Ethics Playing A Role In Modern Graphic Design Media Essay

Ethics Playing A Role In Modern Graphic Design Media Essay Undoubtedly, graphic design is a vital component of todays society. It has become increasingly involved in various fields, fuelling the market- and profit-oriented sectors rather than fulfilling the initial aim of pure artistic impression. That was a long time ago though. The modern trends dictate to produce more, promote more, buy more and that way, a designer becomes a marionette ruled by marketing professionals and advertising companies. This way, a designer becomes a tool of consumerism with power and might to change the perception of public. However, there are more issues to be addressed when talking about the importance of ethics in graphic design social responsibility, green design, subliminal advertising, the ethics of retouching, and many more. In fact, it can be said that graphic design as we know it nowadays is clearly being defined by the contemporary state of society and undoubtedly, vice versa as well. Where the society would be without graphic design? Where the graphic design would be if the designers would not need to follow the wishes of marketing and advertising sector? With the power the designers have, they can easily overcome regional boundaries and influence the views and values of society worldwide. Sadly, many of them do not think about the immense impact they are capable of; does that mean that ethics should not play a role in modern graphic design? With the development of technologies, the designers scope keeps constantly changing, as well as its effect on the society. What might not have been an issue 60 years later may now be considered a real problem. In this paper, I will discuss the significance of following the ethical principles in the field of graphic design. I will pinpoint the importance of it through touching main historical events and the transformation of society, which eventually lead to releasing the First Things First Manifesto; I will discuss the role of designer in todays society and effects of subliminal advertising and retouching on the audience. Last but not least, I will briefly touch the influence of designers on ecological sustainability and so-called green design. According to Jessica Helfand, graphic design is visual language uniting harmony and balance, colour and light, scale and tension, form and content. But it is also an idiomatic language, a language of cues and puns and symbols and allusions, of cultural references and perceptual inferences that challenge both the intellect and the eye (Shaugnessy, 2005, p. 18). However, this rather eloquent statement does not take into consideration the fact that in past decades, design has become more of a socio-economic tool for generating profit and that is precisely the point where the ethics, moral values and principles come in. Even though ethics can be quite simply defined as a discipline concerned with what is morally good and bad, right and wrong (Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica Online, 2010), the variety of ethical aspects in design greatly exceeds this interpretation. Bearing in mind that graphic design is a non-verbal medium, a designer usually acts only as a mediator between the client and potential audience. However, design requires not only strong communication skills and cultural awareness, but also firm ethical and aesthetical beliefs. As a matter of fact, design is a social activity with social consequences (Shaugnessy, 2009). In fact, ethics in graphic design could be looked at from two different viewpoints personal and professional (GD Users Manual). While personal aspects reflect designers moral values, principles, and personal philosophy, the professional ones are concentrated mostly around business code, thus the partnership between a designer and a client. Even though the discussion and awareness about the business aspect of ethics in design have risen significantly in past years, there has not been enough exploration and consideration of its moral side. One of the key factors to influence graphic design is that it is a relatively liberate discipline (Shaugnessy, 2009). Whereas most of the other fields are in some way (what way?) regulated, the moral side of graphic design is left to be dealt with by the designers themselves. That, as it has been mentioned already, requires firm ethical principles. Graphic design in its own nature is very proximate to the ethical questions and issues the society faces at the present time; therefore it is implied in social change. Ranging from animal rights, global warming and nutrition to politics, smoking and workplace violence, graphic design as a communication tool is always present. However, that renders a question whether the designers are the ones to praise or blame for the problems and changes within the society. Kalle Lasn, the founder of the anti-consumerist Adbusters magazine, took this viewpoint at his talk at the Royal College of Art, London (Dudley and Mealing, 2000). First Things First 2000 manifesto (FTF2000), which followed the legendary 1964 manifesto of the same name, deals with a need of moral values in graphic design and visual communication. All the 33 undersigned designers and art directors take quite a firm stand in this matter by claiming that graphic design has gone too far from its original values and ended up being a blatant marketing and advertising tool for generating profit. That in fact reflects not only in the way how people perceive graphic design, but also in a way the society acts, thinks and feels. First Things First 2000: A Design Manifesto We, the undersigned, are graphic designers, art directors and visual communicators who have been raised in a world in which the techniques and apparatus of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective and desirable use of our talents. Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief; the market rewards it; a tide of books and publications reinforces it. Encouraged in this direction, designers then apply their skill and imagination to sell dog biscuits, designer coffee, diamonds, detergents, hair gel, cigarettes, credit cards, sneakers, butt toners, light beer and heavy-duty recreational vehicles. Commercial work has always paid the bills, but many graphic designers have now let it become, in large measure, what graphic designers do. This, in turn, is how the world perceives design. The professions time and energy is used up manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at best. Many of us have grown increasingly uncomfortable with this view of design. Designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen-consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse. There are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills. Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programs, films, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help. We propose a reversal of priorities in favor of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication a mindshift away from product marketing and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning. The scope of debate is shrinking; it must expand. Consumerism is running uncontested; it must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in part, through the visual languages and resources of design. In 1964, 22 visual communicators signed the original call for our skills to be put to worthwhile use. With the explosive growth of global commercial culture, their message has only grown more urgent. Today, we renew their manifesto in expectation that no more decades will pass before it is taken to heart. What could become possible if designers used their power to influence choices and beliefs in a positive and sustainable way? (Berman, p. 13) The vital message of FTF2000 is to design for good. However, good and bad are still very vague terms and since no guides exist on this topic, it depends upon a designer whether they choose to work for a certain client, use dirty marketing practices or promote possibly harmful, unfavourable and detrimental products. That being the case, it could be said that design and ethics go hand in hand and design for good is in fact a matter of choice. Graphic designers like Tibor Kalman inspired the designers to take responsibility for their works. Throughout his career, he urged designers to question the effects of their works and refuse to accept any clients product exactly the way it appears to be. Kalman inspired graphic designers to use their work to increase public awareness of a variety of social issues. (Milton Glaser Big Think) Undoubtedly, design has impact on society and changes within it. From the extreme point of view, it might seem that customers are absolutely vulnerable to the messages communicated by designers, and therefore accept the information automatically and behave accordingly. Regulatory codes within graphic design The essential part of this problem is regulation. Designers are not obliged to abide any codes, apart from the most essential ones like constitution, and the freedom of their profession makes them extremely vulnerable to moral questions. In other fields, eg. movie industry, it is quite common that a supreme body regulates and assesses the suitability and advisability of particular scenes. If the children are not supposed to see a scene which involves violence, death, or sex, it is alright for them to see a very graphic anti-abortion billboard, picturing an aborted foetus in a puddle of blood? In fact, that has been happening in Slovakia since 2007, when CBR Europe (European branch of The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, USA) firstly released the aforementioned campaign. However, the controversial billboards caused a big wave of disagreement due to its graphic nature. CBR Europe has announced that regardless of the violent nature of campaign, it has been successful and the number of abo rtions in Slovakia has decreased. Even though graphic designers, just like everybody else, have right to express their viewpoints, opinions and attitudes, their work should not be biased. However, who is the one to judge goodness or badness of moral principles of an individual? . GOVERNMENT / ORGANIZATIONS LEADERS From another point of view, this freedom of expression is a cornerstone of democratic rights and freedoms. Nevertheless, neither freedom of speech nor any other freedom is absolute; otherwise there would be no charges for promoting racial, ethnic, gender, disability discrimination and other prejudicial treatments and ideologies. Therefore it is essential for a designer to abide to both personal and public principles. Undoubtedly, personal values vary from person to person the key here is to be aware of them. When not thinking further behind the pursuit of aesthetics many designers strive for, one cannot possibly reflect their values and principles in the works. Many associations of design principles give a hand to designers with both personal and public ones. Just like in with any other profession ranging from doctors to lawyers, the need for applying ethical principles in graphic design calls for recognition. Most of the international and regional design associations have their code of ethics, often known as rules of professional conduct. AIGA (formerly American Institute of Graphic Arts), the professional association for design, released their first edition of Design Business + Ethics in 2001. The most current version issued in 2009 emphasises the importance of existence of ethical standards and the firm mutual bonds between a designer, client and content the both sides deal with. Adherence to a common set of principles is critical to estab ­lishing design as a true profession, with an ethos based on respect for clients, other designers, audiences, society and the environment (AIGA, 2009: 9). Apart from infringement of copyright, human rights, , a professional designer shall avoid projects that will result in harm to the public (AIGA, 2009: 34). The Chartered Society of Designers based in London, UK, accept their membership applicants not only based on