New Paradigms in the Study of the Civil War Essay Example for Free

New Paradigms in the Study of the Civil War Essay A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly united nation state. The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies. Civil wars since the end of World War II have lasted on average just over four years, a dramatic rise from the one-and-a-half year average of the 1900-1944 period. While the rate of emergence of new civil wars has been relatively steady since the mid-19th century, the increasing length of those wars resulted in increasing numbers of wars ongoing at any one time. For example, there were no more than five civil wars underway simultaneously in the first half of the 20th century, while over 20 concurrent civil wars were occurring at the end of the Cold War, before a significant decrease as conflicts strongly associated with the superpower rivalry came to an end. Since 1945, civil wars have resulted in the deaths of over 25 million people, as well as the forced displacement of millions more. Civil wars have further resulted in economic collapse; Somalia, Burma, Uganda and Angola are examples of nations that were considered to have promising futures before being engulfed in civil wars. Formal classification James Fearon, a scholar of civil wars at Stanford University, defines a civil war as a violent conflict within a country fought by organized groups that aim to take power at the center or in a region, or to change government policies. The Correlates of War, a dataset widely used by scholars of conflict, classifies civil wars as having over 1000 war-related casualties per year of conflict. This rate is a small fraction of the millions killed in the Second Sudanese Civil War and Cambodian Civil War, for example, but excludes several highly publicized conflicts, such as The Troubles of Northern Ireland and the struggle of the African National Congress in Apartheid-era South Africa. That the Party in revolt against the de jure Government possesses an organized military force, an authority responsible for its acts, acting within a determinate territory and having the means of respecting and ensuring respect for the Convention. That the legal Government is obliged to have recourse to the regular military forces against insurgents organized as military and in possession of a part of the national territory. That the de jure Government has recognized the insurgents as belligerents; or That it has claimed for itself the rights of a belligerent; or That it has accorded the insurgents recognition as belligerents for the purposes only of the present Convention; or That the dispute has been admitted to the agenda of the Security Council or the General Assembly of the United Nations as being a threat to international peace, a breach of the peace, or an act of aggression. That the insurgents have an organization purporting to have the characteristics of a State. That the insurgent civil authority exercises de facto authority over the population within a determinate portion of the national territory. That the armed forces act under the direction of an organized authority and are prepared to observe the ordinary laws of war. That the insurgent civil authority agrees to be bound by the provisions of the Convention. Causes of civil war in the Collier-Hoeffler Model Scholars investigating the cause of civil war are attracted by two opposing theories, greed versus grievance. Roughly stated: are conflicts caused by who people are, whether that be defined in terms of ethnicity, religion or other social affiliation, or do conflicts begin because it is in the economic best interests of individuals and groups to start them? Scholarly analysis supports the conclusion that economic and structural factors are more important than those of identity in predicting occurrences of civil war. A comprehensive studies of civil war was carried out by a team from the World Bank in the early 21st century. The study framework, which came to be called the Collier-Hoeffler Model, examined 78 five-year increments when civil war occurred from 1960 to 1999, as well as 1,167 five-year increments of no civil war for comparison, and subjected the data set to regression analysis to see the effect of various factors. The factors that were shown to have a statistically significant effect on the chance that a civil war would occur in any given five-year period were: Availability of finance A high proportion of primary commodities in national exports significantly increases the risk of a conflict. A country at peak danger, with commodities comprising 32% of gross domestic product, has a 22% risk of falling into civil war in a given five-year period, while a country with no primary commodity exports has a 1% risk. When disaggregated, only petroleum and non-petroleum groupings showed different results: a country with relatively low levels of dependence on petroleum exports is at slightly less risk, while a high-level of dependence on oil as an export results in slightly more risk of a civil war than national dependence on another primary commodity. The authors of the study interpreted this as being the result of the ease by which primary commodities may be extorted or captured compared to other forms of wealth, for example, it is easy to capture and control the output of a gold mine or oil field compared to a sector of garment manufacturing or hospitality services. A second source of finance is national diasporas, which can fund rebellions and insurgencies from abroad. The study found that statistically switching the size of a countrys diaspora from the smallest found in the study to the largest resulted in a sixfold increase in the chance of a civil war. Low per capita income has been proposed as a cause for grievance, prompting armed rebellion. However, for this to be true, one would expect economic inequality to also be a significant factor in rebellions, which it is not. The study therefore concluded that the economic model of opportunity cost better explained the findings. Population size The various factors contributing to the risk of civil war rise increase with population size. The risk of a civil war rises approximately proportionately with the size of a countrys population. Gleditsch et al. did not find a relationship between ethnic groups with polygyny and increased frequency of civil wars but nations having legal polygamy may have more civil wars. They argued that misogyny is a better explanation than polygyny. They found that increased womens rights were are associated with less civil wars and that legal polygamy had no effect after women’s rights were controlled for. Duration of civil wars Ann Hironaka, author of Neverending Wars, divides the modern history of civil wars into the pre-19th century, 19th century to early 20th century, and late 20th century. In 19th-century Europe, the length of civil wars fell significantly, largely due to the nature of the conflicts as battles for the power center of the state, the strength of centralized governments, and the normally quick and decisive intervention by other states to support the government. Following World War II the duration of civil wars grew past the norm of the pre-19th century, largely due to weakness of the many postcolonial states and the intervention by major powers on both sides of conflict. The most obvious commonality to civil wars are that they occur in fragile states. Civil wars in the 19th and early 20th centuries Civil wars through the 19th century to early 20th century tended to be short; the average length of a civil war between 1900 and 1944 was one and half years. The state itself was the obvious center of authority in the majority of cases, and the civil wars were thus fought for control of the state. This meant that whoever had control of the capital and the military could normally crush resistance. If a rebellion failed to quickly seize the capital and control of the military for itself, it was normally doomed to a quick destruction. For example, the fighting associated with the 1871 Paris Commune occurred almost entirely in Paris, and ended quickly once the military sided with the government. The power of non-state actors resulted in a lower value placed on sovereignty in the 18th and 19th centuries, which further reduced the number of civil wars. For example, the pirates of the Barbary Coast were recognized as de facto states because of their military power. The Barbary pirates thus had no need to rebel against the Ottoman Empire, who were their nominal state government, to gain recognition for their sovereignty. Conversely, states such as Virginia and Massachusetts in the United States of America did not have sovereign status, but had significant political and economic independence coupled with weak federal control, reducing the incentive to secede. The two major global ideologies, monarchism and democracy, led to several civil wars. However, a bi-polar world, divided between the two ideologies, did not develop, largely due the dominance of monarchists through most of the period. The monarchists would thus normally intervene in other countries to stop democratic movements taking control and forming democratic governments, which were seen by monarchists as being both dangerous and unpredictable. The Great Powers, defined in the 1815 Congress of Vienna as the United Kingdom, Habsburg Austria, Prussia, France, and Russia, would frequently coordinate interventions in other nations civil wars, nearly always on the side of the incumbent government. Given the military strength of the Great Powers, these interventions were nearly always decisive and quickly ended the civil wars. There were several exceptions from the general rule of quick civil wars during this period. The American Civil War was unusual for at least two reasons: it was fought around regional identities, rather than political ideologies, and it was ended through a war of attrition, rather than over a decisive battle over control of the capital, as was the norm. The Spanish Civil War was exceptional because both sides of the war received support from intervening great powers: Germany, Italy, and Portugal supported opposition leader Francisco Franco, while France and the Soviet Union supported the government . Civil wars since 1945 In the 1990s, about twenty civil wars were occurring concurrently during an average year, a rate about ten times the historical average since the 19th century. However, the rate of new civil wars had not increased appreciably; the drastic rise in the number of ongoing wars after World War II was a result of the tripling of the average duration of civil wars to over four years. This increase was a result of the increased number of states, the fragility of states formed after 1945, the decline in interstate war, and the Cold War rivalry. Following World War II, the major European powers divested themselves of their colonies at an increasing rate: the number of ex-colonial states jumped from about 30 to almost 120 after the war. The rate of state formation leveled off in the 1980s, at which point few colonies remained. More states also meant more states in which to have long civil wars. Hironaka statistically measures the impact of the increased number of ex-colonial states as increasing the post-WWII incidence of civil wars by +165% over the pre-1945 number. While the new ex-colonial states appeared to follow the blueprint of the idealized state centralized government, territory enclosed by defined borders, and citizenry with defined rights -, as well as accessories such as a national flag, an anthem, a seat at the United Nations and an official economic policy, they were in actuality far weaker than