Medical Terminology Essay

1. How can eliminating abbreviations reduce errors? Abbreviations are usually used for convenience, to save space and to avoid the trouble of spelling out the word fully. Abbreviations are used in medical records and in medical language. Though the usage of abbreviations do have some advantage and make the recording easy and faster, there are several difficulties that could be faced in using abbreviations in medical record. It makes it difficult for the medical professional to understand properly, takes longer to train medical personnel, and it delays proper patient care and often times it hinders patient care. So eliminating abbreviations can reduce and avoid to certain extent some of these difficulties. Spelling out the word will help understand the message properly and give the right kind of treatment or service as required. Proper communication becomes impossible when abbreviations are used sparingly in documentation. â€Å"When we rely on abbreviations in our business writing, we start a process of â€Å"inbreeding† that may prevent us from clearly communicating our thoughts to people outside our company, department, or discipline. Readers are intimidated when they see a bunch of abbreviations; rather than risk embarrassment by asking you what the abbreviations stand for, they’ll read without really comprehending your message (or will skip your document altogether). To make your writing clear, use abbreviations sparingly and explain every abbreviation you do use. Always define an abbreviation the first time you use it†. 2. Should written polices be developed for Abbreviation usage? If yes, what should the policies contain? If no explain. Yes, it is essential that written polices be developed for abbreviation usage. This will help in using the abbreviations properly and will avoid the consequent errors and difficulties in communication, especially in medical records and communication. In medical record keeping, already there are regulations in using abbreviations: â€Å"Each healthcare facility develops its won list of acceptable abbreviations (that can be used in documents produce in that facility) and a list of unacceptable or â€Å"do not use abbreviations†. In addition to that (JCACHO) has a list of abbreviations that should not be used because they cause errors. JCAHO’s National Safety Goal states that these   abbreviations must appear on a facility’s â€Å"do not use list†.2 So the written policies should contain a list of abbreviations that can be used and should not be used to avoid errors in medical as well as in all documents and communi- cation. â€Å"JCAHO also has addressed errors in interpretation of abbreviations commonly used in health records by publishing a prohibited abbreviation list. The abbreviations note on the list should not be found in the patient health care records of their accredited providers. providers†. 3. When are abbreviations acceptable? Who should use them and why? Abbreviations are acceptable in documents and communication. It is a method of communication In saving time, space and trouble in spelling out the full word. As such using abbreviation can help in solving certain time consuming communication. Medical and technical professionals are the main users of abbreviation. â€Å"Abbreviated terms—whether abbreviations, initialisms, acronyms or symbols—save time, space, and the needless repetitions. However, decisions about acceptable and appropriate abbreviations remain ambiguous in modern publishing. While few general rules apply, in most cases, writers need to be familiar with the rules and conventions recognized by specific Usage authorities.† â€Å"Only abbreviations and symbols approved by the organization should and/or medical staff rules and regulations should be used in the health record.†5 In an organization, the rules and regulations in using abbreviations should be written and maintained as a policy item and should be informed to all the staff, so that proper communication and accurate record keeping are possible by avoiding errors and confusion, at the same time saving much time and effort in searching for the right word and meaning of abbreviations use. â€Å"Organizations that create or use abbreviations often in their work should develop an abbreviation data base or glossary to ensure consistency. This data base will also serve as the basis for decisions about abbreviations among different disciples and organizations.† 4. According to the information in the online articles, do you think enough steps have been taken to reduce errors? Explain why you agree or disagree. No, not enough steps have been taken to reduce errors. In fact there is not much done so far to reduce errors occurring from the use of abbreviations. At present the use of abbreviations have increased tremendously due to the internet and internet based communication facilities. â€Å"Widespread use of electronic communication through mobile phones, and the internet during 1990’s allowed for a marked rise in colloquial abbreviation. This was due largely to increasing popularity of textual communication services such as instant-and text messaging. SMS for instance supports message†. In spite of such increased use of abbreviations, there is no proper step taken to avoid errors in modern methods of communication. Even in technical and medical profession there is need for improvement in streamlining the usage of abbreviations. Specific rules and regulation should be outlined for abbreviation usage in all fields so that the related errors and confusion in the usage of abbreviations can be reduced if not eliminated. REFERENCE: 1. Gary Black and Robert W Bly: The Elements of Business Writing, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York,1991, p. 116 2. Susan Turley: Medical Language, p. 26 3. Merida L Johns: Health Information Management Technology, AHIMA, Chicago, 2007, p. 93. 4. Philip Rubens: Science & Technical Writing, Routledge, New York, 2001, p. 125 5. Medida L Johns; Health information Management Technology, AHIMA, Chicago, 2007, p. 92 6. Philip Rubens: Science & Technical Writing, Routledge, New York, 2001, p. 126 7. Internet: Wikipedia, Abbreviation, p.2

Lasting Effects Slavery Has Had on African American Culture

During the colonial period early American settlers came up with the idea to bring African natives overseas to America and use them as slaves. The white man was higher up than the black man in society at the time because of the color of his skin. Americans consider this the biggest blight on our history. The shame of this period in our history still continues today for many whites, but many blacks still feel angry and oppressed. With the election of our first black president, we are really showing how anything is possible here in America and that it doesn’t matter what color or ethnicity you are.Slavery finally came to an end in 1865. By this time slaves were escaping and fleeing north where many people were against slavery. African American Scholar Michael Eric Dyson once said â€Å"The effect of slavery continues to exert its brutal influence in the untold sufferings of millions of everyday folk. † Basically Dyson is saying that slavery has and still is currently effec ting everyday people today specifically blacks. If you were to drive through any city today I believe that the effects of slavery are very clear in housing, jobs, and schooling.The white man is still known as the high-class while the black man still struggles. Take a drive through the ghettos and projects and most of the people you will see are minorities including African Americans. In â€Å"The Ethnic Myth†, Stephen Steinberg writes, â€Å"ghettos are nothing less than the shameful residue of slavery. † Many scholars blame slavery for the pathologies in the black community such as homelessness, single-parent households, and youth violence. More radical views claim, â€Å"Slavery is a constant reminder of what whites in America might do. Now I wouldn’t go as far as Mr. Steinberg and say that â€Å"ghettos are nothing less than the shameful residue of slavery†, but they do resemble, in a small way, how life was around slavery. Some argue that African her itage was passed on, through the generations as one form of rebellion against then oppression brought by slavery. African American culture today is made up of religion, music, family and art, and it is a fact that African American culture has influenced white culture in many ways.One of the most historical cases in African American history is Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Basically this case is a consolidation of several different cases from Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. Several black children sought admission to public schools that required or permitted segregation based on race. The plaintiffs alleged that segregation was unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. In all but one case, a three judge federal district court cited Plessy v.Ferguson (an earlier civil rights case that segregated races on trains) in denying relief under the â€Å"separate but equal doctrine. † On appeal to the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs co ntended that segregated schools were not and could not be made equal and that they were therefore deprived of equal protection of the laws. This case broke the first segregation barrier in African American history. The base issue of the case was that: is the race-based segregation of children into â€Å"separate but equal† public schools constitutional? The final ruling of this case was: No.The race-based segregation of children into â€Å"separate but equal† public schools violates the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment and is unconstitutional. This made lead way for the future black and civil rights activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa parks. Slavery caused this whole debate and if we never had anyone stand up for their rights, this whole world would be a mess. Martin Luther King Jr. once said â€Å"Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase† Martin Luther King Jr. ived by what he said and looking at his life you can see that he took many blind steps towards the dark all for civil rights. He changes society in ways only imaginable and led a life of love, peace, and protest. It cannot be disputed that slavery has affected our culture today, both black and white. Although 145 years may seem like a long time, the wounds of slavery on America are not yet healed and our country is still young and the passage of time will bring change, as it historically does. We can only hope that all of us as a country work towards a future as one without oppression.

Comparing the Ways

Compare the ways in which Owen powerfully portrays physical and mental consequences of war in the poems ‘Disabled' and ‘Mental Cases' Wilfred Owen's poems ‘Disabled' and ‘Mental Cases' each portray very different aspects of war and its consequences. As their names suggest, ‘Mental Cases' is about the psychological effects war had on soldiers, whereas ‘Disabled' focuses more on the physical consequences of war. However, in both poems the physical and mental costs are all intertwined, and although they describe very different situations, in many ways the poems are alike in their portrayal of the consequences of war overall.The first ways in which we can compare these poems is by their content, language and tone. In the poem ‘Disabled', Owen states the subject's situation in the first line of the poem: â€Å"He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark† this line bluntly highlights to the reader that the subject is disabled, and is obvious ly very handicapped by his injury, because he cannot do anything except ‘waiting for dark'. The narrator the informs the reader of exactly what the man's injuries are, in the same direct style – â€Å"Legless, sewn short at elbow. This emphasizes how starkly and immediately obvious the man's injuries would be to somebody who saw him. In comparison, the poem ‘Mental Cases' starts with the line â€Å"Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight? â€Å"; which is a far less straight forward line, and reflects how little was understood about the mental effects of war at the time. The physical consequences of war are not as prominent in ‘Mental Cases', but they are still mentioned.The most powerful example is when the narrator describes how the shell-shocked soldiers appear: â€Å"their heads wear this hilarious, hideous, awful falseness of set-smiling corpses† and the reader comes to understand that their torment is so great they have lost control of t heir facial muscles. Owen uses the phrase â€Å"their faces wear† to show that their facial expressions are not a true illustration of their feelings, but like a mask covering their thoughts. He then eerily compares their expressions to that of â€Å"set-smiling corpses†Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ to perhaps to suggest that these men are almost dead with torment.Another powerful physical description in ‘Mental Cases' is â€Å"their eyeballs shrink tormented – back into their brains† which paints a picture of how gaunt the men's faces are, and how their mental torture is so real to them, that their eyes physically shrink away from the memories. Overall, physical consequences of war provide the central problem for the subject of ‘Disabled', whereas in ‘Mental Cases' the subjects' poor physical condition is because of their mental state. This brings us on to the powerful portrayal of the mental consequences of war in these poems. Mental Cases' is set in an ins titute for mentally damaged soldiers, and starts with a stanza questioning how the men concerned have been reduced to such a state of insanity. One very powerful question which describes the men's mental torment is â€Å"-but what slow panic gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets? † The oxymoron â€Å"slow panic† highlights just how terrible the suffering of the men is as panic is one of the most horrible, alarmed and rushed emotions a person can feel; so to have this feeling drawn out and slow is awful.Owens use of the verb ‘gouged' is also poignant as it is a violent action, so it underlines that these men are the victims of something brutal. Another particularly moving line in the first stanza is â€Å"Ever from hair and through their hands' palms Misery swelters† This statement is very effective at showing how all-consuming their fear and misery is as it metaphorically compares the misery to sweat; which of course comes out of every pore of on e's skin, and the verb â€Å"swelters† is adds to the effect as it conveys the clammy fever which is plaguing the men along with their memories.In comparison to ‘Mental Cases', the poem ‘Disabled' describes less direct mental consequences of war; as the subject of the poem is not suffering from shell-shock, but rather from the loneliness and helplessness which his disability is causing him. Before the war, the subject of the poem was a handsome and popular teenager who was excellent at football, however, his injuries have left him disfigured and completely dependent on others, which leads to a mental torment far subtler but almost as agonising as that of the subjects in ‘Mental Cases' – he spends all his time thinking about the time before the war, and regretting that he signed up.This is the main tragedy behind this poem – the fact that the whole situation could have been prevented if he hadn't. The narrator of the poem recognises this, and ex presses the subject's regret with lines such as â€Å"In the old times, before he threw away his knees†. The use of the phrase â€Å"threw away† shows that the subject does not think that it was worth it – he feels that he lost his limbs for nothing; it was a waste. It also suggests that he blames himself for what happened.Another phrase which is very powerful in conveying the mental consequences of war on the subject of this poem is in the first line; when he is described as sitting and â€Å"waiting for dark†. This shows how he empty his life is, because he has nothing to do but wait for darkness to come, so he can go to bed. The final phrase which powerfully portrays the mental consequences of war is when, describing how the subject was naive when he signed up for the war, the narrator writes â€Å"no fears of Fear came yet. By turning the second ‘fear' into a proper noun, Owen powerfully suggests that there are a multitude of different things e ncompassed in this word for a soldier, and shows how central fear was to soldiers' lives when they were at war. Overall, ‘Mental Cases' shows the most vicious and forceful mental consequences that war could have on a soldier, whereas ‘Disabled' shows an indirect and much more subtle, yet still tormenting psychological impact of war. One thing which the poems have in common concerning the consequences of war, is that it is clear in both that war demanded great sacrifice from the soldiers, and caused great loss for them.This is very powerfully portrayed in ‘Disabled' when the narrator writes â€Å"He's lost his colour very far from here, poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry† these two lines are particularly poignant due to Owens use of the verb â€Å"poured† which emphasizes the excessiveness of the young man's loss of blood. The word â€Å"colour† here could be interpreted to mean the man's happiness and natural blush; which reminds the reader again of how handsome and popular he had been.The final point which makes this line so powerful is the phrase â€Å"till his veins ran dry† which conveys to the reader that the subject gave everything he had to the war – his limbs and with them his successful life -, yet got nothing back. In comparison, the subjects of ‘Mental Cases' lost their minds to the war; because of the unimaginable horrors they experienced. The narrator sums this up in the lines â€Å"Carnage incomparable, and human squander rucked too thick for these men's extrication† this shows that the men experienced too many horrors and too much slaughter for them to endure.Another point which both poems express is that the consequences of war, both physical and mental, are irreversible. This is obvious in ‘Disabled', as there is no way he can get his legs back; but the narrator emphasizes this throughout the poem by using the word ‘never' frequently. For example †Å"Now, he is old; his back will never brace†. By describing the man, who cannot be more than nineteen years old, as old, Owen shows the reader just how much of an effect the war had on the subject, as age is one of the few indisputably irreversible things in life.In comparison, the narrator of ‘ Mental Cases', when describing the soldiers' memories, says â€Å"Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander. Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter† by describing them as ‘helpless' the narrator shows he considers the men beyond help. After all, how can you help someone if the source of all their problems is their own memories? The lines are made particularly powerful as they describe the soldiers remembering when they trod on lungs which â€Å"had loved laughter†.This shows that the soldiers had known and laughed with the men whose lungs they were forced to step on because the ground was covered with so many bodies. Another line where we get th e sense that the shell-shocked men are beyond help is when the narrator says â€Å"on their sense sunlight seems a blood-smear†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ â€Å"Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh†: if something as beautiful and pure as sunlight and sunrise reminds these men of blood and wounds, then we feel that nothing will ever calm them, and bring them back to sanity. Another way in which we can compare these poems is by their structure.Most noticeably, ‘Disabled' is considerably longer than ‘Mental Cases'. This reflects how the subject of ‘Disabled' is in a state of thoughtfulness and pondering, whereas the narrator of ‘Mental Cases' is simply explaining the subjects to somebody, and therefore does not spend as much time contemplating. The two poems are similar in structure in the sense that they both fluctuate between past and present, but ‘Disabled' does so far more often than ‘Mental Cases' and this again could reflect the contempla tion of the subject. Finally, ‘Mental Cases' does not rhyme at all, whereas ‘Disabled' has a constant, although not regular, rhyme scheme.The lack of rhyme in ‘Mental Cases' could reflect how harsh the realities of war are, and the raw pain and horror that is shell-shock; perhaps Owen did not want to dampen the brutality of the truth in this piece by smoothing it over with rhymes. The final way in which we can compare how Owen powerfully portrays the consequences of war in these poems is by looking at their tone. The first and last stanza of ‘Disabled' have a melancholy tone, which Owen achieves by using language such as ‘ghastly', ‘saddening, ‘pity' and ‘cold'. He also juxtaposes the words ‘dark' and ‘grey', to create a general tone of gloom.The rest of the stanza's fluctuate between a tone of regret and despair, and one of bittersweet reminiscence, as the subject contemplates the past and present. In comparison, ‘Me ntal Cases' has a brutally honest tone all the way through, although it changes from questioning at the beginning to guilty towards the end. Owen achieves this guilty tone with the line â€Å"Snatching after us who smote them ,brother,† in which the narrator accepts that he and his companion are partly to blame for the tragic ending the men in front of them have, and the word ‘brother' suggests that he feels closer to his companion because of this shared guilt.In conclusion, although each poem powerfully portrays a different kind of consequence that war could have on a soldier, they both seem to agree that the losses the subjects of each poem endured were a great sacrifice to them, and one which is irreversible. Another point which the poems seem to recognize, is that their losses were a mistake – it was not worth it. This is shown in disabled by the subjects regret and in ‘Mental Cases' by the narrators guilt at sending the subjects to war.

