black essays

black essays Everywhere you go, everywhere you look, there is always somebody different. The American society focuses on that person, or group of people. They made them feel worthless and they treated them like animals. Imagine walking down the street and having people stare at you or call you names, or talk behind your back. Imagine not knowing the time because nobody will tell you. Why wont they tell you the time, or spare you some change? Because you are black. Actually, because your skin is a different color, your because youre a different kind of religion. In a way I admire them because theyve survived for hundreds of years until they were free, and now that theyre free, the modern white men harasses them and beats them. I mean, they even had a world wide organization named for them. The KKK has been around for awhile. The KKK or the Ku Klux Klan, was started to get rid of blacks and Jewish people. The author of "A Monument to Racism" writes in her article that she was in Flowery Branch, Georgia, and in front of Danny Carvers house, hes a KKK leader, was 8 or more signs, and on these signs read: "A brain is a terrible thing to waste, thats why niggers dont have one. (Glamour 110)." Another sign said "NAACP" or "Niggers, Alligators, Apes, Coons, and Possums. Or insisting that blacks dont have brains and that they should be treated like animals. Theres a figurine in front of the yard that had 4 young black men sitting on it with 2 KKK hooded members by them. To top it off, Carvers lawn was on the Atlantic highway, the main way through the capital. I strongly agree with Valerie Joseph when she says that she "wanted to believe that people actually cared, she wanted to believe that there were lawyers, activists, parents, church groups of all races that were bombarding this man with phone calls and letters. She hoped that maybe teenagers would plan to smash the figurine...

How to Measure a Vessels Beam

How to Measure a Vessel's Beam When describing the hull of a vessel three basic measurements give a rough outline of the shape of the hull. These are Length, Beam, and Draft. What Is Beam? Beam is a measurement of a vessels width. It is always measured at the widest point because it is often used to determine if passage can be safely made near an obstacle. Beam is important in determining the handling characteristics of a ship design. A narrow beam hull will run fast but will not perform well in heavy waves because of the narrow cross section. A hull which has a wider beam will be less efficient in cutting through the water because of the larger mass of water that is being displaced. This larger mass also tends to roll less. Beam can also be measured at specific points on the hull like the pilot house or cargo area but these measurements will be designated with the names of these structures. The main measurement of beam is taken at the widest point of a vessel. Naval architects use length, beam, and draft measurements to shape a hull for a specific job by using the concept of Deadrise. The three main hull measurements along with deadrise give the hull a specific shape and handling characteristics. The Origin of Beam in Ships Origin of the word comes from early wooden ship design. The large timbers that sit on top of each rib as they extend up from the keel span the whole width of the ship for strength. On top of this was a deck made of smaller boards that also acted as the ceiling for the first level cabins. From the inside, the ship resembled a house with its floor beams and exposed underside floor decking. A common way to talk about a ship was by the size of her roof beams which would tell you how wide the vessel was and how that proportion related to her length and rig. You could tell everything about a ship from the dimension of this single element of construction. How Beams Are Used Today Today, in modern ship construction, wooden beams are replaced with steel boxes which are much wider than the beams. Wooden beams may have been as wide as a person, steel beams called torsion boxes which are as wide as twenty people are set across the hull. Once this is welded together the ship becomes much more rigid because of something called a stressed skin design which makes ships strong and light. Modern cars use the same idea and use the floor pan and body to make a stiff structure that doesnt need the weight of a heavy solid frame. Another benefit of a stressed skin design is a wide open interior. In wooden ships, two interior posts rose from the chine at each rib to help support the beam which made the interior cramped. In warships, these posts were used to lash down the cannons when they werent in use. They also held the hammocks which really were used on ships of the era The space below the deck was damp and only the lower ranked men slept there. Officers and the Master had better cabins with the junior officers in the bow and the Masters cabin at the stern and raised above the deck by one or more levels. Examples You may hear someone refer to a vessel as Beamy. This means that a vessel has a wide beam in proportion to her length.

Virgin Group Lab Report Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Virgin Group - Lab Report Example This profile majors in different areas, most of which will help in understanding the factors behind Virgin’s success. Purposely, it will provide a detailed analysis of the marketing strategies adopted by the group. In this part, the paper will give an elaboration of the pricing policy and other strategies like employee training. Further, the paper will focus on organization culture prevailing. This will include the behavior and values the group considers worth. Lastly, this report will provide a detailed analysis of the motivation the company gives to the employee hence the evident success. As it will be evident in the report, employee motivation is a key factor in Virgin Group and a determinant in the overall job of every individual employee. Richard Branson’s Profile Born in 1950, biographers document Richard Branson as one of those entrepreneurs who have realized success at a young age. As a real risk taker, Branson incepted Virgin Group at the age of 20 years. Howev er, unlike the expectations of many, he realized his goals. Worth noting, the success attribute to the group did not just happen majestically, but took the effort of the entrepreneur, through his learned skills. A common question is how this happen. Nevertheless, the platform and sequence of events and timing he had help us understand the source of success. As he initiated the group, Branson believe that in order to build one’s daily decisions and actions, it is important to belief (Branson, 2012). This is because every belief determines the action taken by an individual. On the same, it is through belief that individuals run away from actions whenever they realize an obstacle on their way. On the contrary, the entrepreneur believed that everything is achievable. From such an understanding, he used his excellent communication skill to reach out to people and sought ideas to develop his towards the goal he had. In summary, the major skills possessed by Branson that helped him meet his goals included being an optimistic thinker, which to scholars is more of an asset, a defined vision with the desire to take charge, and his drive and persistence despite challenges, which help to explain the self-motivation in him (Branson, 2012). Marketing strategies Marketing strategies contribute extensively to the results an organization realizes. As evaluation of every potential client within reach, Virgin Group has a good marketing strategy to remain competitive. It has pricing policies whereby every customer has available service in accordance to the need and affordability. It runs promotional activities and advertisements to create awareness of its available services thus increasing market share and customer base. Its distribution is widely spread all over the world by establishing outlets to reach its diverse and widely spread customers. This group has well trained employees and practices continuous training for its staff. Its services are of high quality, and they focus on each customer segment. The group is consistent in scanning the business environment. It identifies its strength and weaknesses in the business process. This helps it correct the weakness by finding out the most suitable solution. On analyzing any opportunity and/or threat within the external marketing environment, it strategizes on how to grab the present opportunity and respond to the threat (Ferrell and

