Music Appreciation Essay Example for Free

Music Appreciation Essay Sound any sensation that is perceived by the aural senses. Physically, sound is vibrational, mechanical energy that moves through matter (usually air) as a wave. The Hearing Process – Vibration, resonation, transmission, reception, interpretation, music appears. Pitch – relative highness or lowness of a sound, speed of vibration. Tone – a sound that has a definite pitch. Interval – the distance in pitch between any two tones, ex: half step. Accent – emphasis on a certain tone. Tone Color/Timbre – quality of sound that distinguishes on instrument or voice from another. timbre contrast, one instrument vs. another. Dynamics- Associated Terms – Degrees of loudness or soften in music: Pianissimo (pp) – very soft Piano (p) – soft Mezzopiano (mp) – moderately soft Mezzoforte (mf) – moderately loud Forte (f) – loud Fortissimo (ff) – very loud Crescendo – gradually get louder Decrescendo – gradually get softer Chordophones – make their sound when a stretched string vibrates. there is usually something they makes the sound reverberate such as the body of a guitar or violin. the strings are set into motion by either plucking, strumming or by rubbing with a bow. Membranophones – Any musical instrument that produces sound primarily by the way of a vibrating stretched membrane. Ex: timpani Roto toms non-pitched drums snare drum (S. Dr.) tenor drum (T. Dr.) field drum (F. Dr.) bass drum (B. Dr.) Tom-Toms Bongos Timbales (Timb.) Conga Drums Tambourine Idiophones – Ex: Marima Crotales Steel Drums Cymbals (cym.) Suspended Symbol Hi-Hat Finger Symbols Triangle (trgl.) Anvil (anv.) Cowbells Tam-Tam (t.t) and other Gongs Sleigh Bells (sl.b.) Bell Tree (bl.t.) Brake Drum (br. dr.) Thunder sheet (th. sh.) Rachet (rach) Wood Blocks (w.bl.) Temple Blocks (t.bl.) Claves (clav.) Castanets (cast.) Maracas (mrcs.) Guiro Whip (wh) Aerophones – any musical instrument that produce sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate. 1st class: where the vibrating is not contained in the instrument itself. Ex: Harmonica 2nd class: where vibrating air is contained by the instrument. Ex: Flute Identify Basic String Instruments – Violin Viola Cello Double Bass Renaissance Lute/Music Dulcimer The Koto-Koto Music The Sitar Identify Basic (Wood)Wind Instruments – Piccolo Flute Clarinet Bass clarinet Oboe English horn Bassoon Identify Basic Percussion Instruments – Timpani Xylophone Snare drum Bass drum Cymbais Identify Basic Keyboard Instruments – Piano Pipe organ Harpsichord Notation/Identify Basic Symbols Staff/Identify Lines and Spaces Time Signature Meter-7,6,5,4,3,2 Downbeat Tied vs dotted rhythms Syncopation Tempo Metronome Arpeggio Half-Step Whole-Step Texture Polyphony Monophonic Homophonic Heterophonic Counterpoint Key Major vs minor vs chromatic scales Key Signature Modulation/Key Change Chord/Progression Harmony Consonance Dissonance Dominant Chord Tonic Chord Sub Dominant Chord Musical Form/Ternary/Binary Phrase/Antecedent/Consequent Cadence Melody/Theme Must Be Prepared to Write Scales and A Chord Progression I –IV-V-I on the staff. Be prepared to insert the Minor chord. Four flats or sharps is the max. . Must be prepared to identify musical instruments and the families they belong to.

Outline the clinical characteristics of depression

Outline the clinical characteristics of depression The clinical symptoms of depression are characterised by an all-encompassing sadness, composed of a remarkably broad range of feelings, thoughts, and physical manifestations. These include low self-esteem, suicidal thoughts, pessimism, and feelings of dejection and hopelessness. Most sufferers will experience sleep disturbance and a loss of appetite and libido. All of these symptoms are usually accompanied by overwhelming tiredness, a lack of interest or enjoyment, guilt feelings, crying spells and social withdrawal. Other common features are psychomotor retardation (general slowing down physically), loss or motivation, and feelings of inadequacy and helplessness. There is often a diurnal mood variation (sufferers may feel worse either in the mornings or in the evenings). See table below for a more detailed explanation of the behaviours associated with depression. Affective Physiological Cognitive Behavioural Anger Abdominal pain Ambivalence Aggressiveness Anxiety Anorexia Confusion Agitation Apathy Backache Inability to concentrate Alcoholism Bitterness Chest pain Indecisiveness Altered activity level Denial of feelings Constipation Loss of interest and motivation Drug addiction Dejection Dizziness Self blame Intolerance Guilt Fatigue Self- depreciation Irritability Helplessness Headache Self- destructive thoughts Lack of spontaneity Hopelessness Impotence Pessimism Overdependence Loneliness Indigestion uncertainty Poor personal hygiene Low self-esteem Lassitude Psychomotor retardation Sadness Menstrual changes Tearfulness Sense of personal worthlessness Nausea Underachievement Sexual non responsiveness Withdrawal Sleep disturbances Vomiting Weight changes Give two or more physiological causes of depression The cognitive model Of the causes of depression proposes that people experience symptoms of depression because their thinking is disturbed. Depression is a cognitive problem that is dominated by the persons negative evaluation of themselves, their world and their future. In the course of their development certain experiences sensitize the individual and make them vulnerable to depression. They also acquire a tendency to make extreme, absolute judgments; loss is viewed as irrevocable and indifference as total rejection. The depression prone person is likely to explain an adverse event as a personal shortcoming. `The deserted husband believes she left me because Im unlovable. Instead of considering the other possible alternatives, such as personality incompatibility, the wifes own problems, or her feelings towards him. As he focuses on his personal deficiencies, they expand to the point where they completely dominate his self concept. He can think of himself only in a negative way and is unable to acknowledge his other abilities, achievements, and attributes. This negative set is reinforced when he interprets ambiguous or neutral experiences as additional proof of his deficiencies. Comparisons with other people further lower his self-esteem. And thus every encounter with others becomes a negative experience. His self-criticisms increase as he views himself as deserving of blame. (Beck) In the cognitive model of depression, it is thought that many cases develop through early life experiences, where parents have been excessively critical, the child may internalise the impact rule that being valued only comes from perfect performance. This assumption may become latent or silent during parts of adult life, where any endeavours are met with a reasonable degree of success. Thus, prior to becoming depressed, the person had by unrelenting hard word, managed to live up to the excesses of their conditional belief however, any notable failures activate the latent assumption and the person becomes sensitised to any signs of falling short of their perfectionist standard. A common factor that interferes with the application of the cognitive model apparently disparate presentations of persistent depression is avoidance. In persistent depression avoidance can serve to mask negative thinking patterns or inhibit the effect of negative thoughts on mood. On occasions, negative thinking may be overt or apparent due to such avoidance. Pinpointing such avoidance in persistent depression is often prerequisite to identifying negative thoughts. The behavioural model The behavioural explanation of the causes of depression is based on the view that abnormality is seen as the result of learning from the environment. In other words depression is a response to life experiences and stressors. Disturbances of mood are a specific response to stress. There are two major types of stress that a person may experience. The first is the stress of major life events that are evident to others. The second type of stress may not be obvious at all to others, but it is the minor stress or irritations of daily life. These are the small disappointments, frustrations, criticisms, and arguments that when accumulated over time and in the absence of compensating positive events produce a major and chronic negative impact. It is appropriate, therefore, to examine in more detail some of the sources of life stressors that may produce disturbances of mood. Four such, sources include major life events, roles, coping resources, and physiological changes. Major life events (Hol mes and Rahe) did the pioneering work in this area with the development of social readjustment rating scale. Rank Life event Mean value 1 Death of spouse 100 2 Divorce 73 3 Marital separation 65 4 Jail term 63 5 Death of close family member 63 6 Personal injury or illness 53 7 Marriage 50 8 Fired at work 47 9 Marital reconciliation 45 10 Retirement 45 11 Change in health of family member 44 12 Pregnancy 40 13 Sex difficulties 39 14 Gain of new family member 39 15 Business readjustment 39 16 Change in financial state 38 17 Death of close friend 37 18 Change to different line of work 36 19 Change in number of arguments with spouse 35 20 Mortgage over 10,000 31 21 Foreclosure of mortgage or loan 30 22 Changes in responsibilities at work 29 23 Son or daughter leaving home 29 24 Trouble with in-laws 29 25 Outstanding personal achievement 28 26 Wife begin or stop work 26 27 Begin or end school 26 28 Change in living conditions 25 29 Revision of personal habits 24 30 Trouble with boss 23 31 Change in work hours or conditions 20 32 Change in residence 20 33 Change in school 20 34 Change in recreation 19 35 Change in church activities 19 36 Change in social activities 18 37 Mortgage or loan less than 10,000 17 38 Change in sleeping habits 16 39 Change in number of family get- togethers 15 40 Change in eating habits 15 41 Vacation 12 42 Christmas 12 42 Minor violations of the law 11 The scale ranks important life events and assigns a specific value to each one on the basis of the amount of coping behaviour needed by the individual to deal with the event. As the score of the mean value increases, the likelihood of an illness increases. The behavioural model overcomes the ethical issues raised by the medical model of labelling someone as `ill or abnormal, instead the model concentrates on behaviour and whether it is adaptive of maladaptive. Those who support the psychodynamic