the Western states they were modeled after. In Western states, the structure of governments closely matched states actual capabilities, which had been arduously developed over centuries. The development of strong administrative structures, in particular those related to extraction of taxes, is closely associated with the intense warfare between predatory European states in the 17th and 18th centuries, or in Charles Tillys famous formulation: War made the state and the state made war. For example, the formation of the modern states of Germany and Italy in the 19th century is closely associated with the wars of expansion and consolidation led by Prussia and Sardinia, respectively. Such states are considered weak or fragile. The strong-weak categorization is not the same as Western-non-Western, as some Latin American states like Argentina and Brazil and Middle Eastern states like Egypt and Israel are considered to have strong administrative structures and economic infrastructure. Historically, the international community would have targeted weak states for territorial absorption or colonial domination or, alternatively, such states would fragment into pieces small enough to be effectively administered and secured by a local power. However, international norms towards sovereignty changed in the wake of WWII in ways that support and maintain the existence of weak states. Weak states are given de jure sovereignty equal to that of other states, even when they do not have de facto sovereignty or control of their own territory, including the privileges of international diplomatic recognition and an equal vote in the United Nations. Further, the international community offers development aid to weak states, which helps maintain the facade of a functioning modern state by giving the appearance that the state is capable of fulfilling its implied responsibilities of control and order. The formation of a strong international law regime and norms against territorial aggression is strongly associated with the dramatic drop in the number of interstate wars, though it has also been attributed to the effect of the Cold War or to the changing nature of economic development. Consequently, military aggression that results in territorial annexation became increasingly likely to prompt international condemnation, diplomatic censure, a reduction in international aid or the introduction of economic sanction, or, as in the case of 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, international military intervention to reverse the territorial aggression. Similarly, the international community has largely refused to recognize secessionist regions, while keeping some secessionist self-declared states such as Taiwan in diplomatic recognition limbo. While there is not a large body of academic work examining the relationship, Hironakas statistical study found a correlation that suggests that every major international anti-secessionist declaration increased the number of ongoing civil wars by +10%, or a total +114% from 1945 to 1997. The diplomatic and legal protection given by the international community, as well as economic support to weak governments and discouragement of secession, thus had the unintended effect of encouraging civil wars. There has been an enormous amount of international intervention in civil wars since 1945 that served to extend wars. While intervention has been practiced since the international system has existed, its nature changed substantially. It became common for both the state and opposition group to receive foreign support, allowing wars to continue well past the point when domestic resources had been exhausted. Superpowers, such as the European great powers, had always felt no compunction in intervening in civil wars that affected their interests, while distant regional powers such as the United States could declare the interventionist Monroe Doctrine of 1821 for events in its Central American backyard. However, the large population of weak states after 1945 allowed intervention by former colonial powers, regional powers and neighboring states who themselves often had scarce resources. On average, a civil war with interstate intervention was 300% longer than those without. When disaggregated, a civil war with intervention on only one side is 156% longer, while intervention on both sides lengthens the average civil war by an addition 92%. If one of the intervening states was a superpower, a civil war is extended a further 72%; a conflict such as the Angolan Civil War, in which there is two-sided foreign intervention, including by a superpower, would be 538% longer on average than a civil war without any international intervention. Effect of the Cold War The Cold War provided a global network of material and ideological support that perpetuated civil wars, which were mainly fought in weak ex-colonial states, rather than the relatively strong states that were aligned with the Warsaw Pact and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In some cases, superpowers would superimpose Cold War ideology onto local conflicts, while in others local actors using Cold War ideology would attract the attention of a superpower to obtain support. Using a separate statistical evaluation than used above for interventions, civil wars that included pro- or anti-communist forces lasted 141% longer than the average non-Cold War conflict, while a Cold War civil war that attracted superpower intervention resulted in wars typically lasting over three times as long as other civil wars. Conversely, the end of the Cold War marked by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 resulted in a reduction in the duration of Cold War civil wars of 92% or, phrased another way, a roughly ten-fold increase in the rate of resolution of Cold War civil wars. Lengthy Cold War-associated civil conflicts that ground to a halt include the wars of Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua . See also The Logic of Violence in Civil War War of Independence Wars of national liberation References

Analysing Biopower And Agency Linked To Euthanasia Philosophy Essay

Analysing Biopower And Agency Linked To Euthanasia Philosophy Essay Human life can be perceived as a way of being that ensures autonomy upon the physical body. However, state authority, surveillance and law are moderating this individual freedom and moral decision-making. Nowadays, euthanasia remains a highly controversial and sensitive medical and ethical issue. My research and final thesis for the master will focus on the narratives of people, residing in houses for the elderly in Antwerp, Belgium. Emphasis is placed on whether upcoming media interest in euthanasia influences elderly thoughts and decision making regarding assisted suicide. Wishes about end-of-life decisions, opinions of relatives and law interpretations of medical practitioners are being investigated in this study. And finally the way governments authority influences peoples agency in end-of-life decision making. With this paper, I intend to widen my knowledge of two main anthropological topics linked to the subject of euthanasia, namely biopower and agency. Biopolitics concern the political implications of social and biological facts and phenomena, with political choice and action directly afflicting all aspects of human life. Agency, on the other hand, can be seen as an alternative attempt to maintain autonomy in ones own life and death, under the influence of the states disciplining interference. Both forms of power are studied in this paper, and their interrelationship is critically viewed. Keywords: Biopolitics, Agency, Power, Health, Ethics 2. The history of biopower In Foucaults The Birth of Biopolitics (Lectures at the College de France, 1978-1979), an analysis of liberalism and neoliberalism as forms of biopolitics is presented. According to Foucault, biopower can be perceived as a technology of power, intending to manage individuals as a group. This political technology differentiates because of its ability to control populations as a whole, and is thus essential to the development of modern capitalism (Foucault, 2008). This shift from the managing and micro-controlling of individuals to disciplining a population emerged in the eighteenth-century. Even though this seems as an opportunity to gain more natural rights and liberty for individuals, this liberal government no longer limits state power because of the incompatible tension between freedom and security (Foucault, 2008, McSweeney, 2010). As Foucault argued, liberalism concerns the biopolitical. For liberalism promotes an imagined self-governing of life through a certain capture and disc iplining of natural forces of aggression and desire within the framework of a cultural game, governed by civil conventions and instituted laws (Foucault, 2004). In this conception, life is as much of a cultural construct as is law, although the naturalness of life, thought of as innately self-regulating, is always insinuated. Both in economics and in politics, liberalism rejoice in an order that is supposed to emerge naturally from the clash of passions themselves (Milbank, 2008: 2). Rabinow and Rose seek to enlighten the developments in Foucaults concept of biopower, which serves to bring into view a field comprised of more or less rationalized attempts to intervene upon the vital characteristics of human existence (Rabinow, 2006: 196-197). Foucault distinguishes two poles of biopower: the first one focuses on an anatomo-politics of the human body, seeking to maximize its forces and integrate it into efficient systems. The second pole entails biopolitics of the population, focusing on the species body, the body imbued with the mechanisms of life: birth, morbidity, mortality and longevity (Rose, 2007: 53). Thus, according to Rabinow and Rose, we can use the term biopolitics to embrace all the specific strategies and contestations over problematizations of collective human vitality, morbidity and mortality; over the forms of knowledge, regimes of authority and practices of intervention that are desirable, legitimate and efficacious (Rabinow, 2006: 197). In order to clarify the concept of biopower, three elements must be included. The first one comprises one or more truth discourses about the vital character of living human beings, and an array of authorities considered competent to speak that truth. Secondly, the strategies for intervention upon collective existence in the name of life and health, and lastly, modes of subjectification, through which individuals are brought to work on themselves, under certain forms of authority. Biopolitical analyses also explore how poverty, body commodification, and notions of risk and control are lived and shaped by the intersections of state imperatives, local traditions, and the global reach of medicine (Kaufman, 2005: 320). It is been inextricably bound up with the rise of the life sciences, the human sciences and clinical medicine. It has given birth to techniques, technologies, experts, and apparatuses for the care and administration of the life of each and of all, from town planning to heal th services (Rose, 2007: 54). Nevertheless, we need to be untrammeled by obligations to authoritative states and international bureaucracies, as most crimes against humanity are committed by powerful states (Farmer, 2004: 242). 