The Underlying Message Essays -- essays research papers

The Underlying Message Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is not specifically about orthodox Zen Buddhist practice nor does if specifically teaches how to repair a motorcycle. It does, however, dig into the inner structure of the thought process to form a foundation to support any form of logic. This is accomplished by means of a trek through the author’s mind as he recounts his past in attempt to rediscover who he once was. As the author comes to term with his duality, the reader is conditioned to understand the author’s philosophical ideas, which are the underlying beams of his value system. Pirsig presents his message through lectures to the reader. These lectures are comprised of history, philosophy, and common sense. The author purposely uses the term chautauqua to define these lectures. He describes a chautauqua as â€Å"an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer† (p.17). Throughout the story Pirsig breaks from his incomplete lecture to focus on the current situation of his motorcycle trip. As the story continues, some nonspecific aspect triggers the author’s mind to restart a new lecture, and eventually, they all tie together. The most common reoccurring lecture themes include the purpose of institutions, the search for quality and the need of balance between two extremes. These are interesting highlights of the book, but it is not the author’s intention to convert his audience to his value system. Rather, it is Pirsig’s g oal to present how he created his value system as an example to show how to tackle such a complex and abstract subject. In fact, the reoccurring themes themselves are complex and abstract subjects, and Pirsig breaks each of them apart to analyze the system, just how one would tear down an engine to understand how a motorcycle functions. Institutions and their role obviously weighed heavily upon the author’s mind. He explored the system from the whole down to its most minute parts. First, he chose one type of institution, education. From past experience as a student and professor, Pirsig naturally had formed an opinion on the matter. He observed that students are taught to imitate, and the result is a drone modeled after the instructor. This is done to please the instructor so a higher grade can be received. The n... ...y harm him. The narrator did not understand who he was until he saw that Chris finally realized it. â€Å"I knew it† (p. 370). Phaedrus let go and submitted in the mental hospital for the love of his son. The narrator was abandoning Chris for the same reason. It was not until both identities had racked themselves apart that they could be brought back together, and the quality of their lives change. Suddenly the introduction seems fitting.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"And what is good, Phaedrus,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  And what is not good–   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Need we ask anyone to tell us these thing?† Pirsig did not want to mold our minds. Instead, he showed us the way. He taught his audience how to think and to learn. That was the author’s hidden intent all along, and if he were to just come out and say it, it would lose its meaning. The reader has to tear himself apart to find out what makes him tick. What is the driving force that is the basis for his actions? What does the reader hold important and why? What values should he possess and when should they hold? Once we do understand ourselves, we can understand our surroundings, and our quality of life increases. The Underlying Message Essays -- essays research papers The Underlying Message Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is not specifically about orthodox Zen Buddhist practice nor does if specifically teaches how to repair a motorcycle. It does, however, dig into the inner structure of the thought process to form a foundation to support any form of logic. This is accomplished by means of a trek through the author’s mind as he recounts his past in attempt to rediscover who he once was. As the author comes to term with his duality, the reader is conditioned to understand the author’s philosophical ideas, which are the underlying beams of his value system. Pirsig presents his message through lectures to the reader. These lectures are comprised of history, philosophy, and common sense. The author purposely uses the term chautauqua to define these lectures. He describes a chautauqua as â€Å"an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer† (p.17). Throughout the story Pirsig breaks from his incomplete lecture to focus on the current situation of his motorcycle trip. As the story continues, some nonspecific aspect triggers the author’s mind to restart a new lecture, and eventually, they all tie together. The most common reoccurring lecture themes include the purpose of institutions, the search for quality and the need of balance between two extremes. These are interesting highlights of the book, but it is not the author’s intention to convert his audience to his value system. Rather, it is Pirsig’s g oal to present how he created his value system as an example to show how to tackle such a complex and abstract subject. In fact, the reoccurring themes themselves are complex and abstract subjects, and Pirsig breaks each of them apart to analyze the system, just how one would tear down an engine to understand how a motorcycle functions. Institutions and their role obviously weighed heavily upon the author’s mind. He explored the system from the whole down to its most minute parts. First, he chose one type of institution, education. From past experience as a student and professor, Pirsig naturally had formed an opinion on the matter. He observed that students are taught to imitate, and the result is a drone modeled after the instructor. This is done to please the instructor so a higher grade can be received. The n... ...y harm him. The narrator did not understand who he was until he saw that Chris finally realized it. â€Å"I knew it† (p. 370). Phaedrus let go and submitted in the mental hospital for the love of his son. The narrator was abandoning Chris for the same reason. It was not until both identities had racked themselves apart that they could be brought back together, and the quality of their lives change. Suddenly the introduction seems fitting.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"And what is good, Phaedrus,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  And what is not good–   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Need we ask anyone to tell us these thing?† Pirsig did not want to mold our minds. Instead, he showed us the way. He taught his audience how to think and to learn. That was the author’s hidden intent all along, and if he were to just come out and say it, it would lose its meaning. The reader has to tear himself apart to find out what makes him tick. What is the driving force that is the basis for his actions? What does the reader hold important and why? What values should he possess and when should they hold? Once we do understand ourselves, we can understand our surroundings, and our quality of life increases.