qualification and presented works, but also on knowledge in the field of preference and professionalism. These are proved during an interview. To meet the latter requirement, the applicants shall demonstrate that they practice with integrity, maintain ethics and values, operate professionally (CSD, 2009: 2). The role of graphic design in consumerism As Berman states, designers are at the core of the most efficient, most destructive pattern of deception in human history (., p.22). Designers used to be generally seen as tools of capitalism. Creating brands, packaging, and marketing for consumer goods, graphic designers became an integral part of the free market system as they were contributing to wealth within the society. Passing the information through subliminal advertising Simply put, subliminal advertising could be defined as integrating hidden messages within printed or digital media. It [the concept of subliminal perception] suggests that peoples thoughts, feelings and actions are influenced by stimuli that are perceived without any awareness of perceiving (Kadzin, 2000). Through various psychological and neurological studies it was proved that subliminal perception is most likely to occur in patients with neurological damage or those who are undergoing general anaesthesia. In such cases, they usually not realize the stimuli but subconsciously respond to it anyway. As the means of convincing and manipulating the potential viewers into certain actions and behaviours, subliminal advertising has been assigned quite spectacular power in the past. This method counts on mental vulnerability of customers and their automatic acceptance of the pictured message. From the psychological point of view, the threshold of consciousness varies from person to person and some people might be influenced by subliminal messaging. Wilson Bryan Kay, an author of several controversial books on subliminal messaging, argued that the power of advertising has been often increased by embedding sexual subtext and/or word sex within it. His main argument is that even though the sexual tone of the advertisement is not consciously perceived, subconsciously it causes increase in sexual desires, resulting in making the advertised product more appealing. Even though the tests with subliminal messages have run since late 1950s, the scientific research behind this phenomenon has neither confirmed nor refuted the potential success in altering customers views and will subconsciously. Nonetheless, if the subliminal messages are powerful enough to change peoples views and behaviour, the ethical matters are definitely in question. In fact, we would be dealing with violation of a persons right for privacy. While subconscious messages could be used for not only dirty purposes but also for decent ones (eg. persuading people not to lie), the final effect would still be manipulating peoples actions which is not any less unethical. The person communicating his or her ideas through subconscious messages has no right to manipulate and brainwash other peoples minds. Due to this fact, subliminal messages are generally being perceived as unethical and are banned, among others, in USA, Canada and Australia. Ethical issues in photography and retouching Bearing in mind that graphic designers are in fact visual artists, they have a rather immense power in changing the perception of people who see their works. Retouching is a perfect example of how the relatively small actions have changed the image of beauty within our society. Majority of the people would agree that retouching of the models for marketing campaigns poured oil into fire when speaking about the perception of beauty. Being exposed to the modern, even though retouched notion of visual appearance, many women feel insecure about their looks and body. Arguably, the media most certainly contributes to dieting and size discrimination (http://www.something-fishy.org/cultural/themedia.php), which are often a founding ground for development of an eating disorder. Not only in cases like the one above, the designers and commercial artists in general need to take a firm stance on their moral values and principles. The world of design and visual communication calls for a greater responsibility in decision-making (.?) because the visual elements often speak as clearly as words spoken out loud. In order to support a call for higher standards in photojournalism and advertising, there has been a movement to ban or clearly label retouched images. Even though this idea has support of several countries including United Kingdom, Switzerland and France, it is very unlikely to be adopted soon as it would require complicated regulations to be set up. Historical significance of graphic design Undoubtedly, the graphic design has been a very important element in shaping the history. Since the early 20th century, it has been continuously growing in its significance. Throughout the past, design was an inseparable component of considerable number of events which defined the world as we know it today. Graphic design, regardless of ethical consequences of the communicated message, potentially played a key role at the period of Second World War. The commercial aspect of graphic design was taken to its greatest and darkest heights in Nazi Germany in a terrible exemplar of the true power of design (http://www.provokateur.com/news/index.php/2009/07/08/provokateurs-take-on-ethical-communications/). However, as Eileen MacAvery Kane (2010) states, the similar strategies were implied in eras of Fascist Italy, Stalins and Lenins USSR, and Maos China. In all four cases, the leaders turned graphic design into a powerful manipulative tool to influence lives of millions of people. Throughout the history, several infamously known symbols have been created, be it the swastika and gothic typography of Hitlers Germany, Mussolinis streamlined Futurist posters and Black Shirt uniforms, the stolid Social Realism of Stalins USSR and Maos Little Red Book (amazon), which were used in in a wide variety of propaganda, from posters, magazines and