2.1 Criticism Rabinow and Rose are critical of Agamben (1995, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2005) and Negri (2000), who suggest that contemporary biopower takes the form of a politics that is fundamentally dependent on the domination, exploitation, expropriation and, in some cases, elimination of the vital existence of some or all subjects over whom it is exercised (Rabinow, 2006: 198). The following fallacies in Agamben and Negris work are mentioned. Firstly, their use of biopower as a totalizing term in which biopower serves to secure the dominion of a global form of domination that they term Empire (ibid.: 198). Rabinow and Rose agree that it is necessary to extend the scope of traditional analyses of economic exploitation and geopolitics in order to grasp the way in which the living character of human being is being harnessed by biocapital. However, this expanded concept of biopower leaves little room for analytical work. Therefore, Rabinow and Rose agree that this version of the concept of biopower is an tithetical to that proposed by Foucault because it can describe everything but analyse nothing. Secondly, Agambens view of the Holocaust as the ultimate exemplar of biopower and use of the obscure metaphor of homo sacer. According to Rabinow and Rose: the power to command under threat of death is exercised by States and their surrogates in multiple instances, in micro forms and in geopolitical relations. But this does not demonstrate that this form of power commands backed up by the ultimate threat of death is the guarantee or underpinning principle of all forms of biopower in contemporary liberal societies. Nor is it useful to use this single diagram to analyse every contemporary instance of thanatopolitics (ibid.: 201). And lastly, Agambens interpretation of contemporary biopolitics as the politics of a State modelled on the figure of the Sovereign, and of all forms of biopolitical authority as agents of that Sovereign. Rabinow and Rose believe that this interpretation fails to notice the dependence of sovereign rule on a fine web of customary conventions, reciprocal obligations and the like in a word, a moral economy [] sovereign power is at one and the same time an element in this moral economy and an attempt to master it (ibid.: 200). States can only rule because of the ways in which they manage to connect themselves to the ever-growing apparatuses of knowledge collection and problematization that formed alongside the state apparatus since the 19th century. Furthermore, in the analysis of biopower, Rabinow and Rose focus on three topics that they believe condense some of the biopolitical lines of force active today. The first one embraces race. At one point, the link between biological understandings of distinctions among population groups and their socio-political implications seemed broken and race was crucial as a socio-economic category, a mark of discrimination and a mode of identification that remained extremely salient socially and politically, from the allocation of federal funds to the manifestations of identity politics. However, at the turn of the new century, race is once again re-entering the domain of biological truth, viewed now through a molecular gaze (ibid.: 206). A new molecular deployment of race has emerged seemingly almost inevitably out of genomic thinking. Funding for research in DNA sequence variations has been justified precisely in biopolitical terms, as leading towards and ensuring the equal health of the pop ulation in all or some of its diversity (ibid.: 207). Rabinow and Rose believe that new challenges for critical thinking are raised by the contemporary interplay between political and genomic classifications of race, identity politics, racism, health inequities, and their potential entry into biomedical truth, commercial logics and the routine practices of health care (ibid.: 207). The second topic entails reproduction. Since the 1970s, sexuality and reproduction have become disentangled, and the question of reproduction gets problematized, both nationally and supra-nationally, because of its economic, ecological and political consequences. Reproduction has been made into a biopolitical space in which an array of connections appear between the individual and the collective, the technological and the political, the legal and the ethical (ibid.: 208). According to Rabinow and Rose the economy of contemporary biopolitics operates according to logics of vitality, not mortality: while it has its circuits of exclusion, letting die is not making die (ibid.: 211). They argue that changes are about capitalism and liberalism and not eugenics. And lastly; genomic medicine. Rabinow and Rose narrate how the first biopolitical strategies concerned the management of illness and health and how these provided a model for many other problematizations operating in terms of the division of the normal and the pathological. This model was popular in liberal societies because they establish links between the molecular and the molar, linking the aspiration of the individual to be cured to the management of the health status of the population as a whole (ibid.: 212). Whether or not genomic medicine will lead to the creation of a new regime of biopower depends on both the uncertain outcome of genomic research itself, and on contingencies external to genomics and biomedicine. If the new model of genomic medicine were to succeed, and to be deployed widely, not only in the developed but also in the less developed world, the logics of medicine, and the shape of the biopolitical field, would be altered. New contestations would emerge over acc ess to such technologies and the resources necessary to follow through their implications. Additionally, as the forms of knowledge generated here are those of probability, new ways of calculating risk, understanding the self and organizing health care would undoubtedly emerge (Rabinow, 2006: 214). It is important to see that in this, the political and social implications are shaped more by the political side of biopolitics than the medical side, which is also mentioned by Vaughn (2010). Milbank (2008) is discussing this topic from an alternative point of view. Laws typically proceed from sovereign power granted legitimacy through a general popular consent as mediated by representation. In so far as such a procedure is taken to be normative, it can be seen as embodying a natural law for the origin of legitimate power from the conflicts in human life (Milbank, 2008: 5). To conclude; within the field of biopower, the term biopolitics is used to embrace all the specific strategies and contestations over problematizations of collective human vitality, morbidity and mortality, and can therefore be linked to the implementation of the euthanasia law. It includes a form of power expressed as a control that extends throughout the depths of the consciousnesses and bodies of the population (Rose, 2007: 54). At the end of life, ethnographers have focused their attention in the distinction between the social and biological death of the person and the practical and ethical quandaries created by the late modern ability and desire to authorize and design ones own death, and the ways in which death is spoken, silenced, embraced, staved off, and otherwise patterned (Kaufman, 2005: 319). The policy of euthanasia can thereby be seen as an array of authorities considered competent to judge a humans quality of life. In one sense, to say that the sovereign has a right of life and death means that he can, basically, either have people put to death of let them live, of in any case that life and death are not natural or immediate phenomena which are primal or radical, and which fall outside the field of power. [à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦] In any case, the lives and death of subjects become rights only as a result of the will of the sovereign (Foucault, 1997: 24). 3. Agency In the previous chapter it has become clear that biopolitics can be perceived as an empowered discipline which reduces humans to mere life and biological statistics and processes. But has a human being no other destiny then to be at the mercy of the puppet master called the state? According to Mahmood (2005), it is quite clear that the idea of freedom and liberty as the political ideal is relatively new in modern history. Nor, for that matter, does the narrative of individual and collective liberty exhaust the desires with which people live in liberal societies? How do we then analyze operations of power that construct different kinds of bodies, knowledges, and subjectivities whose trajectories do not follow the entelechy of libratory politics? It encourages us to conceptualize agency not simple as a synonym for resistance to relations of domination, but as a capacity for action that specific relations of subordination create and enable (Mahmood, 2005, 22). Ortner believes agency and social power are very closely linked. In her article Power and Projects: Reflections on Agency (2006), she agrees with Ahearn that oppositional agency is only one of many forms of agency and that domination and resistance are not irrelevant, but that human emotions, and hence questions of agency, within relations of power and inequality are always complex and contradictory (Ortner, 2006: 137). She also mentions Giddens viewpoint that the concept of action is logically tied to that of power because of its transformative capacity, but that the transformative capacity of agents is only one dimension of how power operates in social systems. Ortner sees agency as part of her theory on serious games. The concept of serious games is grounded in practice theory, because as in practice theory social life in a serious games perspective is seen as something that is actively played, oriented toward culturally constituted goals and projects, and involving both routine practices and intentionalized action (129). However, it moves beyond this in looking at more complex relations, namely power, and more complex dimensions of subjectivity, those involving intentionality and agency. Although agency is considered universal, the agency exercised by different persons is far from uniform and differs enormously in both kind and extent. At the ethnographic level, however, what is at stake is a contrast between the workings of agency within massive power relations. In the most common usage agency can be virtually synonymous with the forms of power people have at their disposal, thereby implying that people in positions of power have a lot of agency. On the other hand, Ortner notes that the dominated too also have certain capacities, and sometimes very significant capacities, to exercise some sort of influence over the ways in which events unfold. Resistance is then also a form of power-agency (ibid.: 144). Thus, Ortner believes that the less powerful seek to nourish and protect by creating or protecting sites on the margins of power. These cultural projects can be simple goals for individuals, related to intention and desire, but many projects are full-blown serious games, involving the intense play of multiply positioned subjects pursuing cultural goals within a matrix of local inequalities and power differentials (ibid.: 144). Agency becomes the pursuit of (cultural) projects, but it is also ordinary life socially organized in terms of culturally constituted projects that infuse life with meaning and purpose. Hence, the agency of projects is not necessarily about domination and resistance; it is more about people having desires that grow out of their own structures of life. Ortner views this as people playing their own serious games in the face of more powerful parties seeking to destruct these. So this is not free agency, as the cultural desires or intentions [] emerge from structur ally defined differences of social categories and differentials of power (ibid.: 145). To Ortner, the point of making the distinction between agency-in-the-sense-of-power and an agency-in-the-sense-of-(the pursuit of) projects is that the first is organized around the axis of domination and resistance, and thus defined to a great extent by the terms of the dominant party, while the second is defined by local logics of the good and the desirable and how to pursue them (ibid.: 145). She considers that the agency which is involved in significant cultural end, is inevitably involving internal power-relations. Consequently, the agency of project intrinsically hinges on the agency of power. 