model, however, claim the behavioural model focuses only on symptoms and ignores the cause of abnormal behaviour they claim that the symptoms are merely the tip of the iceberg, the outward expression of deeper underlying emotional problems. Coping resources Life stress may also take the form of inadequate coping resources. Personal resources available to individuals include their socioeconomic status (income, occupation, social position, and education), families (nuclear and extended), interpersonal networks, and the secondary organizations provided by the broader social environment. The far-ranging effects of poverty, discrimination, inadequate housing, and social isolation cannot be ignored or taken lightly. Physiological changes Disturbances in mood may also occur as a response to physiological changes produced by drugs or a wide variety of physical illnesses. Drug- induced depressions have been noted to occur following treatments with various antihypertensive drugs and the abuse of addictive substances, such as amphetamines, and barbiturates. Depression may also occur, secondary to a wide variety of medical illnesses, for example viral infections, nutritional deficiencies, endocrine disorders, anaemias, and central nervous system disorders, such as multiple sclerosis, tumours, and cerebral vascular disease. Evaluate psychodynamic therapy in treatment of depression in terms of its strengths and weakness Psychodynamic therapy is a generic term that embraces all those therapies of an analytic nature. Probably the majority of psychodynamicists adhere to work and teaching of Freud. But also in this group you will find therapy based on ideas of various other psychologists including Jung and Adler. In this type of therapy, the therapist keeps his own personality out of the picture. This vital aspect of psychodynamic psychotherapy and it enables the therapist to be like a blank canvas onto which patients can transfer and project deep feelings about themselves, their parents and other significant people in their life. It is then up to the therapist to handle all the feelings and information that emerge, to gradually help patients to deal with all this `baggage. In this way the therapists helps patients gain a better understanding of what their disturbances are and how their mind works. The term psychodynamic refers to a group of explanations that try to account for the dynamics of behaviour i.e. the forces that motivate behaviour. Freuds revolutionary theory was that depression does not have a physical cause, but instead arises from unresolved, unconscious conflicts which form in early childhood. This model is based on Freuds theory of psychosexual development. A child passes through a series of stages (oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital) if there is a major conflict at any of these stages, the child can spend an unusually long time at that developmental stage (called fixation) if and adult experiences great personal problems, he or she will tend to show regression (going backwards through the stages of psychosexual development) to the stage at which he or she had previously been fixated. The prime goal of therapy is to enable patients to gain access to their repressed ideas and conflicts, and to encourage them to face up to whatever pops out from the unconscious mind. Freud initially used hypnosis as a means of accessing repressed memories but later turned to the analysis of dreams and technique of free association, where a client is encouraged to say the first thing that comes in to his or her mind. The strengths of psychodynamic therapy is that it identifies traumatic childhood experiences as a factor in the development of depression in later life. A weakness of this type of therapy is that the therapist may appear disinterested in the clients current problems. A depressed patient wants to talk about themselves now as opposed to then. Another weakness to the Freudian approach is that it tends to focus too much on sex, and does not emphasise the importance of interpersonal and social factors in causing and maintaining depression. A patient must have the right to approve or disapprove of any treatment programme and a depressed patient may well have fears and doubts about laying their soul to bear to a stranger. Another ethical implication of this type of therapy is that patients may not take any responsibility for their illness depends on unconscious processes over which they have no control. In addition, the idea that adult mental illness is based in childhood experiences implies that parents are at least partially to blame. Is it ethical to cause distress to parents by suggesting that they are responsible for their childs menta l illness? Serious ethical issues are raised by numerous recent cases of false memory syndrome, where patients in therapy have made allegations about childhood physical or sexual abuse which may or may not be true. Freud believed that men and women have their own biologically determined sexual natures, and depression can develop when the natural course of their sexual development is thwarted. This notion is ethically dubious, as it ignores cultural differences in sexual attitudes and behaviour. Outline the clinical characteristics of Schizophrenia Although the popular concept of split personality is still common the reality of Schizophrenia is far more complex. The two most frequently found elements of the illness are delusions and hallucinations. Bizarre delusions are common. The content of these delusions is patently absurd and has no possible basis in fact, such as delusions of being controlled, thought broadcasting or thought insertion. Suffers often report grandiose or religious delusions or beliefs about themselves having physical symptoms which do not in fact exist. They may feel persecuted or irrationally jealous. A particularly distressing symptom consists of auditory hallucinations in which either a voice keeps up a running commentary on the individuals behaviour of thoughts, or two or more voices converse with each other. To the outsider the sufferer may appear incoherent, blinded or even catatonic. There is a marked deterioration from their previous level of functioning in such areas as work, social relations and self care. Below is a list of symptoms from American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, third edition, Washington, D.C, APA, 1980. Social isolation or withdrawal Marked impairment in role functioning as wage earner, student, or homemaker Marked peculiar behaviour (e.g., collecting garbage, talking to self in public, or hoarding food) Marked impairment in personal hygiene and grooming Blunted, flat, or inappropriate affect Digressive, vague, over elaborate, circumstantial, or metaphorical speech Odd or bizarre ideation, or magical thinking, e.g., superstitousness, clairvoyance, telepathy, sixth sense, others can feel my feelings, overvalued ideas, ideas of reference Unusual perceptual experiences, e.g., recurrent illusions, sensing the presence of a force or person not actually present. Give two or more psychological (psychodynamic/behavioural/cognitive) expiations of Schizophrenia Psychodynamic Psychoanalytical theory states that Schizophrenic behaviour results when the ego can no longer withstand the pressures emanating from the id and from external reality. The ego of the psychotic person struggles to cope with stress because of serious deficiencies in the relationship between the person as a child and his mother. When the person is anxious and stressed he employs ego defence mechanisms in an unhealthy way in an effort to control unacceptable impulses and thoughts. Take for example a man or woman with paranoid delusions. So much psychic energy is invested in holding down these terrible thoughts and impulses that there is little energy left to deal with normal daily living. The person withdraws from usual activities and has difficulty maintaining basic physiological needs such as nutrition and hygiene. If stress and anxiety gets even worse, ego functioning may deteriorate further, and the person will be flooded with frightening thoughts and impulses. As ego identity disint egrates communication is confused and garbled, and the person is alone in their own world. According to Freud, schizophrenia is a form of regression, back to the oral stage of development; the oral stage is the first stage of psychosexual development. A baby is born a bundle of id, is self indulgent and concerned only with a satisfaction of their needs. There is a need gratify these impulses but their experiences in the real world result in conflict, people with schizophrenia are overwhelmed by anxiety because their egos are not strong enough to cope with id impulses in schizophrenia, this can lead to self indulgent symptoms such as delusions, such as hearing voices which may have an ultimate authority. It has been suggested that schizophrenia has a psychosomatic cause the origin is solely in the mind. At best it could only be a partial explanation of some symptoms, e.g. delusions. In reality Freud is denying the experience of patients with schizophrenia, it is unscientific and extremely difficult to test. Concepts such as repression are difficult to observe and measure, although this difficulty does not invalidate the theory. The theory is based on unrepresentative samples, case studies, from which it is difficult to generalise. The theory fails to account for gender differences the onset for males is around 20 years, and for females 30 years. Nor does the theory explain why, prior to diagnosis, their behaviour has appeared normal. Furthermore, it also excludes considerations of the environment. A concise explanation of Schizophrenia was given by O.A. Will in his 1961 study of Human relatedness and the schizophrenic reaction. The expression of complicated patterns of behaviour adopted by the organism in an effort to deal with a gross inadequacy in relating to other humans. The Behavioural explanation Schizophrenia can evolve as the results of various experiences that influence the growth of the individual. In most instances a series of life events predisposes the individual to difficulty with interpersonal relationships. The family is the unit within which the first experiences with closeness to others take place. Lack of maternal stimulation or attention deprives the infant of a sense of security and there is failure to establish basic trust. This can lead to a suspicious attitude toward others that may continue throughout life. The quality of mothering attention is