advertisements to uniforms, flags and figurines (amazon). Moreover, the physical and mental characteristics of the leaders were often depicted on various means of visual communication, converting a person into public icon and thus building up the trustworthiness of the whole regime. Such steps could be compared to contemporary advertising practices. Another strong example from the field of politics is Barack Obamas 2008 election campaign. The logo, designed by a Chicago company Sender LLC, is often described as a rising sun symbolising hope and the main strength of Obamas campaign is visual coherence of all the main elements. Shepard Fairey, the American designer and illustrator who stands behind the famous HOPE poster for Obamas campaign, has proven that the power of visual communication on popular opinion is still immense. Even though he was not hired to create a poster for Obama and his team denied any involvement in creation of the aforementioned piece, it has proven to be very successful. Once the campaign was over, Fairey received a letter from Obama which reads: I would like to thank you for using your talent in support of my campaign. The political messages involved in your work have encouraged Americans to believe they can help change the status quo. Your images have a profound effect on people, whether seen in a gallery or on a stop sign. (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=6811991) (http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/posters/dove.jpg) (http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/outofline/BARACK-hope-POSTER-1.jpg) (http://www.clickpopmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/obama.jpg) When compared to both posters above (Image 1, Image 2), Barack Obamas visuals share certain elements with them. Apparently, use of blue, white and red is conditioned by country the posters (Image 2, 3) were created for; however, a  portrait of a  person is central element in all of them. Both Hitler and Obama are looking to future, which is supported by strong slogans (Long Live Germany! and HOPE) and bold typography. Moreover, both use a  symbolism of sun or sun rays in their campaigns. These are all facts a  viewer processes subconsciously. Would have people believed in future of Germany promised by Adolf Hitler if he was depicted striking a  different pose, doing a  different gesture, if the background did not show his supporters? Would Obama have been elected if Fairey had never released his iconic poster? Of course, politics is not only about visual side of campaigns but bearing in mind the mind-blowing success the abovementioned heads of states had received, it can be said that graphic design plays an extremely important role in our lives. As Graham Milton (n.d.) stated in his blog, propaganda exists today in the form of advertising and design because it is the most effective tool for influencing popular opinion. Indeed, all mass media is capable of this manipulation ( http://www.grahammilton.com/blog/art/illustrated/power-of-design-power-of-propaganda/). Manipulation, a practice involving influence or control over the others to ones own advantage, cannot possibly be looked at as an ethical action. This matter o f fact touches not only politics but all the possible fields graphic design is present in and cannot be ignored anymore. Business and commercial aspect of ethics in graphic design Sustainability and social responsibility

Transformation of London in the 1790s :: European Europe History

Transformation of London in the 1790s Many changes were occurring in London during the 1790s. New ideas were emerging within England and around the world. The onset of the French Revolution contributed greatly to the unrest and the turmoil of the times. As the English citizens responded to both internal and external affairs, religious movements, social and political reform parties, and governmental reactions gained momentum. In addition, many writers responded and contributed to the progressive environment by giving the people a voice and further pointing out injustices. These movements and literary contributions influenced later writers and the lifestyles of people in and outside of London. In the 1790s, certain religions were being revived in London. Methodism and the Church of England were reaching out more to the citizens and affecting more lives. Methodism was thought to be an integral part in the social evolution of the country. It had a stabilizing effect for those involved with the church, as well as a model for the political development of the working-class people. The church believed in equal political, economic, and social rights for all people and it also had a strict, structural organization, which encouraged stability amongst its members. (1) While the churches had a soothing effect on the citizens of London, social and political reform increased concern, awareness, and uncertainty. The organization of the government in London contributed to the discontent of its citizens. The official City of London, which was only about one square mile, had the main banking center of the metropolis and a history of independent government established through two separate governing councils, something most sections of London decidedly lacked. Their setup was similar to Parliament, in that one council represented the wealthy, and the other represented more "ordinary" people, and was therefore more prone to agitate at any given time. In 1795, that lower council became fed up with the conflict with France and the unfavorable effect it was having on the merchants they represented. They directly charged the king to end the war and restore their prosperity. The motion failing, the City's council was more conservative afterwards. However, the no tion that a part of London could challenge its sovereign must have given hope to many of its citizens. (2) Westminster's municipal government was far from inspiring, as judges rather than representatives ruled the borough. However, this area "enjoyed a very wide parliamentary franchise, open to all resident householders.