3.1 The free individual? The ultimate purpose of the serious games theory is always to understand the larger forces, formations, and transformations of social life. The way Ortner sees social agents is that they are always involved in, and can never act outside of, the multiplicity of social relations in which they are enmeshed (ibid.: 130). Thus while all social actors have agency, because of their engagement with others in the play of serious games they can never be free agents. This social embeddedness of agents takes two forms; the first one being relations of solidarity among friends and family. The second form involves relations of power, inequality and competition. Ortner emphasizes that agency is never a thing in itself but is always a part of a process of what Giddens calls structuration, the making and remaking of larger social and cultural formations (ibid.: 134). Ortner admits the dangers of overemphasizing agency as this gives precedence to individuals over context and that too much focus on the agency of individuals and/or groups results in a gross oversimplification of the processes involved in history, thereby ignoring both the needs and desires of human beings and the pulse of collective forces and losing sight of the complex, and highly unpredictable, relationship between intentions and outcomes. However, Ortner believes the solution is the framework of practice theory within which neither individuals nor social forces have precedence, but in which nonetheless there is a dynamic, powerful, and sometimes transformative relationship between the practices of real people and the structures of society, culture, and history (ibid.:133). Furthermore, Ortner believes that agency can be said to have two fields of meaning, one being about intentionality and the pursuit of (culturally defined) projects), the other about power, about acting within relations of social inequality, asymmetry, and force (ibid.: 139). However, agency is never merely one or the other. Intentionality refers to a wide range of states, both cognitive and emotional, and at various levels of consciousness, that are directed forward toward some end (ibid.: 134). There exists a continuum between both soft and hard definitions of agency. In soft definitions, intentionality is not taken into account or not seen as being consciously held in the mind. However, what is then the distinction between agency and routine practices? On the other end of the spectrum, and Ortner shares this viewpoint, are those definitions of agency that emphasize the strong role of active intentionality in agency that differentiates agency from routine practices. Pre-modern thought did not conceive of agency solely in terms of individual freedom or else in terms of explicit representative sovereign action leaving a consequent problem of the apparent spontaneous patterning of the unplanned. This was because it did not think of an act as primarily an expression of freedom or as something owned by the individual or the sovereigns will or motivation. Instead, it paid more attention to the fact that every act is always pre-positioned within a relational public realm and in turn cannot avoid in some way modifying that realm, beyond anything that could in principle be consented to by the other, since the full content of any act is unpredictable (Milbank, 2008: 23). In conclusion, Ortner advocates that a distinction should be made between agency as a form of power (agency of power) and agency as a form of intention and desire, as the pursuit of goals and the enactment of projects (agency of projects). While they form two distinct fields of meaning, they are also interrelated as both domination and resistance are always in the service of projects. Thus, agency is a complex term whose senses emerge within semantic and institutional networks that define and make possible particular ways of relation to people, things, and oneself. Yet, intention , which is variously glossed as plan, awareness, willfulness, directedness, or desire is often made to be central to the attribution of agency. Although the various usages of agency have very different implications that do not all hang together, cultural theory tends to reduce them to the metaphysical idea of a conscious agent-subject having both the capacity and the desire to move in a singular historical d irection: that of increasing self-empowerment and decreasing pain (Asad, 2003: 78-79). 4. Conclusion After thoroughly having examined both the subjects of biopower and agency, and following the course Theory and Practice, awareness has grown once again in realizing how much ones been lived. Disciplining of the state interferes in such a wide array of human life; consisting of for example the school system, employment, medicines and ultimately death. It becomes clear that agency, performed in ways we have discussed in class, simply does not exist, because of the dominant and prevailing power of the state. It is not owned by social actors, but interactively negotiated and best seen as a disposition toward the enactment of projects. Despite of this negotiating, individuals never become free agents. This and other research shows that the law and the policy of euthanasia influencing peoples right to determine their own life. Today, most requests for euthanasia to end a life with dignity are denied, because people do not fit into the criteria and the so-called carefully requirements the l aw states. But to what extend do such institutions of power have the moral right to determine and monitor personal decisions of individuals? As Foucault (2003) states: the very essence of the right of life and death is actually the right to kill: it is at the moment when the sovereign can kill that he exercises his right over life. In my opinion people should maintain autonomy over their own life and death, and that the government should not intervene from above into such personal, subjective and fundamental choice. However, apart from the awareness of the fundamental mediation of the state, we remain political animals. In the end, everyone wants to pursuit personal goals in life, and in order to accomplish those, we cannot do much more than just put up with the fate of being obliged well-behaved citizen.

Sonnet 69 :: essays research papers fc

Sonnet 65 (Shakespeare) 1 Since brass, nor stone, nor boundless sea, 2 But sad mortality o’er-sways their power, 3 How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, 4 Whose action is no stronger than a flower? 5 O how shall summer’s honey breath hold out, 6 Against the wreckful siege of batt’ring days 7 When rocks impregnable are not so stout, 8 Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays? 9 O fearful meditation! Where, alack, 10 Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid? 11 Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back, 12 Or who his spoil o’er beauty can forbid? 13 O none, unless this miracle have might: 14  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  That in black ink my love may still shine bright. Withstanding Mortality through Verse Melissa Zyduck Explication #1 Sonnet 65 Carducci Feb. 21st, 2001 Sonnets are rhymed poems consisting of fourteen lines, the first eight making up the octet and the last six lines being the sestet. The basic structure of the sonnet arose in medieval Italy, its most prominent exponent being the Early Renaissance poet, Petrarch. The appearance of the English Sonnet, however, occurred when Shakespeare was an adolescent, around 1580 (Moore and Charmaine 1). Although it is named after him, Shakespeare did not originate the English sonnet form. The English sonnet differs slightly from the Italian, or Petrarchian, Sonnet and the Spenserian Sonnet in that it ends with a rhymed couplet and follows the rhyme scheme (abab cdcd efef gg). Thus, the octet/sestet structure can be alternatively divided into three quatrains with alternating rhymes and ending in a rhymed couplet. William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 65 is part of a sequence of one hundred and fifty-four sonnets allegedly written sometime between 1592 and May of 1609 (Duncan 13; Moore and Charmine 1). In sonnets 1 through 126, the speaker addresses a young man often referred to as the Youth, and in sonnets 127 through 154, a woman, or Dark Lady, is addressed Sonnet 65 is also part of a unit with Sonnet 64 (Best 1), the two coming together to form their own â€Å"fearful meditation† (9) on time and ruin reaping youth and beauty from the world and leaving only cold death (Cooney 3). Shakespeare opens the poem with the speaker listing paradigms of the long-lasting substances â€Å"brass† and â€Å"stone† (1). â€Å"Earth† and â€Å"boundless sea† (1) are also long lasting, but are superior in that they are nearly limitless in extent. All of these elements, by their nature, should be capable of holding out against â€Å"sad mortality† (2), but none of them are free of its operations (Duncan, 240) as it â€Å"o’er-sways their power† (2).

Americas Self-Interest :: American America History

America's Self-Interest America had remained mostly an isolated country until the late 1800's when the United States was faced with the opportunity of building a colonial empire. By 1890 the United States, like Europe, had began to expand its influence onto islands in the Caribbean and South Pacific areas. They entered in other countries' affairs claiming that it served the interests of all peoples and were motivated by Idealism. In reality, the United States was mostly after its own self-interest. The Spanish-American War, the United States' Open Door policy, and the control over the Panama Canal zone make it unclear if the United States was pursuing its own self-interest or was inspired by Idealism. In the Spanish-American War the United States was supposedly fighting for Cuba's independence from Spain. Though Idealism might have been present in the United States' reasons for war, there is evidence of America's self-interests in the war. The United States did fight to defend the Cubans but it also fought to profit out of the war. When the war ended and the United States won, it offered Cuba self-government only if they agreed to the terms of the Teller Amendment which states, "Cuba should allow the United States the right to buy or lease naval stations". Though there were advantages for the United States in the Spanish-American War, America fought mostly for the welfare of Cuba. A good example of America's pursuit for their own advantage in foreign affairs was the Open Door policy. China was expected to become a sphere of influence for European nations. The United States had a small percent of trade with China and was hungry for more. They issued the Open Door policy with the goal of preserving equal trading opportunities in China for all foreign nations. The United States was obviously only concerned for their own self-interest rather than the interest other countries trading with China. The United States claimed that they would build the Panama Canal for the advantage of Panama. Roosevelt said that he advanced "the needs of collective civilization" by speeding up the building of an interocean canal. The Canal was built by the United States for the use of the United States.