also important. A child may be adequately fed and receive impeccable physical care but without any communication of maternal caring. A child who is treated like an object may well become an adult who treats others like objects. Family communication patterns may also be stressors leading to disruptions in relationships. Patients with a medical diagnosis of schizophrenia are frequently members of families with identifiably disturbed communication patterns. Relationship problems frequently become manifest in the symptomatic behaviour of one family member. This deviant behaviour develops when the family is subjected to intolerable levels of stress. A family member who actscrazy may serve the function of keeping the family system intact. For example, if there is a family rule that hostility is never expressed directly between family members, and the parents are involved in a conflict which they may not confront, tension will build up within the family system. One of the children may respond to this tension by acting crazy and performing destructive acts in the home. Evaluate cognitive behavioural therapies in the treatment od schizophrenia in terms of its strengths and weakness Cognitive behavioural therapy is a kind of psychotherapy which aims to change the way that people think about their problem and thus alters the effects of the problem itself. One specific example is stress inoculation training, which is a technique to reduce stress through the use of stress management techniques, and self statements that aim to restructure the way the person thinks. A second example is increasing hardiness, which is building up in the patient a cluster of traits possessed by those people best able to cope with stress. The main strength of C.B.T in the treatment of schizophrenia is that it gives more power, choice, and responsibility for their treatment to a group of patients who have traditionally had things done to them, for example in the form of medication, social skills training and even ECT. There is no doubt that distorted and irrational beliefs and this treatment targets abnormal thinking. The purely cognitive approach grew out of dissatisfaction with the behavioural model and its emphasis on purely external factors. It emphasised internal mental influences and the power of the individual to shape their own thinking. Recently the two approaches have been integrated, so CBT treatment deals with maladaptive behaviours as well as distorted thoughts and beliefs. The weakness of this therapy is that it can be seen as rather limited genetic factors are ignored, and not much attention is paid to the role of social and interpersonal factors or of individuals life experiences in producing schizophrenia. Discuss the ethics of cognitive behavioural therapy Because the cognitive approach to therapy concentrates on the concept that mentally ill people have distorted thoughts and beliefs, it follows that sufferers of schizophrenia may feel that their illness is their own fault. This raises some ethical issues. Patients will be even more stressed if they have to take responsibility for their illness. It is unfair to blame patients for being ill, because their families may be mainly responsible, since it may be that maladaptive experiences in adulthood are based in childhood experiences, over which the sufferer has no control. It is even more striking to understand that the negative thoughts and beliefs of patients could be rational, and reflect the awful circumstances of the way they live in other words, if the patient feels blame they are unlikely to contemplate change. Outline the characteristics of one eating disorder (Bruch .H. The golden cage: the enigma of anorexia nervosa 1978) Perception is also an important aspect of the behaviour of young people with anorexia nervosa. These people perceive that they are fat and literally starve themselves to achieve their goal of being thin. However, because of the distortion in body image that they experience, the goal is unattainable. Even when emaciated to the point that their appearance is skeletal, they will maintain that they are fat and persist in their attempt to lose weight. Bruch describes the typical anorexic process as `beginning with a diet. Initially, the dieter experiences a sense of deprivation and difficulty in maintain the restrictions. However, she then enters a stage of pride in her accomplishment and this perpetuates the behaviour. At the same time, biological effects of starvation cause distortions in perception of body sensations. There is a heightening of sensory experience and a feeling that has been compared to intoxication. As the condition progresses, the patient begins to feel special and different because of her superhuman effort and extraordinary accomplishment. These results in her alienation and isolation from others who fail to understand her behaviour and its meaning to her. She is then becomes increasingly absorbed in her own world and her behaviour assumes even greater importance to her. Anorexia nervosa is really a misnomer. Anorexia means lack of appetite. People with anorexia nervosa do experience hunger, and it is the victory over hunger that provides their reward. Anorexics are often fascinated with food and cooking, becoming students of nutrition. They may compulsively loiter in places where food is sold or served and watch other people eat. Their life becomes centred on food and the avoidance of eating. Anorexics go to extremes to avoid weight gain. They will induce vomiting, take diuretics and laxatives, and exercise strenuously. Many other physical changes are common in anorexic women, including amenorrhea (periods stopping), lanugo (extra body hair especially facial), and bradycardia (heart problems). Another eating disorder that is similar in some respects to anorexia nervosa is bulimia. The bulimic person experiences episodes of binge eating, frequently followed by vomiting. Binge eating is compulsive intake of food that is stopped only when the person vomits, experiences pain runs out of food, or is interrupted. It is differentiated from anorexia nervosa by the fact that severe weight loss is not generally seen and the individual is well aware that their behaviour is abnormal. Bulimics are usually able to maintain a more normal weight by alternating binging and vomiting or by eating very little between binges. Give two or more psychological explanations of eating disorders Psychodynamic Eating disorders usually begin in adolescent girls (90% of sufferers are female). This may suggest that this coincides with the onset of sexual development and sexual fears. Psychodynamic theorists have suggested that an adolescent girl may be terrified by their own feelings of sexual desire, or a fear of becoming pregnant, or even (and this may seem farfetched but is based on ignorance of the facts of life) of a fear of becoming pregnant by oral sex. If eating is mentally links in adolescent to getting pregnant, then starving herself will prevent pregnancy. It also stops menstruation so ovulation stops so no pregnancy. Another psychodynamic explanation of eating disorders is that some adolescent girls are afraid of growing up and have an unconscious desire to remain pre-pubescent. If they lose a lot of weight their bodies will not develop normally and they can hang on to the belief that they are still children. Finally, some patients who present with eating disorders were victims of sexual abuse as children. Consequently they hate their bodies and may even self-harm. There is a theory, supported by Minuchin, Roseman, and Baker (1978) that eating disorders may be firmly rooted in family dynamics. The term enmeshment is used to describe a family where there is no space for the personal independence of the child family members all seem to do everything together. Adolescence should be a time when the child develops their independence. If they cannot do this the anorexic adolescent may rebel by refusing to eat. Families which are enmeshed like this find it difficult to sort out conflicts (Minuchin et al.1978). In the theory of psychodynamics such families create anxiety. This is where ego-defences come in; parents unable to cope with their anxiety put the blame (unconsciously) on the anorexic child herself. Parental conflicts are common in families of both anorexics and bulimics (Kalusy, Crisp, and Harding 1977). This research came to the conclusion that families with an anorexic child tend to be ambitious, to deny or ignore conflicts, and blames othe r people for their problems. Behavioural The psychological theory of classical conditioning teaches us a great deal about the development of anorexia. These sufferers associate eating with anxiety they associate losing weight with avoiding bad thoughts and feelings (Leitenberg, Agras, and Thompson (1968)). The other relevant psychological theory is operant conditioning. The anorexic gets pleasure from gaining attention. It is also rewarding or re-enforcing because slim people are considered more attractive than fat ones. Similarly, there is a behavioural explanation of bulimia. When a bulimic binges it causes them anxiety, so when they vomit they revise the situation and their anxiety is reduced. This reduction in anxiety makes the person feel better, so the cycle of bingeing followed by vomiting is maintained. (Rosen and Leitenberg 1985). Discuss the ethics of behavioural therapies The term is used when considering moral behaviour among professionals, such as behavioural therapists. Certain things may be less acceptable than others, but if the ultimate end is for the good of the patient, then we may feel than an undesirable behaviour is acceptable. A psychiatric ward full of patients with eating orders can be one of the most depressing places on earth. Behavioural therapy usually involves giving patients targets and rewards regarding their consumption of food and drink. Patients with eating disorders can be distressed, stubborn, and frightened; the behavioural programmes developed for their recovery are often unwelcome and in themselves cause anxiety. There are major ethical issues occurring on a daily basis can staff force people to eat against their will? What of the rights of these individuals to be treated in a caring and respectful way? I doubt that loss of privileges constitute a caring and respectful way of helping a disturbed patient who refuses to eat. The issues of informed consent and the protection of patients from harm are huge points of conflict in the therapeutic treatment of people with eating disorders.