Coca Cola's Logistics System Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Coca Cola's Logistics System - Essay Example However, as the number of products increased, it was not possible to load one stock keeping unit with one product. With the increase in the number of stock keeping units and retail stores, the traditional system could not be continued (Banker, 2010). The trucks carrying the Coca Cola’s products go through the various retail stores and unload. The products are delivered on the basis of order. Hence, the truck drivers work as order takers. The warehouses are stocked with exactly the amount of delivery orders. For better delivery of the products to the retailers, Coca Cola brought trucks with special facilities. The company has succeeded in having an efficient supply chain and it helps to lower its cost of distribution. It knows from experience the kind of trucks needed for its fleet, hires experienced drivers and ensures that they are extremely productive. The logistics requirements of no two businesses are similar. Therefore, logistics, which is a key component of strategy and an important ingredient of marketing, can be tailored to suit the requirements of business and by implication the customers (Fuller & Et. Al., 1993). Logistics can be an important service differentiator. Coca Cola has segmented its customers in Japan based on their logistics requirements. The segmentation is done based on the store needs and the vending machines as the customers are comfortable with. The delivery drivers deliver the products based on the store type. The company is attempting to segment the customer to save the logistics cost. However, accurate segmentation of the customer is not always possible. Some stores want accurate delivery. Coca Cola has opened a new warehouse that is operated automatically. The reason behind opening it is to save on operational cost and better management of inventory. The benefits that this warehouse provides are that it provides better on-site facilities

Please answer the following questions Assignment

Please answer the following questions - Assignment Example Functional structure classifies the people with the function they perform. Divisional structure- These are structures which based upon various divisions within organizations. This is further divided into; product structure which is based on the organizational of the staff and a duty which is based on different products the company produces. Market structure which classifies the employees according to the market the company deals in. Geographical structure which is applicable to organizations working in different places (Schein 59). Other kinds of structures include; bureaucratic structures, pre bureaucratic structures, network structure and team structure. Bureaucratic structures are advantages in organizations with complex managements. Pre bureaucratic is suitable when administration is centralized. While network structure help maintain coordinates. b) What is organizational culture-These are the behaviors and the values that explain the social uniqueness and the organizational psychological environment. It is therefore the summation of organizations preset and past experiences and philosophy hat defines and hold the organization together. It is rooted on the customs, beliefs, attitudes and norms. It is manifested through the strength of the staff, flow of power and information, autonomy and freedom in the organization and the ways business is conducted in the organization. The organization culture is regarded either strong or weak. This is depends on how it spreads within the organization. Culture affects organizations productivity and the quality. It also influences marketing and advertising strategies. In India the major drivers are power distance; people are not equal in the society 77. Individualism; this explains the degree of interdependence maintained among members is rated at 48 Masculinity/Feminist indicating success n competition 56. Uncertainty and avoidance and the long term orientation which involves dealing

Computers and Construction Dissertation Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 22500 words

Computers and Construction - Dissertation Example Importantly, the literature review will give the study a rather vital starting point and framework, especially for an incisive comparative analysis of the current, past and future status of BIM and other technologies in the construction industry. Generally, the last three decades have seen a tremendous upsurge in the number of literatures written on BIM and other computer technologies applied in the construction, architecture and engineering sectors. In some of the old and even recent literary materials, BIM is also portrayed as a comparatively new subject, serving the interests of the AEC sciences and the construction industry (Wong & Wong, 2010). These literatures also emphasise the role of BIM in availing excellent opportunities for academics, researchers and practitioners to significantly contribute to the development and further implementation of BIM across AEC sectors of economy. Among the most popular topics in the reviewed literatures include BIM implementation in architectur al and construction practice, the influence of BIM on construction management, the changes that BIM creates to the cost estimation, virtual construction development and collaborative technique in construction industry. ... While countries such as England, Canada, Scandinavia, Australia, Singapore Slovenia, the USA and Hong Kong have reported considerable progress in the development of BIM, accompanied by adequate and valuable case studies, surveys, publications and researches, other regions such as Africa, South America, Ireland and Russia are lagging behind in BIM adoption and implementation (McGraw-Hill Construction, 2009). Similarly, big construction firms such as AutoDesk, Bentley and McGraw-Hill Construction have made tremendous steps in BIM adoption and implementation while their smaller counterparts such as those involved in building residential homes lag behind in this regard. The following sections review some of the literatures and studies related to BIM and the economic importance of its implementation. Past Publications and Results If the evidences from past and current studies and literatures on Building Information Modelling are anything to go by, BIM can be said to have immense economic value not only to its designers, owners and constructors but also to the users of the built structures (Rice & Gerber, (2010). The achievement of this project’s objectives is likely to be dependent on the information that will be assembled from past studies and literatures on the subject of the economic value of BIM. Although individual writers and researchers have also covered the subject of BIM in general and that of the economic impacts of the technology in particular, most of the authors and researchers are corporate organisations in the construction, engineering and architectural industries (McGraw-Hill Construction, 2009). One such authors and researchers is McGraw-Hill Construction. One publication by this organisation, which touches on the economic importance and impacts

Moral Issues in Our Lives Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Moral Issues in Our Lives - Essay Example I do know that the former always brings the latter; however, I particularly like instances when I am able to influence the consequences directly regardless of the previous actions. In such situations, I feel the maximum freedom. This, in turn, allows me to think about the actions that I am about to perform and the decisions tend to be correct ones. As for the rule that I consider to be the most important in my life, I might mention the Golden Rule of interaction. I do believe that others should be treated just like one wants to be treated. Several times in my life I was able to prove the validity of this kind of thinking and saw that it brings positive results for the people that apply it. For example, I want to be respected, therefore I always behave in a respective way towards other people. I think that this rule allows one to structure social interactions in the most effective way. There are many ideas and role models in my life that I would like to adhere to. However, the most significant of them of the Prophet Mohammed. I admire that He was able to be a successful spiritual guide, effective political leader, and a victorious warrior. It would not be a mistake to suggest that He lived life to its fullest and should become a role model for every active person. Furthermore, many events from His life teach how to behave in difficult situations. A good person is one who does his or her best to contribute to the good in the world. One would make no mistake that such definition engages extremely broad notions such as good and bad. Nevertheless, it is my strongest belief that all people have an innate ability to distinguish between the two and various religious systems simply guide this ability and teach people to use it. Indeed, sometimes, detecting bad can be rather simple.