Why Study Organizations?

In order to answer an essay question, first of all, we need to understand what is meant by the term ‘organization’ from the sociological point of view. Then we need to understand what role organizations are playing in our life and why it is essential to study them. As we can imagine, there are different types of organizations. All of them have their own structure and purpose. In this essay I would like to focus on business organizations: how they appeared and developed; how employees’ relations were changing, etc. I would like to pay the specific attention to such department as Human Resource Management – how this term appeared and why it is so important nowadays. So, why do we actually need to study organizations? This question, from my point of view, has a very easy and obvious answer: we need to study organizations for the same reason we study the world around us. We are intelligent and curious people. We always need an explanation of what is happening, how the things are working, and what place do we take among other people. Organizations are the huge part of our modern daily life: we either study or work for them, or we are obtaining goods and services from them. We are interacting with organizations all the time, so it is not surprising, that we want to study them; and it does not matter if you are a manager or consumer – you are still involved in it and you want to be aware of what is happening around you. What is organization? In sociology term ‘organization’ has a very general meaning. This â€Å"is basically a structure for carrying out a particular social activity on a regular basis† (Fulcher and Scott, 2009; p. 542). All the organizations have such features as specific goal, defined membership, rules of behaviour, and authority relationships. This is also important to mention, that all organizations have the characteristic of continuity. This means that personnel can be changing, but the organization will still exist. There is no clear definition of what social units come into the category of organizations. Some of them are easy to define, other will bring us some difficulties. For instance, business corporations, schools, hospitals, trade unions are definitely organizations, as they all have the characteristics mentioned before. On the other hand, communities, social groups, and class are not organizations, as they do not have rules of behaviour or specific goals. The problem can occur, when we come across the term ‘institution’. The first thing we need to understand here is that organization is not an institution. Institution is â€Å"an established practice that regulate the various activities that make up social life† (Fulcher and Scott, 2009; p. 543). The most common examples of institutions in daily life are weddings and funerals. Although, these are two different terms, there is one class of organizations which is called total institution. Most of the organizations leave people with their separate private lives, but it is not the case with total institution. It is characterised by such features as disappearance of private life, planned and supervised activities, sharp division between staff and inmates, the mortification of the self. The biggest examples of the total institution are mental hospital and prison, where people are isolated from the outside world and society. Now we know what defines organizations, but we still did not get to the point why do we need to study them. From my point of view, it is essential to look at the historical background of organizations. We need to understand how they were appearing and developing trough the time, in order to understand how they are functioning nowadays. In this essay I have decided to look specifically at one type of organizations – business corporations. Weber (1914) said that modern society is distinguished from the earlier one by the appearance of the multiplicity of administrative tasks and the need to expertise and carry them. He called it â€Å"the increasing complexity of civilization†. Weber said that this phenomenon is caused by growing size of organizations, greater wealth and increasing social problems. If we would refer to the history of organizations, we can see the significant changes in structure, polices, employee relations, values, etc. The first interest in organizations appeared in the 19th century, which was driven by industrialization. Industrial revolution was caused by development of technologies, which completely changed the structure of most of the organizations, and lead to the transformation of society. The introduction of manufacturing process completely changed the employment relations. Discipline was the key feature of the new organization, as it helped to control and organize people more effectively – this lead to the process of bureaucratization. New industrialists were looking for the profitable production. In order to achieve it, they needed punctuality and uninterrupted work during fixed hours from their employees. These targets were achieved by bureaucratisation, which was central to the administrative revolution. These rganizations were highly rational, they functioned in a discipline and unemotional manner, their activities were calculated, systematic and predictable. This approach helped the manufacturers maximize the return on their capital. This new manufacturing process was the beginning of the new era of employment relations. Bureaucracy is a systematic approach; all the workers had their duties and were paid respectively. But, as many other theories, this sys tem did not work so smooth in the real life, as it seemed on paper. Employers’ main purpose was to increase the profit, in order to do so, they were underpaying their employees. At the beginning people were happy just to have jobs, but