The Different Scopic Orders Of The Modern Era Film Essay

The Different Scopic Orders Of The Modern Era Film Essay The modern era has allegedly been dominated by the sense of sight, in a way that has seen it set apart from the premodern era and the postmodern era. In his text Scopic Regimes of Modernity Martin Jay draws our attention to scopic order in the modern era, which is an area with many conflicting views that are not often in alignment with each other. Jay argues the point that there may not be one unified scopic regime, a term used by french film theorist Christian Metz, and that there is room for argument with the idea that there are a number of competing regimes associated with the modern era. Jay looks at the mirror of nature, a metaphor in philosophy by Richard Forty, the emphasis of surveillance that was put forward by Michel Foucault, and the society of the spectacle argued by Guy Debord. Jay also goes on to look at the arguably dominant scopic regime known as Cartesian Perspectivalism, what is normally claimed to be the dominant, even totally hegemonic, visual model of the modern era. Also discussed are the major competitors to Cartesian Perspectivalism, which includes mapping, which is, a visual culture very different from what we associate with Renaissance perspective, one which Svetlana Alpers has recently called The Art of Describing. and the third model of vision, which is best identified with the baroque. Wà ¶lfflin later called it, the classical style, the baroque was painterly, recessional, soft-focused, multiple, and open in his study, Renaissance and Baroque. Jacqueline Roses quote used by Jay to back up his opinion that there are many views which come into play when discussing the subject of scopic regimes, our previous history is not the petrified block of a single visual space since, looked at obliquely, it can always be seen to contain its moment of unease. (Rose, 1986, p.232-233.) Jays argument continues with him writing about the idea that this subject is not one of solidity. Bringing in the notion that the topic of, scopic regimes of modern ity, is best discussed on what he describes as, contested terrain, rather then harmoniously integrated complex of visual theories and practices. Modernity has often been considered resolutely ocular-centric, which is the act of basing all experience on the perception of the eyes, with sight being very direct and centered. The invention of printing reinforced the advantage of visual aids such as the telescope, which with its con-vexed lens helped expand the apparent angular size of distant objects. Along with the microscope, which aids the eye to see objects that are too small visually for the naked eye. These inventions helped put more emphasis on sight and vision. It is difficult to deny that the visual sense has been dominant in modern western culture in a wide variety of different ways, with Martin Jay calling visionthe master sense of the modern era. Scopic Regime, a term first coined by French film theorist Christian Metz in his book The Imaginary Signifier a study on cinema and psychoanalysis. It was used to distinguish the differences from the cinema to the theatre. What defines the specifically cinematic scopic regime is not so much the distance kept, the keeping itself (first figure of the lack, common to all voyeurism), as the absence of the object seen. (Metz, 1982, p.61.) The cinema is profoundly different from the theatre as also from more intimate voyeuristic activities with a specifically erotic aim. METZ It is the last recess that is attacked by the cinema signifier, it is in its precise emplacement that it installs a new figure of the lack, the physical absence of the object seen. In the theatre, actors and spectators are present at the same time and in the same location, hence present one to another, as the two protagonists of an authentic perverse couple. But in the cinema, the actor was present when the spectator was not (shooting), and the spectator is present when the actor is no longer. (Projection). A failure to meet of the voyeur and the exhibitionist whose approaches no longer coincide. (they have missed one another) The cinemas voyeurism must do without any very clear mark of consent on the part of the object. There is no equivalent here of the theater actors final bow. And then the latter could see their voyeurs, the game was less unilateral, slightly better distributed. In the darkened hall, the voyeur is really left alone.(P.63) In this text, Metz develops an analysis between film spectatorship and voyeurism. According to him, enhancing the essential property of the voyeuristic gaze that of keeping the desired, seen object at a safe distance from the viewing subject cinema locates its own data in the for- ever inaccessible, in a realm which is incessantly desirable but that can never be possessed, in the scene of absence. Cinema, in other words, shows us the world, and at the same time it takes it away from us. As Metz writes,  «what defines the properly cinematographic scopic regime is not the maintained distance, nor the care exerted in maintaining it, but the sheer absence of the seen object. Cinema is therefore a form of absolute voyeurism: it is founded on an unbridgeable distance, on a total inaccessibility. 3) Emphasize the prevalence of surveillance with Michael Foucault Our society is not one of spectacle, but of surveillanceWe are neither in the amphitheater, nor on the stage, but in the panoptic machine, invested by its effects of power, which we bring to ourselves since we are part of its mechanism. (Foucault, 1979, p.127.) Among French intellectuals in the 1960s and 1970s it was Michel Foucault who most explicitly interrogated the gaze of surveillance and Guy Debord and his situationist international collaborators who explored the vision of the spectacle. Together they provided an array of different arguments looking from different perspectives against the hegemony of the eye. With their work, the ocular-centrism of those who praised the nobility of sight was not so much rejected, as reversed in value. Vision was still the privileged sense, but what that privilege produced in the modern world was damned as almost entirely corrupting. Foucault called it the unimpeded empire of the gaze. (Foucault, 1973, p.39.) and Guy Debord called it society of the spectacle. (Debord, 1981, p.25.) Gilles Deleuze characterized Foucaults work as a duel investigation of articulable statements and fields of visibilities. Deleuze stated that Foucault continued to be fascinated by what he saw as much as by what he heard or read, and the archaeology he conceived of is an audiovisual archive Foucault never stopped being a voyant at the same time as he marked philosophy with a new style of statement. (Deleuze, 1988, p.50.) Allan Megill, a philosophical writer, has claimed that in his earlier more structuralist moments, Foucault was himself intent on portraying a lucent Apollonian world (Megill, 1983, p.218) within which ocular-centrism was neutrally accepted. The vision that should be incorporated into psychoanalysis Foucault insisted, had to be understood phenomenologically, taking into account the livid spatial experience that emerged from the bodys intertwining with the world. Authentic versions of that experience were undermined, he claimed if vision was reduced to its traditional Cartesian spectral role based on the dualism of subject and object. Foucault was drawn to Belgian Surrealist painter Renà © Magritte, Magrittes work frequently displays a juxtaposition of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things. The representational use of objects as other than what they seem is typified in his painting, The Treachery of Images, which depicts a pipe that looks as though it is a model for a tobacco store advert. Magritte painted below the pipe ceci nest pas une pipe translated it means This is not a pipe, Which would appear to be a contradiction, but in reality it is a true statement. The painting is no t a pipe, just an image of a pipe. When Magritte was once asked about his painting, he replied that of course it was not a pipe, just try and fill it with tobacco. Magritte used the same approach in a painting of an apple, he painted the fruit realistically and then used an internal caption to deny that the item was an apple. In these works Magritte points out that no matter how closely through art we come to depicting an item accurately we never actually catch the item itself. Foucault explored a more visibly explicit version of interaction within Magrittes work, he described Magrittes canvases as the opposite of trompe loeil which is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions because of their understanding of the mimetic conventions of realistic painting. Foucault also referred to them as unraveled calligrams as they refused to close the gap between the image and the world. Resemblance serves representation which rules over it; similitude serves repetition, which ranges across it. Resemblance predicates itself upon a model it must return to and reveal; similitude circulates the simulacrum as an indefinite and reversible relation of the similar to the similar. (Levy, 1990, p.44) The Panopticon (all-seeing) functioned as a round-the-clock surveillance machine. Its design ensured that no prisoner could ever see the inspector who conducted surveillance from the privileged central location within the radial