bad. Disagreement offers people a different point of view and can help the world’s population improve its understanding of each other. This brings me to the next key word in the question: understanding. Understanding is described as the comprehension of a certain topic and as having a mental grasp on something. People encounter disagreements during discussions, which makes the conversation richer. I find it is important, for every human being, to understand that disagreements are healthy.Without disagreement, there will be too much familiarity and similarity, and life will be lacking adventure and uncertainties. Disagreement and lack of understanding are often, if not always, seen in history. Many wars start because of a disagreement and/or because of the lack of willingness of understanding. History is defined as the study of the past. Much of the study of history is factual. Facts are statements supposedly set in stone and true. From a young age on, children are taught that facts are not to be altered. As they grow up, they find that this is false: history is not entirely set in stone.And that is exactly what this paper will be covering, with the help of Jared Diamond, Galileo Galilei, Gavin Menzies, Fritz Fischer, Charles van Doren, and Reuben Abel. Historiography is the writing of history. According to Reuben Abel, different historiographies are influenced by the history of civilization. This history of civilization is depending on climate, soil, and geography. Geography brings up another historian that helps support that disagreement aids in the understanding of history. Jared Diamond did research on why historiography is different in different continents.He published his findings in a book called â€Å"Guns, Germs, and Steel†. Diamond argued that the gaps in technology and power between human societies are not caused mainly by cultural and racial differences. He states that the geography and ecology of European and Asian landmasses gave the societies there an advantage over those on other continents. Although Diamond’s findings sound realistic, his work was critiqued for ‘factual errors’. Diamond, although criticized, is important to mention in the discussion on how disagreement aids in the understanding of history.His findings may not all be correct, but some are. This shows that there were many different factors playi ng in the different historiographies in different continents in the world. Reuben Abel goes on by stating that the history of civilization is also dependent of race, hereditary ability, and psychological factors. Additionally, it depends on the motif of power and on the theory that history is the history of class struggle. This is an idea taking from Marxism, and the first kind of approach to history: that it is cyclical.Reuben Abel goes on by stating that historiographies should be appraised and assessed, but that there is no crucial experiment that can test the validity of a theory of history. Abel’s claim that â€Å"History is far from being exclusively scientific or factual; it is also a larger part creative† is one I can agree with. History is not just facts. Between the factual sentences, there has to be at least one sentence linking one fact to another. The main reason why Reuben Abel is important to mention in this essay about disagreement aiding the understand ing of history is that humanity has not yet discovered every bit of evidence in the world.Abel mentions that the past is â€Å"inferred from present evidence†. What he means with this is that the evidence found in modern times indicates the past. With this, Abel concludes that present evidence is not complete. Hence, the past remains a mystery. A good example of historical deception is Stalin’s photograph taken with Nikolai Yezhov, which was altered later to remove Yezhov. Disagreement has been present in history and often a source of major (bloody) historical events. A good example of disagreement aiding in the understanding of history is the three different views of any historical event.You have the Orthodox view of a historical event, which is the traditional outlook and interpretation of historical ‘facts’. The second view is the revisionist one. These historians take a second look at the evidence of the first view. The third view is the post-revisioni st view. Historians look at both the traditional and the revisionist view of the same historical event, and conclude ‘something’ based on both views. This is important in discussing how disagreement aids in the understanding of history. The three views obviously have a different opinion of what caused a certain historical event.But this disagreement, that is healthy, provides the world’s population with a better understanding of history. The disagreement gives the world the option to choose which view they support the most. Gavin Menzies is another great example of one who argues the truth of history. He states that it was not Christopher Columbus who discovered America in 1492, but the Chinese. He says that the New World was ‘stumbled upon’ by the Chinese in 1421. This is seven decades prior to Columbus. Menzies is relevant in the discussion about disagreement aiding in the understanding of history, because he questions and challenges history.He has found and states his evidence, in his book, supporting that China had been actively sailing around the world during the 1420’s. The reason why he is arguing the truth of America’s discovery is because he himself found out that many historical Chinese events happened in 1421. This is the main reason why he decided to write a book about the Chinese discovering America before Columbus. Additionally, Menzies is important to mention in the discussion of how disagreement can aid in the understanding of history because of his thesis.His thesis changed the Western age of discovery and altered the common belief that Europe discovered Asia. Some of his arguments include finding Asian jade in Aztec tombs, and allegations of Chinese ideograms found on pre-Columbian pottery. Another argument he uses to defend his statement(s) is the idea of maps that show countries that were not yet discovered by