Making career Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Making career - Personal Statement Example These entry-level positions are actually glorified secretarial jobs wherein responsibilities include making sure that ads move smoothly through the execution process. Accordingly, depending on the agency an account executive or an account coordinator may be given some competitive-analysis responsibility (see the job post in this website: http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/job/320526/press-media-account-executive-various-accounts-to-24k) Indeed, according to a book published by Wetfeet, Inc. on careers in advertising and PR, "the lower you are on the account [management] totem pole, the more it's about execution. The higher you are, the more it's about strategy." (p. 99) In analysing a job advertisement in fig. 1, it is easy to understand that people entering account management must have strong social skills, since a good chunk of their job involves managing people. As one insider said, "As you move up in account management, one of your responsibilities becomes managing people below you. But even the lowest levels, you're managing people in other departments." They should be able to think like fashion entrepreneurs/designers and creatives since they have to deal with both camps. As Wetfeet, Inc., a leading PR firm emphasized, in terms of personality, creatives and clients are often diametrically opposed and the better direction you give the creatives, the better ads you get. With these facts on hand, I conclude that people with their sights set on advertising account management in the fashion industry should be organised and good at multitasking, because they'll be working on a variety of things simultaneously. In addition, account management candidates should have a good understanding of marketing and selling fashion merchandise, since the job is about helping clients sell their goods and selling the agency to others. TASK 2: It has been said that The Good Girl or The Good Boy syndrome hardly ever lands an employee to top leadership post and even slows down professional growth and career progress in the advertising industry. Here an employee place more value on being in good terms, and therefore agreeable, with his superiors at the expense of searching for new and better ideas that will benefit his company or the product that the company markets. In the advertising industry, where innovation is very important, the pathway to a better career trajectory is to adopt the contrarian position - the ad man who finds new path, ends up moving the company or a product ahead. I believe that bringing this unique perspective to work in the advertising field offers growth opportunities and expands possibilities for the company that I will work for as opposed to maintaining the status quo or being docile in the fast-paced and cutthroat competition in the advertising world. One of my resource persons confirmed this line of thinking as she told her own success story. Alexa Simons was an assistant account manager for a mid-size advertising agency. Their accounts, however, were impressive. Her team, for instance, services the PR and advertising needs of a perfume line. About a year ago, this client decided to decentralise their advertising in the management's belief that the advertising efforts are not delivering quantified returns. Alexa's superior accepted the decision and devised strategies that worked around what the client wanted. However, after a month Alexa took the initiative of reviewing consumer research and found that certain critical measures had declined sharply after the

Good Life Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Good Life - Essay Example Let your clothes be fresh, bathe yourself in water, cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the lot of man. (Lawall & Mack 32-33) Siduri, herself, being a woman and being the maker of wine, represents sensual pleasure. Is it not; the woman is man’s object of sexual pleasure and desire? And is it not; wine tastes too good to man’s appetite? Furthermore, Siduri’s words also imply that if immortality is to gods, having the best in life is to man. So, in life, man should seek the best and the most in life. Just like what most of us believe today: Life is short; so, live it to the fullest. For Enkidu; I loved him dearly; together we endured all kinds of hardships; on his account I have come, for the common lot of man has taken him†¦ Since he went, my life is nothing; that is why I have travelled here in search of Utnapishtim my father; for men say he has entered the assembly of the gods, and has found everlasting life: I have a desire to question him, concerning the living and the dead.’ (31) Understanding these words of Gilgamesh, good life means having the wisdom to fully understand life. However, this can only be achieved if man learns to love, just like what happened to Gilgamesh and Enkidu – Enkidu sought for life because he felt sorry to leave Gilgamesh forever, while Gilgamesh lost the pleasures of life with the death of Enkidu. As we understand what is truly good in life, we come to learn that good life is hard to achieve, because it is more of a responsibility than pleasure: "Reed-house, reed-house! Wall, O wall, hearken reed-house, wall reflect; O man of Shurrupak, son of Ubara-Tutu; tear down your house and build a boat, abandon possessions and look for life, despise worldly goods and save your soul alive† (35). Furthermore, leading a good life is filled with trials and challenges: â€Å"†¦ was it for this that I toiled with my hands, is it for

Strategic Management and Leadership of General Motors Case Study

Strategic Management and Leadership of General Motors - Case Study Example GM, along with strategic partners manufactures automobiles and trucks in thirty-four nations, and trade and service these vehicles through its numerous brands.   Its biggest national market in the United States. China, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Canada, Russia, and Germany are the other nations which follow America in this context.   GM’s OnStar ancillary is one of the leading industries in vehicle safety, security and information facilities. On 10th July 2009,  General Motors Company obtained functions from General Motors Corporation. The General Motor Corporation established its place in the automobile manufacturing industry with the manufacturing of luxurious cars, which are classy at the same time superior from the other rival manufacturers of automobiles. Due to their high brand name and reputation in the market, the cost prices of cars from General Motors are generally very high and sometimes unreachable for general customers. (Global Operations, n.d.; General Mot ors, n.d) The General Motors Corporation held the first place as an automobile manufacturing company with respect to its sales for around 77 years until; Toyota took its place in the year 2008. The downfall of the company from the number one position is due to its negligence in terms of designing new innovative cars. There was a lack of creative innovations in terms of designs as they only have done some slight or minor changes in the designs to satisfy the customers. Some are of the view that the downfall is due to the poor strategic management of the company. The company faced difficulties in coming up with the internal and external pressures, like the accessibility of loans for the customers, the pressure from the Government and Labor Unions, crisis of oil, other competitive technologies such as electric cars, etc. (Global Operations, n.d.; General Motors, n.d) These difficulties clearly suggested that the company needs to re-strategize its  operations.

Interpreter of Maladies Essay Example for Free

Interpreter of Maladies Essay Throughout life, people are faced with many obstacles, but one of the main things for people to do is adapt to the obstacles and learn how to move through and around them. Individuals have to change in order to adapt to the life around them, but there are times when it is too difficult for some to change. Some may experience immense trauma and find it difficult to move on from things whilst others find it hard to come to terms with new life. No matter what people are forced to do things that they may not want to do, but they have to choose whether to adapt to these changes, or suffer the consequences. Being able to adapt in life is an important skill as people are faced with having to change daily. However, some individuals do not have the skills required to adapt, or they have been through traumatic experiences that inhibit that ability to adapt. Shoba and Shukumar in the story â€Å"A Temporary Matter† are faced with a horrific ordeal which forces them to adapt to new life, this however, does not turn out the way they had planned and they eventually split up from not being able to fully adapt and accept the changes â€Å"they’d been through enough† and Shoba â€Å"needed some time alone†, their relationship eventually dissolves. A similar thing happened to Mrs Sen in â€Å"Mrs Sen’s. † She was forced to adapt to a new country and learn their way of life, this although, proves to be too difficult for Mrs Sen as she was unable to successfully learn how to drive â€Å"I hate it. I hate driving. I won’t go on. † Mrs Sen just ends up frustrated and defeated. Her main challenge was her inability to adapt to a new culture as she was living in her past, constantly trying to mix the two cultures together. This turns out unsuccessful as well as she finds people in her new home, treat her as if she was strange, â€Å"an old woman on the bus kept watching them† the people around Mrs Sen felt uncomfortable at times which made it even more difficult for Mrs Sen to adapt and change to the new community and life around her. Mrs Sen chooses to retreat into her past, something that she is comfortable and familiar with, â€Å"she pulled the blade out of the cupboard, spread newspapers across the carpet, and inspected her treasures. † The fish to her is safe and brings her back to ‘better times’ in her life, when she was happy. In some ways, people are better at some things than others, adaptability is one. In â€Å"This Blessed House† Sanjeev had to adapt to the situation he was faced with; either taking away the religious icons and upsetting his wife, or putting up with them, just so he could please her. Although Sanjeev was able to accept Twinkles fascination with the icons in the end and let her indulge herself with keeping them around the house â€Å"for the rest of their days together she would keep it on the mantel†, he had a hard time coming to terms with it. People tend to struggle with new challenges, but some are able to overcome that struggle, such as Sanjeev. This idea is also borne out by â€Å"The Third and Final Continent† as the narrator in the story struggles with the changes in his life when he first moves, but he eventually learns a routine and adapts choosing to use the same pattern over and over again as it becomes safe and familiar, he ate â€Å"cornflakes and milk, morning and night† which was easy for him. When moving into Mrs Croft’s house, he had to adapt again, learning her environment and how things worked in her house, â€Å"fasten the chain and firmly press that button on the knob! This is the first thing you will do when you enter. † He not only had to adapt to his external environment but his internal environment as well. Mrs Croft would always expect the same from him whenever they spoke, always waiting for him to respond with â€Å"Splendid! † after her remarks. An ongoing quality for the narrator in â€Å"The Third and Final Continent† is that he had to adapt to many things, including an arranged marriage. He had to adapt to a new person coming into his life and living with him for the rest of his life. This was substantiated to be difficult at first, but soon grew on him â€Å"for the first time, we looked at each other and smiled†, he welcomed her company in the end and truly loved her. If he was unable to adapt, this would not be the case. In a similar way, Miranda had many obstacles to adapt to as well. She was challenged when starting a relationship with Dev, as she had never had a physical relationship with a married man before. She struggles with this for a little while when his wife comes back, as it seems wrong when then wife is home, but she learns to adapt to not being able to go out with Dev and only being able to stay inside with him from fear of his wife seeing them. But, in the end Miranda had to adapt to a life without Dev. We are left with the thought that she is ble to move on and change into a better person as she â€Å"walked past the restaurants where Dev had kissed her,† and gazed at the â€Å"clear-blue sky,† proving to us the she has moved on from a life with Dev. In most people’s realities, they are able to pick themselves up and adapt to new changes, but there are also those rare people who struggle to do just that and it is too difficult to try and change. These people are forced to deal with other challenges in their life that they will e ventually learn to overcome. In Lahiri’s stories, she shows us that in order to succeed individuals need to be adaptable.

Input and Output Report Essay Example for Free

Input and Output Report Essay Field Names Customer ID (the unique reference number given to any customer that has travelled with First Travel) Customer_ ID Title (the title of the customer e.g. Mr, Mrs etc. I have done this in a drop down menu so that no other text can be given) Title Customer First Name (the first name of the customer) First_ Name Customer Last Name (the last name of the customer) Last_ Name Billing Address (the house number and street of the customer) Address City (the city/town in which the customer lives) City Post Code (the post code of the customer-I have inserted an input mask which ,means only six characters can be entered in with 3 digits and three letters) Postal_Code Email Address (the email address of the customer) Email _Address Holiday Reference(the holiday reference number is given to those customers that are travelling) Holiday _ Ref Destination (the arrival airport of the customer, it will be given as a three letter code) Arrival_ Airport Hotel (the hotel the customer is staying at) Hotel Payment Made (this field will be added in Excel) N/A Total Amount (this field will be added in Excel) N/A Outstanding Payment(this field will be added in Excel) N/A Design and creation of Database Spreadsheet 3.1 Data Capture Form for Invoice 3.2 Data Capture Form for E-Ticket Data Captured Field Names Customer ID (the unique reference number given to any customer that has travelled with First Travel) Customer_ ID Title (the title of the customer e.g. Mr, Mrs etc. I have done this in a drop down menu so that no other text can be given) Title Customer First Name (the first name of the customer) First_ Name Customer Last Name (the last name of the customer) Last_ Name Billing Address (the house number and street of the customer) Address City (the city/town in which the customer lives) City Post Code (the post code of the customer-I have inserted an input mask which ,means only six characters can be entered in with 3 digits and three letters) Postal_Code Email Address (the email address of the customer) Email _Address Holiday Reference(the holiday reference number is given to those customers that are travelling) Holiday _ Ref Departure Airport (the departure airport of the customer, it will be given as a three letter code) Departure _ Airport Arrival Airport (the arrival airport of the customer, it will be given as a three letter code) Arrival_ Airport Flight Time (Outbound) FTO Flight Time (Inbound) FTI Hotel (the hotel the customer is staying at) Hotel 3.3 Unique Excel Additions Unique Excel Additions Descriptions Formula MIN The MIN function finds the minimum value in any range. I my case it finds the holiday with lowest price. =MIN(RANGE) MAX The MAX function finds the maximum value in any range. I my case it finds the holiday with highest price. =MAX(RANGE) AVERAGE The AVERAGE function finds the average value in any range. I my case it finds the average price of a holiday. =AVERAGE(RANGE) ABOSOLUTE CELL REFRENCING (ABR) ABR uses a fixed cell to link to, so the formula can be replicated over a range. In my case I used it to find the insurance and VAT prices. =(CELL)*$(letter of cell)$(number of cell)

