DeTocquevilles Benefits of Democracy Compared With the...

DeTocqueville noticed three significant benefits of democracy while observing it first hand in America. Those benefits are public spirit, a notion of rights, and respect for the law. Keeping these results of democracy in mind, while reading Thoreau’s Walden a reader will wonder whether or not the author is comfortable with the notion of living in a democratic government. To answer this question, it is useful to assess DeTocqueville’s benefits of democracy and compare them with the principles found in Walden. Of the first benefit, public spirit, DeTocqueville describes two types of patriotism. The first is based on a pride of family and country and â€Å"a reverence for traditions of the past,† resulting in a strong felt personal†¦show more content†¦While Thoreau also has a strong sense of rights, he is a bit more like Rousseau in his thought, assuming that all are able to put aside their greed and their tendency to put their self interest above the self interest of others, basing much of his arguments on the presupposition that the nature of man is generally good. Operating under this assumption, Thoreau â€Å"never fastened [his] door night or day. His argument was that if all were to live as he did, without striving for anything in excess of necessity, then there would be no reason for protections against robberies. Following this logic, there would be no reason for any government of any type, save to defend against people who knew not the benefits of such living. So on the issue of rights, DeTocqueville and Thoreau arrive at a similar conclusion, that virtue and rights are necessary for any good society, they arrive there coming from very different starting points. The third benefit of democracy listed by DeTocqueville is respect of the law. In DeTocqueville’s ideal democracy every citizen would engage in the election of officials and the making of laws, all seeking to maintain the self interest of the individual. Thus, having written the law themselves, the people have a sense of ownership of the law and further desire to follow it. In Thoreau’s ideal society, many of the law written under

Race And Race Relations The Root Of Public Health Crises

There was a time when I would shy away from an in-depth conversation about race and race relations in social situations. I would participate in class, when studying race and health disparities, however when stepped out of the classroom and converse amongst my peers, I became more reserved. There’s something about asking those hard questions and discussing disparities as a result of oppressions and transgressions which made me uncomfortable to talk about race outside of the structured, politically-correct world of academia. Often emotions overshadowed a constructive and empathetic discourse and as a result I would be reserved or sometimes avoided those conversations. However, it is a conversation that I need to be a part of. Health disparities are at the root of public health crises; there are billions of dollars being allocated for initiatives and operations with the aim at improving the quality of life and combating health disparities within at-risk, vulnerable, and minority populations. Race relations and how it is impacted by American culture, history and policy presents a risk factor for negative health outcomes for some. NCORE will be an environment where I can be a part of the dialogue, and where I can learn the skills needed to be active and operate public health professional within a cultural context. Cultural humility and competence are very important when planning and piloting public health programs aimed at targeted audiences such as persons of color and peopleShow MoreRelatedThe Effects of Overcrowded Conditions in US Prisons1564 Words   |  6 PagesDue to budget crises in states across the United States of America, state governments must cut funding to their punishment facilities causing overcrowding in prisons to increase every day. Overcrowded prisons pose a potential breeding ground for crime as hundreds of inmates are squeezed into small accommodations. Thousands of low-level offenders receive jail sentences each day, these criminals make up about a third of the inmates in the United States. In the words of Republican Governor Mitch DanielsRead MoreThe World Can Benefit From Water Privatization2134 Words   |  9 PagesThe concept of race outlives slavery and limits emancipation through the manifested ideals of white supremacy and white privilege. 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This paper suggests that the deindustrialization of plants and industries and the depopulation of whites to the Suburbs have triggered the economic downfall of the Motor City. Some social issues such as race discrimination and segregation that might have led to the riots of 1943, and 1967, and the migration of African Americans to Northern States in search of employments will be discussed as well. In conclusion, this paper tells the story of Detroit, andRead MoreMarriage and Family Therapy Essay3257 Words   |  14 Pagessupervision; c lient advocacy; multiculturalism and diversity. The author will discuss significant aspects to the field of Marriage and Family Therapy such as MFT identity, function, and ethics of the profession. This paper will assess biblical values in relation to Marriage and Family Therapists and to the field itself. In conclusion, the author will provide reflections on Marriage and Family Therapy and the personal commitment to provide counseling that is ethical, biblically grounded, and empirically basedRead MoreThe Main Challenges Of Creating More Socially Equitable Cities Of The 21st Century?3149 Words   |  13 Pageslife promised. Neoliberalism was crucial to this shift, with the philosophy demanding ‘free markets’, privatisation, and the overall reduction in government control of the economy. Peck Tickell express that whilst neoliberalism emerged from utopian roots its development as the dominant rationalisation for globalisation has resulted in widespread socio-economic i nequality at local-global scales (2002, p.23). It is argued that through neoliberalism, the ‘social’ is given no consideration and is considered