HRMT19020 - Managing Organisational Change Assignment

HRMT19020 - Managing Organisational Change - Assignment Example Employees resist change because of the comfort they derive from the known and the fear of the unknown that accompanies such change. Anxiety on the effects of change on the employee’s performance, position, relationship with other employees and a number of job related factors (Hede and Bovey, 2001a). True value food processing company through its senior manager has indicated their desire to change the operational mode and the conditions upon employment. According to Chan Baker, the company plans to introduce multi-skilling for its employees especially the non-salaried employees to improve the company’s profitability and efficiency. Multi-skilling is the development of a single employee by training him/her on different areas of operations within an organization. An organization that adopts multi-skilling practice gives preference to employees who have a wide range of skills or knowledge that can enable them work in different. Multi-skilled employees are a big asset to an organization as they increase productivity, efficiency and innovation in an organization. This approach also reduces the need for the organization to employee more people, which is cost ineffective, and generally unproductive (Hede and Bovey, 2001b). ... The section managers in the organisation are also expected to show some level of resistance to the plans of the senior manager. This report highlights some of the approaches that Mr Baker can adopt to ensure that he counters such cases of resistance adequately without interfering with the operations of the processor. It finally provides detailed consultancy advice on how best Mr Baker can manage this important organisational initiative and reaps great results from the changes. Each approach provided will be explained using relevant examples, which can be safely applied to the situation at hand. Background information and case study Implementing this program at true value food processing company will obviously generate resistance from s number of employees. Such resistance to this kind of change will retard any progress towards implementing this policy. As a custom across many countries and economies across the world, employees focus in one area of expertise and perfect their skills i n such areas. It is rare to find a graduate who can operate a bakery, make the dough and be able to service the machines at the same time. Multi-skilled employees are however required to be able to address different tasks as need may arise even those that outside their professions. Employees who are already working with true value processing plant will therefore resist any attempt to employ others who are considered as multi-skilled. This is because most of them fear they may lose their positions because of redundancy in the organization. Multi-skilled employees increase the levels of redundancy and they can be used as a viable reason to lay off some members of the

Pricing Strategies Essay Example for Free

Pricing Strategies Essay Competition based pricing Setting the price based upon prices of the similar competitor products. Competitive pricing is based on three types of competitive products: * Products having lasting distinctiveness from competitor’s product. Here we can assume * The product has low price elasticity. * The product has low cross elasticity. * The demand for the product will rise. * Products have perishable distinctiveness from competitor’s product, assuming the product features are medium distinctiveness. * Products have little distinctiveness from competitor’s products. Assuming that: * The product has high price elasticity of demand. * The product has some cross elasticity of demand. * No expectation that the demand of the product will rise. Cost plus pricing Cost plus pricing is the simplest pricing method. The firm calculates the cost of producing the product and adds on a percentage (profit) to that price to give the selling price. This method although has two flaws; it takes no account of demand and there is no way of determining if potential customers will purchase the product at the calculated price. AC + Profit markup It is lower than profit maximizing level of pricing Price = Cost of production + Margin of profit Creaming or skimming Selling a product at a high price, sacrificing high sales to gain a high profit, therefore ‘skimming’ the market. Usually employed to reimburse the cost of investment of the original research into the product – commonly used in electronic markets when a new range, such as DVD players, are firstly dispatched into the market at a high price. This strategy is often used to target â€Å"early adopters† of a product or service. These early adopters are relatively less price sensitive because either their need for the product is  more than others or they understand the value of the product better than others. This strategy is employed only for a limited duration to recover most of investment made to build the product. To gain further market share, a seller must use other pricing tactics such as economy or penetration. This method can come with some setbacks as it could leave the product at a high price to competitors. Limit pricing To set a price low enough to ensure that new entrants are discouraged to enter the market. A limit price is the price set by a monopolist to discourage economic entry into a market, and is illegal in many countries. The limit price is the price that the entrant would face upon entering as long as the incumbent firm did not decrease the output. The limit price is often lower than the average cost of production or just low enough to make entering not profitable. The quantity produced by the incumbent firm to act as a deterrent to entry is usually larger than would be optimal for a monopolist, but might still produce higher economic profits than would be earned under perfect competition. The problem with limit pricing as strategic behavior is that once the entrant has entered the market, the quantity used as a threat to deter entry is no longer the incumbent firm’s best response. This means that for limit pricing to be an effective deterrent to entry, the threat must in some way be made credible. A way to achieve this is for the incumbent firm to constrain itself to produce a certain quantity whether entry occurs or not. An example of this would be if the firm signed a union contract to employ a certain (high) level of labour for a long period of time. Loss leader Loss leader: Basic concept in the majority of cases, this pricing strategy is illegal under EU and US Competition rules. No market leader would wish to sell below cost unless this is part of its overall strategy. The idea of selling at a loss may appear to be in the public interest and therefore often not challenged. Only when the leader pushes up prices, it then becomes suspicious. Loss leadership can be similar to predatory pricing or cross subsidization; both seen as anti-competitive practices. Market-orientated pricing Setting a price based upon analysis and research compiled from the targeted market. Also with the cost price. Penetration pricing This price is deliberately set at a low level to gain customer’s interest and establishing a foot-hold in the market. Price discrimination Setting a different price for the same product in different segments of the market. For example, this can be for different ages or for different opening times, such as cinema tickets. Such as market orientated pricing is also a very simple form of pricing used by very new businesses. What is involves is, setting a price of product/service according to research conducted on your target market. It holds good in case of: price sensitive consumers existence of large mass market intence competition in the market.