configuration. The prisoner could never know when he was being surveilled mental uncertainty that in itself would prove to be a crucial instrument of discipline. French philosopher Michel Foucault described the implications of Panopticism in his 1975 work Discipline Punish: The Birth of the Prison Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers. To achieve this, it is at once too much and too little that the prisoner should be constantly observed by an inspector: too little, for what matters is that he knows himself to be observed; too much, because he has no need in fact of being so. In view of this, Bentham laid down the principle that power should be visible and unverifiable. Visible: the inmate will constantly have befo re his eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which he is spied upon. Unverifiable: the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment; but he must be sure that he may always be so. In order to make the presence or absence of the inspector unverifiable, so that the prisoners, in their cells, cannot even see a shadow, Bentham envisaged not only venetian blinds on the windows of the central observation hall, but, on the inside, partitions that intersected the hall at right angles and, in order to pass from one quarter to the other, not doors but zig-zag openings; for the slightest noise, a gleam of light, a brightness in a half-opened door would betray the presence of the guardian. The Panopticon is a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing; in the central tower, one sees everything without ever being seen. Foucault also compares modern society with Jeremy Benthams Panopticon design for prisons (which was unrealized in its original form, but nonetheless influential): in the Panopticon, a single guard can watch over many prisoners while the guard remains unseen. Ancient prisons have been replaced by clear and visible ones, but Foucault cautions that visibility is a trap. It is through this visibility, Foucault writes, that modern society exercises its controlling systems of power and knowledge (terms Foucault believed to be so fundamentally connected that he often combined them in a single hyphenated concept, power-knowledge). Increasing visibility leads to power located on an increasingly individualized level, shown by the possibility for institutions to track individuals throughout their lives. Foucault suggests that a carceral continuum runs through modern society, from the maximum security prison, through secure accommodation, probation, social workers, police, and teachers, to our e veryday working and domestic lives. All are connected by the (witting or unwitting) supervision (surveillance, application of norms of acceptable behaviour) of some humans by others. Or look into the society of the spectacle with Guy Debord The entire life of societies in which modern conditions of production reign announces itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into representation. (Debord, 1977, par.1.) With the term spectacle, Debord defines the system that is a confluence of advanced capitalism, the mass media, and the types of governments who favor those phenomena. The spectacle is the inverted image of society in which relations between commodities have supplanted relations between people in which passive identification with the spectacle supplants genuine activity. The spectacle is not a collection of images, writes Debord rather, it is a social relationship between people that is meditated by images. In his analysis of the spectacular society, Debord notes that quality of life is impoverished, with such lack of authenticity human perceptions are affected, and theres also a degradation of knowledge with the hindering of critical thought. 4) Cartesian Perspectivalism, is normally considered the dominant hegemonic scopic regime of the modern era. It is a way of seeing both then and now, a method of perception that represents space and the subjects and objects in that space according to the rules of Euclidean geometry. Renaissance painters, such as Brunelleschi, and Alberti, who was known as a draftsman rather than a painter, developed a geometric space complimentary to the mathematical space of Descartess philosophy. Perspective in painting projects a plane onto its object of study and creates a one-to-one correspondence between points on the plane and points on the canvas. Brunelleschi, who is traditionally accorded to the honor of being the practical inventor of perspective, he begun by using architectural figures such as buildings, ceilings, and tiled floors which easily match the grid structure of the projective plane.   Later, other objects were fitted and shaped within the geometrical patterning of linear perspect ive. Alberti is acknowledged, almost universally, as being the first theoretical interpreter of perspective. He regarded mathematics as the common ground for art and sciences. I will take first from the mathematicians those things which my subject is concerned. (Alberti DELLA PITTURA) The scopic regime that was interpreted Descartes philosophy is usually identified with Renaissance notions of perspective in the visual arts and the Cartesian ideas of subjective rationality in philosophy. Art historian William Ivins, Jr., in his Art and Geometry of 1946 said that the history of art during the five hundred years that have elapsed since Alberti wrote has been little more than the story of slow diffusion of his ideas through the artists and peoples of Europe. Richard Rorty discussed Descartes ideas in his writing Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, published in 1979. He claimed, in the cartesian model the intellect inspects entities modeled on retinal images In Descartes conception the one that become the basis for modern epistemology it is representations which are in the mind. These two prominent social commentators, have illustrated their view which is considered to be be equivalent to our view of the modern scopic regime. The aforementioned quotes assume that Ca rtesian perspectivalism is the main visual model of modernity, these authors believe it best expresses a natural experience of sight validated by the scientific world view. (maybe say it in a simplified form too.) In his famous essay Perspective as Symbolic Form, Panofsky, a German art historian, highlights the break made through linear perspective by contrasting Renaissance painting with that of Greek and Medieval works.  Ã‚   Prior to the Renaissance, painting concerned itself with individual objects, but the space which they inhabited failed to embrace or dissolve the opposition between bodies.   Space acted as a simple superposition, a still unsystematic overlapping.  Ã‚   With linear perspective comes an abstract spatial system capable of ordering objects: As various as antique theories of space were, none of them succeeded in defining space as a system of simple relationships between height, width and depth.   In that case, in the guise of a coordinate system, the difference between front and back, here and there, body and nonbody would have resolved into the higher and more abstract concept of three-dimensional extensions, or even, as Arnold Geulincx puts it, the concept of a corpus generaliter sumptum (body taken in a general sense). (Panofsky, 1991, p.43-44.) Jay says This new concept of space was geometrically isotropic, rectilinear, abstract, and uniform. The three-dimensional, rationalized space of perspectival vision could be rendered on a two-dimensional surface by following all of the transformational rules spelled out in Albertis De Pittura, and later agreements by Viator and Dà ¼rer. A basic painting device occurred from these findings with the use of symmetrical visual pyramids, or cones, with one of their apexes receding towards the vanishing point in the painting, the other into the eye of the painter. Significantly the eye was singular, and not the normal two eyes of binocular vision. The device was made in the manner that just one eye would be looking through a peep-hole (Kemp Science in art pg 13) at a scene in front of it. Brunelleschi used a peep-hole and mirror system for viewing this perspective demonstration of the Florentine Baptistery. Brunelleschi had drilled a small hole in a panel of wood at a point equivalent to that at which his line of sight had struck the Baptistery along a perpendicular axis. The spectator was required to look through this drilled hole from the back of the panel at a mirror held in such a way, so that it would reflect the image. The eye of the viewer would be fixated and unblinking rather than dynamic. In Norman Brysons terms it followed the logic of the Gaze rather than the Glance, which produced one single point of view. Bryson, who is an art theorist, calls this the Founding Perception of the Cartesian perspectivalist tradition. the gaze of the painter arrests the flux of phenomena, contemplates the visual field from a vantage-point outside the mobility of duration, in an eternal moment of disclosed presence; while in the moment of viewing, the viewing subject unites his gaze with the Founding Perception, in a moment of perfect recreation of that first epiphany. With this visual order arose many implications, with the abstract coldness of the perspectival gaze, which meant the painters emotional connection with the objects they depicted in geometricalized space was lost. The gap between spectacle and spectator widened. Cartesian perspectivalism has, in fact, been the target of a widespread philosophical critique, which has denounced its privileging of an ahistorical, disinterested, disembodied subject entirely outside of the world it claims to know only from afar. (Jay Cartesian perspectivalism itself that it suggest it was not quite as uniformly coercive as is sometimes assumed. Although artificial perspective was the dominant model, its competitor was never entirely forgotten. John White, an artist, distinguishes between what he terms artificial perspective, in which the mirror held up to nature is flat, and synthetic perspective, in which that mirror is presumed to be concave, thus producing a curved rather than planar space on the canvas. The Cartesian perspectivalist tradition contained a potential for internal contestation in the possible uncoupling of the painters view of the scene from that of the presumed beholder. Norman Bryson identifies this development with Johannes Vermeer , who represents for him a second state perspectivalism even more discarnated that that of Alberti. The bond with the viewers physique is broken and the viewing subjectis now proposed and assumed as a notional point, a non-empirical Gaze. This observation opens up more consideration, that there is an alternative scopic regime, that may be understood as more than a sub-variant of Cartesian perspectivalism. 