African American Slavery Essay

This paper intends to discuss the daily life of African American slaves in the nineteenth century. The first Africans landed in 1619 in Jamestown, Virginia. By this time numerous accounts of slave life were published. The origins of slavery in the United States can be traced to colonial America where there was an abundance of agricultural land but not enough labor. In responding to that, this paper will also discuss, first, the importance slavery played on the economic and political development of the United States; second it will explain the daily life of African American slaves; and lastly defending that slavery is not â€Å"a positive good†. In conclusion I will explain what led me to this topic, why this subject is important to world history and how it’s changed my perception. To begin with the most fundamental fact: Slaves were not things. Whatever the law said, they were in reality human beings. A plow could not be evasive at work tasks, or burn down the barn, or escape – nor would it bleed when whipped, or develop for self-protection an elaborate courteous politeness when dealing with a master. An indicate complex of informal customs and â€Å"rights† sprang up because the slave was a person†. The institution of slavery has played an important part in the economic and political development of the United States since colonial times. North America developed race-based plantation slavery. The colonization of North America could not of formed without the use African slaves. The demand for workers increased due to the tobacco cultivation. Unlike indentured servants, African slaves were not protected by the English common law. They could never be free, and their kids would be born into slavery. The English saw that African slaves were accustomed to heavy agriculture labor and unlike the Indians they were able to surpass various diseases that were spreading in Europe. â€Å"As the value of African workers increased the gradually ceased to be treated at indentured servants. First they became â€Å"servants for life,† and then subject of ever more elaborate â€Å"slave codes† the defined their legal position in detailed ways†¦.. By the end of the seventeenth century the distinction between black slaves and white servants had become sharply defined: Servants were humans; slaves were things†. As colonies began to develop, the need for labor increased. Tobacco became one of the important crops in the new colonies. Western Europeans could not do the work alone so African slaves were brought to the new colonies to cultivate and care for the crops. Slaves became a crucial part in the development of the United States. In Virginia, slaves were considered the center of the economic process and that instead of a â€Å"society with slaves†; it became a â€Å"slave society. † â€Å"Slavery was the foundation of Virginia’s agricultural system and essential to its economic viability. Initially, planters bought slaves primarily to raise tobacco for export. By the last quarter of the 18th century, wealthy Virginia farmers were using slave labor in a diversified agricultural regime. Enslaved African Americans also worked as skilled tradesmen in the countryside and in the capital city of Williamsburg. Many also served as domestics in the households of wealthier white Virginians. † Slaves became essential in the growth of the economy. Slave life was not easy. African slaves lived under a wide variety of circumstances, such as; household servants, wagon driver, iron foundry worker, and skilled artisan. The majority of African slaves worked as farm laborers; growing cotton, tobacco, rice and other products. Some worked in large plantations or farms alongside their masters. Slaves worked from sunset to sunrise. Their masters kept a close eye on them. At night they had a curfew in their cabins, which was randomly inspected to ensure they didn’t escape. They had no right to leave their home without the permission of their master. African Americans come from a strong tradition of extended families, which was taken away from them when sold into slavery. Mothers and their children were separated from one another. The slave family was the most important institution for African Americans. Families, though oftentimes broken up, provided a foundation that prevented slaves from becoming completely demoralized. Most importantly, families provided slaves with a sense of community, not simply victimized individuals of oppression. â€Å"The family as a functional entity was outlawed and permitted to exist only when it benefited the slave-master. Maintenance of the slave family as a family unit benefited the slave-owners only when, and to the extent that such unions created new slaved could be exploited†. Slave owners often forcibly coupled men and women with the goal to produce healthy child slaves. â€Å"When you married, you had to jump over a broom three times†. Women symbols no less then men. â€Å"African slave woman: in the living quarters, the major responsibilities â€Å"naturally† fell to her. It was the woman who was charged with keeping the â€Å"home in order†. This role was dictated by the male supremacist ideology of white society in America; it was also woven into patriarchal traditions of Africa. As her biological destiny, the woman bore the fruits of procreation; as her social destiny, she cooked, sewed, washed, cleaned house, raised the children. Traditionally the labor of females, domestic work is supposed to complement and confirm their inferiority. † Woman were also alongside the men, from sun up to sun down. The start of their day begin with a bell ringing to wake them up at four o’clock in the morning and they are given a half an hour to get ready. Both men and woman work together, and the woman must work as steadily as the men and perform the same tasks as the men. Woman slaves who were pregnant were treated with no greater compassion and with no less severity than her man. Slave owners had a reserved punishment for woman that were pregnant; â€Å"She is compelled to lie down over a hole made to receive her corpulency, and is flogged with the whip, or beat with a paddle, which has hoes in it; at every stroke comes a blister†. In order for a black woman to function as a slave, they needed to annul themselves from being a woman and equal themselves to men. Slaves were treated with barbarous inhumanity. They often had to wear iron collars around their necks, drag heavy chains and weights at their feet while working in the fields to prevent runaways. Sometimes slave owners put them in stocks all day with gags in their mouths, causing their teeth to break off. Each day they were severely punished with whips. Slaves were tortured for the entertainment of their masters, they would get pepper rubbed into their cuts, burnt and beaten naked. The life African American slaves lived was cruel, although in time many were able to create a tolerable life and community for themselves. Virtually no one today defends slavery as a â€Å"positive good†. Slavery is evil. Today many historians have a controversy determining just what life was like under slavery. It is true that slavery brought riches to the port cities of Boston, New York, Charleston, and others. The wealth of America could not of been successful without the institution of slavery. The production of cotton does not just depend on soil or its climate but on the existence of domestic slavery. â€Å"Slavery is alike that sin and the shame of he American people†. Men, woman and children were robbed of their life, and there is no good in that. â€Å"This system is one of robbery and cruel wrong, from beginning to end†. This paper discussed the daily life of African American slaves in the nineteenth century. Along with that topic it explained the origins of slavery and its importance it played in the economic and political growth of the United States. From my research I learned how cruel and degrading the daily lives of African American slaves were. They were tormented and overworked. Their whole life was controlled by a man they called â€Å"master†. Women were treated with no greater compassion, they worked side by side with their men, and children who were born into slavery became slaves for life. I came upon this topic after taking a course called Building Community Through Diversity at Notre Dame de Namur this past semester. I became very interested in learning about slavery, white power, privilege, and race. To help me illuminate my topic I used both books and internet sources. It is important that everyone is educated about slavery, because never want history to repeat itself again. The institution of slavery was not a good thing but without institution of slavery the United States wouldn’t of been so rich in agriculture. African slaves played a major role in the growth of the United States, without the institution of slavery; tobacco, cotton and many other plantations would not of made nearly the amount it has done. In conclusion, the wealth of our nation bore with the institution of slavery.

Global Trade Identify The Losers - 1626 Words

With the advancements in technology and innovation, the world appears to continue to grow smaller. With technology and innovative advancements, businesses have grown in local markets, as well as globally. An organization located in Taiwan seeking buyers and understanding the demands required can sell products all over the world. Multinational companies have been doing business in other countries for a century; however globalization has changed the picture for even smaller companies around the world. Smaller companies can also get their market share in the global economy. In this paper, globalization is defined, as well as identifying various challenges and opportunities associated with globalization. Defining Globalization Globalization is the distribution of products and services to nations around the world. Each nation s economy is integrated and interdependent upon each other. The Global Trade: Identify the Losers (2011) website states, American companies such as Apple create jobs in the United States but have also created jobs elsewhere. There are increasing job distribution overseas because of the number of applicants at a fraction of the salary. The Global Trade: Identify The Losers (2011) website highlights with globalization organizations can choose to source their manufacturing needs in other countries where labor is less costly. Technological and innovation advancements have permitted globalization to grow decreasing barriers to trade. 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