True Love in The Merchant of Venice Essay -- Merchant of Venice Essays

True Love in The Merchant of Venice      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Among the various themes presented in the Merchant of Venice the most important is the nature of true love.   The casket plot helps illustrate the theme.   Through a variety of suitors the descriptions of the caskets, Shakespeare shows the reader how different people view true love. He also shows what is most important to the suitors and in some cases it is not true love, but material things and outward appearance.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The first suitor who tries to win Portia's hand is the Prince of Morocco.   When he first arrives in Belmont, the reader can see how arrogant the prince is, He says, "The best regarded virgins of our clilme/ hath loved it too..." (2.1, 10-11).   He is referring to the color of his ski n that is black.   He is telling Portia that his complexion has won him many women and he is dressed in all white.   The fact that he is, suggests that he is only concerned with outward appearance, and not with more important things such as true love.   The Prince of Morocco's superficial nature shines through even more clearly when it comes time to choose the casket. He does not want to risk anything, and therefore; he does not choose the lead casket whose inscription tells the suitor he must give up everything. The Prince, after looking at the inscription of the gold casket, which read "'who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire'" (2.7, 37), decides that what he desires most is the Portia's hand so the gold must be the correct casket.   He insists that the gold casket is the one holding Portia's picture because she is so much worthier than the lead casket.   The Prince believes t... ...ove, however, is for Bassanio and she wants to marry him.   Bassanio, by choosing to risk everything he has, shows the effects that true love can have on someone.   True love can conquer any fears or apprehensions you may have. He was willing to risk everything he had in order to show his love for Portia.   In the play, Bassanio shows what true love really means and how one can not mistake outward appearances for true love.   Put succinctly, one can do nothing but agree with the adage love conquers all.    Works Cited and Consulted    Barnet Sylvan.   "Introduction." The Merchant of Venice Ed. Sylvan Barnet.   New   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Jersey : Prentice-Hall Inc., 1970.   1-10.    Granville-Barker, Harley.   "The Merchant of Venice.   " Shakespeare Ed. Leonard F. Dean.   Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1947.   37-71.   

Quirino Grandstand Hostage Drama Essay

I. INTRODUCTION Although the history of kidnapping and hostage-taking is a very long one, it is only relatively recently that there has been a systematic attempt to understand the effects, both long-term and short-term, on individuals and their families. This is an important issue for clinical and academic reasons. The advice of mental health professionals is sought with increasing frequency with regard to the strategic management of hostage incidents and the clinical management of those who have been abducted. There is evidence to suggest that how best to help those who have been taken hostage is a sensitive and complex matter, and those who deal with such individuals should be as well informed as possible since such events can have long-term adverse consequences, particularly on young children. The Manila hostage crisis, officially known as the Rizal Park hostage-taking incident occurred when a dismissed Philippine National Police officer took over a tourist bus in Rizal Park, Manila, Philippines on August 23, 2010. Disgruntled former senior inspector Rolando Mendoza of the Manila Police District (MPD) hijacked a tourist bus carrying 25 people (20 tourists and a tour guide from Hong Kong, and four Filipinos) in an attempt to get his job back. He said that he had been summarily and unfairly dismissed, and that all he wanted was a fair hearing and the opportunity to defend himself. Negotiations broke down dramatically about ten hours into the stand-off, when the police arrested Mendoza’s brother and thus incited him to open fire. As the shooting began, the bus driver managed to escape, and was shown on television saying â€Å"Everyone is dead† before being whisked away by policemen. Mendoza and eight of the hostages were killed and a number of others injured. The MPD’s failed rescue attempt and gun-battle with the hijacker, which took around 90 minutes, were watched by millions on live television and the internet. The Philippine and Hong Kong governments conducted separate investigations into the incident. Both inquiries judged that the victims had been unlawfully killed, and identified the Philippine officials’ poor handling of the incident as the cause of the eight hostages’ deaths. The assault mounted by the MPD, and the resulting shoot-out, have been widely criticized by pundits as â€Å"bungled† and â€Å"incompetent†, and the Hong Kong Government has issued a â€Å"black† travel alert for the Philippines as a result of the affair. II. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY It was August 23, 2010 when the whole world alarmed in one of the most tragic hostage taking happened in Quirino Grandstand Manila, Philippines. Many people were sad and shocked to what happened in the said event. At about 9:30 in the morning, dismissed commission police officer Rolando Mendoza took hostage 25 tourists from Hongkong and some Filipino staff who were in a bus to leave Fort Santiago for Manila’s Rizal Park. The ensuing hostage lasted 11 hours and ended with nine individuals, including the hostage taker, dead.1 and the other hostages were injured. According to the report Mendoza is a hard-working and kind. He received lots of award for being brave and loyal to his profession. Mendoza said he was summarily dismissed without the opportunity to properly defend himself, and that all he wanted was a fair hearing.2 and to get his job back. He did this way just to get attention the government official. As we all know Media is the most likely source of information for most people. In this kind of situation it is very dangerous job for the media because he has to put himself in a place that should be right.3 but in what happened in the Quirino Grandstand Hostage taking crisis it seem that many media people were blamed because they reported beyond the limit. We are in the fact that a media person serve as access of information of issues that are of public concern even if they are at risk. There were many media lapses in that incident. Towards the evening of the hostage taking, many media networks were covering the hostage taking crisis live. Among none of them did it seem to have occurred to that irresponsible coverage of the event could cost lives.4 Some of them during the hostage event reported the unconfirmed information, they revealed the police and troops movement and many more lapses that caused the anger of Mendoza. III. BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS (HOSTAGE TAKER AND CAPTIVE/S) IV. MOTIVES IN THE INCIDENT Taking hostages has a long history as a method, with variable effectiveness, of securing concessions from individuals, organisations and