Reading of the modernists involved such a process of disturbance Essay Example for Free

Reading of the modernists involved such a process of disturbance Essay Modernist writers disturbed their readers by adopting complex and difficult new forms and styles. To what extent has your reading of the modernists involved such a process of disturbance? Modernist literature flaunts difficult, often aggressive or disruptive, forms and styles; it frequently challenges traditional realistic style and is characterised by a rejection of 19th century traditions. Literary modernism focuses on breaking away from rules and conventions, searching for new perspectives and points of view, experimenting in form and style. It breaks up and disturbs the settled state of literature and emphasises a re-structuring of literature and the experience of reality it represents. Although art always attempts to imitate or represent reality, what changed was the understanding of what constitutes reality, and how that reality could best be represented. Modernist literature is marked by a break with the sequential, developmental, cause-and-effect presentation of the reality of realist fiction, towards a presentation of experience as layered, allusive, and discontinuous: using, to these ends, fragmentation and juxtaposition, motif, symbol, allusion. From time to time there occurs some revolution, or sudden mutation of form and content in literature. Then, some way of writing which has been practiced for a generation or more, is found by a few people to be out of date, and no longer to respond to contemporary modes of thought, feeling and speechtradition has been flouted, and chaos has come.1 This process of disturbance can be seen in the experimentation in form in order to present differently the structure, the connections, and the experience of life. The tightening of form puts an emphasis on cohesion, interrelatedness and depth in the structure of the novel. This is accomplished in part through the use of various devices such as symbolism, narrative perspectives, shifts and overlays in time and place and perspective. Woolf uses these methods to explore what lies outside the specification of the real. Woolf draws on an interior and symbolic landscape: the world is moved inside, structured symbolically and metaphorically, as opposed to the realist representations of the exterior world as a physical and historical, site of experience. The painter Jacques Raverat wrote in a correspondence to Woolf: The problem with writing is that it is essentially linear; it is almost impossible, in a sequential narrative, to express the way ones mind responds to an idea, a word or an experience, where, like a pebble being thrown in to a pond, splashes in the outer air are accompanied under the surface by waves that follow one another into dark and forgotten corners2 Woolf felt it was precisely the task of the writer to go beyond a linear representation of reality in order to show how people think and dream. Rather than take her characters from point A to point B, Woolf gives the impression of simultaneous connections: a form patterned like waves in a pond. She reveals what is important about her characters by exploring their minds and the thoughts of those surrounding them. Such explorations lead to complex connections between people, between past and present, and between interior and exterior experience. Woolf establishes these connections through metaphors and imagery, and structures the novel using alternating images of beauty and despair, exhilaration and melancholy. These juxtapositions suggest both the impulse towards life and the impulse towards death, which makes the process of reading disconcerting and recondite. Woolf dispensed with conventional beginnings and endings, and the traditional structure of events in time, for example, Mrs Dalloway tells about one days experiences for two characters whose lives are not connected with each other, except by the slightest coincidence at the end. Woolf uses perceived time interwoven with clock time to create a simultaneous experience of past and present. The scene is London after the war, but also Bourton thirty years ago. In this commingling of time, the past exists on its own and in its relations to the present. Time is moved into the interior as well: it becomes psychological time, time as an innerly experienced or symbolic time, or time as it accommodates a symbolic rather than a chronological reality. Examining the intersection of time and timelessness, Woolf creates a new and disturbing novelistic structure in Mrs. Dalloway wherein her prose has blurred the distinction between dream and reality, between the past and present. An authentic human being functions in this manner, simultaneously flowing from the conscious to the unconscious, from the fantastic to the real, and from memory to the moment. Throughout Mrs Dalloway the focus continually shifts from the external world to the characters consciousness and how they perceive it. This has the disquieting effect of back grounding observable reality so the details emerge more slowly than when they are presented by an omniscient narrator. However, the London setting is established immediately, the streets and landmarks are real, this verisimilitude of setting seems to give the characters a solidity which is juxtaposed with the fluidity of the depiction of the characters thought processes. Mrs Dalloway supposes that somehow in the streets of London, on the ebb and flow of things, here, there, she survived3 The fact that the narrative takes place on a specific date is disclosed more gradually than the setting is, for example, Clarissa thinks For it was the middle of June. The war was over4 and then the narrator tells us it is Wednesday on page fifteen. Later still Peter Walshs thoughts reveal that it is 19235. There are also references to Gold cup day at Ascot so by naming a specific year Woolf turns what could have been a fictional fact in to a real one. Woolf implies a concept of time as a series of life conjunctures rather than impersonal. These are established by the presence of sensory phenomena in different contexts such as the sound of Big Ben, the common perceptions among unrelated observers, for instance, the prime ministers car. Also, by convergences at