Kids And The Dangers Of Social Networking Media Essay

Kids And The Dangers Of Social Networking Media Essay Will you be my friend? That is where it starts. Weblogs, wikis, forums, instant messaging, and email are all social technologies that share information and have online community formation. Therefore, there is a big concern with social networking web sites and keeping our children safe. There are a lot of sites like Facebook and MySpace that have age requirements, but are easily bypassed and no way to verify. Facebook and MySpace can be fun and safe environment for children of any age, with the proper education, maturity level, and parental supervision. How do we keep our children out of social networking danger? Are you wondering if you should let your child have a Facebook account? Or, are you curious why someone would allow their kid to be on Facebook? Well, the Internet isnt innocent by any means. For Instance, there are stalkers, predators, rapists, and identity theft. On the other hand, there are nice things about MySpace and Facebook but they arent worth the risks, of the horri ble things that can happen if your child isnt careful. One big negative of Facebook is that it does create a safety risk. Children can encounter child predators, which has already happened to teens and children all over the world. Kids on Facebook could also be exposed to foul language, inappropriate adult talk and pictures, and R-rated content. In addition, they could become the victim of cyber-bullying, or become the bullies. According to Mozelle Thompson, Facebooks chief privacy adviser,  told the  Australian  Federal Parliaments cyber-safety committee: There are people who lie. There are people who are under 13 [accessing Facebook]. Facebook removes 20,000 people a day, people who are underage. He adds that dealing with underage users is something the site works on all the time. (Tan) In fact, the law provides some protection when it comes to children under the age of 13; it gives parents control over what information children can disclose. (Schaffhauser) To help protect children, there is the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act, which requires parental consent before they can collect information and allows parents to view profiles. The Federal Trade Commission determines if the web site is directed toward children by the content and if they deem it is geared toward children, they must comply with The Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act. (COPPA) Another negative, is that children need to spend more time outside enjoying real life activities: hanging with their friends in the real world skating, playing ball, riding their bikes, and playing at the park. Hanging out in front of the computer is contributing to childhood obesity. Consequently, being a parent comes with the responsibility of protecting and ensuring that our children are safe. Parents use to tell their kids not to talk to strangers, not to take candy from strangers, not to open the door for strangers are all well and good but now we have to add, watch out for strangers on the Internet. This can be proven to be even more dangerous, if we dont monitor our children. Many kids on Facebook and MySpace post pictures, full name, addresses, and the school they attend and even cell phone numbers. Thus, all this information is easily accessible at the click of a button to anyone. These sites are providing child predators with the exact information they need to track down our kids, right at their own back yard. In Feb. 2009, MySpace identified 90,000 registered sex offenders with profiles on the site, while Facebook declined to reveal how many were present on its site. (ProCon)Social networking sites cant identify every sex offender. Therefore, parents can get software that can help monitor their children. Internet security firm Check Point released software that lets parents monitor their children on Facebook, it scans friends request and communications, and it alerts parents to certain words. Check Point vice president of consumer sales Bari Abdul said: Its about protecting your kids from the social threats out there, while still respecting their privacy and fostering open communication. We are offering Facebook users a simple way to embrace social networking safely. (Software) Check Point cited a survey indicating that 38 percent of teenagers have ignored requests from parents to be friends on Facebook, and that 16 percent of children have only done so as a condition of using the social network. However, some will argue, that with the proper adult guidance and monitoring, Facebook can be a safe and healthy place. Parents can set the account as private, and log in frequently to monitor their behavior. Or, they could even sit next to them and monitor them at all times while on the site. Also, there are some websites that have minimum age requirements to set up an account. MySpace, for example, requires users to be at least 14 years old, and the profiles of all users under the age of 16 are automatically set to private so they cannot be found during a general search. There some advantages of allowing a child to have a Facebook account. It helps them become acquainted with using the computer and todays technology. It can help children stay connected with their long-distance Grandma. They can get homework advice and can keep up with the happenings of other distant family. Also reported 50% of students with a social networking site, use it to discuss homework. (ProCon) In. addition, we can keep kids safe by letting them go on social network websites geared for children. Parents also hope that their children conduct themselves maturely online. While it is true, the newest problem with social networking is cyber bullying. While bullying certainly isnt a new, cyber bullying is not a trend that is going to disappear any time soon. As personal computers, cell phones, and the Internet become more popular, the opportunity for teens and preteens to pick on each other grow. Up to 34% of children have been bullied or harassed online, One in seven children aged between 8 and 17 years old say they have come across harmful or inap propriate material online, and 57% of parents are unsure where to get information to help protect their children while online. (Assualt) Furthermore, depression is also an issue with cyber bullying. Cyber-bullying can cause a child to feel totally trapped, because the bully can appear anywhere. For example, a cyber bully can post mean or taunting messages on a teens Facebook page for everyone to see. A bully can set up a web page, blog, or other online presence that is against a particular peer. This mental anguish can result in depression and even suicide. Children need to let parents or a teacher know if they are victims. Children tend not to let parents know for fear of losing their Facebook or MySpace privileges. (Depression) In truth, there is much debate among psychiatrist weather social networking is harmful to children. A psychiatrist at West London Mental Hospital by the name of Dr. Himanshu Tyagi, he believes that kids will find the real world boring, that everything happens much faster on the Internet. Also, those children are more vulnerable to impulsive behavior or even suicide. He thinks more research and investigations should be done on the subject. (Medical) Another study that was done reports that those who spend a large amount of time on social networking sites, including Facebook, were more likely to suffer from eating disorders. Teen girls that viewed unrealistic images of models were more likely to suffer from low self-esteem and develop conditions, such as bulimia and anorexia. Crash dieting was also common among adolescents who spent extended periods of time on social networking sites. (Researchers) Another study done by Ohio State University study back in 2009, says Facebook users had GPAs a full grade lower than non-users. On the other, hand author of Grown up Digital Don Tapscott is skeptical about the studys findings. He goes on to say: There isnt a shred of evidence that Facebook is bad for young people. On the contrary, its a wonderful thing that, with balance, helps them grow, helps their mental abilities develop and it should be encouraged. Following this further, the MacArthur Foundation also contradicts the idea held by many educators, parents and policymakers that children should be blocked from online social networks and video games like Halo, which allow users in different locations to play together. Instead, children should be encouraged to use the technologies to gain a certain level of digital literacy. (Macarthur) Above all, its important to be a part of your childs life. Its hard when they want their own lives, and their moods change by the minute. But you are still their parent and they are still children in many ways. Whether their behavior indicates it or not, they need you. Truly, parents need to also open the lines of communication between their kids. The truth, parents are the ones who pay for the computer and continue to pay for the Internet each month. Therefore, we have the absolute right to ask our child about their sites and have the right to see their MySpace and Facebook accounts. As a final point, MySpace and Facebook have changed society in many ways. Its a parental choice to allow their children on Facebook. While there are disadvantages, with the right parental control, it can be a positive experience for youth. Work Cited COPPA Childrens Online Privacy Protection. COPPA Childrens Online Privacy Protection. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 May 2011. http://www.coppa.org/comply.htm Pappas, Stephanie. Todays Kids Face Facebook Depression | AAP Report on Cyberbullying, Cybersafety and Sexting | Parenting and Social Media | LiveScience . Current News on Space, Animals, Technology, Health, Environment, Culture and History | LiveScience . N.p., 28 Mar. 2011. Web. 1 May 2011. http://www.livescience.com/13431-social-media-kids.html Schaffhauser, Dian. Teens Online Safety Improved by Education, Research Shows THE Journal. THE Journal: Technological Horizons in Education THE Journal. N.p., 25 Nov. 2008. Web. 1 May 2011.

The Morphing of Child Pornography Essay -- Exploratory Essays Research

Morphing of Child Porn      Ã‚   At issue before the Circuit Courts has been the constitutionality of the 1996 Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) in which Congress sought to modernize federal law by enhancing its ability to combat child pornography in the cyberspace era(Free Speech). There is a split in the circuit courts regarding this bill, and this essay will address the discrepancy.    This piece of legislation classifies an image that "appears to be" or "conveys the impression" of a minor engaging in sexually explicit acts as "virtual" child pornography. Such images include a photograph of a real child that may be scanned, replicated and manipulated by computer to create a sexually-oriented photo, or a wholly fake child that may be generated solely by computer graphics.    Congress recognized a loophole in the child pornography law, in that technological improvements have made it possible for child pornographers to use computers to "morph" or alter innocent images of actual children to create a composite image showing them in sexually explicit poses. With this in mind Congress intended to (1) ban computer-generated images that are "virtually indistinguishable" from those of real children, (2) to protect the privacy of actual children whose innocuous images are altered to create sexually explicit images and (3) to deprive child abusers of a "criminal tool" frequently used to facilitate the sexual abuse of children.    On December 17, 1999, in Free Speech Coalition v. Reno, the Ninth Circuit struck down the law as a content-based restriction on protected speech not in furtherance of any compelling governmental interest because the prohibited images are not of actual children. According to that C... ...guage of the statute "sufficiently narrowly tailored to promote the compelling government interest in preventing harm to actual children, based on substantiated Congressional findings that virtual pornography was used to seduce actual children into sexual activity, and thus comported with free speech guarantees."    WORKS CITED: Eleventh Circuit Opinions.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://www.law.emory.edu/11circuit/nov99/ Free Speech Coalition v. Reno, 198 F.3d 1083 (9th Cir. 1999), United States v. Hilton, 167 F.3d 61 (1st Cir. 1999), United States v. Acheson, 195 F.3d 645 (11th Cir. 1999), and United States v. Pearl, 89 F.Supp.2d 1237 (D.Utah 2000). Holder v. Free Speech Coalition, Docket No. 00-795).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/docket/features2001.html United States v Hilton  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://www.law.emory.edu/1circuit/july2001/00-2545.01a.html

Civil Rights and Legislation in Mississippi Essay -- Black Civil Rights

The civil rights movement spurred the passing of much federal legislation throughout the 1950’s and 60’s. Although, race relations eventually changed in Mississippi due to federal force, civil rights legislation would pass but segregation continued in Mississippi because of unsupportive state government, lack of federal enforcement and white Mississippians continuous threats and intimidation. The civil rights movement in the 1950’s and 60’s was a monumental event in American history. The large amount of legislation passed in accordance with this movement was greatly outnumbered by the many horrendously, violent acts that occurred throughout it. Judicial decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 should have been able to inspire hope within black communities. Yet the brutality of events such as the murder of Emmett Till and Medgar Evens, as well as staunch, white resistance like the Southern Manifesto, kept many African Americans desire for freedom repressed by their desire for safety. The civil rights movement was opposed with some of the most unrelenting resistance in the state of Mississippi. Organizations tackling integration in Mississippi were met with unyielding violence and discrimination, by both citizens and local officials. â€Å"†¦going into Mississippi to organize was not like going to any other state in the South. Mississippi w as the heart and soul of segregation. It resisted integration more fiercely than any of the other southern states.† Legislation passed and judicial decisions continued to be made in favor of civil rights but the federal government failed to enforce these successfully. As early as 1947 the President’s Commission on Civil Rights declared, â€Å"The very fact that these outrages [lynching] c... ...ce equal rights eventually became the standard in Mississippi and throughout the South. Works Cited 1. R. Edward Nordhaus, â€Å"S. N. C. C. and the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi, 1963-64: A Time of Change,† The History Teacher, Vol. 17, No. 1 (November 1983), 95. 2. Eric Foner, "The United States and the Cold War, 1945 – 1953," in Voices of freedom: a documentary history. Third ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011), 232. 3. Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi, (New York: Random House, 1968), 413. 4. Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi, 403. 5. Nordhaus, â€Å"S. N. C. C. and the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi,† 96 6. Eric Foner, "An Affluent Society, 1953 - 1960," in Voices of freedom: a documentary history. Third ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011), 253. 7. Nordhaus, â€Å"S. N. C. C. and the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi,† 97

jackie robinson :: essays research papers

The Immigration Act of 1924 declared this, â€Å"the number of each nationality who may be admitted annually is limited to 2 per cent of the population of such nationality resident in the united states according to the census of 1890† (A). There are many reasons why this was passed. Those Reasons being; the loss of American jobs, the inability to easily assimilate immigrants, and the prejudice of the groups and people of the time.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One reason for the passing of the Immigration Act of 1924 is the loss of American jobs. Immigrants of the time came to the United States looking to increase his lot in life, to become a better more wealthier man. â€Å"The standard of living of the working classes of the United States has been and still is superior to that of the nations which have furnished the bulk of the immigrants† (C). The only problem with the immigrants coming to America to work was the fact that there simply was not enough jobs for both the unemployed American workers and the immigrants. This causes a problem for the Americans as the immigrants take lower wages than that of the average worker. Naturally the business owners will hire the cheaper labor thus leaving the American worker unemployed. Many labor organizations such as the American Federation of Labor and the Junior Order of United American Mechanists (H) backed the act for just this reason; American jobs were going to immig rants fresh off the boat.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The immigrants getting these ‘American jobs’ were not, and did not in some cases want to be easily assimilated. â€Å"These alien peoples are temperamentally and racially unfitted for easy assimilation; that they are living in an age two or three centuries behind ours. They are white, they can read a few lines, and they have a few dollars - so in they come. We need three generations to educate, to crossbreed with Western strains and to assimilate a large number of those that we have here now† (F). Education seemed not to be the only problem. Many educated second generations immigrant men were still, racially and temperamentally, part of their nationality. Therefore the conclusion of this is that the United States needs to limit the amount of immigrants it lets in every day, week, month, and year. â€Å"The rank and file of these unassimilated aliens still live mentally in the ghetto or as peasants on the great estates.