Europe in the 15th century. His third supporting argument is that not only many acade mics in China support him; also academics on the West Coast of America believe Zhang He found North America and Australia during his two-year journey over the ocean, which began in 1421.Menzies re-opened the discussion of truth in relation to history in 2008 when he stated that the Chinese sparked the Renaissance. With his book, Menzies received much criticism. Oxford professor Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, for example, counters Menzies’ evidence of maps by saying: â€Å"What [Gavin Menzies] doesn’t understand is that maps at that time were as much acts of the imagination as cartography†. Menzies replies by stating that there are over 6,000 references that support the idea of ‘diffusion theory’. This is the idea that there are various alternative theories that discuss America’s discovery.Menzies goes on by stating that it is â€Å"Virtually impossible to still argue that Columbus discovered America, that Cook found Australia or that Magellan was the first to circumnavigate the world†. This is also because evidence was discovered that the Vikings discovered America 500 years prior to Columbus, and 430 years prior to the Chinese. Menzies also states that in the 1400’s, only the Chinese had the capacity and knowledge to explore the world. The article on his website summarizes that Menzies says that the Chinese fleet could have circumnavigated the world four times between 1421 and 1426. The key word to view is could.By using this word, Menzies assumes that the Chinese could circle the world four times, while there is hardly any sign of evidence to support this argument. If Menzies had evidence to support his statement, he would not be using the word could. Another reason why Menzies is significant when looking at disagreement aiding in the understanding of history is because he introduces the idea of ‘diffusion theories’ to a younger audience. He is able to make people question what they were taught a t school and think about their sources. But then this question comes to mind: is Menzies’ goal to prove China’s role in the discovery of America ethical?This means that many historians that studied the topic of discovery should and will be questioned. Many people will be questioning their beliefs and Spain (as well as various other countries) will be suffering under a ‘bad image’. Menzies is making the public question their authority and textbooks. Another man who made the public question their authority and textbooks was German historian Fritz Fischer. In 1961, he introduced that Germany intended to start a (world) war to gain more economic and political dominance over Europe, Africa, and Asia.Germany had a strong sense of colonialism, and found imperialism very important. Fischer, as a revisionist, concludes that therefore Germany is responsible for the start of the Great War, or the First War. His colleagues and the (German) public received his contribu tions with shock as it challenged the traditional view that Germany stumbled into the war, just like the other great European powers did. Younger historians later found truth in some of his evidence and Fischer became Germany’s best-known living historian to the world, until he died on December 1st of 1999.The main reason why Fischer is important to mention in a discussion about disagreement aiding in the understanding of history is because his statement opened up the discussion of the world wars. Before, German people were not allowed to speak of the war, as it was still a very sensitive topic. Fischer blew new life into the topic of Germany’s intentions. The disagreement among him and his supports and other historians has shown that there is more evidence to what humanity is aware of now. Back then; the causes of the Great War were debatable, yet one was seen as set in stone.Now children are taught that there are various causes of the Great War. This disagreement cau sed by Fischer has resulted in a better understanding of the intentions of Germany in the Great War. Another important subject related to disagreement in aiding the understanding of history is truth and reality. Before and somewhat after the Renaissance, religious populations believed that the world was flat, and that one could fall off of it. This was, however, proven wrong by various scientists in BC and in AD. Another example of human deception and ignorance of truth and reality is Charles van Doren’s game show appearance.In January of 1957, he entered a game show and won more than $1 million. It became later known that Van Doren was given the answers to the questions and that he therefore cheated. Van Doren’s cheating shows that even something as simple as a game show, can be manipulated. When viewing this problem on a larger scale, one will make the startling discovery that certain things are happening that ‘ordinary’ people are not and will never be aware of. The manipulation also shows and supports the idea that what happens in the present, and what happened in the past, may be believed to be true, until one knows the actual truth.Sometimes people do not want to have a disagreement about history and present knowledge. A good example of this is the Renaissance, specifically Galileo Galilei. Galileo was famous for his scientific findings and believes. In 1632, he published a book in which he stated that the Earth was moving around the sun. By doing so he was proving the common believe of the Earth being central in the universe, wrong. This angered the Pope, and Galileo was found suspect of heresy and was forced to say that his findings were wrong. Additionally, he became imprisoned and persecuted by the church.Galileo is important to mention in the discussion of disagreement aiding in the understanding of history as he demonstrated the advantages of experimentation and change. He was among those who began the Scientific Revoluti on in Europe. Disagreement is necessary in discussions and in life. Without it, life would be dull and too familiar. Because of disagreement, many people are given the option to choose who and what they want to believe. This