the time passed and workers started to understand and fight for their human rights. This situation caused the appearance of the new type of organizations called ‘trade unions’. Trade union is an organization of workers, who tied together in order to achieve better working conditions. It is suggested that the origins of trade unions lay in the failure of the early Factory act to protect children and women at the work place; as a result many began to work together, forming unions to agitate for change in the law and greater respect for the workers (BBC). As we can see, relationships between employers and workers were getting more and more complicated. In order to keep company’s profitability, employers had to meet workers’ conditions – this brought the necessity of new management approach, which was called scientific or personnel management. This approach was first introduced by Frederick Winslow Taylor in the late 19th century. Personnel Management was an administrative record-keeping function; it attempted to maintain fair terms and conditions for employees. This was the beginning of the employee relations. Its main idea was to pay people for their productivity, the new reward system was introduced. In other words people were paid for the amount of time they worked and for the quantity of items they produced. This was the beginning of new era of management. Lately Personnel Management evolved into the Human Resource Management, it was again caused by the employee’s unsatisfied demands. People were paid properly, but it was not enough anymore. Workers were tired of being treated as machines, they were demanding for more personal attitude. It was the time when Human Resource Management was introduced. It was concerned with carrying out the same functional activities traditionally performed by the personnel function, such as recruitment and selection, training and development, performance management, etc. But HRM approach was looking at employees from the point of view, that they are the main organizational assets. It was seeking to achieve the competitive advantage trough the strategic development of highly committed and capable work force. In other words, employers were trying to create the comfortable and friendly working environment, in order to keep the best employees in the company. As we can see from the historical background, there were massive changes in the organizational structure; and these changes appeared in a relatively small amount of time. We are living in the world of progress, where everything is developing so fast, that it is sometimes very hard to catch up. By ‘everything’ I mean every aspect of our lives: technologies, government, countries, and of course people. People is the most important cause of all these changes: organization, on the first place, is all about its employees – without them it wouldn’t exist. Thinking about personal development, I would like to mention Maslow Hierarchy of needs: This pyramid clearly explains how workers’ needs were changing through the time: first of all they needed job to earn money for living; when they got it they needed to be secure that their income would be stable (Trade Unions appear); then they needed to feel comfortable in their working environment (Personnel Management); the top two requirements consider the personal recognition and the opportunity for development (this is what HRM is dealing with). Summarising everything said above, we can finally try to answer the question: â€Å"Why do we need to study organizations? † Organizations are imprescriptible part of our life: we are dealing with them practically in any aspect of our lives. We all study at the University at the moment, which means we are all part of this organization. In the future we are going to find the job and, most likely nowadays, going to be the part of another organization. As we can see, we cannot avoid this component of our life. As the Latin saying claims: â€Å"Forewarned, forearmed†. Studying organisations gives us an opportunity to know more about the world we live in, to know our lives and grab our chances. As we can see from the history. It was people, who changed the structure of organizations – simple workers, who was looking for better life. The world has changed a lot and it keeps on changing. Organizations nowadays have to be more flexible and open-minded, in order to attract the best ‘human assets’ and remain competitive; enormous amounts of money are spent on the Human Resource Development. There is prediction that the relationship that individuals will have with organizations will change: there were no longer be fixed working lives. People still need to earn money, but they do not want to be tied up with their jobs. Humanity is developing, we are having different demands and priorities from our predecessors. To go with the times, we need to study the society we live in, and organizations is one of its biggest and important parts nowadays. References 1. BBC/Learning zone Broad Band. Why Did the Trade Unions Come About? Available at: < http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/why-did-the-trade-unions-come-about/11082.html> Accessed: 20/03/2011 2. Bratton, J. & Gold, J. (2007) Human Resource Management: Theory & Practice (4th edition). Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke. 3. Clegg, S. and Hardy, C. (1999), Studying Organizations: Theory and Method. London: Sage. 4. Clegg, S. Kornberger, M. and Pitsis, T. (2008) Managing and Organizations: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. London: Sage. 5. Fulcher, J. and Scott, J. (2009) Sociology (OUP, 3rd edition). Oxford University Press. 6. Giddens, Anthony. (2009) Sociology (6th edition). Cambridge: Polity Press. 7. Storey, J. (1995), Human Resource Management. London: Routledge.