Stefan’s Diaries: Origins Chapter 5

The next morning, I awoke to breathless news from Rosalyn's servants that her prized dog, Penny, had been attacked. Mrs. Cartwright summoned me to her daughter's chambers, saying nothing had stopped Rosalyn from crying. I tried to comfort her, but her wracking sobs never abated. The whole time, Mrs. Cartwright kept giving me disapproving glances, as if I should be doing a better job calming Rosalyn. â€Å"Y have me,† I'd said at one point, if only to ou appease her. At that, Rosalyn had flung her arms around me, crying so hard into my shoulder that her tears left a wet mark on my waistcoat. I tried to be sympathetic, but I felt a stab of annoyance at the way she was carrying on. After all, I'd never carried on like that when my mother had died. Father hadn't let me. You have to be strong, a fighter, he'd said at the funeral. And so I was. I didn't cry when, just a week after Mother's death, our nanny, Cordelia, began absentmindedly humming the French lullaby Mother had always sung. Not when Father took down the portrait of Mother that had hung in the front room. Not even when Artemis, Mother's favorite horse, had to be put down. â€Å"Did you see the dog?† Damon asked, as we walked into town together that night to get a drink at the tavern. Now that the dinner where I was to publicly propose to Rosalyn was just days away, we were heading out for a whiskey to celebrate my impending nuptials. At least, that's what Damon called it, elongating his accent to a flat Charlestonian drawl and wiggling his eyebrows as he said it. I tried to smile as if I thought it was a great joke, but if I began talking, I knew I wouldn't be able to hold back my dismay about marrying Rosalyn. And there wasn't anything wrong with her. It was just †¦ it was just that she wasn't Katherine. I turned my thoughts back to Penny. â€Å"Y Its es. throat had a gash in it, but whatever the animal was didn't go for her innards. Strange, right?† I said as I rushed to keep up with him. The army had made him stronger and faster. â€Å"It's a strange time, brother,† Damon said. â€Å"Maybe it's the Yankees,† he teased with a smirk. As we walked down the cobblestone streets, I noticed signs affixed to most doorways: A reward of one hundred dollars was being offered to anyone who found the wild animal responsible for the attacks. I stared at the sign. Maybe I could find it, then take the money and buy a train ticket to Boston, or New Y ork, or some city where no one could find me and no one had ever heard of Rosalyn Cartwright. I smiled to myself; that would be something Damon might actually do–he never worried about consequences or other people's feelings. I was about to point out the sign and ask what he'd do with one hundred dollars when I saw someone frantically waving at us in front of the apothecary. â€Å"Are those the Salvatore brothers?† a voice called from up the street. I squinted across the twilight and saw Pearl, the apothecary, standing outside her shop with her daughter, Anna. Pearl and Anna were two more victims of the war. Pearl's husband had died at the Vicksburg siege just last spring. After that, Pearl had found a home in Mystic Falls, and she ran an apothecary that was always busy. Jonathan Gilbert, in particular, was almost always there when I walked by, complaining about some ailment or purchasing some remedy or another. Town gossip was that he fancied her. â€Å"Pearl, you remember my brother, Damon?† I called as we walked over the square to greet them. Pearl smiled and nodded. Her face was unlined, and a game among the girls was trying to determine how old she was. She had a daughter who was only a few years younger than me, so she couldn't be that young. â€Å"Y two certainly look ou handsome,† she said fondly. Anna was the spitting image of her mother, and when they stood side by side, the two looked as if they could be sisters. â€Å"Anna, you look more beautiful each year. Are you old enough to be going to dances yet?† Damon asked, a twinkle in his eyes. I smiled despite myself. Of course Damon would be able to charm both a mother and a daughter. â€Å"Almost,† Anna said, her eyes sparkling in anticipation. Fifteen was the age when girls were old enough to stay through dinner and hear the band strike up a waltz. Pearl used a wrought-iron key to lock the apothecary, then turned to face us. â€Å"Damon, can you do me a favor? Can you make sure Katherine gets on tomorrow night? She's a lovely girl, and, well, you know how people talk about strangers. I knew her in Atlanta.† â€Å"I promise,† Damon said solemnly. I stiffened. Was Damon escorting Katherine tomorrow night? I hadn't thought she'd come to the party, and I couldn't imagine proposing in front of her. But what choice did I have? Tell Father that Katherine wasn't invited? Not propose to Rosalyn? â€Å"Have fun tonight, boys,† Pearl said, breaking me out of my reverie. â€Å"Wait!† I called, the dinner momentarily forgotten. Pearl turned around, a quizzical expression on her face. â€Å"It's dark, and there have been more attacks. Would you like us to escort you ladies home?† I asked. Pearl shook her head. â€Å"Anna and I are strong women. We'll be fine. Besides †¦Ã¢â‚¬  She blushed and glanced around, as if afraid to be overheard. â€Å"I believe Jonathan Gilbert wants to do that for us. But I do thank you for your concern.† Damon wiggled his eyebrows and let out a low whistle. â€Å"Y know how I feel about strong women,† ou he whispered. â€Å"Damon. Be appropriate,† I said, slugging him on the shoulder. After all, he wasn't on the battlefields anymore. He was in Mystic Falls, a town where people liked to eavesdrop and loved to talk. Had he forgotten so quickly? â€Å"Okay, Auntie Stefan!† Damon teased, raising his voice in a high lisp. I laughed despite myself and slugged him again on the arm for good measure. The punch was light, but felt good–a way to unleash some of my annoyance that he was able to escort Katherine to the dinner. He good-naturedly slugged me back, and we would have broken out into an all-out brotherly brawl if Damon hadn't pushed open the wooden door to the Mystic Falls Tavern. We were immediately greeted by an enthusiastic smile from the voluptuous, red-haired barmaid behind the counter. It was clear that Damon had made himself at home here on several occasions. We elbowed our way to the back of the tavern. The room smelled of sawdust and sweat, and men in uniform were everywhere. Some had bandages on their heads, others wore slings, and some hobbled to the counter on crutches. I recognized Henry, a dark-skinned soldier who practically lived at the tavern, drinking whiskey alone in a corner. Robert had told me stories about him: He never socialized with anyone, and no one ever saw him in the light of day. There was talk that maybe he was associated with the attacks, but how could he be, if he was always at the tavern? I peeled my eyes away to take in the rest of the scene. There were older men tightly grouped in a corner, playing cards and drinking whiskey and, in the opposite corner, a few women. I could tell from the rouge on their cheeks and their painted fingernails that they weren't the types to spend time with our childhood playmates, Clementine Haverford or Amelia Hawke. As we walked past, one of them brushed my arm with her painted fingernails. â€Å"Y like it here?† Damon pulled out a wooden ou table from the wall, an amused smile on his face. â€Å"I suppose I do.† I plunked down on the hard wooden bench and surveyed my surroundings once again. Being in the tavern, I felt I'd stumbled into a secret society of men, just one more thing I knew I'd have little chance to discover before I was a married man and expected to be at home every evening. â€Å"I'll get us some drinks,† Damon said, making his way to the bar. I watched as he rested his elbows on the counter and easily talked to the barmaid, who tilted her head back and laughed as if he'd said something hilarious. Which he probably had. That's why all women fell in love with him. â€Å"So, how does it feel to be a married man?† I turned around to see Dr. Janes behind me. Well into his seventies, Dr. Janes was slightly senile and often loudly proclaimed to anyone who'd listen that his longevity was due exclusively to his prodigious indulgence in whiskey. â€Å"Not married yet, Doctor.† I smiled tightly, wishing Damon would come back with our drinks. â€Å"Ah, my boy, but you will be. Mr. Cartwright at the bank has been discussing it for weeks. The fair young Rosalyn. Quite a catch!† Dr. Janes continued loudly. I glanced around, hoping no one had heard. At that moment, Damon appeared and gently set our whiskeys on the table. â€Å"Thank you,† I said, drinking mine down in one gulp. Dr. Janes hobbled away. â€Å"That thirsty, huh?† Damon asked, taking a small sip of his own drink. I shrugged. In the past, I'd never kept secrets from my brother. But talking about Rosalyn felt dangerous. Somehow, no matter what I said or felt, I still had to marry her. If anyone heard even an inkling of regret from me, there'd be no end to the talk. Suddenly, a new whiskey appeared in front of me. I glanced up to see the pretty bartender Damon had been talking to standing over our table. â€Å"Y look like you need this. Seems you've had out a rough day.† The barmaid winked one of her green eyes and set the sweating tumbler on the rough-hewn wooden table in front of me. â€Å"Thank you,† I said as I took a small, grateful sip. â€Å"Anytime,† the barmaid said, her crinoline skirts swishing over her hips. I watched her retreating back. All the women in the tavern, even those with loose reputations, were more interesting than Rosalyn. But no matter who I glanced at, the only image that filled my mind was Katherine's face. â€Å"Alice likes you,† Damon observed. I shook my head. â€Å"You know I can't look. By the you end of summer, I'll be a married man. Y ou, meanwhile, are free to do as you please.† I'd meant it to be an observation, but the words came out as a judgment. â€Å"That's true,† Damon said. â€Å"But you do know you don't have to do something just because Father says so, right?† â€Å"It's not that simple.† I clenched my jaw. Damon couldn't understand because he was wild and untamable–so much so that Father had entrusted me, the younger brother, with the future of Veritas, a role I now found stifling. A sliver of betrayal shot through me at this thought–that it was Damon's fault I had to shoulder so much responsibility. I shook my head, as if trying to remove the idea from it, and took another drink of whiskey. â€Å"It's very simple,† Damon said, oblivious to my momentary annoyance. â€Å"Just tell him you are not in love with Rosalyn. That you need to find your own place in the world and can't just follow someone's orders blindly. That's what I learned in the army: Y have to believe in what you do. Otherwise, ou what's the point?† I shook my head. â€Å"I'm not like you. I trust Father. And I know he only wants the best. It's just that I wish †¦ I wish I had more time,† I said finally. It was true. Maybe I could grow to love Rosalyn, but the thought that I could be married and have a child in just one short year filled me with dread. â€Å"But it'll be fine,† I said with finality. It had to be. â€Å"What do you think of our new houseguest?† I said, changing the subject. Damon smiled. â€Å"Katherine,† he said, drawing the name into the full three syllables, as if he could taste it on his tongue. â€Å"Now, she's a girl who's difficult to figure out, don't you agree?† â€Å"I suppose,† I said, glad that Damon didn't â€Å"I suppose,† I said, glad that Damon didn't know that I was dreaming of Katherine at night, and by day pausing at the door to the carriage house to see if I could hear her laughing with her maid; once I even stopped by the stable to smell the broad back of her horse, Clover, just to see if her lemon and ginger scent had lingered. It hadn't, and at that moment, in the barn surrounded by the horses, I'd realized how unbalanced I was becoming. â€Å"They don't make girls like her in Mystic Falls. Do you think she has a soldier somewhere?† Damon asked. â€Å"No!† I said, annoyed once again. â€Å"She's in mourning for her parents. I hardly think she's looking for a beau.† â€Å"Of course.† Damon knit his eyebrows together contritely. â€Å"And I wasn't presuming anything. But if she needs a shoulder to cry on, I'd be happy to lend it to her.† I shrugged. Even though I'd brought up the subject, I was no longer sure I wanted to hear what Damon thought of her. In fact, as beautiful as she was, I almost wished that some far-flung relatives from Charleston or Richmond or Atlanta would step forward to invite her to live with them. If she were out of sight, then maybe I could somehow force myself to love Rosalyn. Damon stared at me, and I knew in that moment how miserable I must have looked. â€Å"Cheer up, brother,† he said. â€Å"The night is young, and the whiskey's on me.† But there wasn't enough whiskey in all of Virginia to make me love Rosalyn †¦ or forget about Katherine.