governments. More recently, it has become a popular tactic among terrorist organisations. Although the resilience of individuals should never be underestimated, there is evidence that being taken hostage can have enduring effects, particularly on children. Individuals vary in how they cope with such an experience, both during and subsequent to it. The literature demonstrates that the research base is limited, and many important questions remain to be answered. Hostage-taking is an area of clinical and scientific interest. Apart from the need to establish the most effective post-incident interventions for individual hostages and their families, there are opportunities to develop further insights into the dynamics and effects of unequal power relationships. V. PROBLEMS The ideal equipment of a SWAT team more or less are as follows: communication apparatus, armor vest, helmets, gas mask, pistols, assault rifles for close quarter battle, handcuffs, synchronized watches, binoculars, telescopes, night vision goggles, battering rams, ladders, ropes, stun grenades, teargas, smoke grenades, stick lights, flashlights, spotlights, telescopic gun sights, hydraulic jacks, bolt cutters, glass shutter explosives, fire extinguisher, fireman’s ax, chain saw, SWAT van, gloves, carpentry tools, acetylene torch and rain gears. There was lack of equipment on the part of Manila SWAT to handle the situation. Although they had their basic weapons such as their armor vest (the effectiveness are already in deep question), their rifles, pistols and Kevlar helmets but still by standards, these are not adequate to address the hostage crisis situation. It is very evident that they were not even carrying with them flashlights but all of the time they were reporting and complaining that the interior of the bus was dark. The lack of equipment already put the breaching operation into a compromise. The element of surprise was gone that resulted into a stall that lasted for sometime thereby endangering lives. The doubt regarding the effectiveness of their armor vest contributed to the apprehension of the SWAT members to rush inside the bus during the assault. The Manila SWAT was not only ill-equipped but they were not trained in different kinds of situations. In fact they had to rehearse on the very day of the hostage situation. The trainings of the Manila SWAT as provided by the Manila Police District are not updated and simulated operations were conducted, if ever conducted, was a long time ago. They don’t even know the serial numbers of their guns at an instant query. They train on their own personal account. Skill acquired through trainings diminishes after some time and needs to be constantly updated. VI. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF THE CRISIS MANAGEMENT TEAM VII. CONCLUSIONS The reasons presented for the decriminalization are obviously overwhelming. In a nutshell, by all standards, Gen. Magtibay was an incompetent commander, organizer and manager. To top this off, he was also grossly and recklessly insubordinate at a most crucial moment. One is tempted to put the whole blame on the hostage debacle upon him, if not for the equally incomprehensible lapses and indecisions committed by both his superiors and men all throughout the hostage crisis, specifically on strategy, intelligence, coordination, and deployment. But it is without question that he carries the biggest accountability for the disastrous and murderous outcome of the hostage crisis. As such, it stands to reason for the Senate and the House of Representatives to give decriminalization of libel a chance. Honestly, as an individual I got pissed off because those people tasked to handle the situation didn’t do it by the book. First and foremost to be considered is the safety of the hostages which as viewed was never the order of priority of those people expected to save same. In all hostage-taking drama that I’ve known, neutralizing the hostage-taker is no. 1 in the agenda, which if initially done could have prevented the carnage. I just hope this won’t happen again, but if it does- just neutralize the hostage-taker once and the drama will end! It’s such a shameful and horrific event that the only positive thing we get out of the experience is to learn something from it. From that Learn we have to our mistakes. . VIII. RECOMMENDATION The investigation report also recommended administrative or criminal charges for 15 individuals and organizations, including Manila mayor Alfredo Lim, Vice-Mayor Isko Moreno, ombudsmen Merceditas Gutierrez and Emilio Gonzales III, government undersecretary Rico J. Puno, retired Philippine National Police chief director general Jesus Verzosa, National Capital Region Police Office director Leocadio Santiago Jr., Manila Police District chief superintendent Rodolfo Magtibay, MPD hostage negotiator Orlando Yebra, SWAT commander Santiago Pascual, journalists Erwin Tulfo and Mike Rogas, and three broadcasting networks. The IIRC recommended that an administrative case be filed against negotiator police Superintendent Orland Yebra and that possible criminal liability should be determined, but the Palace only recommended neglect of duty without any recommendation on possible criminal case. The IIRC also recommended that Chief Inspector Santiago Pascual be held liable for gross incompetence and possible criminal action, but the Palace affirmed the gross incompetence case without recommendation for possible criminal liability. The filing of administrative and criminal cases against Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim, but Malacanang said that Lim should be held liable for simple neglect of duty and misconduct. Charges be filed against several personalities but the recommendation was revised when it reached Malacaà ±ang. IX. REFERENCES 1.First Report of the INCIDENT INVESTIGATION and REVIEW COMMITTEE on the August, 23, 2010 Rizal Park Hostage-taking Incident: SEQUENCE OF EVENTS, EVALUATION and RECOMMENDATIONS, Incident Investigation and Review Committee, September 16, 2010, pp. 9–10, 16, 22, 24. 2.†Hong Kong criticizes handling of Manila hostage crisis†. Reuters. August 23, 2010. http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/08/23/us-philippines-hostage-hongkong-idUSTRE67M35B20100823. Retrieved July 14, 2011. 3.Mair, John; Blanchard, Ben (August 24, 2010). â€Å"Philippines defends handling of bus hostage crisis†. International Business Times. 4.http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/45880/20100824/philippines-defends-handling-

Importance of arts Essay

