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Prof. D. Wallace Kristian Papa Final Essay – 1 William Wells Brown & Frederick Douglass During the beginning of XVII century slaves narratives started to take another meaning. They were no longer writing just about their sufferings and how bad were their mistress. At this period we notice that famous narrative writers such as, Frederic Douglas and William Wells Brown, were focusing their writings on the importance of literacy. Their narratives are important for the fact that, now they want to make slaves to reflect about their situation. Later we are going to see how both of them, in a way, connect literacy with freedom. â€Å"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.†(Douglass, ***) This was the importance that Douglass gave to literacy. He thinks that now it’s the time when slaves should react. He sees as no other way to save their souls and lives, but to stand against their slaveholders for their rights. He reminds them that: â€Å"I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs† and â€Å"Without a struggle, there can be no progress.† (Douglass, ***) Adding this thoughts and actions to his narrative he prays also for the other slaves, so they will find the force to escape as Douglass did. We can see this call for freedom that should come from within the slave society, also in Wells Brown. "The last struggle for our rights, the battle for our civilization, is entirely with ourselves." (William Wells Brown, ***) The same as Douglass he points out that the problem is no more in the white society. The problem is that slaves are doing nothing to help themselves. On Wells Brown writing we can see also the fear that he feels when he argues that his people, along with their nation, are losi... ...nterpret Douglass stamen as a fear that whites felt. They felt fear from literacy. Somehow they see literacy as the rising of slaves and the ruining of whites. They saw literacy as the bridge that was destroyed from slave-owners in order to fit slaves in that category. They were afraid that literacy will bring freedom to slaves. In conclusion I would like mention the importance of literacy. We have seen that, that period, literacy was important in different ways. Literacy helped slaves to show to the world their sufferings, mistreatment and how they rights were taken away. Through their narratives they were able to start the â€Å"Abolitionist move† that was against slavery. Literacy, helped also in the conquest of slaves freedom. Through literacy they understood their rights and they saw that the gap that separated slaves form a free man was exactly, Literacy.

Australian Conscription in Vietnam War Essay

The conscription issue during the second Indo – China war in the 1960’s tore apart the fabric of Australian society and resulted in divisions in all sections of the community. There were many reasons for Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War, including the allegiance commitments of South-East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). The introduction of conscription illustrates the main purpose of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War. The conscription issues and the war itself caused social division in reaction to the Vietnam War. In 1964 compulsory National Service was introduced under the National Service Act. The Defence Act was amended in May 1965 to provide that National Servicemen could be obliged to serve overseas, a provision that had been applied only once before – during World War Two. Paragraph one The Australian government supported the USA involvement in the Vietnam War, and Australia felt it was imperative that the North Vietnam have a proper defensive treaty, as a number of other countries felt the same way, so SEATO was created to deal with this situation. SEATO was a much stronger agreement to support Australia’s security needs in the Pacific. It also helped to highlight the growing division between Australia and Britain and the new dependence on the United States (US). † (N/A, The ANZUS Treaty and SEATO Alliance, 2013, Skwirk. com. au Interactive Schooling) Australia joined the SEATO because it could support Australia in the Pacific. As America joined in the Vietnam War, A ustralia supported them to join the war as well. The Australian government feared the idea of communism overtaking their nation, this fear lead to the decision of forcing their young men to be conscripted to join the war in South Vietnam. Conscription was a tremendous issue for the families of the young men who fought in the war because many males were being conscripted sent into the Vietnam War without any choice or opinion. As a result of the fear of communism, Australia decided to support the US to join the Vietnam War and fight for the South Vietnam. SEATO was one of the reasons that Australia joined the war, because it was a much stronger agreement to support Australian security of the needs in the Pacific, Australia joined the SEATO to against the North Vietnam. As Australia got involved the war, the conscription has leaded to the depressions and social divisions in the Australian society. Paragraph two The purpose of the second Indo-China war of conscription was to avoid communism spreading to Australia. This caused Australian men and women to become infuriated and create groups against conscription. Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) was keen to get more supporters of his actions in Vietnam, to give them legitimacy. This was during the Cold War, both North and South Vietnam tried to gain the moral upper hand over the other in a way that does not happen today. â€Å"You have in us [the Australian Liberal delegation] not merely an understanding friend but one staunch in the belief of the need for your presence in Vietnam. We are not here because of our friendship, we are here because, like you, we believe it is right to be there and, like you, we believe American forces should stay there as long as it seems necessary to achieve the purpose of the South Vietnamese Government and the purpose that we join in formulating and progressing together. And so, sir, in the lonelier and perhaps even more disheartening moments which come to any national leader, I hope there will be a corner of your mind and heart which takes cheer from the fact that you have an admiring friend, a staunch friend that will be all the way with LBJ. ( Wikipedia, A Daily Updating Blog of Important Events In History That Never Occurred Today, 2004, Today In Alternate History) From this speech -‘All The Way with LBJ’, to show that LBJ tried to convince other Australia to join the war with them together, and America knew that Australia would support them, and Australia had training teams in Vietnam before 1965, just as the Am erica did. The main reason that Australia was afraid of the communism was the domino theory, the countries of South-East Asia was like dominoes. If one ‘fell’ to communism, this would lead to the fall of another, and so on until all were ruled by communists. It is evidenced that Australia was very fearful of communism and of growing Asian power, by offering Australia’s full unquestioning support of the United States (US). Australia’s foreign policy is basically to secure protection by cuddling up to a more powerful friend; since World War Two America has been Australia’s powerful friend. Australia supported America by helping them in conflicts such as joining the Vietnam War was one of the prices that Australia paid for the protection. Paragraph three Conscription led to people combining together and creating groups to revolt against the conscription and Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War. The social divisions appeared in all sections of the Australian community. Conscription started as choosing 20-year-old males in Australia in 1964, but then it turned into conscripting teenagers. In 1964 compulsory National Service for 20-year-old males was introduced under the National Service Act. The selection of conscripts was made by a sortation or lottery draw based on date of birth, and conscripts were reduced to give two years’ continuous full-time service, followed by a further three years on the active reserve list. Young men who were subject to the conscription lottery also formed their own anti-conscription organization, the Youth Campaign Against Conscription. Like Save Our Sons, it spread to other states – New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia. (Wikipedia, 11 March 2013, Conscription in Australia) In 1965 a group of concerned Australian women who had ‘lost’ their husbands and sons joined together and created the Save Our Sons (S. O. S) which was established in Sydney with other branches later formed in Wollongong, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Newcastle and Adelaide. In the same year, young men who were subject to the conscription lottery also created their own organization the Youth Campaign Against Conscription (YCAC). One of the social divisions would be conscription affect people’s daily routine, and people were being anti-war and anti-conscription. Overall, the governments’ fear of communism spreading into Australia was why they chose to continue supporting the America. This is most likely because the war and conscription were mostly fused into one without taking account of a nuanced position that addresses the two issues separately. The importance of keeping the two issues separate is that the Government would have been more credible if it had simply pursued the war and not sent conscript. Conclusion In conclusion, conscription issue during the Vietnam War in the 1960’s put Australian society into the social divisions in all parts of Australian community, especially in 1966 people started to stand out and combined into organizations to against it. The reason that they supported and followed the United States (US) to join the Vietnam War would be Australian Government was afraid of the spreading of the communism. Australia supported the defence of the people in South Vietnam and intellectual consistency to accept the use of conscription in a war that was supposed to be fought in defence of freedom; instead the war got extended.

Dynamic Diversity: Variety and Variation Within Countries Essay

Hofstede developed National cultures model (hereafter ‘the model’) to unable one to understand the National culture of any country, which he assumed enduring, pervasive and constitutive. Using the Hofstede’s (1990, 2001) and Hofstede and Hofstede (2005) ‘the model’, McSweeney (2009) argued its incapability to explain the diversity within the countries. This research was aimed to provide an outline explanation of the retention of model within the organization studies and its future within that discipline. The paper unfolds the fallacious assumption taken up by the national culturist while studying the culture within nation. Various references from the literatures, anthropology, examples from countries, elements from novels, and anthropology are taken to convey the idea. Albeit the paper overview ‘the model’ falls in the discipline of anthropology, it outlines the three contexts1 where the rise of the model continues to persist. Although three possible development of the model in near future are presented, the conclusion indicates the quavering future of the ‘The model’. To an extent this research is investigative and result of this study provides an insight on the model’s weaknesses. However, some limitations should be considered in accepting the study’s finding. Brief summary McSweeney critically analysed the model, the fallacious assumptions used to draw the model. He reviewed the flaws and limitations of ‘the model’ in the field of organization studies. He begins by pointing to the fallacious assumptions used to draw the model. As the author himself acknowledge that some patterns do exists within the culture, so he wisely dismisses the oherence, pure and stable nature of the culture by appropriately picking the reviews from literatures. However, he backed up a good reasoning to explain independent effects of non-cultural features by citing