occasions of group activities as in Clarissas party. Time seems relativistic in the sense it depends on systems of measurement. The clocks divide the day into quarter hours. The loud voice of Big Ben is associated with the masculine. It is described as a young man, strong, indifferent, inconsiderate, were swinging dumb-bells this way and that6. It marks the movements of the two doctors, Peter Walsh and Sir Richard as they move through their day, making pronouncements. St Margarets on the other hand is the feminine. It follows Big Bens booming leaden circles with ring after ring of sound that glides into the heart like a hostess, like Clarissa herself7 thinks Peter Walsh as he hears St Margarets peeling sound. Furthermore, The clocks divide time into a pattern, Shredding and slicing, dividing and subdividing, the clocks of Harley Street nibbled at the June day, counselled submission, upheld authority, and pointed out in chorus the supreme advantages of a sense of proportion8 The ringing of the clock bells radiates from the centre of the city. The sound creates a design in the texture of the narrative, slicing through the characters subjective experience of time and contrasting this with objective, exterior time. In To The Lighthouse many of the characters are preoccupied with time. Mr. Ramsay worries about how his philosophical work will stand the test of time, just as Lily expects her painting to be rolled up and forgotten. The very style of the novel brings time into question as Woolf infuses even a brief moment in an everyday event, such as reading a story to a child, with an infinitude of thought and memory 9 Meanwhile days, tides, and seasons keep up their rhythms regardless of human events, while historical time brings cataclysmic change in the form of war. In addition, time brings loss as well as renewal. Mrs. Ramsay dies, while the children she has left behind continue to grow. In To the Lighthouse Woolf depicts two contrasting kinds of time, the linear and regular plodding of clock or objective time, and the reiterative, non-linear time of human experience. Her depiction of subjective time, layered and complex was, critics have observed, not unlike that of the philosopher Henri Bergson, though there is no evidence of any direct influence. It is in the Time Passes section of the novel that Woolfs interest in the contrasting forms of temporality is most evident. The narrative style of this part is very unusual and is unlike that of Parts I and III. Its effort to narrate from what Woolf called an eyeless point of view is strange, it is as if she is thinking of the philosophical problem, the problem with which Mr Ramsay grapples in the novel, of how to think of the world when there is no one there. This is translated into an artistic problem, of how to narrate the passage of time when there is no one there to witness it. The scale of events in Time Passes is much grander than the scale in The Window, thus throughout this section Woolf employs a different method and uses parenthetical asides to impart important news. Instead of focusing on the thoughts of her characters, she keeps a tight focus on the house itself. Dramatic events such as Mrs. Ramsays death could not have been confronted in the style of The Window. as the subtle, everyday quality of the interactions between events and thoughts would have been disturbed by the introduction of the tumultuous news imparted here. The airs in this section of the novel are like times fingers. The constant, regular beam of the Lighthouse is closely allied with time, too, like an all-seeing and immortal eye. Puffs of air detached from the body of the wind10 pull at the loose wallpaper and the things in the house, the light from the Lighthouse guiding them through the house. Natural time is seen as objective and inhuman, it is destructive and violent in the sense that it has no concern for human purposes. Woolfs solution to this problem is to invent a poetic style that, ironically, relies heavily upon the devices of personification and animism. The shadows of the trees made obeisance on the wall, loveliness and stillness clasped hands in the bedroom, light bent to its own image in adoration on the bedroom wall and in the heat of the summer the wind sent its spies about the house again11. It can be questioned whether these devices are successful. It is as if Woolf wishes to fill the emptiness of inhuman nature with primitive animistic entities and malign agencies. The solution can seem oddly childlike, personification and animism being, as Freud pointed out, typical of infantile thought12. The problem illustrates, perhaps, the difficulty of avoiding images of human agency even when they are least necessary. In Mrs Dalloway during sections of mind-time, Woolf sets various time streams loose at once, either in the mind of one character, who retreats into internal soliloquy, collapsing past, present and future, or in the simultaneous perspectives given by several characters recording a single moment. The result of either technique is that plot time stands still.13 Time is not entirely subjective and elastic in this text, however. The novel does take place within a prescribed temporal context marked ominously by the booming of Big Ben: First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. Throughout the novel this chronology is inescapable, cutting through the characters thoughts of the past to bring them back to the present moment Auerbach points out that To the Lighthouse marks the end of the Western tradition of realism. He argues that the novel employs a new fashion of temporality. It is the gap between the brief span of time occupied by exterior events, about two days in The Window, and the rich, dreamlike realm of consciousness. The exterior events actually lost the hegemony over subjectivity14. The novel proves the insignificance of exterior events by holding to minor, unimpressive things like stockings, while keeping in minimum the descriptions of such great events as death and marriage. To the Lighthouse is thus a disturbing turning point in literature because it discarded any claim to the organic completeness of exterior events and the chronological order. To The lighthouse employs a non-linearity and thus counteracts narratives usual form of depicting