Why the Philospher Should Rule (Plato) - 1708 Words

1) (From the Republic Book VII) WHY SHOULD THE PHILOSOPHER RULE? EXPLAIN WHY HE IS BEST SUITED TO RULE AND EXPLAIN 2) WHY IT IS A DILEMMA FOR HE TO CHOOSE TO RULE. WHY DOES HE HAVE TO BE COMPELLED AND WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE COMPULSION? 3) BE SURE TO COMMENT ON HOW THIS QUESTION IS RELATED TO THE ANSWER PLATO ATTEMPTS TO CONSTRUCT TO GLAUCONS CHALLENGE? Part 1 In Plato’s Republic, Plato sets out to prove that it is always better to be just than unjust. Doing so requires him to look into the soul of human beings. Souls by nature are difficult to examine so he suggests that he use the analogy of a city-state. Using this as an analogy suggests that finding the â€Å"ideal† functionality of the state he will also have found the†¦show more content†¦In the Allegory the prisoners represent the general population in society, the cave represented lack of education and the released prisoner represents the philosopher. The philosopher, represented by the prisoner, has escaped the lack of education is now capable of grasping Form of Good allowing him to see all other forms. Having obtained understanding of the Form of the Good, the philosopher, just as the prisoner who had seen the light is best fit to lead the prisoners out of the cave, the philosopher is best fit to rule the city-state. Part 2 At this point the philosopher is faced with a dilemma. Why, after finding this â€Å"Earthly Paradise† of the Form of Good, would the philosopher return to the cave and take upon himself the task of leading his former comrades when returning to the cave means returning to the darkness? Even though the philosopher is best fit to rule what would compel them to do so? Plato being aware of this dilemma offers a reason the philosopher would be compelled to rule. One reason the philosopher would return to rule would be a sense of obligation to his former fellows. After all, he was enabled to reach this understanding of forms by the education the city made available to him. Since the city gave him this knowledge he owes them his service as ruler. This claim is countered by the suggestion that by compelling the philosopher toShow MoreRelatedWalts Whitmans Vision of America in Leaves of Grass17685 Words   |  71 Pagesis†©certainly†©worth†©remembering†©inà ¢â‚¬ ©a†©time†©when†©mankind’s†©interests†©and†©concerns†©lay†©so†© far†©away†©from†©his†©ideals.†© While†©analyzing†©Walt†©Whitman’s†©poetry†©and†©reading†©his†©verses,†©it†©is†©important†©to†© keep†©in†©mind†©that†©he†©was†©not†©a†©politician,†©nor†©a†©philospher†©or†©essayist†©and†©therefore†© could†©afford†©to†©disclose†©his†©human†©side.†©He†©wrote†©in†©Ã‚ «Song†©of†©Myself »:†©Ã‚ «Do†©I†©contradict†© myself?†©Very†©well†©then†©I†©contradict†©myself,†©(I†©am†©large,†©I†©contain†©multitudes.) » †©Ã¢â‚¬ ©Thus†©some†© 1 of†©his†©ideas†©might†©be†©confusing