Internet Censorship in China

FYC Ruoxuan (Catherine) Yuan Internet Censorship has negative effects on China Censorship in China has gained much attention recently because of the conflict between Google and the Chinese government’s self-censorship policies. In fact, censorship has been practiced since ancient China and the intensity only increases by the years. Nowadays, the most notable measure of censorship is being done on the Internet. More and more restrictions have been put into actions by the Chinese government, which make the life of Chinese Internet users, the Chinese netizens, very inconvenient. With the intensity of censorship increasing and the censoring technology improving, Internet censorship has mainly negative effects on Chinese society. To start off, the current censorship situation needs to be described. In China, censorship is determined by the ruling party, the Communist Party of China, so Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, special administrative regions that are mostly self-governing, are not fully affected by it. But in mainland China, Internet censorship has great impacts on the society. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, which people use everyday around the world, are banned in mainland China. Every time a Chinese netizen tries to open these sites, a blank page with bold words â€Å"404 not found† appears. This is very inconvenient for Chinese netizens. Moreover, the number of websites that are inaccessible is increasing. Also, Chinese government has forced search engines to adopt the self-censorship policies that force them to filter the search results for certain words. This triggered the withdrawal of Google from the mainland Chinese market. Attempting to search those â€Å"sensitive† terms not only results in little or no information being displayed but also in the shutdown of one’s Internet connection for a short period of time. Some people even suspect that doing so may lead to being spied on and arrested by the government. With so many coercive protocols, Internet censorship affects China in many different aspects, especially in economy, politics and culture. First of all, to boost the national economy, the Chinese government believes that using Internet censorship for economic protectionism is a good method. However, Internet censorship actually hinders the development of economy inside China. No matter in which nation, the best way to improve its economy is to utilize the most updated technologies and to focus on scientific innovations. China has always emphasized the development of science and technology and on learning the latest innovations from foreign countries, and the ex-leader of China Xiaoping Deng famously claimed that science and technology constitute the primary productive forces. However the new technology and innovations need a market of free competition in order to expand their influence and earn more benefits. Without good management ideas and marketing theories, these technologies cannot be applied properly in order to produce qualified commodities. This is exactly what the Chinese Internet censorship has caused. According to the national condition of China, a market combining socialism and capitalism is needed to rejuvenate the economy. However, the Chinese government proclaims its socialist ideology and promotes local businesses in a socialist manner and refuses the influx of some constructive theories, which may contain capitalist ideas in order to â€Å"maintain the stability of the Communist Party and to create a harmonious society. The restricted and narrow-minded economy strategy of the Chinese government, resulted from the Internet censorship, has undermines the development of the Chinese economy. The Chinese Internet censorship not only blocks useful information, but also interrupts communication between companies, therefore negatively affecting the Chinese economy. Nowadays the re is growing cooperation among companies from different countries, which is an important way to promote economic growth in a nation. However, the partial blocking of popular email services and the shutdown of multiple chat rooms has created many problems for local business contact with foreign ones. A famous example took place in May 2006, when Chinese netizens encountered difficulty connecting to Hotmail, which is an important method to communicate with foreign partners, since it is used all around the world. Also, soon after this event, Chinese netizens again reported that the access to POP mailboxes in many mail providers was difficult. Although Chinese netizens have tried to use blogs and forums to maintain communication, many blogs have been blocked ever since then, including Xanga and the LiveJournal. This makes international cooperation difficult. From this, the efficiency of producing commodities and the quality of the products in China cannot catch up with international standards, thus the Chinese economy suffers. Internet censorship and the requirement of self-censorship not only harm the economy inside China, but also are negatively affecting China in aspects of international commercial trade, even as globalization becomes the trend of today’s world. Chinese Internet censorship is applied to both directions; not only blocks Chinese Internet users’ access to certain foreign websites, but also prevents foreigners from knowing the truth about China through refusal of releasing reliable information. So when foreign companies want to enter the Chinese market, they face a serious question: â€Å"How do you assess an investment opportunity if no reliable information about social tensions, corruption or local trade unions is available? † It is impossible. All this information is necessary for a company to make wise decisions, to figure out a general plan and to find strategies that suit this market. Since most companies do not dare to enter a new market without analyzing and planning ahead, in this way, China lost the potential influx of many investments, technologies, and new management ideas. Even though some corporations were brave enough to challenge the Chinese market due to the lack of information and the restricted policies, most of them have failed. Examples are many, especially when concerning the Internet companies. â€Å"Many Internet giants have retreated from the country†¦ In fact, no major American Internet company has dominated its field in China. These companies, who are â€Å"armed with cash, intellectual property and an ability to manage complex networks and introverted workers,† have failed in the Chinese market. Therefore, it is natural for those companies who are less equipped and less experienced to presume that they will fail as well. Although some scholars assume that China’s restriction may decrease in the future, the block in Februar y 2007 of the French organization Observatoire International des Crises’ website after it posted an article on the risks of trading with China, makes the claim less convincing. This case of censorship, affecting a very specialized site with solely French-language content, shows the government attaches as much importance to the censorship of economic data as political content,† Reporters Without Borders quoted the organization’s comment. Hence, Internet censorship has discouraged foreign business to invest in the Chinese market, and it may keep doing so. Internet censorship has also been used as an efficient tool for economic protectionism in recent years, but the effect may hurt both sides. Renren, (original name is Xiaonei) the Chinese version of Facebook, was founded in 2005, and then in 2009 Facebook was banned in mainland China. Tudou, founded in 2005, and Youku, founded in 2006, both are Chinese versions of YouTube. Their shares of the market greatly increased after YouTube had been banned in 2007. The most notable example occurred when Google decided to quit the Chinese market. After warning in January that it might pull out of China, Google shut its mainland Chinese-language portal and began rerouting searches to its Hong Kong site in late March to avoid self-censorship demands from Beijing. Because China recognized that losing ties to the world's largest global search engine would dampen its innovation and business expansion efforts, and Google certainly wasn't happy at the prospect of losing China's online advertizing market, both sides reached a compromise when China renewed Google’s operating license in July 2010. Yet the damage had been done. Baidu, the Chinese version of Google and China’s top Internet search company, profited greatly and gained a much larger share of the market after Google exited. However, Baidu’s gain is China’s loss. â€Å"The whole industry will become worse. Without competition with Google, Baidu has no motivation to innovate. † said Yu Yang, chief executive of Analysys International, a Beijing research firm. Baidu is known for providing illegal music downloads, although it defended the practice, (Google vs China 2010)saying it simply provides the links. Also, Baidu faced criticism after the local media published reports saying Baidu gave high search rankings to companies selling illegal drugs. Soon after, Baidu signed a multimillion-dollar sponsorship deal with China Central Television, which had broadcast a fake investigative piece on Baidu to â€Å"clear its name†. Furthermore, Baidu is very cooperative with the government’s censorship efforts. So with Google’s absence from China, Chinese citizens are forced to use Baidu, whose ethics are questioned and which will increase the intensity of censorship by following every government order. â€Å"Chinese netizens are the biggest loser in this accident. † Additionally, the lacking of information and the coercive use of native providers caused by Internet censorship affects citizens not only economically, but politically as well. As mentioned in the previous paragraphs, censorship does not only apply to one direction; it affects both Chinese and foreign websites. So the Chinese press cannot post any reports on certain issues online, and they cannot report on those issues in any publications, because the Chinese government has always considered these issues â€Å"sensitive† and capable of â€Å"inciting subversion of the national regime or overthrow of the socialist system. Therefore, when the Internet was first introduced to China, many Chinese netizens discovered that the Internet can be a great way to gain access to foreign press. In this way, they were able to listen to opinions and comments, even critics, from all areas, which is an important step in learning about the government’s advantages and disadvantages and to participate in political lives. However, the Chinese Internet censorship has a focus on neutralizing critical online opinions, especially those that come from foreign press, and the most common way to execute this is to simply make whole websites completely unavailable in mainland China. By doing so, Chinese netizens are unable to know what the international reaction is about a new Chinese policy, or to see the evaluation of China in an international scope and to view the same issue from different sides. For example, the website of BBC, a relatively objective British TV channel, has been banned in mainland China since 2007. Before it was banned, BBC had provided many Chinese citizens access to the latest review on China from an international point of view. CNN, another TV channel, was banned for some time and now is accessible only partially. Chinese censorship policies are applied on Chinese websites as well. Many big Internet companies have to cooperate with the Chinese government, assisting and reinforcing the system of censorship, because they do not want to lose the Chinese Internet market. Therefore, these companies allow the Internet policies to examine their contents and remove anything inappropriate ones right after polices disapprove them. Even worse is that the number of the Internet polices is rumored at more than 50,000. With such an intense level of Internet censorship, critical comments appearing on Internet forums, blogs, and major portals usually are erased within minutes. In this way, Chinese netizens can never gain a full understanding of their own politics and their own government, because all they are exposed to is the government’s propaganda. The function of censorship is focused on preventing Chinese citizens