events in a continuous succession. Synchronicity, evident in the coexistence of multiple perspectives at the same temporal moment, disturbs the narratives attempt to render the story world as events in succession. And elision, evident in the stories within the story whose endings are invariably left dangling and incomplete, dissolves the narratives attempt to achieve completion. Together, these discordant methods undermine the conventional unfolding of narrative. Woolfs novel employs these techniques of disruption in order to portray narrative continuity as an inescapable yet unattainable illusion. Plot is generated by the inner lives of the characters. Psychological effects are achieved through the use of imagery, symbol, and metaphor. Character unfolds by means of the ebb and flow of personal impressions, feelings, and thoughts. Thus, the inner lives of human beings and the ordinary events in their lives are made to seem extraordinary. These complex and new methods that attempt to depict the chaotic interior life appear more jumbled and perplexing than the classical realist novel and so seem disturbing. However, Woolf is attempting to create a realistic account of the inner processes of the individuals mind and an expression of the continuous flow of sense perceptions, thoughts and feelings. Woolf also employs the symbolic apprehension and comprehension of reality as a structural approach to experience. It marked a turning away from writing by observation to transforming fact into a symbol of inner experience. In her diary Woolf wrote What interests me in the last stage was the freedom and boldness with which my imagination picked up, used and tossed aside all the images, symbols which I had prepared. I am sure this is the right way of using them-not in set piecesbut simply as images, never making them work out; only suggest 15 To The Lighthouse assumes a structure similar to that found in the fictional scene of the painting. In a letter Woolf acknowledges the structure and its unifying symbol as enacted at the end. I meant nothing by The Lighthouse. One has to have a central line down the middle of the book to hold the design together.16 In To The Lighthouse the Lighthouse has a prominent but fluid symbolic place in the novel. It does not seem to be the key to some hidden allegory since it does not stand for just one thing, each character that contemplates the Lighthouse gives it a special meaning, its significance in the novel evolves as the sum of different parts. For the teenaged James, the Lighthouse is a stark symbol of masculinity, a phallic symbol. For Mrs. Ramsay, the Lighthouse is a watching eye sweeping through her thoughts with a regular rhythm. To Woolf, the Lighthouse seems to serve as an anchor, a unifying image that ties together the layers of time and thought she explores. Like the clock striking the hours in Mrs. Dalloway, images of the Lighthouse act as the bolts of iron17 holding the different strands of the novel together. The focus of the planned excursion is not named until page eight and from then onwards the Lighthouse always appears with a capital letter. It is conventional to capitalize words referring to abstractions, particularly in philosophical writing. This feature has the effect of elevating the significance of the place, as if Lighthouse were an abstract concept like Truth or Death. The Lighthouse makes its first appearance in the text in very lyrical terms. The domestic metaphors used to describe the scene, which are perhaps Mrs. Ramsays associations; the island is in a plateful of blue water, and the dunes are arranged in pleats18. The first influence of the lighthouse is the description of Jamess excitement The wonder to which he had looked forward, for years and years19 The lighthouse already seems to have gained a greater significance than its mere physical existence. It is an object of desire to James. However, his reaction to Mrs Ramseys promise shows that there is a separation between his dream of happiness (going to the lighthouse) and his dull, everyday experience of life. Prosaically, the lighthouse is a real thing, yet James has made it into an unattainable dream, which he does not expect to come true. James seems to be in a crisis because there is a prospect that his ideal world and real world will become the same and he will go to the lighthouse. Therefore, the wondrous aura of the lighthouse is attached to mundane things. James endows a picture of a refrigerator with a heavenly bliss. It was filled with joy20 this implies that fantasies bring relief from the dullness of everyday life, as long as there is the prospect that they will come true. However, James is one of that great clan21 who live for the future but if future ideals cloud the view of reality then there is an implicit suggestion that achieving ones desire presents a danger in that there would be nothing left to live for. Conversely, people must have some hope of achieving their ideal, or life would become futile. Woolfs symbol of the lighthouse expresses this paradoxical idea in that it represents both an idealised fantasy while also being a real lighthouse. It becomes a trigger, provoking the reader to think about the human tendency to live for a future fantasy, together with all the paradoxical emotions Woolf conveys as associated with that tendency. James looked at the Lighthouse. He could see the white-washed rocks; the tower, stark and straight; he could see that it was barred with black and white; he could see windows in it; he could even see washing spread on the rocks to dry. So that was the Lighthouse, was it? No, the other was also the Lighthouse. For nothing was simply one thing. The other Lighthouse was true too22 James compares the real and the ideal and decides that the Lighthouse can be both. He provides a useful key for deciphering the symbol of the Lighthouse, for nothing was simply one thing23. The Lighthouse is the object of striving, some mystical, distant entity with an all-seeing eye. At the same time it is the embodiment of isolation and sadness, linked with Jamess desolate image of himself and his father as lonely and apart from other people The fact that the Lighthouse is a frequent subject for artists adds to its symbolic import. The tightening of form puts an emphasis on cohesion, interrelatedness and depth in the structure, Woolf engages both the subject of art, Lily Briscoes painting, for example and the aim of philosophy, in Mr. Ramsays work. The Lighthouse was then a silvery, misty-looking tower with a yellow eye, that opened suddenly, and softly in the evening.24 Mrs. Ramsay incorporates the Lighthouses regularly appearing light into the pattern of her thoughts. She recognizes that she is doing this, that she is making the things she sees part of herself, as if the Lighthouse was an eye looking at her. The light strokes also serve to highlight certain cadences in her thought, heightening their meaning by repetition The parallels developing in this section between Lilys actions and reflections and the impending trip to the Lighthouse suggest that Lilys revelation, her moment of clarity and stability, is her own version of the Lighthouse, the thing toward which she has been striving 25. Woolf builds upon the same metaphors and imagery through repetition and association to give them symbolic value of their own. There are repetitions of key images: water, waves, and sea; webs, ties, and threads; and trees through the novels. In Mrs Dalloway words are used in very certain terms in relation to life. They are used repeatedly throughout the rest of the novel, and built upon as metaphors until they stand alone to symbolize life. The sense of being absorbed in the process of action is inseparable from the fear of being excluded from it and from the dread that the process is going to be interrupted. The metaphor of the interrupter and the solemn pause, indicating a fear of being interrupted, are developed throughout the novel. Clarissas sewing is depicted in a rhythmic wave of building, creating, and making. These images recur throughout the novel as they gain symbolic significance. Sewing is a metaphor often used to denote womens creative capacity and symbolizes both artistry and the creation of life. The wave provides both a sense of calm and fulfillment, yet maintains a suspenseful pause before a crash or interruption Mrs. Dalloway has an unpleasant feeling she cannot place. After taking a moment to think, she realizes this feeling is attached to something Peter had said, combined with her own depression26. She realizes it is her parties. Her unpleasant feeling is attached to the criticism she receives from both Richard and Peter about her parties. Clarissa privately defends her parties. She sees them as an offering, a term she is able to recognize as vague and goes on to define. She is offering a connection. She gives meaning to life by feeling the existence of others and offering a way to bring them together, offering them a chance of connection. While sitting on the couch, Septimus notices a shadow on the wall. Fear no more the heat o the sun. This phrase, which acts as a calming device, enters his head. Suddenly, he is not afraid. He sits up and takes an interest in what Lucrezia is doing. She is making a hat. More significantly, she is creating and building Rezias creation of the hat, like Clarissas sewing, symbolizes not only the creation of life, but also more specifically, the female ability to create life But this hat now. And then (it was getting late) Sir William Bradshaw27 Woolf uses this one symbolic line as a metaphor for the transition from life, represented in the making of the hat and death, suggested by Bradshaw, the symbol of the souls containment and the character who ultimately provides Septimus with the impetus to kill himself. Woolf uses a great deal of imagery; her similes often begin as a straightforward comparison, which is then elaborated. This moves the ideas away from the physical reality of the narrative and towards mental events, emotions and ideas providing a bridge between the plot and the interior consciousness of the characters. The reader is shown the dilemma of how to create a meaningful sequence and the impossibility of essentially finding an explicit formal system of how to represent objects and concepts, that are assumed to exist, and the relationships between them. The cumulative effect of such repeated notions and images is to establish a systematic network of social elements, such as, human time, space, shared symbols, personal relationships, so as to arrive at a vision of modern life on a national scale. This collective existence is apprehended internally, as its participants experience it. It is both the content and the form used to portray that content which makes reading a disturbing process. The question of the reality of experience itself; the critique of the traditional values of the culture; the loss of meaning and hope in the modern world and the exploration of how this loss may be faced are all themes within Woolfs novels. Subject matter and writing style are the two features that characterise Modernism and this applies to Mrs Dalloway. The themes of Woolfs novels express the angst of Modernism in a precise way and Mrs Dalloway exemplifies the conflict felt in the modern society that produces this angst. The conflict is played out between two forces, one that fragments and disperses social order and causes chaos, and a more stable impulse that looks for unity. Multiple voices, fragmented narrative and stream of consciousness are the stylistic devices of Woolf that convey the themes of conflict, despair and escape in the novel. Mrs Dalloway can be seen as an attempt to critique modern life, however, the novel can seem overwhelmed by the chaos of characters struggling to find meaning in life when death is such a large presence. Another aspect of this novel that is Modernist and can be seen to be disturbing is its withdrawal from the epic novel, the larger historical or temporal frame found in the 19th century novel. In Mrs Dalloway, there is no organising logic from which to draw a secure and comfortable resolution to lifes struggles. The action or plot is restricted to a single day, no large epic journey is possible and while the struggle for life is apparent, there is nothing of the 19th century moral structure to contain and manage the outcomes. Death and despair overwhelm life and its purposes, the narrowness of life is suffocating, and lives are fragmented, anxious, disconnected and misrecognised. To The Lighthouse also undermines what were the conventional expectations attached to novels. Woolf speculated that she might be writing something other than a novel. I have an idea that I will invent a new name for my books to supplant novelBut what? Elegy?28 Her work can be seen as more poetry than fiction as it occupies itself with abstract ideas and experimentation more than with plot and character development Woolf throws into disorder readers expectations of how life can be represented within a novel, and she achieves this through seeking a new mode of expression. It is not that she rejects reality, but rather that she sought to develop a higher type of realism, as if more complex forms would allow for the depiction of a more complex and vivid understanding of reality. Bibliograph. Auerbach, Erich, Mimesis: the representation of reality in Western literature / by Erich Auerbach; translated from the German by Willard Trask. New York: Doubleday/Anchor Books, 1957. Bell, Q, Virginia Woolf: A Biography. London: Hogarth Press, 1972. Eliot, T.S, American Literature and American Language in Selected Essays. London: Faber, 1951. Fleishman, Avrom, Virginia Woolf: A Critical Reading. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975. Lee, Hermione, The Novels of Virginia Woolf. New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1977. Naremore, James, The World Without A Self. London: Yale University Press, 1973. Schulze, Robin. G, Varieties of Mystical Experience in the Writings of Virginia Woolf in Twentieth Century Literature Vol.44. New York: Hofstra University, 1998. Woolf, Virginia. A writers diary: being extracts from the diary of Virginia Woolf edited by Leonard Woolf. London, Hogarth Press, 1953. Woolf. Virginia, Mrs Dalloway. London: Penguin, 1996. Woolf, Virginia, To The Lighthouse. London: Penguin, 1992. 1 Eliot, T.S, American Literature and American Language in Selected Essays. London: Faber, 1951.p. 73. 2 Lee, Hermione, The Novels of Virginia Woolf. New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1977. p.106. 3 Woof, Virginia, Mrs Dalloway. London: Penguin, 1996. p.8. 4 Ibid. p.6. 5 Ibid. p.55. 6 Ibid. p.35. 7 Ibid. p.60. 8 Ibid. p.75. 9 Auerbach, Erich, Mimesis: the representation of reality in Western literature / by Erich Auerbach; translated from the German by Willard Trask. New York: Doubleday/Anchor Books, 1957. p.529. 10 Woolf, Virginia, To The Lighthouse. London: Penguin, 1992, p.190 11 Ibid. pp.137-139. 12 Schulze, Robin. G, Varieties of Mystical Experience in the Writings of Virginia Woolf in Twentieth Century Literature Vol.44. New York: Hofstra University, 1998. p.3 13 Naremore, James, The World Without A Self. London: Yale University Press, 1973. p.71. 14 Auerbach, Erich, Mimesis: the representation of reality in Western literature / by Erich Auerbach; translated from the German by Willard Trask. New York: Doubleday/Anchor Books, 1957. pp. 351-355 15 Woolf, Virginia. A writers diary: being extracts from the diary of Virginia Woolf edited by Leonard Woolf. London, Hogarth Press, 1953. p.169 16 Bell, Q, Virginia Woolf: A Biography. London: Hogarth Press, 1972. p.168. 17 Woolf, Virginia, To The Lighthouse. London: Penguin, 1992. p.5. 18 Ibid. p.23. 19 Ibid. p.7. 20 Ibid. p.7. 21 Ibid. p.7. 22 Ibid. pp.276-277. 23 Ibid. p.277. 24 Ibid. p. 107. 25 Ibid. 270. 26 Woolf. Virginia, Mrs Dalloway. London: Penguin, 1996. p.183. 27 Ibid. p. 178. 28 Woolf, Virginia. A writers diary: being extracts from the diary of Virginia Woolf edited by Leonard Woolf. London, Hogarth Press, 1953. p.78.

Why Criticize People For Helping Themselves :: essays research papers

Why Criticize People For Helping Themselves?  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There are many things in this world that seem offensive. Some of what is considered offensive is necessary to how some people make their livings. Court systems, parents, and other groups have come to believe that what is said in music, movies, and video games, contribute to the actions of some individuals as youngsters. To me this is wrong; I have always felt that way. It has actually helped the people saying the stuff, more than it has every hurt anybody, and I am going to explain this in the rest of this writing.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Now when I talk about the person saying the offenses, I am speaking of the performers. Most of my paper is going to be centered on Interscope Records, and their number one artist, Marshal Mathers III.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Marshal Mathers III is also known as Eminem, or Slim Shady. He says these are his alternate personalities, obviously a show for the fans. Marshal Mathers III is named after his grandfather. He was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and moved around with his mother until the age of 9. He never really had any friends, or family other than his mother until they settled down in Southwest Detroit. There they settled down into an apartment in the ghetto, and lived in poverty for most of his childhood.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Marshal had no friends because of their constant moving, and being a skinny white kid in the ghetto, he got picked on, and bullied a lot. This caused him to grow more and more angry at the world, and then to finally isolate himself to work on his music.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  He got teased a lot for wanting to be a white rapper, and never really got any appreciation until his first freestyle contest. At age 18 he entered his first rap freestyle contest and came in runner-up. This just encouraged him to try harder and entered in the Annual L.A. Rap Olympics one year later.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  He finally came out triumphant when he took first place. This started his career, because veteran rapper Dr. Dre was attending the Rap Olympics and liked what he heard. Dr. Dre at that time was the C.E.O. of Death Row Records at the time and immediately signed Eminem on for a record deal.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Marshal’s first professionally recorded cd, Slim Shady L.P., started a nationwide fan club. He used language and lyrics that have never before been used in music, that offended most of the nation’s parents.

Legal and Ethical Issues at Workplace Essay

Introduction In this paper, legal and ethical issues will be discussed in connection with the current, previous and potential future habitability of the â€Å"health and safety of employees,† which is currently an important issue was the state of each and every country. Estimated mortality, along with the injury shows that a number of companies in past and present encountered several problems as well as in the near future, they will also continue in the direction facing the types of ethical and legal issues. All kinds of approximations and expenses related to workers’ health, along with safety and security that occurred in an organization depicts that safety issues were not a priority of the company; due to this the number of legal issues relating to costs and penalties can be experienced by companies (Granger 2010). Understanding of Employee Health & Safety Issues In the current competitive culture to the smooth performance of the company, it is necessary to ensure the safety and security of its employees. Health and safety includes an important part of work culture. Safety pertains towards act of defending physical well being of the employee (Clarke and White 2002). Additionally, it also involves risk of accidents involved due  to the machinery, fire and diseases. Security issues towards defending facilities along with equipments from the unauthorized approach and also guarding employees at time if they have been on work. Generally responsibility of the employee health along with safety falls on supervisors or Human Resource managers of the company (Swanton 2005). All these laws and plans for health and safety have been made by the government. These rules and regulations made ​​by the government shows that the director of personnel, organizations can help in the coordination of safety programs, resulting in employees aware of health and safety plans and policies of the company and to conduct a formal safety training, etc. In addition to supervisors and departmental heads are responsible for providing a safe working environment (Employees’ health and safety responsibilities, 2013). Subsequently some peculiar responsibilities have been decided by the government and organizations on the part of managers and supervisors which are as follows: Responsibilities of Managers: Observe health and safety of employees Instruct employees to be safety alert Look into accidents Clearly communicate regarding safety policy to employees (Lefkowitz 2003) Responsibilities of supervisors/departmental heads: Offer technical training concerning to obviation of accidents Align health and safety programs Train employees on treating facilities and equipments Formulation of safety reporting systems Assertion of safe working conditions (Hooker 2002) Within the framework of the organizations present different approaches to ensure the health and safety of its employees, but all of the approaches do not focus on the contribution of each of the design work and employee behavior to safety. Focus on both of these approaches is necessary to make this regulatory approach towards the safety and efficacy (Cahn and Markie 1998). Many organizational and individual issues are in the management of workers’ health and safety, which are as follows and should be managed ethically otherwise it can guide the organization in relation to the various legal issues. Workplace Issues: Ethical and Legal Physical Work Settings The physical position of the individual affects the performance of employees, and some of the factors that include temperature, noise, lighting, the size of the working area and the type of materials that make an impact on staff working with these factors (Granger 2010). Sick Building Syndrome This is a situation in which employees are acute health problems and anxiety because of the time spent in the workplace. Some factors that can guide sick building recognize poor air quality, inadequate ventilation, inappropriate cleanliness, food smell and Adhesives, etc (Clarke and White 2002). Ergonomics Ergonomics is the analysis of the physiological, psychological, and engineering design work prospects, letting factors such as fatigue, lighting, tools, equipment layout and placement of checks. This is the  boundary between humans and machines. In such a situation, problems like back pain, eye strain and headaches appear because of the long working hours are spent (Clarke and White 2002). Engineering of Work Equipments and Materials Accidents happen used in the organization can be excluded in this way, by the right placement of unsafe vehicles. Besides the construction of machinery and equipment also operates a key role in the safety of employees, as offering security guards and hide in the equipment, emergency stop pushing and other materials can help reduce accidents significantly (Clarke and White 2002). Cumulative Trauma and Repetitive Stress Cumulative trauma disorders fall, when the muscles are constantly used to perform some tasks. This in turn causes damage to musculoskeletal and nervous system. Employees need to meet the high level of mental and physical stress and due to this kind of stress and trauma (Clarke and White 2002). Accident Rates and Individuals Individual access to a secure environment also helps to dive accidents. It’s generally more of a nuisance as stimulated due to careless approach staff than on the machines or the employer’s negligence. The positive attitude of organizations and employers to the work environment and other practices can contribute to safety of employees, and not some other issues (Clarke and White 2002). Ethical Responsibility Individual access to a secure environment also helps to dive accidents. It’s generally more of a nuisance as stimulated due to careless approach staff than on the machines or the employer’s negligence. The positive attitude of organizations and employers to the work environment and other practices can  contribute to safety of employees, and not some other issues (Employee Health and Safety, 2013). Ethical Theories Consequentialist theory suggests that an act is morally wrong if it leads to the consequences of false or considered harmful by the vast majority of people in the community. Consequentialist theory requires evaluation of the actual effects of the law, which include the effects of direct and indirect alike. It also requires the use of some type of rules and evaluation criteria for determining whether the result is beneficial or harmful (Audi 1997). The theory is prescriptive because it is the use of evaluative criteria to guide whether individuals should lead or avoid the act. For the application of this theory, there should be a general agreement in society to the nature of the evaluation criteria. This theory also suggests that the ethics of each case must be determined according to the specific circumstances without reference to the legal or moral standard is absolute (Cahn and Markie 1998). Consequentialist approach and one that is utilitarian, which deals with the work on the basis of good winning or damage with the well-being or happiness as a result of the relevant assessment criteria. Consequentialist theory, however, suggests that the evaluative norms may be relevant to social or cultural factors. When the consequentialist theory is applied to this situation (employee health and safety) it suggests that the actions of the managers and employers can be unethical if they do not care about employees’ health and safety. From the consequentialist perspective, the negative consequences of the managers’ actions far outweighed the positive consequences of increasing their personal wealth (Hooker 2002). Deontological theories of ethics to determine the acts that constitutes or may not be based on the relationship which led to the duty. On the other  hand, deontological theories do not examine the outcomes of acts. Deontological ethics also postulates that adherence to the Duty set by the social relations is a moral obligation (Audi 1997). In the approach to ethics is imperative developed by Kant, one of the maxims is to treat others as an end and never as a means. Pluralistic intuitive approach to deontological ethics adopted by Ross suggests the existence of prima facie duties apply to all individuals regardless of the specific nature of the relationship. These duties include fidelity, and compensation after causing damage, and non-injury to others. These general duties, however, do not preclude the creation of specific duties in a relationship by explicit or implicit agreement (Cahn and Markie 1998). In addition, the deontological theories do not clearly describe the hierarchy of duties when a conflict arises between obligations, although there is general agreement that the duty not to harm others takes priority over other duties. Applying deontological theories to this situation (employee health and safety) requires assessing the general and specific duties of the managers and employers arising from their relationships to the firm and its stakeholders. The mangers have general duties for workers’ safety, accidental harms, and other health issues and to make reparations in the event if they are harmed because of the lack of safety measures (Hooker 2002). Virtue ethics postulates the existence of a fixed set of moral rules that an individual can use to determine the rightness of an action. A virtue is a disposition to respond in a good or appropriate way to a situation or event. From this perspective, virtue is character trait. At the same time, virtue ethics has a normative dimension in which it describes the types of responses to situations that are moral or appropriate for all people (Audi 1997). In this theoretical approach, an action is right only if it is the action that an individual with a virtuous character would perform in the same situation. Applying virtue ethics to this situation leads to the conclusion that the managers of a firm may be unethical because they did not behave in a manner expected of a virtuous person in the situation if any of the employees got hurt, injured etc. Although consequentialist theory, deontological theory, and virtue ethics have different approaches to assessing ethical behavior in an organization they arrive at the same conclusions (Cahn and Markie 1998). The consequentialist theories view the outcome of the harm caused to employees as the critical factor determining the ethics of the behavior. The deontological theories examine the breach of laws under OSHA and implicit duties as the controlling factor determining the ethics of any accidental events in an organization. Virtue ethics propose that virtuous people would not have performed the acts of irresponsibility and carelessness. The behavior of the managers and employers is said to be unethical regardless of the ethical framework used for evaluating the events leading to the collapse of the firm (Employee Health and Safety 2013). Legal Responsibility Numerous laws are contrived to defend workers from illness and injury. Most prominent act in this regard is the â€Å"Occupational Safety and Health Administration† that was created in 1970 within the â€Å"U.S. department of Labor† (Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 2013). The official duty of this act is â€Å"to make sure worker safety and health in the United States by working with employers and employees to demonstrate better working environments.† (Employee Health and Safety 2013) The implementation of this act had helped in cutting workplace deaths by â€Å"more than 60 percent and occupational injury and illness rates by 40 percent†. This act had explicated number of responsibilities for employers along with numerous rights of employees that can be used by an employee if he does not found organization concerned about his own health and safety (Occupational Safety and Health Administration 2013). From the time of this acts implementation various organization and employers are charged for not asserting with their determined responsibilities. Employer Responsibilities under OSHA: Under this act following are the duties and responsibilities of employer towards their employees’ health and safety: Meet with general duty obligation to offer a workplace free from documented hazards that are inducing or are potential to induce death or serious physical harm to employees and follow with standards, rules and regulations issued under the act. Define yourself and your staff with mandatory OSHA standards and make copies available to staff for reconsideration upon request. Continuous assessment of workplace conditions to ensure that they meet with appropriate standards. Minimize and reduce safety and health endangerments. Ensure that employees have and use safe tools and equipments. Offer medical examinations’ whenever required by OSHA standards. These are some peculiar responsibilities of employers along with number of other responsibilities. (Employee Health and Safety 2013) Employee Rights under OSHA: Under OSHA rules, employees have a right to know about the hazards to which they may be exposed at work. In addition to this employees have a right to seek a safe workplace without fear of punishment. The right is spelled out in section 11(c) of the act and all employees are covered except workers who are self employed and public employees in state and local government. This law also delineates that employers should not punish or discriminate against workers for exercising complaining and filing safety and health grievances.  This detailed discussion of employee health and safety concerned act OSHA depicts that it is necessary to organize and employers to adhere to their responsibilities and only they can be charged and directed in a number of other issues that would cause damage to its image as well (Occupational Safety and Health Administration 2013). In addition to OSHA other acts efforts in this regard are â€Å"Worker’s Compensation Law† (Occupational Safety and Health Administration 2013). The law deals with all accidental injuries and occupational diseases and during the growing and compass work. This involves a disease or injury resulting from such injuries. In general, this law does not offer compensation for any of the following conditions: Mental or nervous injury due to stress There is a work-related condition that causes the employee to have a fear or dislike of another individual race, color or national origin, religion, sex and age. Pain and suffering from the condition (Employee Health and Safety 2013). Under this law, the employer can be injured worker litigation to bring about the incident cannot be injured worker litigation employer to injury. This trade-off of this law makes it possible to injured workers to receive immediate medical care, at no cost to the injured worker, without any thinking about who was at fault, the employer or the employee. In the civil law is the perception that the negligence must be demonstrated through litigation before any compensation is awarded (Occupational Safety and Health Administration 2013). Recommendations Organizations should work to improve the welfare of employees and, therefore, should be trouble-free. Terms of health, safety, and security are closely related to each other. Health was the general state of well being. This not  only allows for the physical well being selected, however, also along with his healthy mind and body. It is believed that every organization should take care of the physical parameters of the work in which its employees work otherwise it can lead to a number of ethical and legal issues. Due to the legal act one can confer that each and every organization should follow with their ethical responsibility towards employees’ health and safety as they are also a vital part of the country and society from which it also belongs. Conclusion In the end, of the detailed discussion of ethical and legal issues in regard to employee health and safety we can conclude that organizations can avoid all these issues if they manage it with all-inclusive efforts from the time to employee hiring to his performance at workplace. If an organization abides with the established rules and regulations it will achieve immense success in the maintenance of employee health and safety. Adoption of appropriate laws and acts along with appropriate implementation of essential programs can furnish an organization with effective approach to manage and handle employees’ health and safety. References Audi, R. (1997). Moral knowledge and ethical character. New York: Oxford University Press. Cahn, S. & Markie, P. (1998). Ethics: History, theory, and contemporary issues. New York: Oxford University Press. Hooker, B. (2002). Ideal code, real world: A rule-consequentialist theory of morality. New York: Oxford University Press. Lefkowitz, J. (2003). Ethics and values in industrial organization psychology. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Swanton, C. (2005). Virtue ethics: A pluralistic view. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hughes, Phil and Ferrett, Ed (2009) Introduction to Health and Safety at Work. taylor & francis; 4 edition Jane Clarke; Alex White; (2002) A guide to good employment practice in the community & voluntary sector. Dublin: Combat Poverty Agency. Granger, Lisa (2010) Best Practices in Occupational Health, Safety, Workers Compensation and Claims Management for Employers: Assisting Employers in Navigating â€Å"The Road to Zero†. Universal Publishers Employee Health and Safety. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.wbcsdcement.org: http://www.wbcsdcement.org/index.php/key-issues/health-and-safety Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.osha.gov: http://www.osha.gov/

Police Brutality And The United States - 1608 Words

Police abuse remains as one of the most deliberate human rights violations in the United States. For over a decade police have acted in ways that makes us question their professionalism. Makes the wonder if law enforcement are taking advantage of their criminal justice â€Å"powers† October 22 is â€Å"National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and Criminalization of an Entire Generation†. (Aol News). On October 22 many people across the country wear black to fight back against police brutality. Bad police have to be stopped so they don’t forget who they are serving – not themselves but the public. Police Brutality has caused a major concern in the United States. What is police brutality? It is the use of excessive and or unnecessary force by police when dealing with civilians. Excessive force means a force well beyond what is needed to handle the situation. According to Deborah C. England, â€Å"Police brutality affects not only its imm ediate victims, but can undermine the community trust in its police force†. (England). Police brutality is not only just use of force, it also includes forcing civilians to perform sexual favors in order to avoid a ticket or jail time for various infractions of law. â€Å"More than 920 people have been killed by the police in 2015. Black Americans are more than twice likely to be unarmed when killed. Excessive force is one of the most common forms of police misconduct. For every 1,000 people killed by police, only one officer is convicted.†Show MoreRelatedPolice Brutality And The United States Essay1408 Words   |  6 PagesPolice brutality in the United States has escalated in recent times. To develop a peaceful environment amongst human beings, one of the main topics to look at is human rights. 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