Now we must study the following questions: What significance does art acquire if we assume that our interpretation of it is correct? What is the relation between aesthetic response and all other forms of human behavior? How do we explain the role and importance of art in the general behavioral system of man? There are as many different answers to these questions as there are different ways of evaluating the importance of art. Some believe art is the supreme human activity while others consider it nothing but leisure and fun. The evaluation of art depends directly on the psychological viewpoint from which we approach it. If we want to find out what the relationship between art and life is, if we want to solve the problem of art in terms of applied psychology, we must adopt a valid general theory for solving these problems. The first and most widespread view holds that art infects us with emotions and is therefore based upon contamination. Tolstoy says, â€Å"The activity of art is ba sed on the capacity of people to infect others with their own emotions and to be infected by the emotions of others. †¦ Strong emotions, weak emotions, important emotions, or irrelevant emotions, good emotions or bad emotions – if they contaminate the reader, the spectator, or the listener – become the subject of art. This statement means that since art is but common emotion, there is no substantial difference between an ordinary feeling and a feeling stirred by art. Consequently, art functions simply as a resonator, an amplifier, or a transmitter for the infection of feeling. Art has n6 specific distinction; hence the evaluation of art must proceed from the same criterion which we use to evaluate any feeling. Art may be good or bad if it infects us with good or bad feelings. Art in itself is neither good nor bad; it is a language of feeling which we must evaluate in accordance with what it expresses. Thus, Tolstoy came to the natural conclusion that art must be evaluated from a moral viewpoint; he therefore approved of art that generated good feelings, and objected to art that, from his point of view, represented reprehensible events or actions. Many other critics reached the same conclusions as did Tolstoy and evaluated a work of art on the basis of its obvious content, while praising or condemning the artist accordingly. Like ethics, like aesthetics – this is the slogan of this theory. But Tolstoy soon discovered that his theory failed when he tried to be consistent with his own conclusions. He compared two artistic impressions:  one produced b y a large chorus of peasant women who were celebrating the marriage of his daughter; and the other, by an accomplished musician who played Beethoven’s Sonata. The singing of the peasant women expressed such a feeling of joy, cheerfulness, and liveliness that it infected Tolstoy and he went home in high spirits. According to him, such singing is true art, because it communicates a specific and powerful emotion. Since the second impression involved no such specific emotions, he concluded that Beethoven’s sonata is an unsuccessful artistic attempt which contains no definite emotions and is therefore neither remarkable nor outstanding. This example shows us the absurd conclusions that can be reached if the critical understanding of art is based upon the criterion of its infectiousness. Beethoven’s music incorporates no definite feeling, while the singing of the peasant women has an elementary and contagious gaiety. If this is true, then Yevlakhov is right when he states that â€Å"‘real, true’ art is military or dance music, since it is more catchy.† Tolstoy is consistent in his ideas; beside folk songs, he recognizes only â€Å"marches and dances written by various composers† as works â€Å"that approach the requirements of universal art.† A reviewer of Tolstoy’s article, V. G. Valter, points out that â€Å"if Tolstoy had said that the gaiety of the peasant women put him in a good mood, one could not object to that. It would mean that the language of emotions that expressed itself in their singing (it could well have expressed itself simply in yelling, and most like ly did) infected Tolstoy with their gaiety. But what has this to do with art? Tolstoy does not say whether the women sang well; had they not sung but simply yelled, beating their scythes, their fun and gaiety would have been no less catching, especially on his daughter’s wedding day.† We feel that if we compare an ordinary yell of fear to a powerful novel in terms of their respective infectiousness, the latter will fail the test. Obviously, to understand art we must add something else to simple infectiousness. Art also produces other impressions, and Longinus’ statement, â€Å"You must know that the orator pursues one purpose, and the poet another. The purpose of poetry is trepidation, that of prose is expressivity,† is correct. Tolstoy’s formula failed to account for the trepidation which is the purpose of poetry. But to prove that he is really wrong, we must look at the art of military and dance music and find out whether the true purpose of that art is to infect. Petrazhitskii assumes  that aestheticians are wrong when they claim that the purpose of art is to generate aesthetic emotions only. He feels that art produces general emotions, and that aesthetic emotions are merely decorative. â€Å"For instance, the art of a warlike period in the life of a people has as its main purpose the excitation of heroic-bellicose emotions. Even now, military music is not intended to give the soldiers in the field aesthetic enjoyment, but to excite and enhance their belligerent feelings. The purpose of medieval art (including sculpture and architecture) was to produce lofty religious emotions. Lyric appeals to one aspect of our emotional psyche, satire to another; the same applies to drama, tragedy, and so on †¦ Apart from the fact that military music does not generate bellicose emotions on the battlefield, the question is not properly formulated here. Ovsianiko-Kulikovskii, for example, comes closer to the truth when he says that â€Å"military lyrics and music ‘lift the spirit’ of the army and ‘inspire’ feats of valor and heroic deeds, but neither of them leads directly to bellicose emotions or belligerent affects. On the contrary, they seem to moderate bellicose ardor, calm an excited nervous system, and chase away fear. We can say that lifting morale, calming nerves, and chasing away fear are among the most important practical functions of ‘lyrics’ which result from their psychological nature. It is therefore wrong to think that music can directly cause warlike emotions; more precisely, it gives bellicose emotions an opportunity for expression, but music as such neither causes nor generates them. Something similar happens with erotic poetry, the sole purpose of which, according to Tolstoy, is to excite lust. Anyone who understands the true nature of lyrical emotions knows that Tolstoy is wrong. â€Å"There is no doubt that lyrical emotion has a soothing effect on all other emotions (and affects) to the point that at times it paralyzes them. This is also the effect it has on sexuality with its emotions and affects. Erotic poetry, if it is truly lyrical, is far less suggestive than works of the visual arts in which the problems of love and the notorious sex problem are treated with the purpose of producing a moral reaction. Ovsianiko-Kulikovskii is only partly correct in his assumption that sexual feeling, which is easily excited, is most strongly stirred by images and thoughts, that these images and thoughts are rendered harmless by lyrical emotion, and that mankind is indebted to lyrics, even more than to ethics,  for the taming and restraining of sexual instincts. He underestimates the importance of the other art forms, which he calls figurative, and does not remark that in their case also emotions provoked by images are counteracted by the nonlyrical emotion of art. Thus we see that Tolstoy’s theory does not hold in the domain of the applied arts, where he thought its validity to be absolute. As concerns great art (the art of Beethoven and Shakespeare), Tolstoy himself pointed out that his theory is inapplicable. Art would have a dull and