from learning more about past and current failures of the Communist Party and about alternative systems of governance. However, as time passes by, the censored subjects are not limited to the Communist Party any more. Anything about politics can be termed â€Å"sensitive,† and reports on political contents are censored carefully since censorship about news reports is always a focus in the censorship systems. Although censorship does not follow any specific laws or regulations, the censorship system is vigorously implanted and the apparatus of Internet repression has become the most advanced and most extensive in the world. Moreover, Amnesty International notes that China â€Å"has the largest recorded number of imprisoned journalists and cyber-dissidents in the world. The offences of which these people are accused include communicating with groups abroad, opposing the persecution of the Falun Gong, signing online petitions, and calling for reforms and an end to corruption. Under such circumstances, the Chinese netizens can only read reports from the Chinese press which are untruthful and biased; on the other hand, the relatively objective reports from the foreign press are inaccessible. The lack of truthful reports harms the political consciousness of Chinese citizens. If one cannot even know about the truth, he or she cannot be aware of the real situation he or she is facing. For example, the Chinese news report website about the earthquake in Sichuan mainly contains the Communist Party’s propaganda, and lacks useful data or updates of the process on this event. When probing this website, people are more focused on emotions, and they cannot acquire many statistics or real information on the earthquake itself. But when looking at the Japanese news site about the same event, it is clear that its major contents are plain descriptions about the earthquake and the reconstruction process. There are abundant amounts of data, and the reports are largely based on facts and very objective. The American website of the earthquake, although it may not appear to be as objective as its Japanese counterpart, is still very truthful. People can find useful information about the earthquake, and the press also provides some comments and analysis on it. Chinese netizens desperately need the information provided by the foreign press to be politically conscious, but in reality, they cannot gain access to any of these websites, as they are banned by censorship. The government claims that their censorship practices can â€Å"harmonize† society, but in fact, they are only intensifying social conflicts and slowing down the progress of political development. In today’s world, as cultural exchange, which is as important as political communication, becomes more and more frequent, Internet censorship harms China from the perspective of cultural development and cultural communication. A culture is always in a continuous state of change. By communicating and acquiring knowledge from another culture, it is able to learn about the trends of the world’s cultures and update itself. Thus, such a culture will be greatly changed towards a more modern mode. An important compartment of cultural exchange is the exchange of popular culture. With the gradual spread of globalization, popular culture becomes similar across nations and cultures, and the entire world contributes to its further development. In a manner of speaking, popular culture in the world today is a combination of many cultures, each providing its own features and advantages to make the combination attractive to all kinds of people. By contributing to and learning from this popular culture, a nation can improve its own cultural features, thus providing better contents and even leading the trend in the world. However, Chinese Internet censorship inhibits the flow of foreign popular culture into China. A noticeable case is YouTube, an icon for fashion, freedom, individuality and novelty, which has beens inaccessible in mainland China since March 2008, right â€Å"after dozens of videos about protests in Tibet appeared. The issue about Tibet has long been a â€Å"sensitive† topic in China and the Chinese government has used many ways to keep the media out, even if this act is considered violation of the freedom of press. However, in this case denying the access of YouTube not only prevents people from knowing about the issue but also eliminates the communication and interaction between American popular culture and Chinese popular culture. Now it is hard for Chinese netizens to acquire the latest information on fashions in America, and they lose a good chance to be inspired by ideas presented through video clips and to develop their own cultural innovations. In conclusion, Chinese Internet censorship undermines economy improvement, hinders political development, and slows down cultural innovations. Although the Chinese government never admits their censorship policies in public, and although there are no specific laws or regulations addressing the censorship policies, the negative effects caused by Internet censorship are obvious. The president of China, Jintao Hu, vowed to purify the Internet, saying China needed to â€Å"strengthen administration and development of our country’s Internet culture. However, censorship is not the solution, even though the Chinese government does not want to face the reality. It is trying its best to stop people from discovering the truth and to feign a perfect society. Nevertheless, the public cannot be fooled and Chinese citizens are waking from the mirage. A group of former senior Communist party officials in China have criticized the Internet censorship, stating that strict censorship may †Å"sow the seeds of disaster† for China's political transition. Although a government spokesman responded that the government’s rules are â€Å"fully in line† with the rest of the world and that â€Å"no one had been arrested just for writing online content,† reports from the international society opposed this announcement, and Chinese citizens, who are experiencing Internet censorship every day, know the announcement to be a lie. The Chinese people can sense the deep sorrow under the superficial harmony. The nation seems to be prosperous and progressive, but no one knows what unpredictable crisis may happen if the government still insist on the censorship policy so arbitrarily. Although ordinary people may be powerless and vulnerable individually, the strength of the mass cannot be ignored. Chinese netizens have developed some Internet memes to ridicule Internet censorship. Some of them, for example the famous â€Å"Grass Mud Horse,† have become icons of resistance against Internet censorship and have gained media attention globally. These images and slangs cannot change the difficult reality, but they show the citizens’ increasing awareness of problems brought up by censorship. Hence, there is hope that by the effort of the mass, the increasingly pervasive and draconian censorship would end one day, and the government could become as democratic as it always claims to be. Works Cited Barboza, David. â€Å"Baidu’s Gain from Departure Could Be China’s Loss. † New York Times, January 13, 2010. Blum, Suan Debra. Happy news: censorship, nationlism, and language ideology in China. Notre Dame: Ind: The Helen Kellogg Institue for International Studies, 2010. Cheung, Anne S. Y. Self-censorship and the struggle for press freedom in Hong Kong. The Hague, the Netherlands; New York N. Y. Kluwer Law International; Norwell, MA Distributed in North, Central, and South America: Kluwer Law International, 2003. â€Å"China Blocks YouTube After Videos of Tibet Protests Are Posted. † New York Times. March 17, 2008. http://www. nytimes. com/2008/03/17/business/media/17youtube. html? scp=5&sq=youtube%20china&st=cse (accessed November 19, 2010). China. C riminal legislation in the People's Republic of China. Springfield,VA: National Technical Information Service, 1958. China, United States Congressional-Executive Commission on. â€Å"Google and Internet control in China a nexus between human rights and trade? the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, One Hundred Eleventh Congress, second session. Washington, March 24, 2010. â€Å"China, Where U. S. Internet Companies Often Fail. † New York Times. January 15, 2010. http://www. nytimes. com/2010/01/16/technology/16failure. html? ref=baiducom-inc (accessed November 13, 2010). China's Hu vows to â€Å"purify† Internet. Reuters, January 14, 2006. Chovanec, Patrick. â€Å"Al Jazeera: Internet Censorship in China. † January 2, 2010. http://chovanec. wordpress. com/2010/01/02/al-jazeera-internet-censorship-in-china/ (accessed November 14, 2010). CPC, The Central Committee of. . † the annual meeting, the 6th convention for the 16th Central Committee of CPC. Beijing: China, October 11, 2006. Deng, Xiaoping. Science and technology constitute the primary productive force. ex-president of China, 1988. â€Å"French website blocked for warning of risks of investing in China. † Reporters Without Borders. May 30, 2007. http://www. rsf. org/article. php3? id_article=21492 (accessed November 13, 2010). â€Å"French website blocked for warning of risks of investing in China. † Reporters Without Borders. March 30, 2007. http://www. rsf. org/article. php3? d_article=21492 (accessed November 13, 2010). Geoff Dyer, Mure Dickie. â€Å"Chinese Hotmail users suffer disruptions. † Financial Times, May 12, 2006. Human Rights Watch. â€Å"China: ‘race to the bottom’: corporate complicity in Chinese Internet censorship. † 2006: 141. â€Å"Internet freedom. † Background Global Internet Freedom Consortium. http://www. internetfreedom. org/Background (accessed November 20, 2010). Linnee, Susan. Freedom of Expres sion. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2009. News, BBC. China defends internet regulation. Feburary 15, 2006. http://news. bbc. co. uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4715044. stm (accessed May 4, 2010). . Party elders attack China censors. Feburary 14, 2006. http://news. bbc. co. uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4712134. stm (accessed May 4, 2010). Red Hearing. â€Å"Google vs China. † 2010: 1. Reuters. â€Å"Google Exit Appears to Benefit Top China Rival, Baidu,. † New York Times. January 15, 2010. www. nytimes. com/2010/04/30/technology/30baidu. html (accessed November 15, 2010). Richardson, Sophie. â€Å"China’s forbidden zones: shutting the media out of Tibet and other ‘sensitive’ stories. † Human Rights Watch, 2008: 67. Sichuan earthquake. http://topics. nytimes. com/top/news/science/topics/earthquakes/sichuan_province_china/index. tml? scp=1-spot;sq=china%20earthquake;st=cse (accessed November 20, 2010). Watts, Jonathan. â€Å"China's secret Internet pol ice target critics with web of propaganda. † London: The Guardian. June 14, 2005. http://technology. guardian. co. uk/online/news/0,12597,1505988,00. html#article_continue (accessed November 20, 2010). Wines, Michael. â€Å"A Dirty Pun Tweaks China’s Online Censors. † New York Times. March 11, 2009. http://www. nytimes. com/2009/03/12/world/asia/12beast. html? em. . August 8, 2010. http://baike. baidu. com/view/50946. htm (accessed November 14, 2010). . September 26, 2010. http://baike. baidu. om/view/2421360. htm (accessed November 14, 2010). â€Å". † October 15, 2010. http://baike. baidu. com/view/102023. htm (accessed November 20, 2010). . http://www. asahi. com/special/08004/ (accessed November 20, 2010). . http://www. xinhuanet. com/xhwenchuan/ (accessed November 20, 2010). . October 15, 2010. http://baike. baidu. com/view/620774. htm (accessed November 15, 2010). —————————— Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€Ã¢â‚¬â€œ [ 1 ]. Susan Debra Blum, Happy news: censorship, nationalism, and language ideology in China (Notre Dame, Ind: The Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies, 2010). 2 ]. Cheung, Anne S. Y. , Self-censorship and the struggle for press freedom in Hong Kong, (The Hague, the Netherlands; New York N. Y. : Kluwer Law International; Norwell, MA Distributed in North, Central, and South America by Kluwer Law International, 2003). [ 3 ]. United States Congressional-Executive Commission on China, â€Å"Google and Internet control in China a nexus between human rights and trade? †, (paper presented at the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, One Hundred Eleventh