is when historiography comes into place. Historiography is the writing of history. There is someone who writes the history that children are taught of in class.This someone can be a traditional Orthodox historian, a revisionist historian, or a post-revisionist. The lessons for history that we, the ordinary and educated part of humanity, are taught were once determined by one of these categories of historians. Their view is what we value as truth and factual. Galileo, for example, was one among many who proved the truth of a flat Earth wrong. He discovered, with a telescope and calculations, that the Earth is round. Although found mad at first, Galileo proved something that was found true by many religious people, false. Another example of this would be Gavin Men zies.He argued that it was not Columbus who discovered America, but the Chinese. Although he receives many critics on his book, he has proven that there is new evidence supporting that Columbus was not the first on America. This has made many people question their textbooks and take a second look at many historical facts. Fritz Fischer has done similar and made Germans and other countries in the world take another look at their textbooks. He did so by stating that Germany is responsible for the First World War, as they promoted imperialism and colonialism. Germany was greedy and therefore to blame for the First World War.Jared Diamond has also made people check their textbooks. He introduced the idea that there are various factors influencing each historical event. Diamond proved that Europe and Asia were able to conquer the New World due to their geography and agriculture. Charles van Doren did not prove anything wrong either, but proved that humanity may be deceived by their lack of knowledge. By entering a game show and winning through cheating, Van Doren has proven that something as simple as a game show can be manipulated. This raises the question of what else is manipulated that humanity is unaware of?To conclude, disagreement is important when looking at history. History is not set in stone, and can never fully be. Reuben Abel said that the evidence found today, determines the history. This is true as much information is still lacking from history, and certain events are still lacking cause and reason, which would be determined by the evidence. The disagreement among historians wakes up humanity. It forces us to study certain events better in order to fully understand all of its possible causes. We will be able to understand history better by viewing different possibilities.The people present during the historical events are gone, and only psychical evidence is left over. From this, historians conclude their professional opinions. Disagreement aids in t he understanding of history as it provides humanity with the possibility of variety. Bibliography BBC News. (2002, October 22). Experts hope to emulate Chinese Columbus. Retrieved September 21, 2012, from BBC News: http://news. bbc. co. uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2349929. stm Clark, J. (2012). Did the Chinese beat Columbus to America? Retrieved October 1, 2012, from How Stuff Works: http://history. howstuffworks. om/european-history/chinese-beat-columbus. htm Dictionary. (2012). Disagreement. Retrieved October 3, 2012, from Dictionary: http://dictionary. reference. com/browse/disagreement Dictionary. (2012). Fact. Retrieved October 2, 2012, from Dictionary: http://dictionary. reference. com/browse/fact Freudenrich, C. C. (2011). World History. Retrieved October 1, 2012, from Curiosity: http://curiosity. discovery. com/question/how-know-vikings-north-america Gavin Menzies. (2011, August 11). Australia as surveyed by Zheng He fleet voyagers before 1433 -paper delivered in Brisbane, August 2006. Retrieved September 21, 2012, from Gavin Menzies: http://www. gavinmenzies. net/Evidence/5-australia-as-surveyed-by-zheng-he-fleet-voyagers-before-1433-paper-delivered-in-brisbane-august-2006/ Hitt, J. (2012, January 5). Goodbye, Columbus! Retrieved October 1, 2012, from New York Times: http://www. nytimes. com/2003/01/05/magazine/goodbye-columbus. html? pagewanted=all&src=pm Lovgren, S. (2005, July 6). â€Å"Guns, Germs, and Steel†: Jared Diamond on Geography as Power. Retrieved October 3, 2012, from National Geographic: http://news. nationalgeographic. com/news/2005/07/0706_050706_diamond. html Menzies, G. 2011, August 18). At the time only the Chinese had the capacity and knowledge to explore and chart the world. Retrieved September 20, 2012, from Gavin Menzies: http://www. gavinmenzies. net/Evidence/1-at-the-time-only-the-chinese-had-the-capacity-and-knowledge-to-explore-and-chart-the-world/ Merriam-Webster. (2012). Understanding. Retrieved October 2, 2012, from Merriam-W ebster: http://www. merriam-webster. com/dictionary/understanding Saxon, W. (1999, December 10). Fritz Fischer, 91; German Historian Blamed Germany for First War. Retrieved October 3, 2012, from New York Times: http://www. nytimes. om/1999/12/10/world/fritz-fischer-91-german-historian-blamed-germany-for-first-war. html Stanfor Solar Center. (2010). Who was Galileo? Retrieved October 3, 2012, from Stanford Solar Center: http://solar-center. stanford. edu/galileo/ The Free Dictionary. (2012). History. Retrieved October 2, 2012, from The Free Dictionary by Farlex: http://www. thefreedictionary. com/history The Telegraph. (2008, August 1). Gavin Menzies: mad as a snake- or visionary? Retrieved September 21, 2012, from The Telegraph: http://www. telegraph. co. uk/culture/books/3557568/Gavin-Menzies-mad-as-a-snake-or-a-visionary. tml Wikipedia. (2012, October 3). Jared Diamond. Retrieved October 4, 2012, from Wikipedia: http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Jared_Diamond ——— ———————————– [ 1 ]. Dictionary, 2012 [ 2 ]. Merriam-Webster, 2011 [ 3 ]. Free Dictionary, 2009 [ 4 ]. Dictionary, 2010 [ 5 ]. National Geography, 2005 [ 6 ]. Wikipedia, 2012 [ 7 ]. The Study of History: What is the Past, 1976 [ 8 ]. The Study of History: What is the Past, 1976 [ 9 ]. The Study of History: What is the Past, 1976 [ 10 ]. New York Times, 2003 [ 11 ]. New York Times, 2003