Facebook Financial Performance Report

Financial Performance 7. 1 Financial Statement FACEBOOK, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (In millions, except for number of shares and par value) (Unaudited) | | | | | | | | | |   Ã‚  | June   30, 2012|   |   | December  31, 2011|   | Assets|   Ã‚  | | | |   | | | | Current assets:|   Ã‚  | | | |   | | | |Cash and cash equivalents|   Ã‚  | $| 2,098|   |   | $| 1,512|   Ã‚  | Marketable securities|   Ã‚  |   | 8,090|   |   |   | 2,396|   Ã‚  | Accounts receivable, net of allowances for doubtful accounts of $17 as of June  30, 2012 and December  31, 2011|   Ã‚  |   | 578|   |   |   | 547|   Ã‚  | Income tax refundable|   Ã‚  |   | 567|   Ã‚  |   |   | 0|   Ã‚  | Prepaid expenses and other current assets|   Ã‚  |   | 634|   |   |   | 149|   Ã‚  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |Total current assets|   Ã‚  |   | 11,967|   |   |   | 4,604|   Ã‚  | Property and equipm ent, net|   Ã‚  |   | 2,105|   |   |   | 1,475|   Ã‚  | Goodwill and intangible assets, net|   Ã‚  |   | 809|   |   |   | 162|   Ã‚  | Other assets|   Ã‚  |   | 47|   Ã‚  |   |   | 90|   Ã‚  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | Total assets|   Ã‚  | $| 14,928|   |   | $| 6,331|   Ã‚  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | Liabilities and stockholders’ equity|   Ã‚  | | | |   | | | | Current liabilities:|   Ã‚  | | | |   | | | |Accounts payable|   Ã‚  | $| 43|   |   | $| 63|   Ã‚  | Platform partners payable|   Ã‚  |   | 153|   Ã‚  |   |   | 171|   Ã‚  | Accrued expenses and other current liabilities|   Ã‚  |   | 441|   |   |   | 296|   Ã‚  | Deferred revenue and deposits|   Ã‚  |   | 85|   |   |   | 90|   Ã‚  | Current portion of capital lease obligations|   Ã‚  |   | 312|   |   |   | 279|   Ã‚  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   | à ‚  |   |   | Total current liabilities|   Ã‚  |   | 1,034|   Ã‚  |   |   | 899|   Ã‚  | Capital lease obligations, less current portion|   Ã‚  |   | 394|   Ã‚  |   |   | 398|   Ã‚  | Other liabilities|   Ã‚  |   | 191|   |   |   | 135|   Ã‚  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |Total liabilities|   Ã‚  |   | 1,619|   |   |   | 1,432|   Ã‚  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | Stockholders’ equity:|   Ã‚  | | | |   | | | | Convertible preferred stock, $0. 000006 par value, issuable in series; no shares and 569  million shares authorized as of June 30, 2012 and December 31, 2011, respectively, no shares and 543  million shares issued and outstanding as of June  30, 2012 and December  31, 2011, respectively|   Ã‚  |   | 0|   |   |   | 615|   Ã‚  | Common stock, $0. 00006 par value; 5,000  million and 4,141  million Class  A shares authorized as of June  30, 20 12 and December  31, 2011, respectively, 641  million and 117  million shares issued and outstanding as of June  30, 2012 and December  31, 2011, respectively, including 1  million outstanding shares subject to repurchase as of June  30, 2012 and December  31, 2011; 4,141  million Class B shares authorized, 1,501  million and 1,213  million shares issued and outstanding as of June  30, 2012 and December  31, 2011, respectively, including 2  million outstanding shares subject to repurchase, as of June  30, 2012 and December  31, 2011|   Ã‚  |   | 0|   Ã‚  |   |   | 0|   Ã‚  | Additional paid-in capital|   Ã‚  |   | 11,684|   |   |   | 2,684|   Ã‚  | Accumulated other comprehensive loss|   Ã‚  |   | (29| )  |   |   | (6| )  | Retained earnings|   Ã‚  |   | 1,654|   |   |   | 1,606|   Ã‚  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | Total stockholders’ equity|   Ã‚  |   | 13,309|   |   |   | 4,899|   Ã‚  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity|   Ã‚  | $| 14,928|   |   | $| 6,331|   Ã‚  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | Revenue|   Ã‚  | $| 1,184|   |   | $| 895|   |   | $| 2,242|   Ã‚  |   | | 1,626|   Ã‚  | Costs and expenses:|   Ã‚  | | | |   | | | |   | | | |   | | | | Cost of revenue|   Ã‚  |   | 367|   Ã‚  |   |   | 210|   |   |   | 644|   Ã‚  |   |   | 377|   | Marketing and sales|   Ã‚  |   | 392|   Ã‚  |   |   | 96|   |   |   | 535|   Ã‚  |   |   | 158|   | Research and development|   Ã‚  |   | 705|   Ã‚  |   |   | 99|   |   |   | 858|   Ã‚  |   |   | 156|   | General and administrative|   Ã‚  |   | 463|   Ã‚  |   |   | 83|   |   |   | 567|   Ã‚  |   |   | 140|   | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | Total costs and expenses|   Ã‚  |   | 1,927|   Ã‚  |   |   | 488|   |   |   | 2,604|   Ã‚  |   |   | 831|   | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | (Loss) income from operations|   Ã‚  |   | (743| )  |   |   | 407|   |   |   | (362| )  |   |   | 795|   | Interest and other income (expense), net:|   Ã‚  | | | |   | | | |   | | | |   | | | | Interest expense|   Ã‚  |   | (10| )  |   |   | (9| )  |   |   | (24| )  |   |   | (17| )  | Other income (expense), net|   Ã‚  |   | (12| )  |   |   | 1|   Ã‚  |   |   | 3|   Ã‚  |   |   | 19|   | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | (Loss) income before benefit from (provision for) income taxes|   Ã‚  |   | (765| )  |   |   | 399|   |   |   | (383| )  |   |   | 797 |   | Benefit from (provision for) income taxes|   Ã‚  |   | 608|   Ã‚  |   |   | (159| )  |   |   | 431|   Ã‚  |   |   | (326| )  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | Net (loss) income|   Ã‚  | $| (157| )  |   | $| 240|   |   | $| 48|   Ã‚  |   | $| 471|   Ã‚  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | Less: Net income attributable to participating securities|   Ã‚  |   | 0|   Ã‚  |   |   | 81|   Ã‚  |   |   | 21|   Ã‚  |   |   | 160|   Ã‚  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | Net (loss) income attributable to Class  A and Class B common stockholders|   Ã‚  | $| (157| )  |   | $| 159|   |   | $| 27|   Ã‚  |   | $| 311|   | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | (Loss) earnings per share attributable to Class  A and Class B common stockholders:|   Ã‚  | | | |   | | | |   | | | |   | | | | Basic|   Ã‚  | ($| 0. 08| )  |   | $| 0. 12|   Ã‚  |   | $| 0. 02|   Ã‚  |   | $| 0. 25|   Ã‚  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | Diluted|   Ã‚  | ($| 0. 08| )  |   | $| 0. 11|   Ã‚  |   | $| 0. 02|   Ã‚  |   | $| 0. 22|   Ã‚  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | Weighted verage shares used to compute (loss) earnings per share attributable to Class  A and Class B common stockholders:|   Ã‚  | | | |   | | | |   | | | |   | | | | Basic|   Ã‚  |   | 1,879|   Ã‚  |   |   | 1,292|   Ã‚  |   |   | 1,613|   Ã‚  |   |   | 1,267|   Ã‚  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | Dil uted|   Ã‚  |   | 1,879|   Ã‚  |   |   | 1,510|   Ã‚  |   |   | 1,792|   Ã‚  |   |   | 1,499|   Ã‚  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | Share-based compensation expense included in costs and expenses:|   Ã‚  | | | |   | | | |   | | | |   | | | | Cost of revenue|   Ã‚  | $| 66|   Ã‚  |   | $| 3|   Ã‚  |   | $| 71|   Ã‚  |   | $| 3|   Ã‚  | Marketing and sales|   Ã‚  |   | 232|   Ã‚  |   |   | 11|   Ã‚  |   |   | 251|   Ã‚  |   |   | 11|   Ã‚  | Research and development|   Ã‚  |   | 545|   Ã‚  |   |   | 35|   Ã‚  |   |   | 605|   Ã‚  |   |   | 39|   Ã‚  | General and administrative|   Ã‚  |   | 263|   Ã‚  |   |   | 15|   Ã‚  |   |   | 282|   Ã‚  |   |   | 18|   Ã‚  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | Total share-based compensation ex pense|   Ã‚  | $| 1,106|   Ã‚  |   | $| 64|   Ã‚  |   | $| 1,209|   Ã‚  |   | $| 71|   | | Three  Months  Ended June  30,|   |   Ã‚  | Six  Months   Ended June  30,|   |   Ã‚  | 2012|   |   | 2011|   |   Ã‚  | 2012|   |   | 2011|   | Net (loss) income|   Ã‚  | $| (157| )  |   | $| 240|   |   Ã‚  | $| 48|   Ã‚  |   | $|   471|   Ã‚  | Other comprehensive (loss) income:|   Ã‚  | | | |   | | | |   Ã‚  | | | |   | | | | Foreign currency translation adjustment|   Ã‚  |   | (21| )  |   |   | 0|   Ã‚  |   Ã‚  |   | (22| )  |   |   | 1|   Ã‚  | Change in unrealized gain (loss) on available-for-sale investments, net of tax|   Ã‚  |   | (1| )  |   |   | 0|   Ã‚  |   Ã‚  |   | (1| )  |   |   | 0|   Ã‚  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | Comprehensive (loss) income|   Ã‚  | $| (179| )  |   | $| 240|   Ã‚  |   Ã‚  | $| 25|   Ã‚  |   | $| 472|   Ã‚  | |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   Ã‚  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | Figure #: Financial Statement (Sources: United States Securities And Exchange Commission, Form 10-Q, For the quarterly period ended June 30, 2012) Looking at the Financial Statement of Facebook Inc above we can calculate the current ratio on June 30, 2012 and compare it with December 31, 2011's ratio. We can calculate the 2011 ratio by using Total Asset of $6,331 million divided by Total Liabilities of $1,432 million equals $4. 42 million. And we can also find out the current ratio of Facebook Inc on June 30, 2012 by using the Current Assets of $11,976 million divided by Current Liabilities of $1,916 million equals $6. 25 million.Financial StatementsAs we can see the just in six months Facebook Inc's ratio increased almost by 70%. 7. 2 Active Users Figure #: Trends in Facebook User Metrics, Daily Active Users(Sour ces: United States Securities And Exchange Commission, Form 10-Q, For the quarterly period ended June 30, 2012) The graph above showed us how Facebook Inc increased their ratio almost 70% in just six months. As we can see Daily Active Users Worldwide had increased from 108 million to 552 million users. Facebook Inc define a daily active users as a registered Facebook user who logged in and visited Facebook through the Facebook website or through a device that can connect with Facebook.Facebook Inc check DAU (Daily Active Users) everyday. In Figure # we can see that the Worldwide DAUs increased 32% from 417 million users on June 2011 to 552 million users on June 2012. Most of the users now can log into Facebook through mobile device and Facebook Inc has already realized that. March 31, 2012, DAU's increased from 526 million to 552 million because of the increase of mobile users. 