Intellectual Standards

Becoming a Fair-Minded Thinker Weak versus Strong Critical Thinking Critical thinking involves basic intellectual skills, but these skills can be used to serve two incompatible ends: self-centeredness or fair-mindedness. As we are learning the basic intellectual skills that critical thinking entails, we can begin to use those skills in a selfish or in a fair-minded way. For example, when students are taught how to recognize mistakes in reasoning (commonly called fallacies), most students see those mistakes principally in the reasoning they already disapprove of rather than in their own reasoning.They develop some proficiency in making their opponent’s thinking look bad. Liberals see mistakes in the arguments of conservatives; conservatives see mistakes in the arguments of liberals. Believers see mistakes in the thinking of nonbelievers; nonbelievers see mistakes in the thinking of believers. Those who oppose abortion readily see mistakes in the arguments for abortion; those wh o favor abortion readily see mistakes in the arguments against it. We call these thinkers weak-sense critical thinkers.We call the thinking â€Å"weak† because, though it is working well for the thinker in some respects, it is missing certain important higher-level skills and values of critical thinking. Most significantly, it fails to consider, in good faith, viewpoints that contradict its own viewpoint. It lacks fair-mindedness. Another traditional name for the weak-sense thinker is found in the word sophist. Sophistry is the art of winning arguments regardless of whether there are obvious problems in the thinking being used.There is a set of lower-level skills of rhetoric, or argumentation, by which one can make poor thinking look good and good thinking look bad. We see this often in unethical lawyers and politicians who are more concerned with winning than with anything else. They use emotionalism and trickery in an intellectually skilled way. Sophistic thinkers succeed o nly if they do not come up against what we call strong-sense critical thinkers. Strong-sense critical thinkers are not easily tricked by slick argumentation.As William Graham Sumner (1906) said almost a century ago, they cannot be stampeded . . . are slow to believe . . can hold things as possible or probable in all degrees, without certainty and without pain . . . can wait for evidence and weigh evidence . . . can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices†¦ Perhaps even more important, strong-sense critical thinkers strive to be fair- minded. They use thinking in an ethically responsible manner. They work to empathize with the viewpoints of others. They are willing to listen to arguments they do not necessarily hold.They change their views when faced with better reasoning. Rather than using their thinking to manipulate others and to hide from the truth (in a weak-sense way), they use thinking in an ethical, reasonable manner. We believe that the world already has too many ski lled selfish thinkers, too many sophists and intellectual con artists, too many unscrupulous lawyers and politicians who specialize in twisting information and evidence to support their selfish interests and the vested interests of those who pay them.We hope that you, the reader, will develop as a highly skilled, fair-minded thinker, one capable of exposing those who are masters at playing intellectual games at the expense of the well-being of innocent people. We hope as well that you develop the intellectual courage to argue publicly against what is unethical in human thinking. We write this book with the assumption that you will take seriously the fair-mindedness implied by strong-sense critical thinking.To think critically in the strong sense requires that we develop fair-mindedness at the same time that we learn basic critical thinking skills, and thus begin to â€Å"practice† fair-mindedness in our thinking. If we do, we avoid using our skills to gain advantage over othe rs. We treat all thinking by the same high standards. We expect good reasoning from those who support us as well as those who oppose us. We subject our own reasoning to the same criteria we apply to reasoning to which we are unsympathetic.We question our own purposes, evidence, conclusions, implications, and point of view with the same vigor as we question those of others. Developing fair-minded thinkers try to see the actual strengths and weaknesses of any reasoning they assess. This is the kind of thinker we hope this book will help you become. So, right from the beginning, we are going to explore the characteristics that are required for the strongest, most fair-minded thinking. As you read through the rest of the book, we hope you will notice how we are attempting to foster â€Å"strong-sense† critical thinking.Indeed, unless we indicate otherwise, every time we now use the words critical thinking, from this point forward, we will mean critical thinking in the strong sens e. In the remainder of this chapter, we will explore the various intellectual â€Å"virtues† that fair-minded thinking requires. There is much more to fair-mindedness than most people realize. Fair-mindedness requires a family of interrelated and interdependent states of mind. One final point: In addition to fair-mindedness, strong-sense critical thinking implies higher-order thinking.As you develop as a thinker and internalize the traits of mind that we shall soon discuss, you will develop a variety of skills and insights that are absent in the weak-sense critical thinker. As we examine how the various traits of mind are conducive to fair-mindedness, we will also look at the manner in which the traits contribute to quality of thought (in general). In addition to the fairness that strong-sense critical thinking implies, depth of thinking and high quality of thinking are also implied.Weak-sense critical thinkers develop a range of intellectual skills (for example, skills of ar gumentation) and may achieve some success in getting what they want, but they do not develop any of the traits that are highlighted in this chapter. For example, some students are able to use their intelligence and thinking skills to get high grades without taking seriously the subjects they are studying. They become masters, if you will, of â€Å"beating the system. † They develop test- taking and note-taking skills. They develop their short-term memory.They learn to appeal to the prejudices of their teachers. They become academic sophists— skilled only when functioning on the surface of things. They may even transfer these abilities to other domains of their lives. But such skill development does not entail those skills that presuppose the traits we shall now examine. [pic] Figure 1. 1 Critical thinkers strive to develop essential traits or characteristics of mind. These are interrelated intellectual habits that enable one to open, discipline, and improve mental func tioning. [pic] Figure 1. 2 These are the opposites of the intellectual virtues.Our natural disposition to develop them is an important reason why new need to develop countervailing traits.. Let us turn to the component traits of the strong-sense critical thinker. After we take up each individual trait as that trait stands in relation to fair-mindedness, we will highlight the significance of the trait as a contributor to the general development of high levels of thinking. What Does Fair-Mindedness Require? First, the basic concept: To be fair-minded is to strive to treat every viewpoint relevant to a situation in an unbiased, unprejudiced way.It entails a consciousness of the fact that we, by nature, tend to prejudge the views of others, placing them into â€Å"favorable† (agrees with us) and â€Å"unfavorable† (disagrees with us) categories. We tend to give less weight to contrary views than to our own. This is especially true when we have selfish reasons for opposing views. If, for example, we can ignore the viewpoint of the millions of people in the world who live in extreme poverty, we can avoid having to give up something to help them.Thus fair-mindedness is especially important when the situation calls on us to consider views that we don’t want to consider. Fair-mindedness entails a consciousness of the need to treat all viewpoints alike, without reference to one’s own feelings or selfish interests, or the feelings or selfish interests of one’s friends, community, or nation. It implies adherence to intellectual standards (such as accuracy and sound logic), uninfluenced by one’s own advantage or the advantage of one’s group. The opposite of fair-mindedness is intellectual unfairness.It is demonstrated by the failure of thinkers to feel any responsibility to treat points of view or ways of thinking significantly different from their own by the same standards that they treat their own. Achieving a truly fair-m inded state of mind is challenging. It requires us to simultaneously become intellectually humble, intellectually courageous, intellectually empathetic, intellectually honest, intellectually perseverant, confident in reason (as a tool of discovery and learning), and intellectually autonomous.Without this family of traits in an integrated constellation, there is no true fair-mindedness. But these traits, singly and in combination, are not commonly discussed in everyday life, and are rarely taught. They are not discussed on television. They are not part of the school curriculum. They are not tested in standardized testing. Your friends will not ask you questions about them. In truth, because they are largely unrecognized, these traits are not commonly valued. Yet each of them is essential in fair-mindedness and for development of critical thinking.Let us see how and why this is so. Intellectual Humility: Having Know1edge of Ignorance We will begin with the fair-minded trait of intelle ctual humility. Intellectual humility may be defined as having a consciousness of the limits of one’s knowledge, including a sensitivity to circumstances in which one’s native egocentrism is likely to function self-deceptively. This entails being aware of one’s biases, one’s prejudices, the limitations of one’s viewpoint, and the extent of one’s ignorance. Intellectual humility depends on recognizing that one should not claim more than one actually knows.It does not imply spinelessness or submissiveness. It implies the lack of intellectual pretentiousness, boastfulness, or conceit, combined with insight into the logical foundations, or lack of such foundations, of one’s beliefs. The opposite of intellectual humility is intellectual arrogance, a lack of consciousness of the limits of one’s knowledge, with little or no insight into self-deception or into the limitations of one’s point of view. Intellectually arrogant peopl e often fall prey to their own bias and prejudice, and frequently claim to know more than they actually know.When we think of intellectual arrogance, we are not necessarily implying a person who is outwardly smug, haughty, insolent, or pompous. Outwardly, the person may appear humble. For example, a person who uncritically believes in a cult leader may be outwardly self-effacing (â€Å"I am nothing. You are everything†), but intellectually he or she is making a sweeping generalization that is not well- founded, and has complete faith in that generalization. Unfortunately, in human life people of the full range of personality types are capable of believing they know what they don’t know.Our own false beliefs, misconceptions, prejudices, illusions, myths, propaganda, and ignorance appear to us as the plain, unvarnished truth. What is more, when challenged, we often resist admitting that our thinking is â€Å"defective. † We then are intellectually arrogant, even t hough we might feel humble. Rather than recognizing the limits of our knowledge, we ignore and obscure those limits. From such arrogance, much suffering and waste result. For example, when Columbus â€Å"discovered† North America, he believed that enslaving the Indians was compatible with God’s will.He did not inwardly—as far as we know—recognize that it was only through his intellectual arrogance that he could believe he knew â€Å"God’s will. † Intellectual arrogance is incompatible with fair-mindedness because we cannot judge fairly when we are in a state of ignorance about the object of our judgment. If we are ignorant about a religion (say, Buddhism), we cannot be fair in judging it. And if we have misconceptions, prejudices, or illusions about it, we will distort it (unfairly) in our judgment. We will misrepresent it—make it appear to be other than it is.Our false knowledge, misconceptions, prejudices, and illusions stand in the way of the possibility of our being fair. Or if we are intellectually arrogant, we will be inclined to judge too quickly and be overly confident in our judgment. Clearly, these tendencies are incompatible with being fair (to that which we are judging). Why is intellectual humility essential to higher-level thinking? In addition to helping us become fair-minded thinkers, knowledge of our ignorance can improve our thinking in a variety of ways.It can enable us to recognize the prejudices, false beliefs, and habits of mind that lead to flawed learning. Consider, for example, our tendency to accept superficial learning. Much human learning is superficial. We learn a little and think we know a lot. We get limited information and generalize hastily from it. We confuse memorized definitions with concrete knowledge. We uncritically accept much that we hear and read—especially when what we hear or read agrees with our intensely held beliefs or the beliefs of groups to which we belong .The discussion in the chapters that follow encourages intellectual humility and will help to raise your awareness of intellectual arrogance. See if you, from this moment, can begin to develop in yourself a growing awareness of the limitations of your knowledge and an increasing sensitivity to instances of your inadvertent intellectual arrogance. When you do, celebrate that sensitivity. Reward yourself for finding weaknesses in your thinking. Consider recognition of weakness an important strength, not a weakness. As a starter, answer the following questions: ? Can you construct a list of your most significant prejudices? Think of what you believe about your country, your religion, your friends, your family, simply because others—parents, friends, peer group, media—conveyed these to you. ) ? Do you ever argue for or against views when you have little evidence upon which to base your judgment? ? Do you ever assume that your group (your family, your religion, your nation, your friends) is correct (when it is in conflict with others) even though you have not looked at the situation from the point of view of the others with which you disagree? Intellectual Courage: Being Willing to Challenge BeliefsNow let’s consider intellectual courage. Intellectual courage may be defined as having a consciousness of the need to face and fairly address ideas, beliefs, or viewpoints toward which one has strong negative emotions and to which one has not given a serious hearing. Intellectual courage is connected to the recognition that ideas that society considers dangerous or absurd are sometimes rationally justified (in whole or in part). Conclusions and beliefs inculcated in people are sometimes false or misleading. To determine for oneself what makes sense, one must not passively and uncritically accept what one has learned.Intellectual courage comes into play here because there is some truth in some ideas considered dangerous and absurd, and distortion or f alsity in some ideas strongly held by social groups to which we belong. People need courage to be fair-minded thinkers in these circumstances. The penalties for nonconformity can be severe. The opposite of intellectual courage, intellectual cowardice, is the fear of ideas that do not conform to one’s own. If we lack intellectual courage, we are afraid of giving serious consideration to ideas, beliefs, or viewpoints that we perceive as dangerous.We feel personally threatened by some ideas when they conflict significantly with our personal identity—when we feel that an attack on the ideas is an attack on us as a person. All of the following ideas are â€Å"sacred† in the minds of some people: being a conservative, being a liberal; believing in God, disbelieving in God; believing in capitalism, believing in socialism; believing in abortion, disbelieving in abortion; believing in capital punishment, disbelieving in capital punishment. No matter what side we are on, we often say of ourselves: â€Å"I am a(an) [insert sacred belief here; for example, I am a Christian.I am a conservative. I am a socialist. I am an atheist]. † Once we define who we are in relation to an emotional commitment to a belief, we are likely to experience inner fear when that idea or belief is questioned. Questioning the belief seems to be questioning us. The intensely personal fear that we feel operates as a barrier in our minds to being fair (to the opposing belief). When we do seem to consider the opposing idea, we subconsciously undermine it, presenting it in its weakest form, in order to reject it. This is one form of intellectual cowardice.Sometimes, then, we need intellectual courage to overcome our self-created inner fear—the fear we ourselves have created by linking our identity to a specific set of beliefs. Another important reason to acquire intellectual courage is to overcome the fear of rejection by others because they hold certain beliefs and a re likely to reject us if we challenge those beliefs. This is where we invest the group with the power to intimidate us, and such power is destructive. Many people live their lives in the eyes of others and cannot approve of themselves unless others approve of them.Fear of rejection is often lurking in the back of their minds. Few people challenge the ideologies or belief systems of the groups to which they belong. This is the second form of intellectual cowardice. Both make it impossible to be fair to the ideas that are contrary to our, or our group’s, identity. You might note in passing an alternative way to form your personal identity. This is not in terms of the content of any given idea (what you actually believe) but, instead, in terms of the process by which you came to it. This is what it means to take on the identity of a critical thinker.Consider the following resolution. I will not identify with the content of any belief. I will identify only with the way I come to my beliefs. I am a critical thinker and, as such, am ready to abandon any belief that cannot be supported by evidence and rational considerations. I am ready to follow evidence and reason wherever they lead. My true identity is that of being a critical thinker, a lifelong learner, a person always looking to improve my thinking by becoming more reasonable in my beliefs. With such an identity, intellectual courage becomes more meaningful to us, and fair-mindedness more essential.We are no longer afraid to consider beliefs that are contrary to our present beliefs. We are not afraid of being proven wrong. We freely admit to having made mistakes in the past. We are happy to correct any mistakes we are still making: Tell me what you believe and why you believe it, and maybe I can learn from your thinking. I have cast off many early beliefs. I am ready to abandon as many of the present beliefs as are not consistent with the way things are. Intellectual Empathy: Entering Opposing Views Nex t let’s consider intellectual empathy, another trait of mind necessary to fair- mindedness.Intellectual empathy is an awareness of the need to imaginatively put oneself in the place of others so as to genuinely understand them. To have intellectual empathy is to be able to accurately reconstruct the viewpoints and reasoning of others and to reason from