Indus Valley Civilization. Free Essays

Indus Valley Civilization. The earliest traces of civilization in the Indian subcontinent are to be found in places along, or close, to the Indus river. Excavations first conducted in 1921-22, in the ancient cities of Harappa and Mohenjodaro, both now in Pakistan, pointed to a highly complex civilization that first developed some 4,500-5,000 years ago, and subsequent archaeological and historical research has now furnished us with a more detailed picture of the Indus Valley Civilization and its inhabitants. We will write a custom essay sample on Indus Valley Civilization. or any similar topic only for you Order Now The Indus Valley people were most likely Dravidians, who may have been pushed down into south India when the Aryans, with their more advanced military technology, commenced their migrations to India around 2,000 BCE. Though the Indus Valley script remains undeciphered down to the present day, the numerous seals discovered during the excavations, as well as statuary and pottery, not to mention the ruins of numerous Indus Valley cities, have enabled scholars to construct a reasonably plausible account of the Indus Valley Civilization. Some kind of centralized state, and certainly fairly extensive town planning, is suggested by the layout of the great cities of Harappa and Mohenjodaro. The same kind of burnt brick appears to have been used in the construction of buildings in cities that were as much as several hundred miles apart. The weights and measures show a very considerable regularity. The Indus Valley people domesticated animals, and harvested various crops, such as cotton, sesame, peas, barley, and cotton. They may also have been a sea-faring people, and it is rather interesting that Indus Valley seals have been dug up in such places as Sumer. In most respects, the Indus Valley Civilization appears to have been urban, defying both the predominant idea of India as an eternally and essentially agricultural civilization, as well as the notion that the change from ‘rural’ to ‘urban’ represents something of a logical progression. The Indus Valley people had a merchant class that, evidence suggests, engaged in extensive trading. Neither Harappa nor Mohenjodaro show any evidence of fire altars, and consequently one can reasonably conjecture that the various rituals around the fire which are so critical in Hinduism were introduced later by the Aryans. The Indus Valley people do not appear to have been in possession of the horse: there is no osteological evidence of horse remains in the Indian sub-continent before 2,000 BCE, when the Aryans first came to India, and on Harappan seals and terracotta figures, horses do not appear. Other than the archaeological ruins of Harappa and Mohenjodaro, these seals provide the most detailed clues about the character of the Indus Valley people. Bulls and elephants do appear on these seals, but the horned bull, most scholars are agreed, should not be taken to be congruent with Nandi, or Shiva’s bull. The horned bull appears in numerous Central Asian figures as well; it is also important to note that Shiva is not one of the gods invoked in the Rig Veda. The revered cow of the Hindus also does not appear on the seals. The women portrayed on the seals are shown with elaborate coiffures, sporting heavy jewelry, suggesting that the Indus Valley people were an urbane people with cultivated tastes and a refined aesthetic sensibility. A few thousand seals have been discovered in Indus Valley cities, showing some 400 pictographs: too few in number for the language to have been ideographic, and too many for the language to have been phonetic. The Indus Valley civilization raises a great many, largely unresolved, questions. Why did this civilization, considering its sophistication, not spread beyond the Indus Valley? In general, the area where the Indus valley cities developed is arid, and one can surmise that urban development took place along a river that flew through a virtual desert. The Indus Valley people did not develop agriculture on any large scale, and consequently did not have to clear away a heavy growth of forest. Nor did they have the technology for that, since they were confined to using bronze or stone implements. They did not practice canal irrigation and did not have the heavy plough. Most significantly, under what circumstances did the Indus Valley cities undergo a decline? The first attacks on outlying villages by Aryans appear to have taken place around 2,000 BCE near Baluchistan, and of the major cities, at least Harappa was quite likely over-run by the Aryans. In the Rig Veda there is mention of a Vedic war god, Indra, destroying some forts and citadels, which could have included Harappa and some other Indus Valley cities. The conventional historical narrative speaks of a cataclysmic blow that struck the Indus Valley Civilization around 1,600 BCE, but that would not explain why settlements at a distance of several hundred miles from each other were all eradicated. The most compelling historical narrative still suggests that the demise and eventual disappearance of the Indus Valley Civilization, which owed something to internal decline, nonetheless was facilitated by the arrival in India of the Aryans. How to cite Indus Valley Civilization., Essay examples