ungrateful task if its only purpose were to infect one or many persons with feelings. If this were so, its significance would be very small, because there would be only a quantitative expansion and no qualitative expansion beyond an individual’s feeling. The miracle of art would then be like the bleak miracle of the Gospel, when five barley loaves and two small fishes fed thousands of people, all of whom ate and were satisfied, and a dozen baskets were filled with the remaining food. This miracle is only quantitative: thousands were fed and were satisfied, but each of them ate only fish and bread. But was this not their daily diet at home, without any miracles? If the only purpose of a tragic poem were to infect us with the author’s sorrow, this would be a very sad situation indeed for art. The miracle of art reminds us much more of another miracle in the Gospel, the transformation of water into wine. Indeed, art’s true nature is that of transubstantiation, something that transcends ordinary feelings; for the fear, pain, or excitement caused by art includes something above and beyond its normal, conventional content. This â€Å"something† overcomes feelings of fear and pain, changes water into wine, and thus fulfills the most important purpose of art. One of the great thinkers said once that art relates to life as wine relates to the grape. With this he meant to say that art takes its material from life, but gives in return something which its material did not contain. Initially, an emotion is individual, and only by means of a work of art does it become s ocial or generalized. But it appears that art by itself contributes nothing to this emotion. It is not clear, then, why art should be viewed as a creative act nor how it differs from an ordinary yell or an orator’s speech. Where is the trepidation of which Longinus spoke, if art is viewed only as an exercise in infectiousness? We realize that science does not simply infect one person or a whole society with thoughts and ideas, any more than technology helps man  to be handy. We can also recognize that art is an expanded â€Å"social feeling† or technique of feelings, as we shall show later. Plekhanov states that the relationship between art and life is extremely complex, and he is right. He quotes Tairfe who investigated the interesting question of why landscape painting evolved only in the city. If art were intended merely to infect us with the feelings that life communicates to us, then landscape painting could not survive in the city. History, however, proves exactly the opposite. Taine writes, â€Å"We have the right to admire landscapes, just as they had the right to be bored by it. For seventeenth-century man there was nothing uglier than a mountain. It aroused in him many unpleasant ideas, because he was as weary of barbarianism as we are weary of civilization. Mountains give us a chance to rest, away from our sidewalks, offices, and shops; we like landscape only for this reason.† 6 Plekhanov points out that art is sometimes not a direct expression of life, but an expression of its antithesis. The idea, of course, is not in the leisure of which Taine speak s, but in a certain antithesis: art releases an aspect of our psyche which finds no expression in our everyday life. We cannot speak of an infection with emotions. The effect of art is obviously much more varied and complex; no matter how we approach art, we always discover that it involves something different from a simple transmission of feelings. Whether or not we agree with Lunacharskii that art is a concentration of life, we must realize that it proceeds from certain live feelings and works upon those feelings, a fact not considered by Tolstoy’s theory. We have seen that this process is a catharsis – the transformation of these feelings into opposite ones and their subsequent resolution. This view of course agrees perfectly with Plekhanov’s principle of antithesis in art. To understand this we must look at the problem of the biological significance of art, and realize that art is not merely a means for infection but something immeasurably more important in itself. In his â€Å"Three Chapters of Historic Poetics,† Veselovskii says that ancient singing and playing were born from a complex need for catharsis; a cho rus sung during hard and exhausting work regulates muscular effort by its rhythm, and apparently aimless play responds to the subconscious requirement of training and regulation of physical or intellectual effort. This is also the requirement of psychophysical catharsis formulated by Aristotle for the drama; it manifests itself in the  unsurpassed mastery of Maori women to shed tears at will, and also in the overwhelming tearfulness of the eighteenth century. The phenomenon is the same; the difference lies only in expression and understanding. We perceive rhythm in poetry as something artistic and forget its primitive psychophysical origins. The best repudiation of the contamination theory is the study of those psychophysical principles on which art is based and the explanation of the biological significance of art. Apparently art releases and processes some extremely complex organismic urges. The best corroboration of our viewpoint can be found in the fact that it agrees with Bucher’s studies on the origins of art and permits us to understand the true role and purpose of art. Bucher established that music and poetry have a common origin in heavy physical labor. Their object was to relax cathartically the tremendous stress created by labor. This is how Bucher formulated the general content of work songs: â€Å"They follow the general trend of work, and signal the beginning of a simultaneous collective effort; they try to incite th e men to work by derision, invective, or reference to the opinion of spectators; they express the thoughts of the workers about labor itself, its course, its gear, and so forth, as well as their joys or sorrows, their complaints about the hardness of the work and the inadequate pay; they address a plea to the owner, the supervisor, or simply to the spectator.† The two elements of art and their resolution are found here. The only peculiarity of these songs is that the feeling of pain and hardship which must be solved by art is an essential part of labor itself. Subsequently, when art detaches itself from labor and begins to exist as an independent activity, it introduces into the work of art the element which was formerly generated by labor: the feelings of pain, torment, and hardship (which require relies are now aroused by art itself, but their nature remains the same. Biicher makes an extremely interesting statement: â€Å"The peoples of antiquity considered song an indispensable accompaniment of hard labor.† From this we realize that song at first organized collective labor, then gave relief and relaxation to painful and tormenting strain. We shall see that art, even in its highest manifestations, completely separate from labor and without any direct connection thereto, has maintained the same functions. It still must systematize, or organize, social feeling and give relief to painful and tormenting strain. Quintilian puts it this way: â€Å"And  it appears as if [music] were given to us by nature in order to make labor bearable. For instance, the rower is inspired by song; it is useful not only where the efforts of many are combined, but also when it is intended to provide rest for an exhausted worker.