premises, assumptions, and ideas other than one’s own. This trait also correlates with the willingness to remember occasions when one was wrong in the past despite an intense conviction of being right, and with the ability to imagine being similarly deceived in a case at hand. The opposite of intellectual empathy is intellectual self-centeredness. It is thinking centered on self.When we think from a self-centered perspective, we are unable to understand others’ thoughts, feelings, and emotions. From this natural perspective, we are the recipients of most of our attention. Our pain, our desires, our hopes are most pressing. The needs of others pale into insignificance before the domination of our own needs and desires. We are unable to consider issues, problems, and questions from a viewpoint that differs from our own and that, when considered, would force us to change our perspective. How can we be fair to the thinking of others if we have not learned to put ourselves in their intellectual shoes?Fair-minded judgment requires a good-faith effort to acquire accurate knowledge. Human thinking emerges from the conditions of human life, from very different contexts and situations. If we do not learn how to take on the perspectives of others and to accurately think as they think, we will not be able to fairly judge their ideas and beliefs. Actually trying to think within the viewpoint of others is not easy, though. It is one of the most difficult skills to acquire. Intellectual Integrity: Holding Ourselves to the Same Standards to Which We Hold Ourselves Let us now consider intellectual integrity. Intellectual integrity is defined as recognition of the need to be true to one’s own thinking and to hold oneself to the same standards one expects others to meet. It means to hold oneself to the same rigorous standards of evidence and proof to which one holds one’s antagonists—to practice what one advocates for others. It also means to honestly admit discrepancies and inconsistencies in one’s own thought and action, and to be able to identify inconsistencies in one’s own thinking. The opposite of intellectual integrity is intellectual hypocrisy, a state of mind unconcerned with genuine integrity.It is often marked by deep-seated contradictions and inconsistencies. The appearance of integrity means a lot because it affects our image with others. Therefore, hypocrisy is often implicit in the thinking and action behind human behavior as a function of natural egocentric thinking. Our hypocrisy is hidden from us. Though we expect others to adhere to st andards to which we refuse to adhere, we see ourselves as fair. Though we profess certain beliefs, we often fail to behave in accordance with those beliefs. To the extent to which we have intellectual integrity, our beliefs and actions are consistent.We practice what we preach, so to speak. We don’t say one thing and do another. Suppose I were to say to you that our relationship is really important to me, but you find out that I have lied to you about something important to you. My behavior lacks integrity. I have acted hypocritically. Clearly, we cannot be fair to others if we are justified in thinking and acting in contradictory ways. Hypocrisy by its very nature is a form of injustice. In addition, if we are not sensitive to contradictions and inconsistencies in our own thinking and behavior, we cannot think well about ethical questions involving ourselves.Consider this political example. From time to time the media discloses highly questionable practices by the CIA. These practices run anywhere from documentation of attempted assassinations of foreign political leaders (say, attempts to assassinate President Castro of Cuba) to the practice of teaching police or military representatives in other countries (say, Central America or South America) how to torture prisoners to get them to disclose information about their associates.To appreciate how such disclosures reveal a lack of intellectual integrity, we only have to imagine how we would respond if another nation were to attempt to assassinate our president or trained American police or military in methods of torture. Once we imagine this, we recognize a basic inconsistency in our behavior and a lack of intellectual integrity on the part of those who plan, engage in, or approve of, that behavior. All humans sometimes fail to act with intellectual integrity.When we do, we reveal a lack of fair-mindedness on our part, and a failure to think well enough as to grasp the internal contradictions in our tho ught or life. Intellectual Perseverance: Working Through Complexity and Frustration Let us now consider intellectual perseverance. Intellectual perseverance can be defined as the disposition to work one’s way through intellectual complexities despite the frustration inherent in the task. Some intellectual problems are complex and cannot be easily solved. One has intellectual perseverance when one does not give up in the face of intellectual complexity or frustration.The intellectually perseverant person displays firm adherence to rational principles despite the irrational opposition of others, and has a realistic sense of the need to struggle with confusion and unsettled questions over an extended time to achieve understanding or insight. The opposite of intellectual perseverance is intellectual laziness, demonstrated in the tendency to give up quickly when faced with an intellectually challenging task. The intellectually indolent, or lazy, person has a low tolerance for inte llectual pain or frustration.How does a lack of intellectual perseverance impede fair-mindedness? Understanding the views of others requires that we do the intellectual work to achieve that understanding. That takes intellectual perseverance—insofar as those views are very different from ours or are complex in nature. For example, suppose we are a Christian wanting to be fair to the views of an atheist. Unless we read and understand the reasoning of intelligent and insightful atheists, we are not being fair to those views. Some intelligent and insightful atheists have written books to explain how and why they think as they do.Some of their reasoning is complicated or deals with issues of some complexity. It follows that only those Christians who have the intellectual perseverance to read and understand atheists can be fair to atheist views. Of course, a parallel case could be developed with respect to atheists’ understanding the views of intelligent and insightful Chri stians. Finally, it should be clear how intellectual perseverance is essential to almost all areas of higher-level thinking. Virtually all higher-level thinking involves some intellectual challenges that take intellectual perseverance to overcome.It takes intellectual perseverance to learn how to reason well in math, chemistry, physics, literature, art, and indeed any domain. Many give up during early stages of learning a subject. Lacking intellectual perseverance, they cut themselves off from all the insights that thinking through a subject provides. They avoid intellectual frustration, no doubt, but they end up with the everyday frustrations of not being able to solve the complex problems in their daily life. Confidence In Reason: Recognizing that Good Reasoning Has Proven Its Worth Let us now consider the trait of confidence in reason.Confidence in reason, in the long run, is based on the belief that one’s own higher interests and those of humankind at large will be best s erved by giving the freest play to reason, by encouraging people to come to their own conclusions by developing their own rational faculties; faith that, with proper encouragement and cultivation, people can learn to think for themselves, form insightful viewpoints, draw reasonable conclusions, think clearly, accurately, relevantly, and logically, persuade each other by appeal to good reason and sound evidence, and become reasonable persons, despite the deep-seated obstacles in human nature and social life. When one has confidence in reason, one is â€Å"moved† by reason in appropriate ways. The very idea of reasonability becomes one of the most important values and a focal point in one’s life. In short, to have confidence in reason is to use good reasoning as the fundamental criterion by which to judge whether to accept or reject any belief or position. The opposite of confidence in reason is intellectual distrust of reason, given by the threat that reasoning and rati onal analysis pose to the undisciplined thinker. Being prone toward emotional reactions that validate resent thinking, egocentric thinkers often express little confidence in reason. They do not understand what it means to have faith in reason. Instead, they have confidence in the truth of their own belief systems, however flawed they might be. In many ways we live in an irrational world surrounded by many forms of irrational beliefs and behaviors. For example, despite the success of science in providing plausible explanations based on careful study of evidence gathered through careful and disciplined observations, many people still believe in unsubstantiated systems such as astrology. Many people, when faced with a problem, follow their â€Å"gut† impulses.Many follow leaders whose only claim to credibility is that they are skilled in manipulating a crowd and whipping up enthusiasm. Few people seem to recognize the power of sound thinking in helping us to solves our problems and live a fulfilling life. Few people, in short, have genuine confidence in reason. In the place of faith in reason, people tend to have uncritical or â€Å"blind† faith in one or more of the following. They often— but not always—have this faith as a result of irrational drives and emotions: 1. Faith in charismatic national leaders (think of leaders such as Hitler, able to excite millions of people and manipulate them into supporting genocide of an entire religious group). 2.Faith in charismatic cult leaders. 3. Faith in the father as the traditional head of the family (as defined by religious or social tradition). 4. Faith in institutional authorities (police, social workers, judges, priests, evangelical preachers, and so forth). 5. Faith in spiritual powers (such as a â€Å"holy spirit,† as defined by various religious belief systems). 6. Faith in some social group, official or unofficial (faith in a gang, in the business community, in a church, in a p olitical party, and so on). 7. Faith in a political ideology (such as communism, capitalism, Fascism). 8. Faith in intuition. 9. Faith in one s unanalyzed emotions. 10.Faith in one’s gut impulses. 11. Faith in fate (some unnamed force that supposedly guides the destiny of all of us). 12. Faith in social institutions (the courts, schools, business community, government). 13. Faith in the folkways or mores of a social group or culture. 14. Faith in one’s own unanalyzed experience. 15. Faith in people who have social status or position (the rich, the famous, the powerful). Some of the above are compatible under some conditions, with faith in reason. The key factor is the extent to which some form of faith is based on sound reasoning and evidence. The acid test, then, is: Are there good grounds for having that faith?For example, it makes sense to have faith in a friend if that friend has consistently acted as a friend over an extended time. On the other hand, it does not m ake sense to have faith in a new acquaintance, even if one finds oneself emotionally attracted to that individual and that person professes his or her friendship. As you think about your own thinking on the nature of different kinds of faith, and the extent to which you have appropriate confidence in reason and evidence, ask yourself to what extent you can be moved by well-reasoned appeals. Suppose you meet someone who shows so much of an interest in your boyfriend or girlfriend that you feel intensely jealous and negative toward that person.Would you shift your view if you receive evidence by a dependable friend that the person you are negative about is actually exceptionally kind, thoughtful, and generous? Do you think you could shift your view, even when, deep-down, you want your boyfriend or girlfriend to reject this person in favor of you? Have you ever given up a belief you held dear because, through your reading, experience, and reflection, you became persuaded that it was no t reasonable to believe as you did? Are you ready and willing to admit that some of your most passionate beliefs (for example, your religious or political beliefs) may in fact be â€Å"wrong†? Intellectual Autonomy: Being an Independent Thinker The final intellectual trait we will consider here is intellectual autonomy.Intellectual autonomy may be defined as internal motivation based on the ideal of thinking for oneself: having rational self-authorship of one’s beliefs, values, and way of thinking; not being dependent on others for the direction and control of one’s thinking. In forming beliefs, critical thinkers do not passively accept the beliefs of others. Rather, they think through situations and issues for themselves and reject unjustified authorities while recognizing the contributions of reasonable authority. They thoughtfully form principles of thought and action and do not mindlessly accept those presented to them. They are not limited by accepted ways of doing things. They evaluate the traditions and practices that others often accept unquestioningly.Independent thinkers strive to incorporate knowledge and insight into their thinking, independent of the social status of the source. They are not willful, stubborn, or unresponsive to the reasonable suggestions of others. They are self-monitoring thinkers who strive to amend their own mistakes. They function from values they themselves have freely chosen. Of course, intellectual autonomy must be understood not as a thing-in-itself. Instead, we must recognize it as a dimension of our minds working in conjunction with, and tempered by, the other intellectual virtues. The opposite of intellectual autonomy is intellectual conformity, or intellectual dependence.Intellectual autonomy is difficult to develop because social institutions, as they now stand, depend heavily on passive acceptance of the status quo, whether intellectual, political, or economic. Thinking for oneself almost certai nly leads to unpopular conclusions not sanctioned by the powers that be. There are always many rewards for those who simply conform in thought and action to social expectations. Consequently, the large masses of people are unknowing conformists in thought and deed. They are like mirrors reflecting the belief systems and values of those who surround them. They lack the intellectual skills and the incentive to think for themselves. They are intellectually conforming thinkers. Even those who spend years getting a Ph. D. in a field may be intellectually dependent, both academically and personally.They may uncritically accept faulty practices in the discipline as it stands, uncritically defending the discipline against legitimate critics. The result often is unwarranted human harm and suffering. One cannot be fair-minded and lack intellectual autonomy, for independent thinking is a prerequisite to thinking within multiple perspectives. When we intellectually conform, we are only able to think within â€Å"accepted† viewpoints. But to be fair-minded is to refuse to uncritically accept beliefs without thinking through the merits (and demerits) of those beliefs for oneself. Recognizing the Interdependence of Intellectual Virtues The traits of mind essential for critical thinking are interdependent. Consider intellectual humility.To become aware of the limits of our knowledge, we need the intellectual courage to face our own prejudices and ignorance. To discover our own prejudices in turn, we often must intellectually empathize with and reason within points of view with which we fundamentally disagree. To achieve this end, we typically must engage in intellectual perseverance, as learning to empathically enter a point of view against which we are biased takes time and significant effort. That effort will not seem justified unless we have the necessary confidence in reason to believe we will not be tainted or â€Å"taken in† by whatever is false or mislead ing in the opposing viewpoint.Furthermore, merely believing we won’t be harmed by considering â€Å"alien† viewpoints is not enough to motivate most of us to consider them seriously. We also must be motivated by an intellectual sense of justice. We must recognize an intellectual responsibility to be fair to views we oppose. We must feel obliged to hear them in their strongest form to ensure that we are not condemning them out of ignorance or bias on our part. At this point, we come full circle to where we began: the need for intellectual humility. To begin at another point, consider intellectual integrity or good faith. Intellectual integrity is clearly a difficult trait to develop. We are often motivated—generally without admitting to or being aware of this motivation— to set up inconsistent standards in thinking.Our egocentric or sociocentric tendencies, for example, make us ready to believe positive information about those we like and negative informat ion about those we dislike. We likewise are strongly inclined to believe what serves to justify our selfish interests or validate our strongest desires. Hence, all humans have some innate mental tendencies to operate with double standards, which is typical of intellectual bad faith. These modes of thinking often correlate quite well with getting ahead in the world, maximizing our power or advantage, and getting more of what we want. Nevertheless, it is difficult to operate explicitly or overtly with a double standard. We therefore need to avoid looking at the evidence too closely.We need to avoid scrutinizing our own inferences and interpretations too carefully. At this point, a certain amount of intellectual arrogance is quite useful. I may assume, for example, that I know just what you’re going to say (before you say it), precisely what you are really after (before the evidence demonstrates it), and what actually is going on (before I have studied the situation carefully). My intellectual arrogance makes it easier for me to avoid noticing the unjustifiable discrepancy between the standards I apply to you and the standards I apply to myself. Not having to empathize with you makes it easier to avoid seeing my self-deception.I also am better positioned if I lack a need to be fair to your point view. A little background fear of what I might discover if I seriously consider the consistency of my own judgments can be quite useful as well. In this case, my lack of intellectual integrity is supported by my lack of intellectual humility, empathy, and fair-mindedness. Going in the other direction, it will be difficult to use a double standard if I feel a responsibility to be fair to your point of view, to see that this responsibility requires me to view things from your perspective empathically, and to do so with some humility, recognizing that I could be wrong, and you, right. The more I dislike you personally, or feel wronged in he past by you or by others wh o share your way of thinking, the more pronounced in my character the trait of intellectual integrity and good faith must be to compel me to be fair. Conclusion True excellence in thinking is not simple the result of isolated intellectual skills. There are inevitable problems in the thinking of persons who, without knowing it, lack the intellectual virtues. Instead, they frequently display the traits of the undisciplined mind. To the extent one is unconsciously motivated to believe what one wants to believe, what is most comfortable to believe, what puts one in a good light, what serves one’s selfish interest, one is unable to function as a rational person.