an example of Ireland sport team and the sign language. He then goes on to unbundle the faulty measurement moves used to empirically describe the national culture such as Data unit, conflating level of analysis and invalid generalization. Further, he describes the model’s fall in the field of anthropology. Although he criticised hofstede framework mainly because of the faulty conception, he mentioned he presented the three contexts where the use of model is expected to persist. Limitations Hofstede’ framework (1980) has been highly criticised on methodological stance because it has been misunderstood and applied in inappropriate ways (Eckhardt, 2002). The definition of culture hofstede (1991) used is very different from other. Proper understanding of the context in which his model is being used is required to understand the model’s compatibility. The author seems to misunderstood Hofstede’s context and his definition and therefore pointed out four methodological limitations of the model. Two Out of four of his argument are well packed with sound reasoning and are valid, however the other two, conflicting level of analysis and invalid generalization does not relate to hofstede context because Hofstede (2001) himself acknowledge that his scores are indicative of the natural tendency of the entire nation rather than predictive of the individual behaviour. The same, as far as generalization is concerned, Chapman (1997) states â€Å"Hofstede’s work is used and admired at a very high level of generalization. Those who take country scores in the various dimensions as given realities, informing or confirming other research, do not typically inquire into the detail of the procedures through which specific empirical data were transmuted into generalization†¦his work became a fruitful agenda†¦a framework that is so general, so broad, so alluring, and so inviting to argument and fruitful disagreement†. Backed by the bond (2002) and Schwartz (1994), the author argues that the ‘individualism and collectivism’ has no explanatory power as they have no intercorrelations at the individual level. However, this thought seems to conflict with that of hofstede as he says that a country can score high on individualism (or collectivism) or masculinity (femininity) but it does not signify anything about on the individual level. Also, a person can subscribe to value indicated at the country level but that does not necessarily mean that an individual will act in general, in a way ascribed to the country (Eckhardt, 2002). Another flaw in the paper is the strong standpoint taken by the author against the model and in conclusion advising the abandonment of model by calling ‘hopelessly flawed’. This line of thought sometimes restricts one to think beyond the scope and find possible solutions. Culture is, no doubt, present at various level but as a first cut it is helpful to think of cultures at national level (Harvard business school). Lastly, generally the style, structure and tone of the paper guide the reader towards the author intention. The weakness of this paper is the unnecessary use of abrasive tone which sometime makes the reader doubt on the true intentions of the paper i. e. the model flaws or the hofstede. Despite few limitations in the paper, the author succeeded in digging out all minor, but significant and major flaws of the model relevant in the field of OS. Strengths The backbone of this paper is that it clearly explains that culture is present within countries and it’s constantly evolving (p936. Para3). Marriott uses the fourfold framework to expose the Indian diversity and concludes that similar fourfold model can be unravelled for other entities, which contradicts hofstede view that entity is so unique that there cannot be any reasonable and systematic basis of comparison between culture entity (Patel, 2007) McSweeney presents the nature of culture, which is not pure, unstable and non-coherent. Singh (1990a, b) and Bosland (1985) studies proposed that the possibility to have different scores on the four Hofstedian dimensions within the same country . Furthermore, the contradicting view is noticed under the GLOBE study. â€Å"Although both the GLOBE and hofstede study used the essentialist approach, they disagree on the scores attributed to different nations†(Koopman et al. ,1999). All the above studies imply that culture is not pure, non-coherent and the unity concept is flawed. Likewise, it is proved that culture is evolving. For instance, earlier it was acceptable to beat your wife, however now it’s no more acceptable and considered against law (Patel, lec 3). This changing view within the society points the dynamic nature of culture. The major flaw in the hofstede concept of culture is not his dimensions but the fact that he sees culture as ‘static’. With the growing technology and diverging world where every day new model is developing with a capability to explain the dynamic complex nature of culture (group-grid model, Globe, CT), the idea of static nature of culture will just hold the model backward. To sum up with another Strength of the paper, is McSweeney (2009) discussed a very critical topic of organization studies. He made the purpose of the article very clear and concise in the introduction without attempting to be comprehensive. He used appropriate text and evidence in order to make the concept clear to the intended audience. Conclusion In the summary, it must be admitted that the current study has merit but it is a bit far from being conclusive. Further studies must be done to improve the model by rectifying its current weaknesses or by adding more dimensions in the model. Despite some flaws in the reasoning, the study has provided a deep insight to the challenging limitations of the model and its alarming future. The culturist should take the critique as a recommendation to improve the model instead of criticism. Both stands of literature (National culturist and non-national culturist) should try to bridge the gap and should realize that the goal is to find the solution of the complexity of culture.