† Thus art arises originally as a powerful tool in the struggle for existence; the idea of reducing its role to a communication of feeling with no power or control over that feeling, is inadmissible. If the purpose of art, like Tolstoy’s chorus of peasant women, were only to make us gay or sad, it would neither have survived nor have ever acquired its present importance. Nietzsche expresses it well injoyful Wisdom, when he says that rhythm involves inducement and incentive: â€Å"It arouses an irresistible desire to imitate, and not only our legs but our very soul follow the beat. †¦ Was there anything more useful than rhythm for ancient, Superstitious mankind? With its help everything became feasible – work could be performed magically, God could be forced to appear and listen to grievances, the future could be changed and corrected at will, one’s soul could be delivered of any abnormality. Without verse man would be nothing; with it, he almost became God.â €  It is quite interesting to see how Nietzsche explains the way in which art succeeded in acquiring such power over man. â€Å"When the normal mood and harmony of the soul were lost, one had to dance to the song of a bard – this was the prescription of that medicine †¦ First of all, inebriation and uncontrolled affect were pushed to the limit, so that the insane became frenzied, and the avenger became saturated with hatred.† Apparently the possibility of releasing into art powerful passions which cannot find expression in normal, everyday life is the biological basis of art. The purpose of our behavior is to keep our organism in balance with its surroundings. The simpler and more elementary our relations with the environment, the simpler our behavior. The more subtle and complex the interaction between organism and environment, the more devious and intricate the balancing process. Obviously this process cannot continue smoothly toward an equilibrium. There will always be a certain imbalance in favor of the environment or the organism. No machine can work toward equilibrium using all its energy efficiently. There are always states of excitation which cannot result in an efficient use of energy. This is why a need arises from time to time to discharge the unused energy and give it free rein in order to reestablish our equilibrium with the rest of the  world. Orshanskii says that feelings â€Å"are the p luses and minuses of our equilibrium.† These pluses and minuses, these discharges and expenditures of unused energy, are the biological function of art. Looking at a child, it is evident that its possibilities are far greater than actually realized. If a child plays at soldiers, cops and robbers, and so on, this means, according to some, that inside himself he really becomes a soldier or a robber. Sherrington’s principle (the principle of struggle for a common field of action) clearly shows that in our organism the nervous receptor fields exceed many times the executing effector neurons, so that the organism perceives many more stimuli than it can possibly attend to. Our nervous system resembles a railway station into which five tracks lead, but only one track leads out. Of five trains arriving at this station, only one ever manages to leave (and this only after a fierce struggle), while the other four remain stalled. The nervous system reminds us of a battlefield where the struggle never ceases, not even for a single instant, and our behavior is an infinitesimal part of what is really included in the possibilities of our nerv ous system, but cannot find an outlet. In nature the realized and executed part of life is but a minute part of the entire conceivable life Oust as every life born is paid for by millions of unborn ones). Similarly, in our nervous system, the realized part of life is only the smallest part of the real life contained in us. Sherrington likens our nervous system to a funnel with its narrow part turned toward action, and the wider part toward the world. The world pours into man, through the wide opening of the funnel 154), thousands of calls, desires, stimuli, etc. enter, but only an infinitesimal part of them is realized and flows out through the narrowing opening. It is obvious that the unrealized part of life, which has not gone through the narrow opening of our behavior, must be somehow utilized and lived. The organism is in an equilibrium with its environment where balance must be maintained, just as it becomes necessary to open a valve in a kettle in which steam pressure exceeds the strength of the vessel. Apparently art is a psychological means for striking a balance with the environment at critical points of our behavior. Long ago the idea had been expressed that art complements life by expanding its possibilities. Von Lange says, â€Å"There is a sorry resemblance between contemporary civilized man and domestic animals: limitation and monotony. Issuing from the patterns of bourgeois  life and its social forms, these are the main features of the individual existence, which lead everybody, rich and poor, weak and strong, talented and deprived, through an incomplete and imperfect life. It is astonishing how limited is the number of ideas, feelings, and actions that modern man can perform or experience.† Lazurskii holds the same view when he explains the theory of empathy by referring to one of Tolstoy’s novels. â€Å"There is a point in Anna Karenina where Tolstoy tells us that Anna reads a novel and suddenly wants to do what the heroes of that novel do: fight, struggle, win with them, go with the protagonist to his estate, and so on.† Freud shares this opinion and speaks of art as a means of appeasing two inimical principles, the principle of pleasure and that of reality. Insofar as we are talking about the meaning of life, these writers come closer to the truth than those who, like Grant-Allen, assume that â€Å"aesthetics are those emotions which have freed themselves from association with practical interests.† This reminds us of Spencer’s formula: he assumed that â€Å"beautiful is what once was, but no longer is, useful.† Developed to its extreme limits, this viewpoint leads to the theory of games, which is accepted by many philosophers, and g iven its highest expression by Schiller. The one serious objection against it is that, in not recognizing art as a creative act, it tends to reduce it to the biological function of exercising certain organs, a fact of little importance for the adult. Much more convincing are the other theories which consider art an indispensable discharge of nervous energy and a complex method of finding an equilibrium between our organism and the environment in critical instances of our behavior. We resort to art only at critical moments in our life, and therefore can understand why the formula we propose views art as a creative act. If we consider art to be catharsis, it is perfectly clear that it cannot arise where there is nothing but live and vivid feeling. A sincere feeling taken per se cannot create art. It lacks more than technique or mastery, because a feeling expressed by a technique will never generate a lyric poem or a musical composition. To do this we require the creative act of overcoming the feeling, resolving it, conquering it. Only when this act has been performed – then and only then is art born. This is why the