5) Mapping, or as Svetlana Alpers called, The Art of Descriping. A visual culture very different from what is associated with the Renaissance perspective. According to Alpers the hegemonic role of Italian painting in art history has occluded an appreciation of a second influential tradition which flourished during the seventeenth-century Dutch art. contrast realist and naturalist fictionthat the Italian Renaissance art, for all its fascination with the techniques of perspective, still held fast to the storytelling function for which they were used. GEORGE LUKACS Summarizing the contrasts between the art of describing and Cartesian perspectivalism, Alpers points out the following oppositions: attention to many small things versus a few large ones; light reflected off objects modeled by light and shadow; the surface of objects, their colours and textures, dealt with rather than their placement in a legible space; an unframed image versus one than is clearly framed; one with no clearly situated viewer compared to one with such a viewer. The distinction follows a hierarchical model of distinguishing between phenomena commonly referred to as primary and secondary: objects and space versus the surfaces, forms versus the textures of the world. (ALPERS) The non-mathematical impulse of this tradition accords well with the indifference to hierarchy, proportion, and analogical resemblances characteristic of Cartesian perspectivalism. Instead it casts its eye on the fragmentary, detailed, and richly articulated surface of a world it is content to describe rather than explain. 6) Baroque Painting The third model of vision, best identified with the baroque. As early as 1888, and Heinrich Wà ¶fflins study, Renaissance and Baroque, art historians have been tempted to find connections between the two styles in both painting and architecture. In opposition to the lucid linear, solid, fixed, planimetric, closed form of the Renaissance, or as Wà ¶lfflin called it, the classical style, the Baroque was painterly, recessional, soft-focused, multiple and open. The Baroque style began as somewhat of a continuation of the Renaissance. Later, however, scholars of the time began to see the drastic differences between the two styles as the Renaissance style gave way to Baroque art. Baroque architecture, sculpture, and painting of a dramatic nature were powerful tools in the hands of religious and secular absolutism, and flourished in the service of the Catholic Church and of Catholic monarchies. The Baroque artists were particularly focused on natural forms, spaces, colors, lights, and the relationship between the observer and the literary or portrait subject in order to produce a strong, if muted, emotional experience. The Council of Trent (1545-63), in which the Roman Catholic Church answered many questions of internal reform raised by both Protestants and by those who had remained inside the Catholic Church, addressed the representational arts by demanding that paintings and sculptures in church contexts should speak to the illiterate rather than to the well-informed. Due to this Baroque art tends to focus on Saints, the Virgin Mary, and other well known Bible stories. Religious painting, history painting, allegories, and portraits were still considered the most noble subjects, but landscapes, still life, and genre scenes rapidly gained notoriety. Nativity by Josefa de Óbidos, 1669, National Museum of Ancient Art, Lisbon Rorty, Richard, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979) Rose, Jacqueline, Sexuality in the Field of Vision (London: Verso, 1986) p.232-233. Metz, Christian, The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), p.61. Foucault, Michael, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans, Alan Sheridan (New York, 1979), p.217. Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception, trans. A.M. Sheridan (London, 1973), p.39. Debord, Society of the Spectacle. trans. Ken Knabb (Berkeley, 1981), p.25. Deleuze, Gilles, Foucault, trans. and ed. Sean Hand (Minneapolis, 1988), p.50. Megill, Allan, Prophets of Extremity: Nietzche, Heidegger, Foucault and Derrida (Berkeley, 1985), p.218. Levy, Silvano, Foucault on Magritte and Resemblance, The Modern Language Review, 85,1 (January 1990), p.44. Debord, Guy, Society of the Spectacle (Detroit 1977), par.1. Panofsky, Erwin.   Perspective as Symbolic Form. New York: Zone Books, 1991. 41-43.

Keeping Peace and Freedom :: Politics Political Freedom Essays

Keeping Peace and Freedom George Bush who is the President of the United States of America came and visited our small town of Flagstaff in September of 2002. As a leader of our country, he reminds the Americans that we should be grateful for our freedom. Through contextualizing, structure, and rhetorical appeals, he gets through to his listeners by reminding us all, that keeping peace and freedom is not an easy job to do. He tells us how lucky we are to have freedom, and what we have to do to keep our â€Å"homeland† safe for our children of today. He speaks on behalf of his people, and what he will do to keep his people safe from our enemies who â€Å"hate† us, because we choose to be free! As President, he is sworn to protect his people, and to keep everything in order in our country. He travels the world to try and promote peace among us and other countries. In this speech that was given by the President, he is speaking to everyone. The General Public, Professionals, Students, and every other citizen. He speaks of freedom and how to protect our â€Å"homeland†. He states â€Å"the enemies hate us because we have freedom†. (P. #3). As Americans we have the freedom to live where we want to, and how we want to. Most of all we have the â€Å"Freedom of Speech†. We voice our opinions when we feel it is necessary, without being punished by the government. In America, we stand together as one nation, to keep peace and freedom! Identifying the structure of Bush’s speech is ways to keep peace and freedom among everyone. In order to keep our freedom, we need to work together to keep our enemies out. He incorporates on how to eliminate all the â€Å"bad guys† one by one, so they will not hurt us again. Bush points out three main reasons to keep peace and freedom; 1.) Protecting our homeland! 2.) Hunting down the enemies. 3.) Preventing the killers from hurting America again. Protecting our homeland is a very difficult job to do, but it can be done when our people come together and fight for our nation.

Red Badge Of Courage Paper -- essays research papers

During the Civil War, a Union regiment rests along a riverbank, where they have been camped for weeks. The tall soldier Jim Conklin spreads a rumor that the army will soon march. Jim is a man who is very sure of himself and his own opinions. Henry Fleming, a recent recruit with the 304th regiment, worries about his courage, thinking that if he were ever to see a battle, he might run. Henry joined the army because he was drawn to the glory of military conflict, but since he joined, all the army has done is wait.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  At last the regiment is given the orders to march, and the soldiers spend several wearying days traveling on foot. Eventually they near a battlefield, and they begin to hear the distant roar of battle. After taking their positions, they were charged by the enemy; Henry, boxed in by his fellow soldiers, realizes that he could not run even if he wanted to. He fires mechanically, feeling like a gear in a huge machine. The blue regiment defeated the gray soldiers, and then men congratulate one another. Henry wakes from a brief nap to find that the men are being charged again. This time, terror overtakes him, and he leaps up and flees from the line. As he dodges through the landscape, he tells himself that he did the right ting to flee, that his regiment could not have won, and the men who remained to fight were fools. But he passes a general on horseback, and overhears the commander saying that the men have held back the enemy charge. Feelin...

Academia and Briefly Summarize

BAYLORIndicate any special experiences, unusual factors or other information you feel would be helpful in evaluating you, including, but not limited to, education, employment, extracurricular activities, prevailing over adversity. You may expand upon but not repeat AMCAS application information. 2000 character limit.COLUMBIA1. Please describe your parents’ occupations: (250 char.)2. If your first and last name is often mispronounced, how do you pronounce it? (250 char.)3. Have you previously applied to P&S? (Yes/No)If yes, briefly summarize your activities since your previous application:4. If you took time off from your undergraduate studies, please briefly summarize your reasons for doing so. (250 words)5. In what collegiate extracurriculars did you engage? (250 words)6. Did you work for compensation during college during the year or the summer? YesNo If so, what did you do? How many hours a week did you work? (250 words)7. If you have graduated from college, please briefly summarize what you have done in the interim. (300 words)8. What challenges do you expect to arise from living and working in a complex urban environment? How will you meet them? (250 words)9. Is there anything else you would like us to know? (300 words)DARTMOUTH1. Please indicate your plans for the 2012-13 academic year. If in school, please list your courses. If working, let us know something about the nature of your job.2. Please share with us something about yourself that is not addressed elsewhere in your application and which could be helpful to the Admissions Committee as we review your file.HARVARDD. If you have already graduated, briefly (4000 characters max) summarize your activities since graduation.E. If there is an important aspect of your personal background or identity, not addressed elsewhere in the application, that you would like to share with the Committee, we invite you to do so here. Many applicants will not need to answer this question. Examples might include si gnificant challenges in access to education, unusual socioeconomic factors, identification with a minority culture, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity. Briefly explain how such factors have influenced your motivation for a career in medicine.(4000 character maximum)DUKEDescribe the community in which you were nurtured or spent the majority of your early development with respect to its demographics. What core values did you receive and how will these translate into the contributions that you hope to make to your community as a medical student and to your career in medicine?What is the most significant moral or ethical dilemma that you have faced in your life (excluding instances of academic dishonesty involving another person)? Describe how you dealt with and potentially resolved it, including beliefs, resources, individuals, etc. How did this dilemma and its resolution change your life and what, if any, impact will this have on your future as a health c are provider?What has been your most humbling experience and how will that experience affect your interactions with your peers and patients?The curriculum at the duke university school of medicine is unique and academically challenging. Please describe how the duke curriculum is well-suited to your learning style and how it will serve your long term career objectives.There are 3 optional essay topics:Giving Back To Your Community: What is the value of giving back to your community? Is it a more important attribute of a physician than of others performing other roles within a community?How Are You Misunderstood: What are people most likely to misunderstand about you and why?

Bridge On The River Kwai Essay

For example: a characters intention, sequence of events, etc? A part in the movie which was confusing was when Nicholson decided to assist the Japanese in building the bridge. He becomes so obsessed in building the bridge (which he regarded as a symbol of British efficiency and resourcefulness, which will be remembered for times to come) that he fails to identify that he is collaborating with the Japanese even when he was informed by his own medical officer. He becomes so blinded by this that he, a man of principles and one who follows rules mentioned in the Geneva Convention is willing to make his officers work for the timely completion of the bridge. Saito tells Nicholson that it will not be necessary to bring the copy of the Geneva Convention and walks away making the silence/no-response response speak for him. Due to the indirect form of communication it is hard to follow if Saito means that Nicholson should not bring the book because he has previously read it and now that it has been brought to his attention he will not make the British officers do manual abour or that he has read the book but will still make the British officers do manual labour. Making silence speak instead of words and the indirect form of communication gives the essence of a reactive culture. Another part of the movie which was hard to understand was when Nicholson fell on the detonator at the end of the film. It is unclear if Nicholson had an intention to destroy the bridge or if it was a mere accident. His last lines â€Å"what have I done† do clarify his intent but due to the fact that he falls on the plunger there was no ample clarification for the same. There is a possibility that due to his love for the bridge uilt by the British soldiers he had Just proceeded towards the plunger to disconnect it, however, dies while doing so and hence falls on it instead. 0 What was the best thing about the movie? What was the worst? The best part about the film was the way Nicholson stood by his principles and persuaded Saito to not make his officers do manual labour and hence go by the rules mentioned in the Geneva Convention. The astonishing part about this was that this was taking place in a POW camp where the bargaining power was higher with Saito than Nichonson. Nicholsons’s leadership abilities made his officers not give in to Saito and start anual work, and hence continued to be punished in the oven. His leadership abilities are portrayed well when the British medical officer comes to meet him at the oven, Nicholson was more concern about his officers than about himself even after he was deprived of food and water for numerous days. His pride and patriotic qualities tacilitate him to stand by his word against Saito even atter physical and emotional harm is being inflicted on him during the period of negotiation. On the other hand I feel that 2 Saito underestimated his BATNA (Best alternative to a negotiated agreement). I feel hat during the time of positional bargaining with Nicholson, ultimately carving under pressure and letting him out of the oven, Saito should have used his own soldiers for the bridge (till such time Nicholson was persuaded to make his men work) and created more discipline and collaboration among the workers for the timely completion of the bridge. I feel that there was little room for principled negotiation as Nicholson was not willing to do so. The worse part of the movie was the collapse of the bridge in the end. A bridge which was the cause of various negotiations between Saito and Nicholson, in the process esulted in numerous threats, blackmail and infliction of physical and emotional harm from Saito to Nicholson and consequentially got Nicholson himself killed. By the collapse of the bridge all that seemed to be a waste. 0 What did you find to be the most interesting or surprising element of the film? Why? The most surprising element of the film is the fact when Nicholson decides to take over the responsibility to construct the bridge after having won the negotiation against Saito and having no obligation towards doing so. He becomes so obsessed in building the bridge (which he regarded as a symbol of British efficiency and resourcefulness, which will be remembered for times to come) that he fails to identify that he is collaborating with the Japanese even when he was informed by his own medical officer. He defends himself in front of the officer by saying that he is getting the bridge made efficiently as he wants people who use to bridge in the future to remember how it was built and who built it. He also adds that by working on the bridge together his men will feel like British soldiers rather than Japanese prisoners. The bridge was Nicholson’s trophy and was not an instrument to keep the British soldiers together. He becomes so blinded by this that he, a man of principles and one who follows rules mentioned in the Geneva Convention is willing to make his officers work for the timely completion of the bridge. He forgot about the war and his loyalties and started to aid in the improvement of the bridge rather than working in accordance with the instructions provided by the Japanese. It was this perceived duty that lead to his downfall ultimately. This was due to the fact that if he was not that keen of building a good bridge, he would not have reacted the way he did once he identified the explosives and could have prevented the unnecessary loss f lives towards the end including his own. 3 0 What is the movie trying to tell viewers? The movie glorifies the western civilization, especially that of the British. On the other hand it portrays the east Oapanese) to be weak and still learning. 