7. 3 Competitor The biggest competitor for Facebook is Twitter. The reason is that because many celebritie s like to use Twitter to connect with their fans. Twitter has not only become a well known social network but yet a tool for celebrities to do advertisement.In the United States presidential election of 2012, President Barack Obama used Twitter to connect with his fans. Figure #: Twitter Total Active Users, Worldwide (Source: Business Wired 2012) Even though Twitter is one of the threats for Facebook, but from the figure # we can clearly see the big difference that the two company have. On March 31, 2012 Facebook has 526 million active users worldwide, and Twitter only has 200 million active users worldwide. Facebook clearly beat Twitter. 7. 4 Facebook's Stock Markets Even though Facebook beat Twitter in the social network markets, but it has clearly not beat anyone in the stock markets. Below is the graph for Facebook's stock markets.Figure #: Facebook Stock Market graph, June 2011-December 2012 (Sources: United States Securities And Exchange Commission, Form 10-Q, For the quarterl y period ended June 30, 2012) Facebook opened its stock markets with $31 per stock on May 18, 2011 and on November 16, 2012 it has closed with $23. 56 per stock. Facebook's stock market did not increase as we can see through Facebook. Below is the graph why it has dropped dramatically. Figure #: Facebook's Revenue Makeup, 2012 (Business Insider 2012) As the graph shows that Facebook Inc spent most of their money in Advertising the market instead of using the money to pay off their Payments and Other.Although Facebook will continue to increase their active users due to mobile services, but if users growth flattens or decline, the impact of these increase have on Facebook's revenue growth will be limited for sure. Sources: Financial Statement : http://www. sec. gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512325997/d371464d10q. htm#tx371464_3 Daily Active Users: http://www. sec. gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512325997/d371464d10q. htm Twitter Active Users: http://blog. business wire. com/tag/social-media/ Facebook Stock Markets http://tmx. quotemedia. com/charting. php? qm_symbol=FB:US Facebook's Revenue Makeup: http://www. businessinsider. com/facebook-users-decline-2012-8

Rite of Passages Separation of Sexes - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 6 Words: 1747 Downloads: 9 Date added: 2019/08/15 Category Society Essay Level High school Tags: Rite of Passage Essay Did you like this example? Rites of passage in the Jewish religion and culture vary between families and society. These rituals mark the transitions of a person throughout their lives, integrating cultural experiences with biological destiny. There are three phases in accordance to the few rites of passage, separation or the preliminary phase that signifies removal from the past and is the beginning of the passage. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Rite of Passages: Separation of Sexes" essay for you Create order The second is transition or the threshold in which there is a ceremony and reaction from the individual that is going through the passage. The third is incorporation or inclusion in ceremonies or rituals in the synagogue. Most of these rituals have altered over the centuries and have become more distinct within different denominations of Judaism. They are performed within a group or societal setting to strengthen ties with the temple. Specific aspects of some rituals have influenced other religious ceremonies around the world. The life events covered include birth, naming, bar/bat mitzvah or societal introduction, marriage and death. In this paper, only the life cycle rites of passage that pertain to society will be argued and compared.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The first defining rite of passage is birth as it is also the beginning of life biologically. In order emphasize the beginning of life religiously, there are ceremonies that occur shortly after birth. For a male, circumcision is one of the most defining rituals as it is meant to initiate the son into the Covenant of Abraham. This occurs on the eighth day after birth in the presence of friends and family and is accompanied by a celebration or feast. There is no parallel for daughters when it comes to circumcision or an introduction to the world. In order to start a tradition, two women of the Reconstructionist Rabbinic College created the Brit Bnot Yisrael which translates roughly to a covenant ceremony for the Daughters of Israel. It began in the 1970s during the womens rights and liberation movement and was designed as a home-centered celebration. It still was not held in the same regard as circumcision ceremonies held for sons in the Jewish faith and cu lture. Another ritual that corresponds with birth is the naming ceremonies. When named, it is individualized and incorporated into society. A prevailing question posed is with whom does the authority to name lie? Although naming ceremonies are used to separate those who are inside and those who are outside of the culture, the act of naming has historically been reserved mainly for the men (Leissner 140). The Hebrew Bible mentions naming by outsiders such as God, prophets or even neighbors and later on reverts to the parents. There is also much discussion on which parent reserves the right to name the child first. For this honor, there are many circumstances and scenarios of which an individual parent or both may name the child. In this case, the first son has carried most of the naming importance over the centuries as it coincides with the circumcision ceremonies. These scenarios include being named by the mother alone, by the father alone, by both and incorporating two names, as we ll as after the mothers father; deciding factors vary per cultural preference. As the sons naming traditions hold more background, there is little to no mentions of daughters being named. The Bible also does not mention many daughters being bestowed names excluding the Book of Job (Job 42:14). Naming in the Bible signifies endowment with a role to play in history. Connecting back to patriarchal tendencies of naming being reserved for men, Adam naming Eve in Genesis 2:23 gave him dominion over her while they were meant to be equals. In modern times, naming is a cause for celebration and feast while done on the Sabbath with the congregation. There is a separation of sexes with respect to ceremonies of birth and naming since those rituals have been taking place since the beginning of Judaism and originated in a patriarchal society.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Transitioning from adolescence to adulthood is incorporated into the ritual ceremonies of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah, roughly translated to Son/Daughter of Commandment. It is a formal acknowledgement of growth and gives an individual a sense of transition or ceremonial recognition that is needed for that life event. This correlates to the first phase of passage of which one acknowledges the removal of the past and the start to a new passage. Aaron B. Seidman states that it is the introduction to the more responsible forms of worship and is recognized as a step towards social maturation. Though a Bar/Bat Mitzvah is a celebration, it is also a rite of passage into adulthood and therefore aligns with the second phase of passage where there is a ceremony to mark the transition. It is preceded by education and followed by new responsibilities at home and in synagogue. For a girl, it is done at age twelve while boys are celebrated at age thirteen in correspondence wit h the age of Ishmael when he was circumcised (Genesis 17:25). At these ages, they are considered adults and can now participate in events or ceremonies in synagogue that require adulthood. This aspect relates to the incorporation phase of rite of passages as they have earned their place in the Temple. This tradition can aide the youth in maintaining steadiness and perspective while focusing on life-direction and relating to others in a more meaningful way. Though important socially, this rite of passage is made up in most ways for it was not commanded nor specified by any laws.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The next rite of passage is marriage or a wedding ceremony. For women, there is no other single universal rite of passage in Jewish traditions and rituals. It connects back to baby naming ceremonies where prayers included blessings for the baby girl to grow, be married and bare sons. This blessing has been historically constant throughout various cultural traditions across most religions. For example, in medieval times the wife had a singular purpose of baring sons or heirs to carry the family name. This is still true in some societies today as the first male son holds the status of heir. The Mishnah, Written Oral Law, states that a woman is acquired in three ways, money, deed and intercourse. The economics of money historically began with a brideprice which has been exempt and taken over by a dowry. Virtue was an aspect that was taken very seriously when betrothed, even checks were done by Rabbi at the request of the husband post ceremony. Marriages were arranged through parents mutually agreeing based upon deed and dowry. Brides were to be checked by grooms female family members while focusing on beauty which is an asset and pre-marital virginity. It is said in Genesis 2:18 that it is not good for a man to be alone meaning for them to take a wife and provide protection. Historically, women were expected to marry when they are teens while men would usually marry in their thirties or younger. Men married after they have completed Torah study which leads to an older age for them to marry. Most laws are laid out in the Nashim or Women chapter in the Mishnah stating matrimonial law.