Atlantis We Will Never Know Essay Example For Students

Atlantis We Will Never Know Essay Fantasy is a tough sell in the twentieth century. The world has been fully discovered and fully mapped. Popular media has effectively minimized the legend and the fantastic rumor, though to make up for this it has generated falsities not as lavish but just as interesting. Satellites have mapped and studied the earth, leaving only a space frontier that is as yet unreachable. But standing out is a charming fantasy the modern world has yet to verify or condemn: the lost continent of Atlantis. The father of the modern worlds perception of Atlantis is Plato (circa 428-circa 347 b.c.). (1) The Greek philosopher spoke in his works Timaeus and Critias of a continent in the Atlantic ocean larger than Africa and Asia Minor combined which rivaled Athens as the most advanced in the world. (2) According to the legend surrounding Platos dialogues, the island of Atlantis was violently thrown into the sea by the forces of nature, and its few survivors managed to swim ashore and relate their story. (3) There the legend was passed by word of mouth until an Egyptian priest related the story to Solon, a character in Timaeus. The priest admired the achievements of prehistoric Athenians, because when the rulers of Atlantis threatened to invade all of Europe and Asia the Athenians, on behalf of all Greeks, defeated the Atlanteans to avoid enslavement. (4) The works of Plato opened the floodgates to endless speculation on whether the continent described was fact or fiction. Atlantis has sin ce been placed in Spain, Mongolia, Palestine, Nigeria, the Netherlands, Brazil, Sweden, Greenland and Yucatan. Every nook and cranny of the globe has been hypothesized; mountain peaks, desert lands, the ocean floor and even the barren wasteland of Antarctica have been mentioned in theories. (5) While some of these theories are compatible with Platos works and are within relative reason, numerous crackpot theories have been developed using the lost continent as a basis. One of these theories, posted on the computer internet where it has access to over fifteen million people, talks in twenty-one pages of pre-historical lands with names like Oz and Luxor. These world wide web pages list over two hundred separate articles of proof for the existence of Atlantis, as in the following: (6) ?Most all ancient civilizations believed in the TITANS, the race of giant humans that inhabited Earth long ago. Different races knew them by different names. These 7 to 12 foot humanoids were thought to b e legendary until the excavation of over a dozen skeletons 8 to 12 feet tall, around the world, shocked archeologists. These skeletons were positively human. Some of these skeletal remains are on Maui in lava caves near Ulupalakua and Olowalu. The Spanish Conquistadors left diaries of wild blond-haired, blue-eyed 8 to 12 foot high men running around in the Andes during the conquest of the Incas. A couple were reportedly captured but died en route to Europe. If giant animals (dinosaurs) were possible then why not giant men? And why are these goliaths populating both Eurasia and the Americas? Only on a land bridge created by the vast continent of Antarctica can there be a sufficient bridge for the spread of these giants.?(7) This text, written by self-proclaimed Atlantologist Steve Omar, represents Platos text taken to the extreme- using his ideas as a basis for outlandish and unfounded ideas. These unverified fantasies make a dubious complement to the other dark side of the Atlantea n fantasy: hoaxes. Atlantis has been ?discovered? many times, but most notably in the fall of 1912 by Dr. Paul Schliemann. Schliemann introduced himself as the grandson of the famous Heinrich Schliemann, the archeologist who discovered the ruins of ancient Troy in 1873. His ?discovery? made front page news (The New York American, October 1912.) and boasted of an advanced civilization with aircraft, power-driven boats and the like. Schliemann said his grandfather told him on his deathbed of the familys secret: the location of Atlantis. Schliemanns claims made waves, but didnt hold water; when pressed for details, Schliemann was unresponsive and eventually disappeared from public view. (8) Unfortunately, the falsities concerning Atlantis frequently overshadow the possibilities. The subject has gathered its share of honest journalists as well. Ignatius Donnelly wrote the first extensive study of the possibility of existence in 1882, and his views have not been found to be false with t wentieth century technology. Donnelly believed in Atlantis, but believed it to be worldly; his reasons for Atlantiss existence are unable to be proven, but make sense. Some examples:-There is nothing improbable in Platos narrative; it describes rich, cultured and educated people but doesnt mention things of fantasy like giants, hobgoblins etc. (9)-Plato speaks of hot and cold springs in the center of Atlantis, a feature common to islands with volcanic activity. Chances are Plato didnt know this. (9)-Plato says in his stories that the Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea, is always seen on a chariot with horses because he was originally the god of Atlantis, where horses were domesticated. But when Atlantis fell to the sea, the Greeks believed Poseidon brought his horses with him. (9) Responding partly to Donnelleys theories and partly to the urge to discover, some 20th century archeologists have used twentieth century technology to look for Atlantis. But many have dismissed Atlantis as glorified myths of volcanic eruptions in the island of Thera in 1450 b.c. The eruption may have destroyed that island and caused a small earthquake and tsunamis that ruined the civilization of Crete, but didnt sink a continent. (10) Therefore, none of Donnelleys theories can be proved without the actual discovery of the continent. The legend of Atlantis is only a huge collection of theories and guesses, but theories and guesses also led to the discovery of the lost Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, discovered after being buried and preserved by the volcanic ash of nearby Mt. Vesuvius. Because of this, the mystery of Atlantiss existence will tantalize the world until the continent is either proven or disproven. (11)