Critical Evaluation of Current Integrated Marketing Communications Essay - 2

Critical Evaluation of Current Integrated Marketing Communications Practice - Essay Example d sales promotions as well as the people with intention to have a major positive effect on the people decision and perception when they are combined together. IMC is also referred to as â€Å"a strategic marketing process specifically designed to ensure that all messaging and communication strategies are unified across all channels and are centered on the customer† (JIMC, 2011). It is done in a way that allows one medium’s weakness to be offset by the strength of another medium it is used together with. This process according to the journal of integrated marketing process emphasizes that customer prospects should be identified and assessed so that messages are tailored towards such customers in a way that is profitable and can allow for evaluation of its success to minimize waste. This, they propose can be done in five steps beginning with customer identification from behavioral data, evaluation of customer prospects, creating and delivering messages and incentives, estimating returns on customer investment and finally to budgeting, allocation, evaluation and recycling. The process is cyclic. This paper is going to look into how Ford motor vehicle manufacturer has been if true been using IMC to do its marketing while reflecting on the impact of this marketing tool to the overall strategic goals of the company. It is also going to look into the company’s success story from the use of this marketing strategy. Ford’s business strategy is based on its plan which was adopted in 2007 and has guided the company since then (Ford, 2014). It is indeed true that Ford motor company is adopting the use of integrated marketing communication as a strategy of winning more customers and increasing their market presence and revenue in overall. According to the definitions of the integrated marketing and communications discussed above, it is possible for a company to succeed in it by creating their strategy from the basis of their business while centering on the customer

Julio Cortazar Casa Tomada Analysis

Julio Cortazar Casa Tomada Analysis Analyse the treatment of the â€Å"outsider† or â€Å"outsiders† in one of the texts studied on the course. What role does this tension play in the socio-political vision of the author? Julio Cortazar was one of most influential Argentine writers of all time. He was one of the great masters of short stories and was compared to the likes of Jorge Luis Borges. Cortazars literature is closely linked to social and cultural realities of Latin America and in particular Argentina. This essay will begin with the history of Julio Cortazar including his background influences and the style of his texts with focus on the short story ‘La Casa Tomada. Then this shall lead on to the analysis of the treatment of characters that are considered as â€Å"outsiders† in the story focusing on the different interpretations of the main characters and the unknown invaders that take over the house. Furthermore, the role of these â€Å"outsiders† will be discussed relating to the socio-political vision of Cortazar and the influence of politics on his writing, incorporating the socio-political situation in Buenos Aires, Argentina at that time. In 1914, Julio Cortazar was born in Brussels, Belgium of Argentine parents, after World War 1 his family returned to Buenos Aires, Argentina. This was where he grew up and became educated, then later moved to Paris in 1951, after obtaining a French scholarship, where he died in 1984 at the age of 70. Prior to becoming a writer, he worked as a teacher and then as a translator. (Prego Cortazar, 1997) Cortazar is known as one of the Latin American writers of the â€Å"boom† that exploded onto the world literary scene. The literary boom was during the middle of the 20th century when Latin American writers work became published in Europe and the rest of the world. The stories were known to associate with magical realism which is where ‘unreal things are treated as if realistic and mundane, and mundane things as if unreal. The plots of these stories usually combined real and fantastic elements in a way that makes them difficult to separate. (www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Latin-American-Boom) Stories that have been written by Julio Cortazar normally mix fantasy with Latin American reality. The story being focused on, ‘La Casa Tomada by Julio Cortazar, was initially published in the 1946 review ‘Los Anales de Buenos Aires which was directed by Jorge Luis Borges. It then appeared his in his first volume of short stories ‘Bestario in 1951. (www.juliocortazar.com.ar/hislife.htm) In the story, a middle-aged brother and sister live together in an old large family house, situated in the North district of Buenos Aires. They spend their days doing routine tasks with little variation. The sister, Irene, knits and the brother reads and collects stamps. They both clean the house and cook meals together. One day they hear mysterious noises within the house, but they do not worry. Without much explication, they abandon parts of the house because of this invading noise. When eventually the unknown noises take over the whole house, they leave the house with nothing and throw the key away. It is written in the first person with the narrator being the protagonist in the story. This means the protagonist is the centre of attention and this allows the reader to participate in all the events. The reader can see all the thoughts and ideas of the protagonist so they can easily identify with the protagonist. This adds realism to the story in contrast with the ‘unknown characters that bring an element of the surrealism that ‘boom writers are known for. The northern district of Buenos Aires where the protagonist and his sister live is the rich and privileged area and from the start of the story, it sets out to the reader that the siblings are from privileged backgrounds. â€Å"Nos gustaba la casa porque aparte de espaciosa y antigua (hoy que las casas antiguas sucumben a la mas ventajosa liquidacià ³n de sus materiales) [†¦]† (Cortazar, page 1). The house has eight bedrooms so previously their family would have occupied all the rooms and they would have had maids to work for them. The large house was previously owned by their ancestors and they are the last of a long line of family. â€Å"[†¦] guardaba los recuerdos de nuestros bisabuelos, el abuelo paterno, nuestros padres y toda la infancia.† (Cortazar, page 1). It seems they can afford to live without working.Instead they spend their days doing little more than cleaning, reading and knitting with rare communication with the outside world. From this, the theme of â€Å"outsiders† comes into play, which plays a strong role throughout the story. From analyzing the story, the unknown invaders are immediately seen as the â€Å"outsiders† that come in and take over. However, the siblings could also be â€Å"outsiders† giving that they are so cut off from the rest of society. Cortazar portrays the siblings as very unusual and lonely characters that do little to prevent themselves from being outsiders in society. The siblings seem to be obsessed by routine and keeping the house clean. We find out little about the narrator except that he like French literature. He portrays the sister Irene as a very passive female who is happy to just spend her time knitting. They share the cleaning and cooking chores between themselves. The narrator says how they never use the back part of the house except entering to clean. Therefore, there is already a barrier created between them and the â€Å"outsiders† with the large oak door. There is a reference to how much dust collects on the furniture. â€Å"Buenos Aires sera una ciudad limpia, pero eso se lo debe a sus habitantes y no a otra cosa.† The narrator seems to imply that the middle-class citizens keep the city clean. He also says â€Å"Hay demasiada tierra en el aire† which is ironic seeing as the city is called â€Å"Buenos Aires†. (Holmes:2004, pg254) There is an incestuous aspect between the brother and sister as they have reached middle age and the only time they spend is with each other, uninterested in others outside the house. â€Å"Simple y silencioso matrimonio de hermanos[†¦]† (Cortazar) This shows they had no plans to marry anybody else and have children to pass on the house to. This incestuous theme is something Cortazar said may have been related to his own life; â€Å"Yo empecà © a pensar y a descubrir que efectivamentea traves de mis sereà ±os yo tengo una problema incestuoso con una hermana mia† (Cortazar por Cortazar, pg 43) The brother and sister can be seen as outsiders at the end of the story aswell because they are the ones that end up on the outside of the house with nowhere to go. They have numerous possessions at the start of their story and bit by bit, it is taken away from them until they are left outside with nothing. â€Å" ¿Tuviste tiempo de traer alguna cosa? le preguntà © inà ºtilmente. No, nada.† The other â€Å"outsiders† are the invaders that are seen as unknown enemies. They are referred to as plural during the story for example when they take over the first part of the house; â€Å"-Tuve que cerrar la puerta del pasillo. Han tomado parte del fondo.† (Cortazar) so the reader automatically presumes it is more than one unknown character. The unknown outsiders are treated as very unwelcome and they can be seen as threatening. Throughout the story, Cortazar leaves no clues to whom or what these noises are and it seems as if the brother and sister are not necessarily that scared or shocked by them. An example is after the part where the brother says to Irene that they had taken over the back part: â€Å"Dejà ³ caer el tejido y me mirà ³ con sus graves ojos cansados. - ¿Estas seguro? Asenti. -Entonces -dijo recogiendo las agujas- tendremos que vivir en este lado.† She does not show any fear and just carries on knitting. They seem to have knowledge of whom or what has invaded the house and act alone in defending themselves against this invasion. At the end of the story, the outsiders are still left as unidentifiable and mysterious characters to the reader and leaves them guessing. It is up to the reader to come to their own conclusion about whom or what they think these strange noises are. The beginning of the story starts as very realistic with a description of their lives then once the outsiders that invade take over the first part of the house, it becomes surreal. Cortazar puts a lot of emphasis on the description of the house; the house seems unwelcoming as it lacks the comfort and security of a home. The characters feel unsafe in their home and ready to flee at any point and it loses any feeling of safety when the others take over. Cortazar explores the connection between identity and the home. The house shows everything about the siblings such as their wealth, their background and their hobbies and once they no longer have the house, they lose their identity. The house is personified in the story; â€Å"a veces llegamos a pensar que era ella que no nos dejà ³ casar.† This shows it has some sort of control over the brother and sister living within and creates a barrier between them and the real world. The only time that the brother visits outside is when he goes to get his French literature or wool for Irene to knit and Irene never leaves the house. Also, note that the street name Rodriguez Peà ±a was the name of Cortazars street when he lived in Buenos Aires. (Maquiera: 2004, pg.10) Therefore, this shows how the story relates to his own personal experience. It seems the treatment of these outsiders seems to play a strong role in the vision of Cortazar as the story is related to his life. There are numerous interpretations for the meaning behind La Casa Tomada but the one that stands out seems to be that Cortazar uses the relation between the characters, the outsiders and the home as a way to respond to social and political tensions that were occurring in Buenos Aires during that time. Cortazar wrote the story post-war when Juan Pà ©ron had recently come into power over Argentina. Initially Pà ©ron had worked his way up by taking a position that nobody else was interested in as the head of the Labour department. From there he appealed to the workers. Pà ©ron aimed for an independent Argentina, free from foreign economical influence. Pà ©ron promised a â€Å"New Argentina† founded on â€Å"social justice, political sovereignty, and economic independence†. He showed support for the workers that he called the â€Å"masas descamisadas† by increasing wage earners income and building a large number of low cost homes. (Rock: 1987 pg.262-263) Cortazar was anti-peronist and demonstrated against his regime. He saw Pà ©ron as a dictator and felt threatened by the control. â€Å"Si bien Cortazar no comulgaba aun con el socialismo, su postura hacia la politica del nuevo gobierno era abiertamente critica† (Maquiera: 2004, pg.19.) Pà ©ron aimed to integrate the population and bring about social reforms. Many, including Cortazar saw him and his wife Evita as a political and economical threat and â€Å"a threat to good taste†. They saw him â€Å"encouraging the invasion of Buenos Aires by riffraff from the provinces†. The racist term â€Å"cabecitas negras† was used against the immigrant workers. (Standish: 2001 pg.4) For the opponents of Pà ©ron his promises were myths and had caused a divided society with a bankrupt economy and a nation controlled by a dictatorship. â€Å"El Peronismo significà ³ la llega a la capital de la clase obrera del interior del pais y la entrada de esa poblacià ³n en la vida social y cultural de la ciudad† (Maquiera: 2004, pg. 20). Although Cortazar does not link them directly, the ‘outsiders in the story can be seen as a satire in showing the socio-political vision of Cortazar against Pà ©ronism and the arrival of the working class during that period. The story could be portrayed as showing the anxieties of the upper and middle classes of Buenos Aires during the nine-year administration of Juan Pà ©ron. By showing how they felt marginalised because of the increasing number of rural immigrants that were coming into the city for work. Just like the protagonists in the story, their way of life had changed and these invaders into the house may symbolise the workers coming into the city. Therefore, the role of these outsiders could be an allegory of the migrant workers that moved into Buenos Aires and took over a lot of the jobs and the brother and sister could symbolise the Argentineans that felt like these migrants invaded them. â€Å"Bien podria representar todos mis miedos, o quiza, todas mis aversiones; en ese caso la interpretacià ³n antiperonista me parece bastante posible, emergiendo incluso inconscientemente†. Julio Cortazar (www.abretelibro.com) The story is most commonly seen as an anti-peronist allegory and expresses the fear that Cortazar may have felt about outsiders in Argentina. The feeling of fear felt that was caused by Perons military government and by the invasion of industrialisation. However, the story has also been seen as similar to that of Adam and Eve; they are expelled from their small and closed paradise into an unknown world. html.rincondelvago.com/casa-tomada_julio-cortazar_2.html When asked, Cortazar says that ‘La Casa Tomada was inspired from a nightmare that he had and that when he woke from this nightmare he immediately started writing the story. The house described in the story is the same as in his nightmare. â€Å"La à ºnica diferencia entre lo soà ±ado y el cuento es que en la pesadilla yo estaba solo.† (Prego: 1990, pg79) When he woke up, he immediately started writing the story. Therefore, he says that it is his dream that should be analyzed not the story. â€Å"Es un cuento que para mi no tiene absolutamente ningà ºn contexto de ninguna naturaleza salvo la pesadilla.† (Garfield:1978 pg 89) The architecture of the house plays an important role in the link between the present and the past in Buenos Aires. The house symbolizes the citys aristocratic past, after Independence, Buenos Aires chose European instead of colonial architecture. Architects were brought over by the Government from Europe to design buildings. (Holmes: 2003 pg254) Again, this shows the fear that the characters have of change from the past, as they prefer their traditional style European house. During the time, that a large amount of immigrants from overseas and migrants from the countryside came there was a demand for more housing. So new housing projects were created for the middle-class resulting in higher value for houses like theirs as the narrator points out at the beginning of the story (Holmes: 2004), â€Å"las casas antiguas sucumben a la mas ventajosa liquidacià ³n de sus materiales† (Cortazar). The brother and sister prefer the European style spacious house and enclose themselves in what represents the urban past. They seclude themselves from the city and in turn make themselves outsiders from the modern Argentina. Therefore, the invaders could be the city making them leave their home. Throughout the text there are numerous historical references such as the French literature which the brother enjoys reading. This seems to be one of the few ‘outside things that are accepted into the house. He also finds that â€Å"Desde 1939 no llegaba  nada valioso a la Argentina† which refers to the lack of European culture in Argentina because of the war. The brother only seems to find value in French literature and has to re-read what French literature he has. Once again, this also shows the link with their fear of change. The relationship between the characters and the house shows their lack of interest in modernity and change. They seem to want to stay within a routine and show little interest towards changes outside of their house in Argentina. This story may represent Peronist Buenos Aires but can also represent the role of Europe in post-colonial space. It seems that Cortazar rejects how Argentina has become post-European influence. The story may also portray the modern Buenos Aires conflicting with the past city. After looking in depth at the story and the history related to the story, I can conclude that the different â€Å"outsiders† in the story play a strong role in the socio-political vision of Julio Cortazar. La Casa Tomada has numerous interpretations about its hidden meaning. Although when questioned, he does not specifically relate it to a particular opinion but to a nightmare he had. This showed his underlying preoccupations with the events in Buenos Aires during that time. The theme of outsiders is continued throughout the story and each character shows an aspect of being an outsider. The invaders that take over the house from the siblings are seen both as the workers that moved into Buenos Aires invading the space of the middle-class or as the city making the protagonists leave their safe past and as face the changing Buenos Aires. The protagonists show a stereotype example of the middle-class people of Argentina during that time that feared any sort of change, though in the original nightmare it is Cortazar himself. It is Cortazar that it seems had this fear of invasion from â€Å"outsiders† and was concerned about the changes occurring. The role of the outsiders is very effective in demonstrating his feelings about Pà ©ron and the changes within Argentina.

Treatise on Happiness by St. Thomas Aquinas Essay -- Treatise on Happi

In the history of the western world, few men have made a greater impact on humanity’s learning that Thomas of Aquino. Having written dozens of different publications, including his famous Summa Theologià ¦, on subjects varying from the angels to philosophy; from law to theology, Thomas has secured himself a permanent place in academic history. Although never writing directly on the subject, Thomas also influenced the field of ethics, especially through his â€Å"Treatise on Happiness,† which are found within his Summa. In these treatises, Thomas details the nature of happiness, and how happiness is obtained. In the field of ethics, this work is important because it embraces the Aristotelian ideal how a happy person is just, or ethical. Thomas embraces the ideas of Aristotle throughout his work, and goes on to comment on, and Christianize many of Aristotle’s original ideas, including how happiness affects our senses and faculties. One of the most interesting dev elopments in the â€Å"Treatises on Happiness† is the combination of the concepts of Aristotelian happiness, found in Nicomachean Ethics, and Augustinian idea that happiness is not available in this life. In this essay, I will highlight the importance of Thomas’ â€Å"Treatise on Happiness,† and recognize its importance in the context of philosophers who preceded Thomas, namely Aristotle. Before proceeding, it is important to recognize how Thomas defines happiness, and how this is contrasted with those philosophers who predated him. Aristotle wrote extensively on happiness in his Nicomachean Ethics, and argued that: â€Å"happiness is an exercise of the vital faculties in accordance with perfect virtue or excellence,† . In this, Aristotle means that happiness is the use of man’s reason, will... ... be used to practically move towards happiness. Works Cited Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, Translated by F.H. Peters, M.A. 5th ed. London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Truebner & Co., 1893. Accessed November 22, 2014. http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/903. Challoner, Richard., ed. The Douay-Rheims Bible. Douay: Kellah, 1750. Accessed November 22, 2014. http://www.drbo.org/ DeYoung, Rebecca Konyndyk, Colleen McCluskey, and Christian Van Dyke. Aquinas’s Ethics. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009. Plato. The Republic, Translated by B. Jowett, M.A. 3rd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888. Accessed November 22, 2014. http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/598. Thomas. Summa Theologià ¦, Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger Bros., 1947. Accessed November 22, 2014. http://dhspriory.org/thomas/summa/index.html.

Horror Of War

This story speaks the truth about the w AR rather than romanticizes it and emphasizing on the idea Of the honor, patriotic duty, DVD endure, and glory. All Quiet on the Western Front displays the war how it really was. Using images of fear and meaningless to replace the romantic visions of heroism. This novel focuses m such on the physical ND psychological damage that war brings.In the end, almost every major chaw racier is dead. This shows war's horrible and devastating outcome on the young generation of m en who were recruited and forced to fight. One of the worst things about war is the images shown to man. Men killed by the millions in terrifying ways. Bodies blown to pieces, limbs broken, and flesh me Tied from the bones. Along with the deaths, there are many injuries that often outnumber d dead men. As Paul Beamer witnessed his friend, Franz Chimer's, death in the hospital, the NJWere terrifying and often lead to death. Chimer's death was the first sign of the meaningless of li fe and death in the war. The turmoil was expressed in the lines, â€Å"Day after day goes by with pain and fear, groans and death gurgles. Even the death room I no use anymore; it is too small. † (Armature 19) Ryan 2 In the novel and in war the men have no where to hide from bombs and bubble TTS. Paul and his friends must reside in dirt trenches where death surrounds them. â€Å"We lie under the network Of arching shells and live in a suspense Of uncertain ant.If a shot moms, we can duck, that is all; we neither know nor can determine where it w ill fall. † (Armature 101) They sleep holding their bread so no rats steal it. The dirt surrounding them t urns dark as it absorbs the blood of the fallen. The worst part of the war is that both sides fighting live through the same con editions. Paul realizes this when he guards the Russian prison camp. Paul sympathizes with the soldiers poor shape and he knows that he shares the same role as them in the war. W hen Paul kills t he man who dies in his shell hole he feels remorseful.But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your Han grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellows hip. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are pop or devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear Of death, and the same dying and the same generative me, comrade; how could you be my e enemy? † (Armature 223) This is when he decides that he must live with the fact that all the men have ski Lied others that were just like them.In the end of the novel, Paul is the last of his friends to die. As he falls to dead h his face shows a sense of calmness. Ryan 3 â€Å"He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him o ever on saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though al most glad the end had come. † (Armature 296) Paul was happier in death than life because of the horrors of war. Paul was ha pier that he didn't have to lead a life of war any longer.

Donating Blood

Imagine that your father had just suffered a heart attack, and has to go through open-heart surgery in order to repair the damage that happened to his heart. Imagine your little nephew or niece was born with a rare heart defect and had to have a daily transfusion of blood in order to have a chance to wake up the next day. Imagine that your best friend went to the doctor and had just been diagnosed with leukemia, a disease requiring regular platelet transfusions. These aren't very nice things to imagine about, are they?It is very sad and unfortunate, but these things happen all the time, you or someone you know may have experienced something like that already. People experience something like this every day. Most people would probably just expect that the hospital would have enough types of blood to give to the people who need it so that they can get better. But that is not the case. In these sad cases most people would feel or want to do anything that they can to help. There is one w ay everyone can help and that is by donating blood.Red blood cells, platelets, and plasma are some of the things people can donate and they are also very important to a person who needs them. These can help the person return to good health. Some of the types of people who would need a blood transfusion are patients that have gone through surgery, burn victims, accident victims, anemics, hemophiliacs, babies that are very sick, and people suffering from leukemia, cancer, kidney disease, and liver disease. Some really interesting facts about the blood donations and the need for blood is that about every three seconds there is someone in the world who needs blood.That’s more than forty thousand people who need blood every day. The demand for blood is constantly rising and sometimes a certain type of blood can be in short supply which can put lots of peoples lives in danger. Even if you just donate once, that will be enough to save several people. I myself have gone to a blood do nation clinic, but unfortunately I couldn't donate any blood because my temperature was too high, but I won't let that discourage me from re-scheduling another appointment at the American Red Cross blood.The set up that they had there was not what I had expected it to be. There have been a few blood drives at my school but I never donated blood. American red cross came about two times each school year around the middle of every semester. Everything was set up inside the gym with around a couple dozen of beds, where they make you lie down while they take your blood, spread around the basketball court. Sometimes they even brought the little camping trailers where you can go inside of it and they'll take your blood.The day before I had made my appointment online at 4:00 PM to donate platelets. When I walked in the American Red Cross clinic I thought it was going to be much bigger like the ones that were at my school gym but instead there were only about a dozen beds in a little area to the left of the entrance. I Started walking towards the area where everyone was donating at, but then I was stopped. A short Latino man with black hair around his forties came up to me and asked â€Å"Can I help you? †.Since it was my first time going somewhere to donate blood, I didn't know what to do. I thought that since I made an appointment at four that I would just be able to walk in, confirm that I was the one that had made the appointment, lie down on the bed, and they will take my blood, but I was gravely mistaken. As I was just standing there not knowing what to do I said to the man â€Å"Ummm yeah. I made an appointment online to donate platelets. † He asked me if I had a donors card and i replied no.Then after explaining to him that i have never given blood before so this was all new to me, he gave me a look like he finally understood why I was so clueless. Now that we were finally on the same page, the man asked for my drivers license so that I could prov e I am who I say I am. When i gave him my drivers license he went somewhere to another room. While he went to go do his thing, I was instructed to sit down and read a binder that looked at least 6 inches thick.I grabbed the binder from the table and just sat there looking at the front cover thinking to myself â€Å"They expect me to read everything thats in this huge binder? †. But when I opened it up, I was relieved to see only a few pages. As I finished reading about donating blood and the requirements, the man came back with my drivers license attached to a folder with a paper clip. I was asked if I was ready and I said yes. I was taken to this really small square room that almost made me feel closterfobic and then I was told to sit down.I took a seat and then he also sat down in a small desk in the corner of the room next to me. I was asked a few questions like my social security number, where I lived, do I have any diseases, my age, a whole bunch of questions. It felt li ke I was being interrogated. As he finally got done asking me all those questions, he told me that he needed to poke a little needle in my finger and get a small blood sample. As I was sitting there with my finger sticking out I saw him grab what looked like a small clicking pen.Then he started to put the end on the top of my finger. Suddenly he just clicked the pen, and I felt a little poke and my finger started bleeding. He wiped my finger with a small cotton ball and then grabbed a little square piece of glass and put in on my finger to get a small blood sample. After he told me I had enough iron in my blood to donate, now he had to take my temperature. I had to put a thermometer under my tongue for a few seconds until he grabbed it. One of the requirements for donating blood is you cannot donate if your temperature is over 99.5 F. When my temperature was taken I was only 2 percent away from meeting the requirements, which means my temperature was 99. 7 F. I was told I couldn't d onate which made me a little disappointed. I told him I would reschedule again some other time. In my one day that I went to the American red cross building I learned a lot of new things and how I can help save peoples lives. I will definitely be making another appointment soon and ill keep making an appointment as much as I can.

Religious Sexuality essays

Religious Sexuality essays This paper reviews the practice of female circumcision and its number of cultural reasons why it occurs, most importantly how does this religious ritual affect womens sexuality, and how female bodies are controlled by a male-dominated social order and the health impacts surrounding the psychology of female sexuality and the functioning of female sex organs. "When girls of my age were looking after the lambs, they would talk among themselves about their circumcision experiences. Every time the other girls talked about their infibulated genitals, I would feel ashamed I was not yet circumcised. Whenever I touched infibulated girls, they would tell me not to touch them since I was [still] "unclean."... One day I could not stand it anymore. I took a razor blade and went to an isolated place. I tied my clitoris with a thread, and while pulling at the thread with one hand I tried to cut part of my clitoris. When I felt the pain and saw the blood coming from the cut I stopped.... I was seven years old." (Abusharaf, 1998). The above account describes an overwhelming urge to conform to socially constructed symbols. Social labels in countries where circumcision is practiced are strong enough to cause a seven- year old to mutilate her-self. Where it is practiced, female circumcision is strongly promoted and closely safeguarded; it is regarded as an essential coming-of-age ritual that symbolizes virginity, cleanliness, fertility, and enhances the beauty of a woman's body. These are all symbols girls are taught to associate with circumcision at a very young age. Through interviews of various women found in articles, I hope to show how female circumcision is said to be symbolic as a rite of passage to womanhood, and in other cases a destruction of womens well being. The examples will reinforce the positive meanings associated with circumcision- purity, fertility, and womanhood. On the other hand showing how the consequences of not u...

Human Freedom as the Basis of Morality

Human Freedom as the Basis of Morality According to Kant, feeling of obligation is a moral feeling, a respect for the moral law. It has no external source and it is not imposed. The notion of obligation comes from us as rational, free beings. Human reason and freedom can only be source of moral law that is universal and binds everybody. Feeling of obligation cannot come from our knowledge-oriented experience because principles that directs the will in our relationships with objects are subjective ones and therefore a universal moral law cannot come form them. Second, it cannot come from basic principles such as cogito because these ideas stay above human reason and cannot be known and represented. Thirdly, because moral law can only come form us as rational, free human beings, we decide what we ought to do and we are not imposed what we must do.Feeling of obligation cannot be derived from our experiences with objects because in our relationships with objects we use our subjective maxims and it cannot be raised to a moral universal law.source: Samuel Orgelbrand's Universal Encyclopedia...