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The last rite of passage is the last moment of life and is the ultimate transition, death. This ritual has two sides, the deceased and the mourners. It is a highly choreographed event which includes a speedy burial for there was concern of the freshness of the body. It was to be washed, shrouded or wrapped, and on occasion burned. There is no distinction of class or status for a funeral or burial. This two-sided rite of passage begins with the deceased where they transition out of the earthly world and ends with the survivors, also known as mourners. It is a state of transition brought on by grief and expectation. For example: the death of a parent or leadership role leaves an empty spot and thus needs to be filled which leads to the transitory rite of passage. Only after the burial does the surviving kin become mourners. Mourning activities and rituals extend from seven days to a year. Immediately after the funeral the family sits in their home for seven days while the community comes to them, this is called Shivah or Seven. After those seven days end, thirty days of lesser and moderate mourning takes place. Once the thirty days end, there is a remembrance one year after death where the Mourners Kaddish is prayed at the end of a service and concludes with ways of praising God. Some funeral rites have translated on to other religious traditions. At a Jewish funeral, the family wears specific attire including rips in clothing to show death. This has disappeared over time and in turn the men wear black ties and the women take black handkerchiefs. The black attire has influenced popular Christian traditions of wearing black as a sign of mourning and a continuation of wearing black for an extended time to show respect for the deceased. The final rite of passage in the life cycle has characteristics of both societal ritual practices and familiar practices, though each play a part and work together to instill tradition.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   All five of these major life events as a whole join to create the life cycle rite of passages. They are comprised of biological and cultural experiences that one goes through in the course of their lifetime. Each encompasses parts of the three phases, passage, transition and incorporation in different ways. The three steps of any rite of passage describes what each life event is about, leaving the past behind, transitioning into a new part of life, and becoming included in all aspects of society and familiar duties possible. Most events are formal acknowledgements signifying an individuals incorporation into society beginning with birth and ending with death. Although some traditions have failed or been phased out, the overarching symbol has been integrated in another. There are standing questions brought forward as a result of the beginning of most religious rituals were formed during a time of patriarchs. Men were seen as more important and aspects of t raditions highlight that importance. As seen with the female birth rituals, new traditions have been created out of societal changes such as the womens liberation movement in the nineteen-seventies and will continue to change and be created. Rite of passage events are overall ways to celebrate life with the opportunity to dance, sing, tell stories, grieve, share joys and experience life with one another.

How Does 12 Angry Men Show Prejudice Obscures the Truth...

There are many significant views and values that Reginald Rose demonstrates in 12 Angry Men the most important one being that prejudice constantly affects the truth and peoples judgement. As the jurors argue between themselves as to whether a young boy is guilty of stabbing his father it is shown that â€Å"It’s very hard to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this.† This is most evident in the way juror #3 and juror #10 come to their decision that the young man is guilty as they bring in there prejudice against young people and people from the slums to make their judgement without considering the facts of the case. Rose uses juror #8 who can see the whole trial because he is calm, reasonable and brings no prejudice as a prime example†¦show more content†¦Angry! Hostile!† This causes him to not listen to the other jurors opinions and block out any idea of the defendant being innocent. His prejudice is further understood when he says â€Å"this ki d is guilty. He’s got to burn. We’re letting him slip through our fingers here.† Juror #3 is only able to see the young boy on trial as a symbol of his own son and is therefore unable to look past his own anger towards his son and see the case for what it really is. It is only through the help of juror #8 does juror #3 finally let go of his personal prejudice and sees the truth about the case and changes his vote to not guilty. Juror #8 is a calm and reasonable man which makes it easier for him to judge the case fairly and justly without any prejudice. Juror #8 never said he believed the defendant to be innocent he only wanted to take the role of being a juror seriously and talk about the case before a young boy is sent off to die. â€Å"I’m not trying to change your mind it’s just that we’re talking about somebody’s life here†¦ we can’t decide in five minutes.† Because he brings no prejudice in the jury room he is able to look at the facts and carefully decide on his judgement. Juror #8 recognizes other peoples prejudice and tries not to convince them that the boy is innocent but to have them let go of that prejudice and decide based on the facts whether they truly believe the defendant is guilty or not. Rose uses both jurorShow MoreRelatedTwelve Angry Men1110 Words   |  5 PagesDoes Twelve Angry Men show that prejudice can obscure the truth? In the play Twelve Angry Men, Reginald Rose shows that prejudices can prevent jurors from seeing the truth. This is evident throughout the play as juror 10 blinded to the facts because prejudice clouds his judgement. However, besides prejudice, Rose also show personal bias, ignorance and a weak characteristic can take away jurors’ abilities to see the truth. For instance, juror 3’s bad relationship with his son in the past and juror7’sRead MoreAnalysis Of The Play 12 Angry Men By Reginald Rose1082 Words   |  5 PagesFeature Article Prejudice is like a ghost, it has been haunting the human race since the very beginning. 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Sometimes we have issues that are departmentally centered and those members who represent that particular department becomes so emotionally attached that we have to consult with the third party. Informal Intervention ServeRead MoreQuantitative Data Problem Solving1790 Words   |  8 Pagesway. One need look no further than the classic movie â€Å"12 Angry Men† (Rose Lumet, 1957), about a dissenting juror in a murder trial who slowly manages to convince the others that the case is not as obviously clear as it seemed in court, to see that all is not as it seems to be. Even in the face of evidence (quantitative, circumstantial or peripheral), decisions and judgments – hence the solutions to the problem – are made with bias, prejudice and assumptive reasoning. Over the course of ninety-sixRead MoreCounselling Assignment 58163 Words   |  20 Pagesjudgementalism and can result in a bypass of the counsellor’s capacity for empathy. As such, it is highly relevant to the counselling experience. Stereotypes are not fresh or born of the present moment and tend to reduce the full humanity of a person and obscure the bigger picture. Rather than deny that we make assumptions and operate from stereotypes, our tutors have proposed that it is much more healthy and helpful to the counselling process for the counsellor to be aware of any stereotypes they mightRead MoreLogical Reasoning189930 Words   |  760 Pagessound and the author does a superior job of presenting the structure of arguments. David M. Adams, California State Polytechnic University These examples work quite well. Their diversity, literacy, ethnic sensitivity, and relevancy should attract readers. Stanley Baronett. Jr., University of Nevada Las Vegas Far too many authors of contemporary texts in informal logic – keeping an eye on the sorts of arguments found in books on formal logic – forget, or underplay, how much of our dailyRead MoreMetz Film Language a Semiotics of the Cinema PDF100902 Words   |  316 Pagesunfamiliar with the concepts and terms of semiotics. Excepting the inadequate translation of a few words which either cannot be translated into English or only approximately translated, few semantic and stylistic improvements are needed and the translation does justice to Metz s text. In some instances, usage did not adopt Michael Taylor s solution. The most glaring example of his innovative translation is the word significate now usually translated by signified (signifià © in French)—which is used throughoutRead MoreStephen P. Robbins Timothy A. Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words   |  1573 PagesManager, Production: Lisa Rinaldi Full-Service Project Management: Christian Holdener, S4Carlisle Publishing Services Composition: S4Carlisle Publishing Services Printer/Binder: Courier/Kendallville Cover Printer: Courier/Kendalville Text Font: 10.5/12 ITC New Baskerville Std Credits and acknowledgments borrowed from other sources and reproduced, with permission, in this textbook appear on the appropriate page within text. Copyright  © 2013, 2011, 2009, 2007, 2005 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing