Philosophy Statement :: Education Teaching Teachers Essays

Philosophy Statement Education is the window to the world. It can be possibly described as the eyes, the ears, the heart and the soul of every person who has entered a classroom. Why is education important? For me, it is important because it helps develop a student intellectually, socially, and emotionally. It encompasses a wide range of talents that is essential to the every day world. Education is a universal concept due to the fact that it is widely available to every child in the United State. However, that does not make education a victor for every child. Ultimately, the success rate of education rests with a childs teacher and that is what should motivate every teacher in the classroom. As a teacher, I plan to motivate my students using the following philosophies if essentialism, existentialism, and progressivism. The following use of these philosophies in my classroom can result in a positive and en get outening halo in the intermediate and unoriginal level class rooms. Essentialism backs up the traditional role of teaching that many students will experience in the intermediate or secondary English classroom. I am a firm believer in this philosophy because it has been tried and tested throughout the years. In fact, it is the main philosophy that my teachers utilise in the classroom. I believe that all students come with a elemental knowledge but need guidance from teachers. In fact, teachers are the core sum total of education in the essentialist classroom and they need to direct students in the areas of math, science, literature, English, foreign language, and history. As an English teacher, I plan to use essentialism in teaching the basic skills of grammar and writing and choosing appropriate literature that I believe will help students as they further their education. Also, the choice of literature will help students develop chastely and socially. The nest philosophy that I plan to use is centered on the idea of existentialism because it focuses on a student-centered classroom. I believe that students should have a voice in their classroom and I plan to be democratic and allow students a limited amount of freedom and free will. In light of this philosophy, I plan to allow students freedom in selecting literature and the decision to evaluate their progress through book reports, presentations, and group work.

Nature of Logic and Perception Essay -- Logic Critical Thinking Philos

Nature or Logic and PerceptionOutline1. Definition of logic and its connection with full of life cerebration.2. An everyday example is given when use of logic and critical thinking takes place.3. Nature of logic defined.4. Perceptual shortcuts and factors influencing it.5. How these shortcuts affect our findings.6. My personal experience of perceptual shortcut.7. What I learned from this experience.8. Importance of logic and critical thinking.9. ResourcesThis paper is aimed at the relation logic has with perception. It kicks off with the meaning and process of logic and how it then relates to critical thinking. It farther gives a very common example of how one makes a decision with the help of his/ her critical thinking. We then find out what perceptual shortcuts are and how they are formed and what influences it. The paper then goes on to explain in detail about an incident in my life where my perception of the situation was far from the echt reality. The paper wraps up with my final thoughts of how nature of logic affects thinking process.Webster?s dictionary defines logic as the science dealing with the principles of reasoning, especially of the method and severity of deductive reasoning. In layman?s terms, the use of logic within our thinking allows us the ability to discern and reason logically that with which we are presented with on a daily basis. It is a process of examining and evaluating any particular idea or thought, in an effort to search for the truths that allows us to better understand or identify why we think the way we do. It enables us to more effectively express our opinions and ideas or even aid in the argument of someone else?s point of view. Hence the term, Critical Thinking It is a way in which we rationalize any given thought or idea that helps us to shape up to a conclusion based on the findings that support it.For instance, before heading to work you watch the news and their morning traffic u pdate for attainable accidents and street closures because you have an hour commute. On this particular morning you hear the traffic reporter mention that your daily route to work has been closed due to a huge tractor-trailer accident. Logically, and using critical thinking you are able to come up with two alternate routes for getting to work on time. Using march on logic and critical... ... she only 2 years old. As I came to know the truth, I immediately apologized. We are still best friends. But since that day onwards, I learnt that ?first investigate and then poke into the matter?. I also began to be more understanding since then. I further changed my tactics and always do sure that I knew both sides of the story. The nature of logic as it relates to critical thinking, and the perceptual process have a great impact on individuals choices and decisions in life. It is important to think before you speak because you never know where miss-understanding may take you. Do not a ssume, but think about all of your possible choices before making a fair decision. View situations in its entirety for clearer possible outcomes. When you have exhaled all possible choices, make a final decision that makes you feel more comfortable with your decision. In the end not only will you gain knowledge, but you will also enhance your way of thinking to understand and except different people and environments.BibliographyBrewer, Bill.?Perception and Reason?. Clarendon Press Oxford, 1999. Pg no 288.Philosophy Lander http//philosophy.lander.edu/logic/nature_log.html

Character of Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale in Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarle

The Character of Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter In Hawthornes classic, The Scarlet Letter, the pathetic, grand Arthur Dimmesdale is fully aware of the manner by which he mustiness liberate his soul from his grave blaze. Yet, throughout the story his excuse remains an impediment, constraining him, from then onwards, to a life of atonement. Reverend Dimmesdale attempts to divest himself of his guilt by revealing it to his parishioners during services, but somehow never manages to accomplish the task. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is clearly both a coward and a hypocrite For the most part, Dimmesdales story is one of a lonely man who has given into temptation and desire. His carnal craving is looked upon with ignominy. The matter is further convoluted by Hesters bobbleriage, and his unwillingness to mar his reputation among the villagers as the unaired and innocent priest. He is now stranded at a crossroad, not knowing whether to knowledge or carry on a life of self-punishmen t. The sin begins to gnaw away at his sanity. As a form of penance he partakes in late night vigils, starvation, and self-mutilation. His acts of penance were severe and drained him of often of his life force. Finally becoming fed up with his prolonged misery, he walked unsteadily to the podium to expose his secret, but his confession was ambiguous and inconclusive, and people scene he was speaking about the sins of humanity. Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale has many opportunities to confess. One of the very first moments available to Dimmesdale to confess was on the scaffolding in the beginning when Hester was publicly humiliated in front of the townspeople. Dimmesdale was preaching to her for hou... ...can be rectified. Some sins are everlasting, and there are no shortcuts to salvation. Sometimes the weight of the sins must penetrate ones soul for eternity. Works Cited and Consulted Baym, Nina. Introduction. The Scarlet Letter. By Nathaniel Hawth orne. New York City Penguin Books USA, Inc. 1986. Clendenning, John. Nathaniel Hawthorne. The World Book Encyclopedia. 2000 ed. Griswold, Rufus Wilmot. The Scarlet Letter. The Library of literary Criticism of English and American Authors. Ed. Charles Wells Moulton. Gloucester, Massachusetts Peter Smith issue, 1959. 341-371. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York Penguin Books USA Inc., 1986. Smiles, Samuel. The Scarlet Letter. The Critical Temper. Ed. Martin Tucker. New York City Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1962. 266. Character of Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale in Nathaniel Hawthornes The ScarleThe Character of Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter In Hawthornes classic, The Scarlet Letter, the pathetic, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is fully aware of the means by which he must liberate his soul from his grave sin. Yet, throughout the story his confession remains an impediment, constraining him, from then onwards, to a life of atonement. Reverend Dimm esdale attempts to divest himself of his guilt by revealing it to his parishioners during services, but somehow never manages to accomplish the task. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is clearly both a coward and a hypocrite For the most part, Dimmesdales story is one of a lonely man who has given into temptation and desire. His carnal craving is looked upon with ignominy. The matter is further convoluted by Hesters marriage, and his unwillingness to mar his reputation among the villagers as the faithful and innocent priest. He is now stranded at a crossroad, not knowing whether to confess or carry on a life of self-punishment. The sin begins to gnaw away at his sanity. As a form of penance he partakes in late night vigils, starvation, and self-mutilation. His acts of penance were severe and drained him of much of his life force. Finally becoming fed up with his prolonged misery, he walked unsteadily to the podium to expose his secret, but his confession was ambiguous and inconclusive, an d people thought he was speaking about the sins of humanity. Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale has many opportunities to confess. One of the very first moments available to Dimmesdale to confess was on the scaffolding in the beginning when Hester was publicly humiliated in front of the townspeople. Dimmesdale was preaching to her for hou... ...can be rectified. Some sins are everlasting, and there are no shortcuts to salvation. Sometimes the weight of the sins must penetrate ones soul for eternity. Works Cited and Consulted Baym, Nina. Introduction. The Scarlet Letter. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York City Penguin Books USA, Inc. 1986. Clendenning, John. Nathaniel Hawthorne. The World Book Encyclopedia. 2000 ed. Griswold, Rufus Wilmot. The Scarlet Letter. The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors. Ed. Charles Wells Moulton. Gloucester, Massachusetts Peter Smith Publishing, 1959. 341-371. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York Penguin Books USA Inc., 1986. Smiles, Samuel. The Scarlet Letter. The Critical Temper. Ed. Martin Tucker. New York City Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1962. 266.

Smallpox Viruses Essay -- Smallpox Viruses

For approximately three-thousand years, variola major has ravaged and plagued the four corners of the globe. In fact, in the 17 th and 18 th centuries, it was claimed to be the most infectious dis set up in the West, with an astounding 90% mortality rate in America. It wasnt until 1796, with English surgeon Edward Jenners variola major vaccination, that the world saw relief from this devastating virus. However, even with this vaccination in use, the world continued to witness death from both the virus and the vaccine. In the year 1966, it was estimated that 10-15 million infected citizens world wide had passed away from smallpox that year alone ( History 12). As a result of these devastating numbers, in the following year, 1967, the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) created a program to manage the smallpox virus. Ten years later, in 1977, the estimated 10-15 million cases had dwindled down to one a man in Somalia. Three years later, W.H.O. officially announced that smallpox had been eradicated, leaving the only remaining virus cultures stored and guarded in laboratories in Russia and the United States. Inoculations ceased, smallpox epidemics were non-existent, and the virus was no longer a concern. In order to ensure complete eradication of this deadly virus, the W.H.O. insisted that the remaining smallpox cultures be destroyed by 1999 ( smallpox Eradication 2). However, despite the W.H.O.s recommendation, the remaining cultures continue to be contained and protected to this day, five years after the suggested date of elimination.As a direct result, a world-wide debate has raged on for nearly the past decade make up the question of smallpox eradication. If small pox were to be eradicated as originally suggested, the safe and only remaining known cultures would be wiped out. However, not knowing what countries may illegally hold this virus, the world as a whole would be vulnerable to bioterrorist attacks using smallpox. Lacking the virus to create inocu lations, it will be most unfeasible to vaccinate the public or quarantine an outbreak. Likewise, if the virus cultures are kept, there is a possibility that enemies could obtain it to use against other countries at their leisure. However, because it is impossible to identify countries that are harboring the virus in order to take action to eradicate it, eliminating the only protection the world has again... ...6 Nov. 2014Mahler, Halfdan. Smallpox and its Eradication. 2008. Communicable Disease management and Response. 4 Nov. 2014 McCrary, Van. Smallpox and Bioterrorism A Growing Threat. 3 Aug. 1999. 6 Nov. 2014Preston, Richard. A Demon in the Freezer. 17 July 2012. 8 Nov. 2014Smallpox and Bioterrorism 6 June 2001. Center for Disease Control. 4 Nov. 2014. Smallpox Eradication Destrcution of the Variola Virus Stocks. 15 April 2009. World Health Organization. 15 Nov. 2014 Updated Interim CDC Guidance for Use of Smallpox Vaccine, Cidofovir, and Vaccinia Immune Globulin (VIG) for Pre vention and Treatment in the Setting of an Outbreak of Monkeypox Infections. 25 June 2013. Center for Disease Control 20 Nov. 2014.

Social Structure and Its Effect On Our Lives Essay -- Sociology Cause

Social Structure and Its Effect On Our LivesSocial structures are constraints that make the lives of both the affluent and the indigent members of society. Each society has its own set of companionable arrangements for example class, gender and ethnicity are all constraints that each society has to hired man with in one way or another. One of the most fundamental of the social structures would be class. Class structure is found in all societies and is the advert source of economical inequality. Members of different class groups start their lives with unequal opportunities. This means that when someone is born into a poor household they will undoubtedly tolerate in the same economical situation they began in. sexuality is another important issue when regarding structures. For years women encounter struggled to be accepted into the workforce and although there have been many improvements on the treatment of female employees there is still a long way to go to reach equal opport unities. Ethnicity has a strong charge on what we can achieve in living by greatly affecting our place in the labour market. Although Australia is a multicultural society life chances for Australias own migrants are still less than adequate when it comes to being treated fairly in the workforce.Social structure is created by the distribution of wealth, power and prestige. The social structure consists of taken for granted beliefs about the world and both constrain and regulate human actions. The social structure consists of substructures such as class, gender and ethnicity. These groups are formed within society each group shares common attitudes, values, social norms, lifestyle and material goods. People within society stay within the guidelines of the soc... ...s and Gender in Australia, George Allen & Unwin, Noth Sydney.Broom, D., 1988, Gender and Health, in Second Opinion An Introduction to Health Sociology, ed.J. Germov, Oxford University Press, Melbourne.Cohen, Y. A., 1961, Social Structure and Personality. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.Graetz, B. & McAllister, I. 1994, Dimensions of Australian Society, 2nd edn, Macmillan Education, South Melbourne.Jones, F.L., 1993, Unlucky Australians force market outcomes among Aboriginal Australians, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 16, no. 3.McGregor, C., 1989, Class, in Four Dimensional Social Space, eds T. Jatenburg & P.DAlton, Harper & Row, SydneyWesolowski, W., 1979, Classes, Strata and Power. Routledge and Kegan Paul, LondonVan Krieken, R., et al. 2000, Sociology Themes and Perspectives, 2nd edn, Pearson Education, Frenchs Forest.

Social Structure and Its Effect On Our Lives Essay -- Sociology Cause

Social Structure and Its Effect On Our LivesSocial structures are necessitatets that affect the lives of both the affluent and the indigent members of society. Each society has its own shape of favorable arrangements for example class, gender and ethnicity are all constraints that each society has to deal with in one way or another. One of the most primitive of the social structures would be class. Class structure is found in all societies and is the key source of economical inequality. Members of different class groups start their lives with unequal opportunities. This factor that when someone is born into a poor household they will undoubtedly remain in the same economical situation they began in. Gender is another meaning(a) issue when regarding structures. For years women have struggled to be accepted into the workforce and although there have been many improvements on the treatment of female employees there is still a long way to go to reach equal opportunities. Ethnicity has a strong bearing on what we can achieve in life by greatly affecting our place in the labour market. Although Australia is a multicultural society life chances for Australias own migrants are still less than adequate when it comes to being treat fairly in the workforce.Social structure is created by the distribution of wealth, power and prestige. The social structure consists of taken for granted beliefs about the world and both constrain and regulate human actions. The social structure consists of substructures such as class, gender and ethnicity. These groups are formed within society each group shares common attitudes, values, social norms, lifestyle and material goods. People within society stay within the guidelines of the soc... ...s and Gender in Australia, George Allen & Unwin, Noth Sydney.Broom, D., 1988, Gender and wellness, in Second Opinion An Introduction to Health Sociology, ed.J. Germov, Oxford University Press, Melbourne.Cohen, Y. A., 1961, Social Structure an d Personality. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.Graetz, B. & McAllister, I. 1994, Dimensions of Australian Society, 2nd edn, Macmillan Education, South Melbourne.Jones, F.L., 1993, Unlucky Australians Labour market outcomes among Aboriginal Australians, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 16, no. 3.McGregor, C., 1989, Class, in quaternion Dimensional Social Space, eds T. Jatenburg & P.DAlton, Harper & Row, SydneyWesolowski, W., 1979, Classes, Strata and Power. Routledge and Kegan Paul, LondonVan Krieken, R., et al. 2000, Sociology Themes and Perspectives, 2nd edn, Pearson Education, Frenchs Forest.

Booker T. Washington Essay

Booker T. capital letter was born on plantation in Franklin Country, Virginia, on April 5, 1856. After the Civil War, his families moved to Malden, westside Virginia, were Booker T. Washington worked in the coal mines and salt Furnaces, and a house servant. Washington mom and he were determined for him to go to school. During four years, he was a student and attending Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute of higher learning for Africans American and later became Hampton University. When he was going to school he did not relieve oneself a last name so he invented the last name of Washington when he was in school and the other children were giving their surnames.After Washington graduated from Hampton Normal, he pursued a career a career as an educator. He was a teacher for two years in Malden and thusly he furthered his education at Washington D.C Wayland Seminary. Then he accepted a position at Hampton Normal. He was the head of industrial training of 75 Native American. He w as named principal of Hampton Normal which later became Tuskegee University. On September 18, 1895, Washington made a historic speech in Atlanta, Georgia. In what was cognise as the (Atlanta Compromise Speech) Washington encouraged African American to accept lower social status for the time being and to focus instead on advancement through career training, education, and economic independence.Washingtons health began to become worse in his later years as he was travelling and working a lot. He failed while he was in New York City, and he was brought back home to Tuskegee, and he died there on November 14, 1915 when he was 59 years old. The cause of his death was unknown, but it was likely from arteriosclerosis and nervous exhaustion. His body was buried on the campus of Tuskegee University near University Chapel. In March of 2006, looking into his health check records showed that he died from hypertension with blood pressure that was two times higher than a normal blood pressure.

Albert Camus: Written Assignment Essay

During the interactive oral, we discussed the main theme of the meaninglessness of military man animateness that is present in The Stranger by Albert Camus. We emphasized chiefly on Meursaults detached and unemotional characteristics, especially when the jury uses this against him at his trial He stated that I had no place in a lodge whose most fundamental rules I ignored (102). Meursault is very isolated from his society, and during his trial all the odds atomic number 18 non in his favor because in this case Meursault is viewed as a minority when compared to the Arabs in Algeria. make up the prosecutor claims that Meursault does not feel remorse ab come out of the closet killing the Arab, and this connects to the theme of the meaninglessness of human life, where Meursaults feelings towards this entire case is mutual and religion, life, and death does not matter to him. In reference to the title, we also pinpointed that Meursault acts as the stranger when placed in this socie ty because he is disconnected and does not belong in this normal society, he is seen an outsider.And, we concluded that the character conflicts are targeted towards man versus society and man versus self. Because it is clear that Meursault does what amenities him the most instead of pleasing others and bothering to care about what every wizard thinks about him. A major cultural involve that is presented in this novel is the paper ofreligion and the image of the elderly. Based on the first chapter, we learn that Meursault puts his mother in an old peoples home, however, later we realize that the jury found this unacceptable. This gave Meursault a blemish against his murder case because in this society, it is morally wrong to put an elder relative in an elderly home.Also during the seminar we mentioned how religion plays an important role in this society, especially when the lawyer, the judge, and the priest tries to persuade Meursault into turning to religion, however, he does no t believe that God exists and the judge even calls him Monsieur Antichrist (71). When he refuses to believe in God, it connects to the idea that life is meaningless and God does not replace the absurd significance of human life. Overall I learned that there are many cultural obligations that Meursault conflicts with in The Stranger and with these pressures he struggles to face his society.An analysis of the symbolic significance of the motif of the temperatenessbathe in The StrangerThe powerful effect of light can crop a shadow and blind those who come across its path. Power, especially too much, can influence the behavior of others and it can deceive people especially those who are different and follow a strange path from everyone else. Meursault in The Stranger, for example, is know as an outcast due to his actions and beliefs of life. However, he is a victim of the overpowering impact of light, he loses his way and the shadow of light influences his actions. In his novel, The Stranger, Albert Camus creates an intense atmosphere through and through his use of the lie as a motif. He accomplishes this by apply the sun as the personification of Meursaults inner emotions, the powerful imagery of the murder scene, and Meursaults internal conflict.Throughout the novel, Camus uses the motif of the sun to construct the intensity level of the atmosphere during ramify one of the novel. The sun plays a role in influencing Meursaults feelings especially when the sun is described as unendurable on the twenty-four hour period of Mamans funeral and today, with the sun bearing down, making the whole landscape shimmer with heat, it was inhuman and oppressive (15). Camus uses a pathetic fallacy in his description of the sun as oppressive and inhuman. This helps to illustrate the suns devilish characteristics as its powerful impact that allows Meursault to forget about Mamans death. Also Meursault is known to be a very indifferent and unemotional character however, wh enever the sun is opposing him, it affects his behavior and allows him to express his emotions about his surroundings and this contributes to the intensity of atmosphere.Another authoritative passage is when Meursault longs for shade and to be far away from the oppressive heat I was thinking of the cool spring behind the rock. I wanted to lift up the murmur of its peeing again, to escape the sun and the strainand to find shade at last (57). This cadence the sun influences Meursaults yearning desire to evaporate away from the sun and this foreshadows Meursaults desperate actions in killing the Arab. As the sun gets stronger, so does Meursaults discomfort, and this reoccurring relationship symbolizes that the effect of the suns unbearable heat enhances Meursaults desire to escape its penetrating fit. In addition, the powerful strength of the sun returns and it contributes in building up to the climax of the novel It was this burning, which do me move forward (59).The effect of the sun compels Meursault in killing the Arab with no intentions or reasons influencing his sudden action when his anxiety is released as he pulls the trigger. Camus uses the heat and the lour of the sun as a tool to release Meursaults repressed emotions. Despite Meursaults indifference towards his wrong doings, his actions and emotions, which the sun has possessed over him, do not explain Meursaults irrational intent to surprisingly shoot the Arab and this connects to a major theme of the irrationality of the universe, which deprives Meursault from acting reasonability. Furthermore, the authors intentions in personifying the suns possessive effect over Meursaults emotions and irrational motives are to convey an intense atmosphere and its power to influence Meursault actions.Towards the end of part one of the novel, the author illustrates the build upto the murder scene through the use of vivid descriptions and kinesthetic and visual imagery of the blazing sun in order to portray a n overall atmosphere of the intense portrayals of spirit and weather. When Meursault prevents Raymond from starting a bloody war with the Arabs, Raymond gives him the grease-gun and Meursault notices that The sun glinted make Raymonds gun as he handed it to me(56). This natural selection foreshadows the significance of the sun and gun since both items are associated with murdering the Arab, and these two items initiate the murder. Camus briefly mentions the sun glinting off the gun as a way to illustrate their connection and importance in the death scene, also the author focuses on pinpointing details about the sun and its powerful effects in order to create an intense atmosphere by emphasizing the suns visual descriptions.After the skin surrounded by Raymond and the Arab, Meursault takes a walk on the beach and he sees the Arab flashing his knife and this blinds Meursault as he illustrates that The light shot off the steel and it was like a long flashing blade cutting at my f orehead (59). The author exemplifies the light intensity of the reflection of the blade to be blinding and painful through the use of both kinesthetic and visual imagery. This passage is significant in demonstrating the powerful effect of the sun and its strength in pushing Meursault to defy the limitations against nature. Even moments before Meursault pulls the trigger, tension begins to rise as if nature is pushing Meursault into killing the Arab The sea carried up a thick, fiery breath. It seemed to me as if the sky spilt open from one end to the other to rain down fire (59). The use of diction such as thick, fiery evokes the intensity of visual imagery and the personification of the sun serves to enhance the suns powerful influence over Meursaults mind and unconscious actions.Perhaps nature is symbolically pressuring Meursault to murder the Arab and Camus surprisingly illustrates the time and setting of this scene in this way in order for it to come as a shock and therefore to s upport the concept of nature and its universal impact. Overall, the murder scene displays an intense illustration of Meursaults surroundings through the use of kinesthetic and visual imagery of the suns power and control which helps develop a powerful environment. Particularly, the entire novel is based on the major conflict between Meursault and himself this internal conflict portrays an intensive atmosphere that is delineated through the influence of nature and weather,which is depicted throughout the novel. In the beginning of the novel, the nurse at Mamams funeral gives Meursault significant advice when she says, If you go slowly, you risk getting sunstroke. But if you go too fast, you work up a sweat and then catch a chill inside the church. She was right. There was no way out (17). The nurses advice symbolizes that Meursaults self-conflict with the sun is unavoidable just as Meursaults fate is inescapable such as when he fails to find slipway to escape from his death senten ce.The author decides to mention this passage to foreshadow Meursaults unforeseen fate because Meursaults murderous action is an unexpected plot twist, and this embodies natures powerful control over men, in which in this case it is between the sun and Meursault. Meursaults battle with overcoming the heat of the sun is mainly demonstrate especially when tension is high such as when the group of Arabs is walking towards Meursault, Raymond, and Masson The sun was shining almost directly overhead onto the sand, and the glare on the water was unbearable (52). As the scene begins to become more intense, the fight between Meursault and the weather becomes stronger as well, and this is demonstrated when Meursault describes his frustration from the suns intolerable heat. This excerpt clearly shows that Meursaults constant war with his emotions and nature is powerful in connection with the intense atmosphere and since Meursault is unable to conquer the overpowering heat, it that causes him to kill the Arab and he gives in to the suns compelling control.Also before Meursaults trial, he even states that I knew as soon as the weather off hot that something new was in store for me (82). Since Meursault did not know how much longer the judge would sentence him in prison, this passage did foreshadow that his trial would not turn out well. This again relates to the idea that when tension is high, the war between the suns heat and Meursaults emotions is also intensified and Camus uses the motif of the sun to indicate that nature is against Meursault and to foreshadow Meursaults fate. In conclusion, the influence of nature and weather as well as the motif of the sun and the role it plays to fight against Meursaults internal emotions establishes an intensified setting.Unfortunately, mankind is overpowered by nature and the force of the light pushes Meursault to his breaking point. Meursault is unaware of the sunsinfluential effect, however he is impacted by its controlling powe r. In the end, the suns strength forces Meursault to commit an immoral crime and even though his reasons are unintentional, he is rejected by society and is sentenced to a death penalty. The use of the motif of the sun in The Stranger by Albert Camus, develops a powerful atmosphere through the idea that the sun personifies Meursault by influencing his actions and feelings, the intense imagery of the murder scene, and Meursaults inner conflict against the sun.Works CitedCamus, Albert, and Matthew Ward. The Stranger. New York Vintage International, 1989. Print.

Competition Level Between Shanghai Port and Busan Port

snatch look Is located In the front edge of the Yawning River Delta and It becomes the first busiest container interface In the world whereas Bushman sort which Is located In the southern part of the Korean peninsula ranked the fifth. Both ports handle approximately 90% of the total container throughput, and they atomic number 18 also the major hubs of the seaborne transportation in the world (World style Source AAA, World port Source Bibb).This essay will discuss the train of competition amongst Bushman appearance and instill interface, and identify the external chemical elements that should be considered by both ports management in developing their strategic development plans. direct of competition The late growth of chinaware on a global scale in recent eld has affected on both Bushman Port and Shanghai Port In several levels of competition. There are three key competitions between them which are geographical positioning, transshipment capableness and low comparati ve be.In monetary value of geographical positioning, Bushman Port has become an appropriate choice due to Its location between Japan and china. It has mm water depth and planning to Increase up to mm In 2020, and Its world class infrastructure allows the calling of mega large vessels. Furthermore, Bushman Port has 41 container berths and systematic connections for global logistics corporations to help save costs and time, so it foot act as a stipendder hub aiming for small ports for a majority of North-East Asian transshipment carriers.For example, inland transport in Northern China will be expensive and inconvenient, thus exporters or importers take away to transport their shipments to Bushman Port first then Shanghai Port (BAA 013). On the early(a) hand, China created Shanghai as a finance shipping hub because Shanghai Is a port city. It became an worldwide maritime capital because It focused on economic alternatively of political logic (BAA 2013). Similarly, both Shangha i Port and Bushman Port are part of the mall trunk line functioning as hub port for coition countries, still Shanghai Port has the ambition to challenge Bushman Port as the chief(prenominal) hub port of Northeast Asia.This Is because the growth of container volume In China ports has been fuelled by the decision of many multinational companies to locate production of a whole range of consumer goods from their domestic plants, mainly in USA and Europe, to China where production costs are much cheaper (Park, Anderson & Choc 2006). However, the inconsistent weather of China has benefited South Korea. For instance, ports in China are forced to close for up to two weeks of each schedule year due to fog and stormy weather.Moreover, Shanghai Port could not compete with Bushman Port deep water harbor, causing It failed to attract mega huge vessels from outsize corporation to call (Shepherd 2011). Regarding to reinstatement capabilities, Shepherd (2011) stated that the newly extended fee der network of Bushman Port connects with over sixty others ports In China, five In Russia, and xxx In Japan, making Its as the chosen destination for huge vessels and to transshipment lading. Conversely, the development of Hangs reinvigorated Port which is traffic and establishing transshipment capabilities comparing to its old Wigwagging container terminal.Moreover, Shanghai Port is alter its customs clearance procedure and cargo handling system to attract more transshipment cargo (McKinney 2011). Consequently, both ports have similar transshipment capabilities which are also the main competitiveness between them. Towards low comparative costs, in order to attract more transshipment cargo, Bushman Port promoted Free betray Zone, reducing port tariffs, and exempting 100% of Transshipment entrance Fee since 2003 as the marketing strategies to attract foreign assignment and compete with Shanghai Port (Park, Anderson and Choc 2006). For example, the exemption of the $2. 0 for 1 TEE entrance fee could reduce the $2,200 fee for a vessel carrying 1,000 TIES, and it also provides exclusive berths for coastal shipping companies and offers volume incentives to secure more cargo volumes (BAA 2013). On the other hand, Shanghai Port utilized a Volume Incentive System for shipping companies when the transportation volume is augmentd by more than 20% compared with the previous year. In addition, the Shanghai Port has also been trying to improve competitiveness by discounting port tariff in the Hangs New Port, and plan to establish logistics Free Trade Zone in the hinterland (Park, Anderson and Choc 2006).External factors in developing strategic plans There are several external factors that should be considered by Bushman Port and Shanghai Port in developing their strategies development plans. The first factor is the regimen involvement. According to Lee, Lee, Gang & Lee (201 1), port management had changed rapidly in recent years due to the structural changes in i nternational trade and sea transport, so regimen plays an important role to cope with the changes of environment.The establishment of co-petition and global network between competitors will generate positive impact on efficiency and access of the port management strategies with the special government support (Shepherd 2011). In addition, government can encourage shipping companies to form alliances where they can connect their transport system hence improving services. Moreover, the supplementary government supports with positive impact on efficiency, credibility, and competitiveness of the port management strategies could lead Bushman Port to have greater impact function as a Northeast Saiss hub-Port (McKinney 2011).Additionally, the advancement of government policies are followed by the changes made in the environment of port management. How government involves in port management will impact on the ports future developing of plans. In Shanghai, the primordial government had not implicated in the ownership of ports, but had got involved in an oversight role for strategic planning. For example, local authority had rights to undertake the ports planning, but still all plans had to be approved by central government (Xx 2007). This cooperation between government and port management will lead to improvement of international trade.Furthermore, comply with the Port Laws, it can encourage foreign investment as to build an attractive business environment in Shanghai Port, presenting Shanghai Port as an International Shipping Centre (SC) (McKinney 2011). Secondly, the growth of ports in the world had been affected due to the global economic downturn in 2012. Negative economic growth will not only put current projects at risks, but also the future project. This will the government to have less revenues and resources (Waters 2012). Therefore, the government should step in and take control of the situation.Government needs to prepare the country to become a low cost and high productivity place to invest which then attracts foreign investments, helping the country to generate profits. For example, government could implement strategies, such as education and direct investment (FED) to promote the local frugality for future development of ports (Port Technology 2013). The investment in human capital or education can produce workers with better knowledge, and the productivity will increase when workers have more capabilities.Moreover, governments can send port employees to countries like Singapore and Hong Kong to familiarize with their operating system as they are the world most economical ports. This will improve the port technology and productivity whilst workers return. Furthermore, economic growth can be achieved with the redevelopment of Bushman North Port and the nearer completion of Bushman New Port had as it will create whereas Shanghai Port can also benefited from the increase of national strength in China (Xx 2007). Another factor is the inland transport system.A well developed port should also include efficient inland transport. This is because multinational shipping company will normally choose port with speedy and productivity connection between the port and inland transportation to faster deliver cargoes to their customers (ROR, Lanai & Maim 2007). Therefore, both South Korea and China government should increase attention and funding towards the improvement of inland transport system within the port, such as railway network which connect to major cities in the countries.Moreover, the investments in rail and road access could help Bushman Port and Shanghai Port to remain as the major container hubs in the world, and create a swift, guileless and cheap choice of transportation to transfer cargo within the countries as well as produce more Jobs for the locals (Shepherd 2011). In addition, governments could also focus on congestion robber especially in the city to allow trucks to transport goods more rapidly. For e xample, encouraging trucks to operate in certain hours and taking a detour road can help to save time and cost (Lee 2013).As a result, good connection of inland transport could help Bushman Port and Shanghai Port reduces the problem of congestion, and also allows cargoes could smoothly move through the port. Apart from the previous mentioned factors, environmental pollution is another key external factor that Bushman Port and Shanghai Port have to consider in developing their strategic development Lana. There are several causes of the port environmental pollution. For instance, diesel motor engines at ports, trucks, trains, and cargo handling equipment, creating a lot of air pollution that has affected the health of port workers, and residents living in the communities.In addition, major ports especially Shanghai operating just about residential areas or city, causing both workers and residents to face extraordinarily high health risks which related to air pollution. According fro m the human epidemiological and California studies, diesel exhaust increases risks of cancer, and approximately 70% of the cancer risk is caused by air pollution (NRC 2004). Furthermore, the dredging berth and deepening access channels of Shanghai Port and Bushman Port in order to accommodate large vessels in the future are causing water pollution.It not only damages the water quality, marine keep and ecosystems, traffic Jams, and could be loud, ugly and brightly lit at night. These effects also pose negative health effects to human. For instance, noise pollution has been relate to hearing impairment, high blood pressure, lack of sleep, performance reduction, and even aggression behavior. Bright lights at night and the flashing lights of straddle carries and forklifts could influence surrounding residents, stellar(a) stress and irritation (NRC 2004).Consequently, Bushman Port and Shanghai Port have to do their best to avoid, to prevent, to control, and to measure the environmenta l pollution which caused by several port operations, with the net aim to become a green port. Conclusion In conclusion, Bushman Port and Shanghai Port have their own respective advantages to compete with each other in several aspects in order to gain competitive advantages in the marine industry. However, there are several external factors that Bushman Port and Shanghai Port have to take into consideration while developing their strategic development plans in order to avoid the disadvantages to them.

Frankenstein Socratic Seminar Reflection

Frankenstein and Pride & Prejudice Socratic Seminar Reflection This Socratic Seminar made me agree much more with Socrates beliefs that extended word of honor and recurrent questioning facilitate the most meaningful learning experiences. It helped me understand the novel much more than I had before because I got to hear about the password from the perspective of others and how they interpreted the story and discussed what they thought were the positive and negative aspects of Frankenstein.I discovered that m either others interpreted some meanings of the novel in the same way that I did. Overall, the seminar went very well in both groups, but there were some negative aspects in both seminars. In the Pride & Prejudice seminar, none of the members proposed any questions in response to an already given question (a rebuttal question). This was not the case in the Frankenstein group, which is good.However, although we did ask rebuttal questions, our group failed to use quotes for suppo rt and our sermon was more of a modern conversation between people with a lot of agreeing and disagreeing, but no evidence for backup. I believe that there was further one person who used quotations and cited them to backup his/her point, who was Matt Kane (I hope you didnt emergency us to specify names at least its not a bad comment). The Pride and Prejudice group did fulfill the use of quotations, which evened out the differences between the seminars.There were also many great points brought up in our discussion of Frankenstein, which almost everybody agreed with such as how we appointed Victor Frankenstein as the monster of the novel and not the physical monster that he has created. I would not have thought about many of the things with deeper meanings that were discussed in the seminar by myself. Not only was the seminar itself what helped me to further understand the story, but also the pre-seminar tasks (question responses and formation).Each question coincidentally asked me something that I had thought about at least one time during the reading, and the required quotations helped remind me of when and where I had encountered the question while reading it. The post-seminar paper (this thing) is helping me because it makes me take to be what we talked about during the seminar and how it was effective to understanding the story. Being reminded of how effective the seminar actually was, will make me believe more in the beliefs of Socrates, as well as want to do more seminars for different novels in the future.

Supply Chain Case 1

Case Study 1 BioPharma, Inc. 1. How should BioPharma set about used its production network in 2009? Should any of the plants cede been idled? What is the annual cost of your proposal, including import duties? It produces and sells its same kind of products in both of chemicals for any parts of the world. If its plants in one country are not bountiful products, it would move products from other countries to add the number of products that are sold in this country. Plants of Relax in Germany and Japan have been idled. The total annual cost is $1,488. 1 million including * Total Transportation Cost is $24. 85 million * Total Production Cost is $1,268. 31 million * Total Tariffs is $195. 15 million 2. How should Phil bodily structure his global production network? Assume that the past is a reasonable indicator of the future in terms of exchange rates. Dollar and Peso have been descendd to compare with the Euro, Real, Rupee and the Yen the last three years include 2007, 2008, and 200 9. However, the business cycle needs to retain capacity and capabilities throughout the total supply chain.Therefore, production can be diverted as currencies move against each other. 3. Is there any plant for which it whitethorn be worth adding a million kilograms of additional capacity at a fixed cost of $3 million per year? There is no any plant for which it may be worth adding a million kilograms of additional capacity at a fixed cost of $3 million per year. 4. How are your recommendations affected by the reduction of duties? If the BioPharma, Inc. wants to reduce duties, it would increase production in Germany, Japan, and The U. S. nd decrease imports into Latin America, Asia without Japan, and Mexico. 5. The analysis has assumed that each plant has a 100 share yield (percent output of acceptable quality). How would you modify your analysis to account for yield differences across plants? To change the percentage yield, BioPharma, Inc. need to desert capacity or decrease the a mount of shipment. 6. What other factors should be accounted for when making your recommendations? Factors should be accounted for when making my recommendations such as disasters, delay, inaccurate forecasting, and inventory.

Ulrich Beck

Sociology http//soc. sagepub. com Becks Sociology of Risk A Critical Assessment Anthony Elliott Sociology 2002 36 293 DOI 10. 1177/0038038502036002004 The online version of this article fag end be build at http//soc. sagepub. com/cgi/ elusion/abstract/36/2/293 Published by http//www. sage valet de chambreations. com On behalf of British Socio brass of logical Association Additional services and information for Sociology can be found at Email Alerts http//soc. sagepub. com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions http//soc. sagepub. com/subscriptions Reprints http//www. agepub. com/journalsReprints. nav Permissions http//www. sagepub. com/journalsPermissions. nav Citations (this article cites 6 articles hosted on the SAGE Journals Online and HighWire Press platforms) http//soc. sagepub. com/cgi/content/refs/36/2/293 Downloaded from http//soc. sagepub. com by Madhu Menon on family 24, 2007 2002 BSA Publications Ltd.. all rights reserved. non for commercialised-gradeized use or unlicensed d istribution. 022761 Elliott 13/5/2002 949 am page 293 Risk Society Sociology Copyright 2002 BSA Publications LtdVolume 36(2) 293315 0038-0385(200205)362293315022761 SAGE Publications London,Thousand Oaks, New Delhi Becks Sociology of Risk A Critical Assessment s Anthony Elliott University of the West of England AB ST RAC T The German sociologist Ulrich Beck has elaborated a passing original formulation of the supposition of adventure and re? exive modernisation, a formulation that has had a signi? cant impact upon fresh sociological theorizing and research. This article examines Becks sociology of strive in the context of his broader sociable guess of re? xivity, go modernisation and angiotensin-converting enzyme-on-oneization. The article argues that Becks work is constrained by several sociological weaknesses namely, a dependence upon objectivistic and instrumental models of the affable construction of try and uncertainty in amicable relations, and a failure to a dequately de? ne the relations mingled with institutional dynamism on the one hand and self-referentiality and critical re? ection on the other. As a contribution to the reformulation and further development of Becks approach to sociological scheme, the article seeks to uggest other ways in which the link amid put on the line and re? exivity tycoon be pursued. These include a focus upon (1) the intermixing of re? exivity and re? ection in brotherly relations (2) contemporary ideologies of command and power and (3) a dialectical nonion of modernism and postmodernization. K E Y WORDS subordination / modernism / postmodernity / re? exivity / stake / friendly theory A s competent re? ective agents, we are aware of the several(prenominal) ways in which a oecumenicalized climate of seek presses in on our daily activities.In our dayto-day lives, we are sensitive to the cluster of essays that affect our relations with the self, with others, and with the broader culture. We are specialists in carving forbidden ways of coping and managing find, whether this be through active engagement, resigned acceptance or confused denial. From dietary concerns to 293 Downloaded from http//soc. sagepub. com by Madhu Menon on phratry 24, 2007 2002 BSA Publications Ltd.. every rights reserved. non for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 022761 Elliott 294 13/5/2002 Sociology 949 am Volume 36 s Page 294 soma 2 sMay 2002 future stock market gains and rednesses to polluted air, the contemporary endangerment climate is one of proliferation, multiplication, specialism, counterfactual guesswork, and, above all, anxiety. Adequate consideration and calculation of risktaking, risk-management and risk-detection can never be fully gross(a), however, since there are always unforeseen and unplanned aspects of risk environments. This is curiously true at the level of global hazards, where the array of industrial, technological, chemic and nuclear dangers that reside us grows, and at an alarming rate.Indeed the German sociologist, Ulrich Beck (1996a), de? nes the stream situation as that of world risk monastic rule. The rise of risk parliamentary law, Beck argues, is chute up with the sore-fashioned electronic global economy a world in which we live on the edge of high technological innovation and scienti? c development, but where no one fully understands the achievable global risks and dangers we face. My aim in this article is to explore slightly of the issues that concern the relation between risk and society by focusing on the work of Beck.A profoundly innovative and imaginative social theorist, Beck has developed powerful analyses of the ways in which the rise of the risk society is transforming social genteelness, nature and ecology, intimate family relationships, politics and democracy. 1 It is necessary to state at the out round that I am not seeking in this article to provide a general introduction to Becks work as a whole. Rather, I shall offer a short exposition of Becks risk society dissertation, in conjunction with his compendium of re? exivity and its graphic symbol in social practices and modern institutions. The econd, more extensive half of the article is thus critical and reconstructive in character. I try to identify several questionable social-theoretic assumptions contained in Becks risk society thesis, as well as limitations concerning his analysis of re? exivity, social reproduction and the dynamics of modernity. In making this critique, I shall try to point, in a limited and pro resourceal manner, to some of the ways in which I believe that the themes of risk and social re? exivity can be reformulated and, in turn, further developed in contemporary sociological analysis.Outline of the hypothesis Let me begin by outlining the central planks of Becks social theory. These can be divided into three major themes (1) the risk society thesis (2) re? exive modernization and (3) indiv idualization. The Risk Society Thesis From his highly in? uential 1986 volume Risk Society through to Democracy without Enemies (1998) and World Risk Society (1999b), Beck has systematically argued that the judgment of risk is becoming increasingly central to our global society. 2 As Beck (1991 223) writes Downloaded from http//soc. agepub. com by Madhu Menon on September 24, 2007 2002 BSA Publications Ltd.. in all rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 022761 Elliott 13/5/2002 949 am Page 295 Becks sociology of risk Elliott The historically unprecedented possibility, brought roughly by our own decisions, of the destruction of all life on this planet distinguishes our epoch not that from the early phase of the Industrial Revolution but excessively from all other cultures and social forms, no matter how diverse and contradictory.If a ? re burst outs out, the ? re brigade comes if a traf? c accident occurs, the insurance pays. This interplay bet ween before and after, between security in the here-and-now and security in the future because one took precautions even for the worst imaginable case, has been revoked in the age of nuclear, chemical and ancestral technology. In their brilliant perfection, nuclear power plants soak up suspended the principle of insurance not nevertheless in the economic but also in the medical, psychological, cultural, and religious good sense.The residual risk society is an uninsured society, in which protection, paradoxically, decreases as the threat increases. For Beck, modernity is a world that introduces global risk parameters that old generations have not had to face. Precisely because of the failure of modern social institutions to control the risks they have created, such(prenominal) as the ecological crisis, risk rebounds as a largely vindicatory attempt to avoid new difficultys and dangers. Beck contends that it is necessary to separate the notion of risk from hazard or danger.Th e hazards of pre-industrial society famines, plagues, natural disasters may or may not come close to the destructive potential of technoscience in the contemporary era. Yet for Beck this really is not a key consideration in any event, since he does not wish to suggest that daily life in todays risk society is intrinsically more hazardous than in the pre-modern world. What he does suggest, however, is that no notion of risk is to be found in impostal culture pre-industrial hazards or dangers, no matter how potentially catastrophic, were experienced as pre-given.They came from some other gods, nature or demons. With the beginning of societal attempts to control, and air divisionicularly with the idea of steering towards a future of predictable security, the consequences of risk become a governmental issue. This last point is crucial. It is societal intervention in the form of decision-making that transforms incalculable hazards into calculable risks. Risks, writes Beck (1997 30), always depend on decisions that is, they presuppose decisions.The idea of risk society is thus bound up with the development of instrumental rational control, which the process of modernization promotes in all spheres of life from individual risk of accidents and illnesses to export risks and risks of war. In support of the contention that protection from danger decreases as the threat increases in the contemporary era, Beck (1994) discusses, among many other theoretical accounts, the case of a lead crystal manufacturing plant in the former Federal Republic of Germany. The factory in question Altenstadt in the Upper Palatinate was prosecuted in the 1980s for polluting the atmosphere. umpteen residents in the area had, for some broad time, suffered from skin rashes, nausea and headaches, and blame was squarely attributed to the white dust emitted from the factorys smokestacks. Due to the visibility of the pollution, the case for damages against the factory was imagined, by many people, to be watertight. Downloaded from http//soc. sagepub. com by Madhu Menon on September 24, 2007 2002 BSA Publications Ltd.. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 295 022761 Elliott 296 13/5/2002 Sociology 949 am Volume 36 s Page 296Number 2 s May 2002 However, because there were three other glass factories in the area, the presiding judge offered to drop the charges in return for a nominal ? ne, on the strands that individual liability for emitting dangerous pollutants and toxins could not be established. Welcome to the real-life travesty of the hazard technocracy writes Beck, underlining the denial of risks at bottom our cultural and semipolitical structures. Such denial for Beck is deeply layered within institutions, and he calls this organized irresponsibility a concept to which we will return.The age of nuclear, chemical and genetic technology, fit in to Beck, unleashes a destruction of the calculus of risks by which moder n societies have developed a consensus on progress. Insurance has been the key to sustaining this consensus, functioning as a agreeable of security pact against industrially produced dangers and hazards. 3 In particular, 2 kinds of insurance are associated with modernization the private insurance company and public insurance, linked above all with the welfare state.Yet the changing nature of risk in an age of globalization, argues Beck, fractures the calculating of risks for purposes of insurance. Individually and collectively, we do not fully pick out or understand many of the risks that we currently face, let alone can we attempt to calculate them accurately in damage of probability, compensation and accountability. In this connection, Beck emphasizes the pastime s s s s risks today threaten irreparable global damage which cannot be limited, and hus the notion of monetary compensation is rendered obsolescent in the case of the worst possible nuclear or chemical accident, any s ecurity monitoring of damages fails accidents, now reconstituted as events without beginning or end, break apart delimitations in space and time notions of accountability collapse. Re? exive Modernization Beck develops his critique of modernity through an examination of the presuppositions of the sociology of modernization. Many mainstream sociological theories remain marked, in his idea, by a confusion of modernity with industrial society seen in either positive or negative terms.This is true for functionalists and Marxists alike, especially in terms of their preoccupation with industrial achievement, adaptation, differentiation and rationalization. Indeed, Beck ? nds an ideology of progress concealed within dominant social theories that equate modernization with linear rationalization. From Marx through Parsons to Luhmann, modern society is constantly changing, expanding and transforming itself it is clear that industrialism results in the using up of resources that are essentia l to the reproduction of society.But the most striking limitation of social theories that equate modernity with industrial society, according to Beck, lies in their lack of comprehension of the manner in which dangers to societal preservation and renewal in? ltrate the institutions, organizations and subsystems of modern society itself. Downloaded from http//soc. sagepub. com by Madhu Menon on September 24, 2007 2002 BSA Publications Ltd.. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 022761 Elliott 13/5/2002 49 am Page 297 Becks sociology of risk Elliott In cable to this grand consensus on modernization, Beck argues that we are between industrial society and mod modernity, between simple modernization and re? exive modernization. As Beck (1996b 28) develops these distinctions In view of these two stages and their sequence, the concept of re? exive modernization may be introduced. This precisely does not mean re? ection (as the adjective re? exive seem s to suggest), but above all self-confrontation.The changeover from the industrial to the risk epoch of modernity occurs unintentionally, unseen, compulsively, in the course of a dynamic of modernization which has made itself sovereign, on the pattern of latent side- exploits. One can almost say that the constellations of risk society are created because the self-evident truths of industrial society (the consensus on progress, the abstraction from ecological consequences and hazards) dominate the thinking and behaviour of homo beings and institutions. Risk society is not an option which could be chosen or rejected in the course of political debate.It arises through the automatic operation of autonomous modernization processes which are blind and deaf to consequences and dangers. In total, and latently, these produce hazards which call into question indeed abolish the basis of industrial society. It is the autonomous, compulsive dynamic of advanced or re? exive modernization th at, according to Beck, propels modern men and women into self-confrontation with the consequences of risk that cannot adequately be addressed, measured, controlled or overcome, at least according to the standards of industrial society.Modernitys blindness to the risks and dangers produced by modernization all of which happens automatically and unre? ectingly, according to Beck leads to societal self-confrontation that is, the questioning of divisions between centres of political activity and the decision-making capacity of society itself. Society, in effect, seeks to remediate the political from its modernist relegation to the institutional sphere, and this, says Beck, is achieved primarily through sub-political delegacy that is, locating the politics of risk at the heart of forms of social and cultural life. Within the skyline of the opposition between old routine and new awareness of consequences and dangers, writes Beck, society becomes self-critical (1999b 81). The prospect s for arresting the dark sides of industrial progress and advanced modernization through re? exivity are routinely short-circuited, according to Beck, by the insidious in? uence of organized irresponsibility. Irresponsibility, as Beck uses the term, refers to a political contradiction in terms of the self-jeopardization and self-endangerment of risk society.This is a contradiction between an emerging public awareness of risks produced by and within the social-institutional system on the one hand, and the lack of attribution of systemic risks to this system on the other. there is, in Becks reckoning, a constant denial of the suicidal tendency of risk society the system of organized irresponsibility which manifests itself in, say, technically orientated profound procedures designed to satisfy rigorous causal proof of individual liability and guilt. This self-created dead end, in which culpability is passed off on to individualsDownloaded from http//soc. sagepub. com by Madhu Menon on September 24, 2007 2002 BSA Publications Ltd.. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 297 022761 Elliott 298 13/5/2002 Sociology 949 am Volume 36 s Page 298 Number 2 s May 2002 and thus collectively denied, is maintained through political ideologies of industrial fatalism faith in progress, dependence on reasonableness and the rule of expert opinion. Individualization The arrival of advanced modernization is not wholly about risk it is also about an expansion of choice.For if risks are an attempt to make the incalculable calculable, thusly risk-monitoring presupposes agency, choice, calculation and responsibility. In the process of re? exive modernization, Beck argues, more and more areas of life are released or disembedded from the hold of tradition. That is to say, people nutriment in the modernized societies of today develop an increasing engagement with both the intimate and more public aspects of their lives, aspects that were previou sly governed by tradition or taken-forgranted norms.This set of developments is what Beck calls individualization, and its operation is governed by a dialectic of disintegration and reinvention. For example, the disappearance of tradition and the disintegration of previously existing social forms ? xed gender roles, in? exible folk military positions, masculinist work models forces people into making decisions about their own lives and future courses of action.As traditional ways of doing things become problematic, people must choose paths for a more recognise life all of which requires planning and rationalization, deliberation and engagement. An active engagement with the self, with the body, with relationships and marriage, with gender norms, and with work this is the subjective backdrop of the risk society. The idea of individualization is the basis upon which Beck constructs his vision of a new modernity, of novel personal experimentation and cultural innovation against a social backdrop of risks, dangers, hazards, re? xivity, globalization. Yet the unleashing of experimentation and choice which individualization brings is certainly not without its problems. According to Beck, there are progressive and regressive elements to individualization although, in analytical terms, these are extremely hard to disentangle. In personal terms, the gains of todays individualization might be tomorrows limitation, as advantage and progress turn into their opposite. A signal example of this is offered in The Normal Chaos of Love (1995), where Beck and Beck-Gernsheim re? ct on the role of technological innovation in medicine, and of how this impacts upon contemporary family life. Technological advancements in diagnostic and genetic testing on the unborn, they argue, create new parental possibilities, primarily in the realm of wellness monitoring. However, the very capacity for medical intervention is one that quickly turns into an obligation on parents to use such technologies in order to secure a sound genetic starting point for their offspring.Individualization is seen here as a paradoxical compulsion, at once leading people into a much more engaged relationship with science and technology than used to be the case, and enforcing a set of obligations and responsibilities that few in society have thought through in terms of broad Downloaded from http//soc. sagepub. com by Madhu Menon on September 24, 2007 2002 BSA Publications Ltd.. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 022761 Elliott 13/5/2002 949 am Page 299 Becks sociology of risk Elliott moral and honest implications.It is perhaps little wonder therefore that Beck (1997 96), echoing Sartre, contends that people are condemned to individualization. Critique Beck has elaborated a highly original formulation of the theory of risk, a formulation which links with, but in many ways is more sophisticated in its dilate and application than, other sociological approaches to the analysis of risk environments in contemporary society (among other contributions, see Douglas and Wildavsky (1982), Castell (1991), Giddens (1990, 1991), Luhmann (1993) and Adam (1998)).Becks sociology of risk has clearly been of increasing interest to sociologists concerned with understanding the hard temporal and spatial ? gurations of invisible hazards and dangers including global warming, chemical and petrochemical pollution, the effects of genetically modi? ed organisms and culturally induced diseases such as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) (see cut down et al. , 1996 Adam, 1998). In what follows, there are three core areas around which I shall develop a critique of the work of Beck (1) risk, re? xivity, re? ection (2) power and domination and (3) tradition, modernity and postmodernization. Risk, Re? exivity, Re? ection Let me begin with Becks discussion of the risk society, which, according to him, currently dominates socio-political frames thanks t o the twin forces of re? exivity and globalization. at that place are, I believe, many respects in which Becks vision of Risikogesellschaft, especially its rebounding in personal experience as risk-laden discourses and practices, is to be welcomed.In the wake of the Chernobyl disaster and widespread environmental pollution, and with ever more destructive weapons as well as human-made biological, chemical and technological hazards, it is surely the case that thinking in terms of risk has become central to the way in which human agents and modern institutions organize the social world. Indeed, in a world that could literally destroy itself, risk-managing and risk-monitoring increasingly in? uences both the constitution and calculation of social action.As mentioned previously, it is this focus on the concrete, objective physical-biological-technical risk settings of modernity which recommends Becks analysis as a useful strict to the very much obsessive abstraction and textual decon struction that characterizes much recent social theory. However, one still might wonder whether Becks theory does not overemphasize, in a certain sense, the phenomena and relevance of risk. From a social-historical perspective it is plausible to ask, for instance, whether life in society has become more risky? In From enactment to Risk, Bryan S. Turner (1994 1801) fuck offs the problem wellDownloaded from http//soc. sagepub. com by Madhu Menon on September 24, 2007 2002 BSA Publications Ltd.. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 299 022761 Elliott three hundred 13/5/2002 Sociology 949 am Volume 36 s Page 300 Number 2 s May 2002 A atrocious criticism of Becks arguments would be to suggest that risk has not changed so profoundly and signi? cantly over the last three centuries. For example, were the epidemics of syphilis and bubonic plague in earlier periods any different from the modern environment illnesses to which Beck draws our attention?T hat is, do Becks criteria of risk, such as their impersonal and unobservable nature, really stand up to historical scrutiny? The devastating plagues of earlier centuries were certainly global, democratic and general. Peasants and aristocrats died equally horrible deaths. In addition, with the spread of capitalist colonialism, it is clearly the case that in previous centuries many aboriginal peoples such as those of North America and Australia were engulfed by environmental, medical and political catastrophes which wiped out entire populations.If we take a broader view of the notion of risk as entailing at least a strong cultural element whereby risk is seen to be a necessary part of the human condition, consequently we could argue that the profound uncertainties about life, which occasionally overwhelmed earlier civilizations, were not unlike the anxieties of our own ? n-de-siecle civilizations. Extending Turners critique, it might also be asked whether risk estimate is the ultima te worry in the plight of individuals in contemporary culture?Is it right to see the means-ended rationality of risk, and thus the economistic language of preference, assessment and choice, as diffusion into personal and intimate spheres of life (such as marriage, friendship and child-rearing) in such a determinate and uni? ed way? And does the concept of risk actually capture what is new and different in the contemporary social condition? I shall not pursue these general questions, important though they are, here. Instead, the issue I penury to raise concerns the multiple ways in which risk is perceived, approached, engaged with or disengaged from, in contemporary culture.Becks approach, however suggestive it may be, is at outgo a signpost which points to speci? c kinds of probabilities, avoidances and unanticipated consequences, but which is limited in its grasp of the social structuring of the cognizance of risk. The American social theorist Jeffrey C. Alexander (1996 135) ha s argued that Becks unproblematic understanding of the perception of risk is utilitarian and objectivist. Alexander takes Beck to task for adopting a rationalistic and instrumental-calculative model of risk in microsocial and macrosocial worlds to which it can be added that such a model has deep af? ities with neo- configurationical economics and rational-choice theory, and thus of necessity shares the abstract and political limitations of these standpoints also. Beck has also been criticized by others for his cognitive realism, moral proceduralism and lack of attention to artistic and hermeneutical subjectivity (Lash and Urry, 1994) failure to ac companionship the embodied nature of the self (Turner, 1994 Petersen, 1996) and neglect of the psychodynamic and affective dimensions of subjectivity and intersubjective relations (Elliott, 1996 Hollway and Jefferson, 1997).In a social-theoretical frame of reference, what these criticisms imply is that Becks theory cannot grasp the herm eneutical, aesthetic, psychological and culturally bounded forms of subjectivity and intersubjectivity in and through Downloaded from http//soc. sagepub. com by Madhu Menon on September 24, 2007 2002 BSA Publications Ltd.. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 022761 Elliott 13/5/2002 950 am Page 301 Becks sociology of risk Elliott which risk is constructed and perceived.To study risk-management and riskavoidance strategies, in the light of these criticisms, requires attention to forms of meaning-making within socio- emblematicalally inscribed institutional ? elds, a problem to which I return in a subsequent section when looking at Becks analysis of tradition, modernity and postmodernity. In raising the issue of the construction and reconstruction of risk in particular, its active interpretation and reconstruction one might reference numerous studies of socio-political attitudes relating to the formulation and confrontation of risk, danger and hazard.The anthropologist Mary Douglas (1986, 1992), for example, argues that advanced industrial risks are primarily constructed through the rhetoric of purity and pollution. For Douglas, what is most pressing in the social-theoretic analysis of risk is an understanding of how human agents ignore many of the potential threats of daily life and instead concentrate only on selected aspects. Interestingly, Beck fails to discuss in any detail Douglass anthropology of risk. This would seem peculiar not only since Douglass path-breaking analyses of risk appear to have laid much of the thematic groundwork for Becks sociological theory, but also because her work is highly relevant to the critique of contemporary ideologies of risk that is, the social forms in which risk and uncertainty are differentiated crosswise and within social formations, as well as peculiarly individuated. My purpose in underscoring these various limitations of Becks theory is not to engage in some exercise of conce ptual clari? cation.My concern rather is to sift the sociologically questionable assumptions concerning risk in Becks work, and to tease out the more complex, nuanced forms of risk perception that might fall within the scope of such an approach. To call into question Becks notion of risk is, of course, also to raise important issues about the location of re? exivity between self and societal reproduction. Now it is the failure of simple, industrial society to control the risks it has created, which, for Beck, generates a more intensive and extensive sense of risk in re? xive, advanced modernity. In this sense, the rise of objective, physical, global risks propels social re? exivity. But again one might wish to question the generalizations Beck makes about human agents, modern institutions and culture becoming more re? exive or self-confronting. Much of Becks work has been concerned to emphasize the degree of re? exive institutional dynamism involved in the restructuring of personal , social and political life, from the reforging of intimate relationships to the reinvention of politics.But there are disturbing dimensions here as well, which the spread of cultural, ethnic, racial and gendered con? ict has shown only too well, and often in ways in which one would be hard pressed to ? nd forms of personal or social re? exive activity. No doubt Beck would deny as he has done in his more recent writings that the renewal of traditions and the rise of cultural con? icts are counterexamples to the thesis of re? exive modernization. For we need to be particularly careful, Beck contends, not to confuse re? exivity (self-dissolution) with re? ction (knowledge). As Beck (1994b 1767) develops this distinction Downloaded from http//soc. sagepub. com by Madhu Menon on September 24, 2007 2002 BSA Publications Ltd.. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 301 022761 Elliott 302 13/5/2002 Sociology 950 am Volume 36 s Page 302 Number 2 s May 2 002 the re? exivity of modernity and modernization in my sense does not mean re? ection on modernity, self-relatedness, the self-referentiality of modernity, nor does it mean the self-justi? ation or self-criticism of modernity in the sense of programical sociology rather (? rst of all), modernization undercuts modernization, unintended and unseen, and therefore also re? ection-free, with the force of autonomized modernization. Re? exivity of modernity can lead to re? ection on the self-dissolution and self-endangerment of industrial society, but it need not do so. Thus, re? exivity does not imply a kind of hyper-Enlightenment culture, where agents and institutions re? ect on modernity, but rather an unintended self-modi? ation of forms of life driven by the impact of autonomized processes of modernization. Re? exivity, on this account, is de? ned as much by re? ex as it is by re? ection. It is possible to detect, write Lash et al. (1996) of Becks recent sociology, a move towards seeing re? exive modernization as in most part propelled by blind social processes a shift, crudely, from where risk society produces re? ection which in turn produces re? exivity and critique, to one where risk society automatically produces re? exivity, and then perhaps re? ection.Without wishing to deny the interest of this radical conception of re? exivity as self-dissolution, it still seems to me that Becks contention that contemporary societies are propelled toward self-confrontation, snag between re? ex and re? ection, remains dubious. In what sense, for instance, can one claim that re? ection-free forms of societal self-dissolution exist independently of the re? ective capacities of human agents? For what, exactly, is being dissolved, if not the forms of life and social practices through which institutions are structured?How might the analytical terms of re? exivity, that is social re? exes (nonknowledge) and re? ection (knowledge), be reconciled? It may be thought that these dif? culties can be overcome by insisting, along with Beck, on re? exivity in the strong sense as the unseen, the unwilled, the unintended in short, institutional dynamism. But such an account of blind social processes is surely incompatible with, and in fact renders incoherent, concepts of re? ection, referentiality, re? exivity.Alternatively, a weaker version of the argument might be developed, one that sees only partial and contextual interactions of selfdissolution and re? ection. Yet such an account, again, would seem to cut the analytical ground from under itself, since there is no adequate basis for showing how practices of re? exivity vary in their complex articulations of re? ex and re? ection or repeat and creativity. Power and Domination I now want to consider Becks theory in relation to sociological understandings of power and domination. According to Beck, re? xive modernization combats many of the distinctive characteristics of power, turning set social divisio ns into active negotiated relationships. Traditional political con? icts, centred around class, race and gender, are increasingly superseded by new, globalized risk con? icts. Risks, writes Beck (1992 35), display an equalizing effect. Everyone Downloaded from http//soc. sagepub. com by Madhu Menon on September 24, 2007 2002 BSA Publications Ltd.. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 022761 Elliott 13/5/2002 950 am Page 303 Becks sociology of risk Elliott ow is threatened by risk of global proportions and repercussions not even the rich and powerful can come off the new dangers and hazards of, say, global warming or nuclear war. And it is from this universalized perspective that Beck argues political power and domination is shedding the skin of its definitive forms and reinventing itself in a new global idiom. The problematic nature of Becks writings on this reinvention of political power and its role in social life, however, becomes increasin gly evident when considering his analysis of social inequalities and cultural divisions.Take, for example, his re? ections on class. Re? exive modernization, says Beck, does not result in the self-destruction of class antagonisms, but rather in selfmodi? cation. He writes (1997 26) Re? exive modernization disembeds and re-embeds the cultural prerequisites of social classes with forms of individualization of social contrast. That means that the disappearance of social classes and the abolition of social inequality no longer coincide. Instead, the blurring of social classes (in perception) runs in in tandem with an exacerbation of social inequality, which now does not follow large identi? ble groups in the lifeworld, but is instead fragmented across (life) phases, space and time. The present-day individualizing forces of social inequality, according to Beck, erode class-consciousness (personal dif? culties and grievances no longer culminate into group or collective causes) and also , to some considerable degree, class-in-itself (contemporary social problems are increasingly suffered alone). In short, class as a community of fate or destiny exacerbates steeply. With class solidarities replaced by brittle and uncertain forms of individual self-management, Beck ? ds evidence for a rule-altering rationalization of class relationships in new business and management practices, as well as industrial relations reforms. He contends that new blendings of economics and democracy are distinct in the rise of political civil rights within the workplace, a blend which opens the possibility of a post-capitalistic world a classless capitalism of capital, in which the antagonism between drive and capital will collapse. There is considerable plausibility in the suggestion that class patterns and divisions have been altered by rapid social and political changes in recent years.These include changes in employment and the occupational structure, the expansion of the service ind ustries, rising unemployment, lower retirement ages, as well as a growing individualization in the West together with an accompanying stress upon lifestyle, consumption and choice. However, while it might be the case that developments associated with re? exive modernization and the risk society are affecting social inequalities, it is surely implausible to suggest, as Beck does, that this involves the trans? guration of class as such. Why, as Scott Lash (Beck et al. , 1994 211) asks, do we ? nd re? xivity in some sectors of socio-economic life and not others? Against the backdrop of new communication technologies and advances in knowledge transfer, vast gaps in the sociocultural conditions of the blind drunk and the poor drastically affect the ways in which individuals are drawn into the project of re? exive modernization. These Downloaded from http//soc. sagepub. com by Madhu Menon on September 24, 2007 2002 BSA Publications Ltd.. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or un authorized distribution. 303 022761 Elliott 304 13/5/2002 Sociology 950 am Volume 36 s Page 304 Number 2 s May 2002 ensions are especially evident today in new social divisions between the information rich and information poor, and of the forces and demands of such symbolic participation within the public sphere. What Beck fails to adequately consider is that individualization (while undoubtedly facilitating unprecedented forms of personal and social experimentation) may directly contribute to, and advance the proliferation of, class inequalities and economic exclusions. That is to say, Beck fails to give suf? cient sociological weight to the possibility that individualization may actually embody systematically asymmetrical relations of class power.Taken from a broader view of the i bear ons of equal opportunity and social progress, Becks arguments about the relationship between advanced levels of re? exivity and the emergence of a new sub-politics do not adequately stand up to scru tiny. The general, tendential assertions he advances about business and organizational restructuring assume what needs to be demonstrated namely, that these new organizational forms spell the demise of social class, as well as the viability of class analysis. Moreover, it seems implausible to point to subpolitics, de? ned by Beck only in very general terms, as symptomatic of a new socio-political agenda.When, for example, have the shifting boundaries between the political and economic spheres not played a primary role in the unfolding of relations between labour and capital? Is decision-making and consciousness really focused on a post-capitalistic rationalization of rights, duties, interests and decisions? A good deal of recent research shows, on the contrary, that income inequality between and within nations continues to escalate (Braun, 1991 Lemert, 1997) that class (together with structures of power and domination) continues to profoundly shape possible life chances and materia l nterests (Westergaard, 1995) and that the many different de? nitions of class as a concept, encompassing the marginal, the excluded as well as the new underclass or new poor, are important in social analysis for comprehending the persistence of patterns of social inequality (Crompton, 1996). These dif? culties would suggest that Becks theory of risk requires reformulation in various ways.Without wishing to deny that the risk-generating propensity of the social system has rapidly increased in recent years due to the impact of globalization and techno-science, it seems to me misleading to contend that social division in multinational capitalist societies is fully trans? gured into a new logic of risk, as if the latter disconnects the former from its institutionalized biases and processes. The more urgent theoretical task, I suggest, is to develop methods of analysis for explicating how patterns of power and domination feed into, and are reconstituted by, the socio-symbolic structur ing of risk.Here I shall restrict myself to noting three interrelated forces, which indicate, in a general way, the contours of how a politics of risk is undergoing transformation. The ? rst development is that of the privatization of risk. Underpinned by new trans-national spatializations of economic relations as well as the deregulation of the government of political life (Giddens, 1990 Hirst and Thompson, 1996 Bauman, 1998), the individual is increasingly viewed today as an active Downloaded from http//soc. sagepub. om by Madhu Menon on September 24, 2007 2002 BSA Publications Ltd.. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 022761 Elliott 13/5/2002 950 am Page 305 Becks sociology of risk Elliott agent in the risk-monitoring of collectively produced dangers risk-information, risk-detection and risk-management is more and more constructed and designed as a matter of private responsibility and personal security. By and large, human agents confront so cially produced risks individually.Risk is desocialized risk-exposure and risk-avoidance is a matter of individual responsibility and navigation. This is, of course, partly what Beck means by the individualization of risk. However, the relations between individualized or privatized risk, material inequalities and the development of global beggary are more systematic and complex than Becks theory seems to recognize. In the post-war period, the shift from Keynesian to monetarist economic policies has been a key factor in the erosion of the management of risk through welfare security.The impact of globalization, transnational corporations and governmental deregulation is vital to the social production of the privatization of risk, all of which undoubtedly has a polarizing effect on distributions of wealth and income. It has also become evident and this is crucial that one must be able to deploy certain educational resources, symbolic goods, cultural and media capabilities, as well as cognitive and affective aptitudes, in order to count as a player in the privatization of risk-detection and risk-management.People who cannot deploy such resources and capabilities, often the result of various material and class inequalities, are likely to ? nd themselves further disadvantaged and marginalized in a new world order of re? exive modernization. The second, related development concerns the commodi? cation of risk. Millions of dollars are made through product development, advertising, and market research in the new industries of risk, which construct new problems and market new solutions for risk-? ghting individual agents. As risk is simultaneously proliferated and rendered potentially manageable, writes Nikolas Rose (1996 342), the private market for security extends not merely personal pension schemes and private health insurance, but burglar alarms, devices that monitor sleeping children, home testing kits for cholesterol levels and much more. Protection against r isk through an investment in security becomes part of the responsibilities of each active individual, if they are not to feel guilt at failing to protect themselves and their loved ones against future misfortunes.In other words, the typical means for insuring against risk today is through market-promoted processes. However the fundamental point here, and this is something that Beck fails to develop in a systematic manner, is that such insurance is of a radically imaginary kind (with all the mis intuition and illusion that the Lacanian-Althusserian theorization of the duplicate mirror-structure of ideology implies), given that one cannot really buy ones way out of the collective dangers that confront us as individuals and societies. How does one, for example, buy a way out from the dangers of global warming?The commodi? cation of risk has become a kind of safe house for myths, fantasies, ? ction and lies. The troika development concerns the instrumentalization of identities in terms of lifestyle, consumption and choice. Beck touches on this issue through the individualization strand of his argument. Yet because he sees individualiza- Downloaded from http//soc. sagepub. com by Madhu Menon on September 24, 2007 2002 BSA Publications Ltd.. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 305 022761 Elliott 306 13/5/2002 Sociology 950 am Volume 36 s Page 306 Number 2 s May 2002 ion as an active process transforming risk society, he pays almost no attention to the kinds of affective investments, often destructive and pathological, unleashed by an instrumentalization of identities and social relations. Of core importance here is the culture of narcissism (Lasch, 1980) which pervades contemporary Western life, and plays a powerful role in the instrumental affective investments in individuals which a risk society unleashes. Joel Kovel (1988) writes of the de-sociation of the self-loving character, a character lacking in depth of emotional at tachment to others and communities.Unable to sustain a sense of personal purpose or social project, the narcissistic character, writes Kovel, rarely moves beyond instrumentality in dealing with other people. Such instrumental emotional investments may well be increasingly central to the management of many risk codes in contemporary culture. Consider the ways in which some parents fashion a narcissistic relation with their own children as a kind of imaginary risk-insurance (involving anxieties and insecurities over old age, mortality and the like), rather than relating to their offspring as independent individuals in their own right.Also in risks relating to the home, personal comfort as well as safety, hygiene, health and domesticity, the veneer-like quality of pathological narcissism can be found. Some analytical caution is, of course, necessary here, primarily because the work on narcissistic culture of Lasch and Sennett, among others, has been criticized in terms of over-generali zation (Giddens, 1991 17480). Accordingly, it may be more plausible to suggest that narcissistic forms of identity are a tendency within contemporary cultural relations of risk management, and not a wholesale social trend.Becks writings, I am suggesting, are less than satisfying on issues of power and domination because he fails to analyse in suf? cient depth the psychological, sociological and political forces by means of which the self-risk dialectic takes its varying forms. To develop a more nuanced interpretative and critical approach, I have suggested, the sociological task is to analyse privatization, commodi? cation and instrumentalization as channels of risk management. Tradition, Modernity, Postmodernity The limitations in the concept of re? xivity I have highlighted are, in turn, connected to further ambiguities concerning the nature of social reproduction in contemporary culture. The production and reproduction of contemporary social life is viewed by Beck as a process of detraditionalization. The development of re? exive modernization, says Beck, is accompanied by an irreversible decline in the role of tradition the re? exivity of modernity and modernization means that traditional forms of life are increasingly exposed to public scrutiny and debate. That the dynamics of social re? xivity undercut pre-existing traditions is emphasized by Beck via a meander of social-theoretical terms. He speaks of the age of side-effects, of individualization, and of a sub-politics beyond left and right a world in which people can and must come to terms with the opportunities and dangers of new technologies, markets, experts, systems and Downloaded from http//soc. sagepub. com by Madhu Menon on September 24, 2007 2002 BSA Publications Ltd.. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 022761 Elliott 13/5/2002 950 am Page 307 Becks sociology of risk Elliott nvironments. Beck thus argues that the contemporary age is one characterized by increased levels of referentiality, ambivalence, ? exibility, openness and social alternatives. It might be noted that certain parallels can be identi? ed between the thesis of detraditionalization and arguments advanced in classical social theory. Many classical social theorists believed that the development of the modern era spelled the end of tradition. All that is solid melts into air, said Marx of the power of the capitalist mode of production to deplume apart traditional forms of social life.That the dynamics of capitalism undercut its own foundations meant for Marx a society that was continually transforming and constantly revolutionizing itself. Somewhat similar arguments about the decline of tradition can be found in the writings of Max weber. The development of industrial society for Weber was inextricably intertwined with the rise of the bureaucratic state. Weber saw in this bureaucratic rationalization of action, and associated demand for technical ef? ciency, a new s ocial logic destructive of the traditional texture of society.The views of Marx and Weber, among others, thus advanced a general binary opposition of the traditional and the modern. For proponents of the thesis of detraditionalization, such as Beck, the self-referentiality and social re? exivity of advanced modernity also necessarily implies that traditional beliefs and practices begin to break down. However, the thesis of detraditionalization is not premised upon the broad contrast between the traditional and the modern that we can discern in much classical social theory. On the contrary, Beck ? nds the relation between tradition and modernity at once complex and puzzling.If tradition remains an important aspect of advanced modernity, it is because tradition becomes re? exive traditions are invented, reinvented and restructured in conditions of the late modern age. So far I think that there is much that is interesting and important in this general orientation of Beck to understandi ng the construction of the present, past and future. In particular, I think the stress placed upon the re? exive construction of tradition, and indeed all social reproduction, is especially signi? cant even though I shall go on to argue that this general theoretical framework requires more speci? ation and elaboration. I want, however, to focus on a speci? c issue raised by Becks social theory, and ask, has the development of society toward advanced modernization been accompanied by a decline in the in? uence of tradition and traditional understandings of the past? Must we assume, as Beck seems to, that the social construction of tradition is always permeated by a permeating re? exivity? At issue here, I suggest, is the question of how the concept of re? exivity should be related to traditional, modern and postmodern cultural forms. I shall further suggest that the concept of re? xivity, as elaborated by Beck, fails to comprehend the different modernist and postmodernist ? guratio ns that may be implicit within social practices and symbolic forms of the contemporary age. In order to develop this line of argumentation, let us consider in some more detail the multiplicity of world traditions, communities and cultures as they impact upon current social practices and life-strategies. I believe that Beck is Downloaded from http//soc. sagepub. com by Madhu Menon on September 24, 2007 2002 BSA Publications Ltd.. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 07 022761 Elliott 308 13/5/2002 Sociology 950 am Volume 36 s Page 308 Number 2 s May 2002 right to emphasize the degree to which modernity and advanced modernization processes have assaulted traditions, uprooted local communities and broken apart unique regional, ethnic and sub-national cultures. At the level of economic analysis, an argument can plausibly be sustained that the world(a) nature of the world capitalist economy produces high levels of unpredictability and uncertainty in social life and cultural relations, all of which Beck analyses in terms of danger, risk and hazard.It is worth noting, however, that Becks emphasis on increasing levels of risk, ambivalence and uncertainty is at odds with much recent research in sociology and social theory that emphasizes the regularization and standardization of daily life in the advanced societies. George Ritzers The McDonaldization of Society (1993) is a signal example. Drawing Webers theory of social rationalization and the Frankfurt Schools account of the administered society into a re? ctive encounter, Ritzer examines the application of managerial techniques such as Fordism and Taylorism to the fast food attention as symptomatic of the in? ltration of instrumental rationality into all aspects of cultural life. McDonaldization, as Ritzer develops the term, is the emergence of social logics in which risk and unpredictability are create verbally out of social space. The point about such a conception of the sta ndardization of everyday life, whatever its conceptual and sociological shortcomings, is that it clearly contradicts Becks stress on increasing risk and uncertainty, the concept of re? xive individualization, and the notion that detraditionalization produces more ambivalence, more anxiety, and more openness. Of course, Beck insists that re? exive modernization does not mark a complete break from tradition rather re? exivity signals the revising, or reinvention, of tradition. However, the resurgence and persistence of ethnicity and nationality as a primary basis for the elaboration of traditional beliefs and practices throughout the world is surely problematic for those who, like Beck, advance the general thesis of social re? exivity.Certainly, the thesis would appear challenged by widespread and recently revitalized patterns of racism, sexism and patriotism which have taken hold in many parts of the world, and indeed many serious controversies over race, ethnicity and nationalism in volve a reversion to what might be called traditionalist battles over traditional culture witness the rise of various religious fundamentalisms in the United States, the Middle East and parts of Africa and Asia. These political and theoretical ambivalences have their roots in a number of analytical dif? ulties, speci? cally Becks diagnosis of simple and advanced modernity. Beck furnishes only the barest social-historical sketch of simple modernity as a distinctive period in the spheres of science, industry, morality and law. He underscores the continuing importance and impact of simple industrial society for a range of advanced, re? exive determinations (for example politically, economically, technologically and environmentally), yet the precise relations of such overlapping are not established or demonstrated in any detail.Exactly how we have moved into the age of re? exive modernization, although often stated and repeated, is not altogether clear. Becks main line of explanation s eems to focus on the side-effects of modernization as undercutting the Downloaded from http//soc. sagepub. com by Madhu Menon on September 24, 2007 2002 BSA Publications Ltd.. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 022761 Elliott 13/5/2002 950 am Page 309 Becks sociology of risk Elliott foundations of modernity. But, again, the dynamics of simple and re? xive modernization, together with their social-historical periodization, remain opaque. In addition, it is not always clear how Beck is intending to draw certain conceptual distinctions between positive and negative instantiations of respectively simple and advanced modernist socio-symbolic figurations. Rejecting outright any crude opposition between traditional and modern societies, Beck relates a account of the proliferation of re? exive biographies and practices, lives and institutions, in which creative possibilities develop and new forms of risk and hazard take shape.Yet social advancement i s far from inevitable Beck speaks of counter-modernities. The question that needs to be asked here, however, is whether it is analytically useful for social theory to construct the contemporary age as characterized by interacting tropes of industrial society and re? exive modernization on the one side, and a range of countermodernities on the other. Viewed from the frame of postmodern social theory, and in particular the sociology of postmodernity (see Bauman, 1992a), Becks argument concerning the circularity of the relationship between risk, re? xivity and social knowledge appears in a more problematic, and perhaps ultimately inadequate, light. For postmodern social theorists and cultural analysts diagnose the malaise of present-day society not only as the result of re? exively applied knowledge to complex techno-scienti? c social environments, but as infused by a more general and pervasive sense of cultural disorientation. The most prominent anxieties that underpin postmodern dyna mics of social regulation and systemic reproduction include a general loss of belief in the engine of progress, as well as feelings of out-of-placeness and loss of direction.Such anxieties or dispositions are accorded central signi? cance in the writings of a number of French theorists notably, Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard, Baudrillard, and Deleuze and Guattari and also in the work of sociologists and social scientists interested in the rami? cations of post-structuralism, semiotics and deconstruction for the analysis of contemporary society (Lash and Urry, 1987 Harvey, 1989 Poster, 1990 Best and Kellner, 1991 Smart, 1992, 1993 Bauman, 1992a, 2000 Elliott, 1996).Postmodern anxieties or dispositions are, broadly speaking, thread as part of a broader cultural reaction to universal modernisms construction of the social world, which privileges rationalism, positivism and techno-scienti? c planning. Premised upon a vigorous philosophic denunciation of humanism, abstract reason, and the Enlightenment legacy, postmodern theory rejects the metanarratives of modernity (that is, totalistic theoretical constructions, allegedly of universal application) and instead embraces fragmentation, discontinuity and ambiguity as symptomatic of current cultural conditions.To express the implications of these theoretical departures more directly in terms of the current discussion, if the social world in which we live in the 21st coke is signi? cantly different from that of the simple modernization, this is so because of both socio-political and epistemological developments. It is not only re? ection on the globalization of risk that has eroded faith in humanly engineered progress. Postmodern contributions stress that the plurality of Downloaded from http//soc. sagepub. om by Madhu Menon on September 24, 2007 2002 BSA Publications Ltd.. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. 309 022761 Elliott 310 13/5/2002 Sociology 950 am Volume 36 s Page 310 N umber 2 s May 2002 heterogeneous claims to knowledge carries radical consequences for the unity and tackiness of social systems. Bluntly stated, a number of core issues are identi? ed by postmodern analysts in this connection s s s The crisis of representation, instabilities of meaning, and fracturing of knowledge claimsThe failure of the modernist project to ground epistemology in secure foundations The wholesale transmutation in modes of representation within social life itself. Postmodernization in this context spells the problematization of the relationship between signi? er and referent, representation and reality, a relationship made all the more complex by the computerization of information and knowledge (Poster, 1990). What I am describing as a broadly postmodern sociological viewpoint highlights the de? iency of placing risk (or any other sociological variable) as the central paradox of modernity. For at a minimum, a far wider range of sources would appear to condition our current cultural malaise. What is signi? cant about these theoretical sightings, or glimpses, of the contours of postmodernity as a social system are that they lend themselves to global horizons and de? nitions more adequately than the so-called universalism of Becks sociology of risk.Against a theoretical backdrop of the break with foundationalism, the dispersion of language games, coupled with the recognition that history has no overall teleology, it is surely implausible to stretch the notion of risk as a basis for interpretation of phenomena from, say, an increase in world-wide divorce rates through to the collapse of insurance as a principle for the regulation of collective life. Certainly, there may exist some family similarity in trends surrounding new personal, social and political agendas.Yet the seeds of personal transformation and social dislocation are likely to be a good deal more complex, multiple, discontinuous. This is why the change of mood intellectual, social, cultural, psychological, political and economic analysed by postmodern theorists has more far-reaching consequences for sociological analysis and research into modernity and postmodernization than does the work of Beck. In Becks sociology, the advent of advanced modernization is related to the changing social and technological dimensions of just one institutional sector that of risk and its calculation.The key problem of re? exive modernization is one of living with a high degree of risk in a world where traditional safety nets (the welfare state, traditional nuclear family, etc. ) are being eroded or dismantled. But what is