0 How does it go about conveying this message? In the beginning Saito and Nicholson did not get along well. Nicholson insisted that his officers were not to do manual labour as per the rules stated in the Geneva Convention, however, Saito was more bothered about getting the bridge ready on time. When the numerous attempts Saito made to persuade the stubborn Nicholson ailed he tried a friendly approach by offering the starved Nicholson with Beef corn and Whiskey and by telling him that the senior officers including him do not have to manual labour. Saito had to ultimately carve and wilt towards the strong armed Nicholson even though Nicholson was in his POW camp. This was done using the anniversary of Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese war in order to save face. The concept of saving face is due to the impact of collectivism. This concept of saving face suggests that Saito is from a country with a high long term orientation index (L TO) culture. Not only this, once Nicholson took up the responsibility of the bridge and implemented British designs, oversight and ingenuity to it, he ended up making a more technically sound and competent bridge than the Japanese could have otherwise built. What cultural issues do you see? How are these portrayed? o Individualist, Power distance and hierarchy, Communication styles, role of gender, etc? In the initial part of the movie the American soldier bribes the Japanese captain to assist him in getting hospitalized. The Japanese soldier does not use the word ‘No’. He indirectly tries to xpress his reluctance to hospitalize the American. When the American insists using the usual America n loud and verbose attitude, the solder uses silence for the same and walks away after moving his head from side to side. This indirect and non-verbal form of communication indicates that the Japanese is from a collectivist, low IDV and a high context culture. The American soldier wanted to be hospitalized as he was self-centered. This along with the fact that he ran away shows that he was individualistic and did not care about anyone else. It can therefore be perceived that e has a high internal locus of control, signifying that he is in charge of his own life and that what happens to him is a result of his own actions and hence indicates that he is from a high IDV and a low context culture. 4 A more participative hierarchy is portrayed by the British soldiers. This can be seen when the British officers and their Colonel meet and have a debate on the topic of escape from the camp. One of the officers directly disagreed with Nicholson when he advised the officers not to escape from the camp. The officer argued that staying in the camp is a sure way of getting killed. This shows the impact of an individualistic ulture as in a collectivist culture disagreement is usually done indirectly or very discreetly. The British (westerners) usually like to near the word ‘No’ in order tor the meaning to be conveyed effectively; they do not understand indirect negative responses. This kind of participative nature and direct denial from an officer to the colonel’s advice signifies a low power distance index (PDI) as power seems to be shared and well dispersed. This direct approach can also be seen in Nicholson when Saito tells him at the beginning of the movie that he will order his officers to work and he directly replies saying ‘No’. The local woman are looking up to the men and taking care of them in the scene where the American is returning the POW camp to destroy the bridge. It seems as if the women expect the men to be tough, assertive and be the provider. This shows that the local community is a high Masculinity index (MAS) culture. Hierarchy has been shown in many instances during the film. As far as the Japanese were concern, the Japanese soldier taking his cap off and bowing (In Japan there are rules for the Japanese equivalent of the Western handshake for who to bow, how much they should bow and hence are difficult to master) to Saito at the beginning of he film, bringing him a platform to stand on as he was short and so that people look up to him and salute him, were some instances showing hierarchy amongst the Japanese. Also the man responsible for fanning the Saito does not speak due to respect and even if it is raining the soldier still stands outside the premises as they are lower down in the hierarchy. 0 Did you like the film? Why or why not? Yes, I liked the film. The film did not have a right or wrong due to which it follows a unique and realistic approach based on individuals. Like more war films it is neither for nor against the war. By the end of the movie the viewer is less interested in the fact that who wins the war than about how the individuals will behave. 0 What adjective would you use to describe your reaction to the film? Why did you react this way? As rightly described by Clipton at the end of the film, the adjective that can be used to describe my reaction of the film is madness. Every individual in the film is inclined towards their own duty, order and chaos that they lose what really matters and what is most important. Emotions and orders have taken over the right or sane thing to do. The characters have hence led the situation to go out of hand. 0 In what ways can you identify with the movie, its characters and its message? The movie is more about the events surrounding the war rather than the battles and the fighting. These events have turned mortality, Judgment and sound thought around and have eventually lead to madness. There are various examples of this so called madness in the movie; the madness of Nicholson who says that working with the enemy is not going against one’s country, the madness ot the American who accepts to return to a camp on a suicide mission where he escaped, nearly getting killed and he madness of a struggle the obliged men to make harsh decisions. Based on your knowledge of negotiations what do you think was going on? o What kind of dirty tricks were being used? Give 3 examples. Initially Saito used a forceful approach in negotiating with the Nicholson. Saito caused emotional (By cutting food supply and taking people from the hospital to work) and physical (When Saito slapped Nicholson and put him in the oven) means in order to persuade the soldiers to commence work on t he bridge. Saito underestimated his BATNA (Best alternative to a negotiated agreement). I feel that during the time of positional bargaining with Nicholson, ultimately carving under pressure and letting them out of the oven, Saito should have used his own soldiers for the bridge (Till such time Nicholson was persuaded to make his men work) and created discipline and collaboration among the workers for the timely completion of the bridge. I feel that there was little room for principled negotiation as Nicholson was not willing to do so. One of the dirty tricks used by Saito was that of threat’ when he warned Nicholson that if he does not order his troops to start work on the bridge he will be shot. Another dirty trick used by Saito in the initial part of the movie was that of ‘Chinese water torture’, signifying that he kept repeating his demands without bothering much about what Nicholson has to say. 6 The third dirty trick in the movie was when Saito asked the British soldier to meet with Nicholson for 5 minutes and tell him that if he doesn’t order his officers to start work he will make the people in the hospital work. This was a ‘bluff on Saito’s part, even after hearing this Nicholson never changed his decision and the soldiers at the hospital were never made to work. What values are portrayed? Independence, cooperation, hierarchy, power, etc? The values that are portrayed in the movie are Independence, hierarchy, bravery, power, pride, patriotism, collaboration, leadership and commitment to duty. 0 How were these values portrayed? o Give examples of the type of behaviour that you base your answer upon Independence was shown when the Americ an played on his life in order to escape from the Japanese camp in order to be free. Hierarchy can be seen by the Japanese soldiers to Saito when they remove their cap and bow to him, when they get him a raised platform during the time of his speech, y the guard to Saito’s house has to stand outside even though it is raining and by the man responsible for fanning not speaking in the entire movie. These major differences in hierarchy and the soldiers accepting an unequal distribution of power indicates a high power distance index (PDI). Bravery has been shown by Nicholson when he did not give in even though Saito threaten ed him witn a gun hidden in the truck. Collaboration was shown by the soldiers once the bridge was the responsibility of Nicholson. This was not present when Saito is in charge of the bridge as stated by he British engineer when he was questioned by Nicholson what he would have done differently if this was his bridge. Because of the task-oriented approach of Nicholson and he planning ahead step by step which can be seen when he says this is the end of the agenda while meeting with Saito for discussion of the proposal for the new bridge, the soldiers were able to effectively collaborate. This suggests that Nicholson is from a linear Active Culture. Pride and patriotism can be seen when the British officers were marching in group and whistling. 7 Leadership was portrayed by Nicholson when the British soldier brought him food in he oven. Nicholson had not seen sun light for days, was weak and deprived of food and water but even then he was more concern about his officers than about himself. Commitment to duty was shown by Nicholson when he took over the responsibility of the bridge. He made the best and most efficient bridge possible, forgetting about the war and his loyalties. 0 Was there anything about the movie (sights, sounds, smells, colors, background scenes) that told you something about the culture that you were dealing with? What did you learn? The type of culture seemed to be a collectivist one. This can be seen rom the behavior of the society when the American escapes and reaches a village. 0 What does the movie tell you about the culture of the producers of the film? What about the film gives you this indication? The movie portrays glorification of western civilization in terms of perseverance and inventiveness, specifically the British. This indicates that the producer is from the British culture. Nicholson was able to circumvent Japanese commands due to his Engineers having the ability to construct a more technically sound bridge than the Japanese Engineers. 0 How do you think other audiences would react to this film? Why? I feel that other audience would feel that the film is more about the events surrounding the war rather than the battles and the fighting. These events have turned mortality, judgment and sound thought around and have eventually lead to madness. There are various examples of this so called madness in the movie; the madness of Nicholson who says that working with the enemy is not going against one’s country, the madness ot the American who accepts to return to a camp where ne escaped, nearly getting killed and the madness of a struggle the obliged men to make harsh decisions.