perception of art requires creativity: it is not enough to experience sincerely the feeling, or feelings, of the author; it is not enough to understand the structure of the work of art; one must also  creatively overcome one’s own feelings, and find one’s own catharsis; only then will the effect of art be complete. This is why we agree with Ovsianiko-Kulikovskii who says that the purpose of military music is not to arouse bellicose emotions but, by establishing an equilibrium between the organism and the environment at a critical moment for the organism, to discipline and organize its work, provide appropriate relief to its feelings, to chase away fear, and to open the way to courage and valor. Thus, art never directly generates a practical action; it merely prepares the organism for such action. Freud says that a, frightened person is terrified and runs when he sees danger; the useful part of this behavior is that he runs, not that he is frightened. In art, the reverse is true: fear per se is useful. Man’s release per se is useful, because it creates the possibility of appropriate flight or attack. This is where we must consider the economy of our feelings, which Ovsianiko-Kulikovskii describes thus: â€Å"The harmonic rhythm of lyrics creates emotions which differ from the majority of other emotions in that such ‘lyric emotions’ save our psychic energies by putting our ‘psychic household’ into harmonic order.† This is not the same economy of which we talked earlier, it is not an attempt to avoid the output of psychic energies. In this respect art is not subordinated to the principle of the economy of strength; on the contrary, art is an explosive and sudden expenditure of strength, of forces (psychic and otherwise), a discharge of ene rgy. A work of art perceived coldly and prosaically, or processed and treated to be perceived in this way, saves much more energy and force than if it were perceived with the full effect of its artistic form in mind. Although it is an explosive discharge, art does introduce order and harmony into the â€Å"psychic household,† of our feelings. And of course the waste of energy performed by Anna Karenina when she experienced the feelings and emotions of the heroes of the novel she was reading, is a saving of psychic forces if compared to the actual emotion. A more complex and deeper meaning of the principle of economizing emotions will become clearer if we try to understand the social significance of art. Art is the social within us [55], and even if its action is performed by a single individual, it does not mean that its essence is individual. It is quite naive and inappropriate to take the social to be collective, as with a large crowd of persons. The social also exists where there is only one  person with his individual experiences and tribulations. This is why the action of art, when it performs catharsis and pushes into this purifying flame the most intimate and important experiences, emotions, and feelings of the soul, is a social action. But this experience does not happen as described in the theory of contaminati on (where a feeling born in one person infects and contaminates everybody and becomes social), but exactly the other way around. The melting of feelings outside us is performed by the strength of social feeling, which is objectivized, materialized, and projected outside of us, then fixed in external objects of art which have become the tools of society. A fundamental characteristic of man, one that distinguishes him from animals, is that he endures and separates from his body both the apparatus of technology and that of scientific knowledge, which then become the tools of society. Art is the social technique of emotion, a tool of society which brings the most intimate and personal aspects of our being into the circle of social life. It would be more correct to say that emotion becomes personal when every one of us experiences a work of art; it becomes personal without ceasing to be social. â€Å"Art,† says Guyau, â€Å"is a condensation of reality; it shows us the human machine under high pressure. It tries to show us more life phenomena than we actually experience.† Of course this life, concentrated in art, exerts an effect not only on our emotions but also on our will â€Å"because emotion contains the seed of will.† Guyau correctly attributes a tremendous importance to the role played by art in society. It in troduces the effects of passion, violates inner equilibrium, changes will in a new sense, and stirs feelings, emotions, passions, and vices without which society would remain in an inert and motionless state. It â€Å"pronounces the word we were seeking and vibrates the string which was strained but soundless. A work of art is the center of attraction, as is the active will of a genius: if Napoleon attracts will, Corneille and Victor Hugo do so too, but in a different way. †¦ Who knows the number of crimes instigated by novels describing murders? Who knows the number of divorces resulting from representations of debauchery?† â€Å"Guyau formulates the question in much too primitive a way, because he imagines that art directly causes this or the other emotion. Yet, this never happens. A representation of murder does not cause murder. A scene of debauchery does not inspire divorce; the  relationship between art and life is very complex, and in a very approximate way it can be described as will be shown. Hennequin sees the difference between aesthetic and real emotion in the fact that aesthetic emotion does not immediately express itself in action. He says, however, that if repeated over and over again, these emotions can become the basis for an individual’s behavior; thu s, an individual can be affected by the kind of literature he reads. â€Å"An emotion imparted by a work of art is not capable of expressing itself in immediate actions. In this respect aesthetic feelings differ sharply from actual feelings. But, since they serve an end in themselves, they justify themselves and need not be immediately expressed in any practical activity; aesthetic emotions can, by accumulation and repetition, lead to substantial practical results. These results depend upon the general properties of aesthetic emotion and the particular properties of each of these emotions. Repeated exercises of a specific group of feelings under the effect of invention, imagination, or unreal rnoods or causes that generally cannot result in action do not require active manifestations, and doubtless weaken the property common to all real emotions, that of expression in action. †¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I Hennequin introduces two very important corrections, but his solution of the problem remains quite primitive. He is correct in saying that aesthetic emotion does not immediately generate action, that it manifests itself in the change of purpose. He is als o correct when he states that aesthetic emotion not only does not generate the actions of which it speaks, but is completely alien to them. On the basis of Guyau’s example, we could say that the reading of novels about murder not only does not incite us to murder, but actually teaches us not to kill; but this point of view of Hennequin’s, although it is more applicable than the former, is quite simple compared with the subtle function assigned to art. As a matter of fact, art performs an extremely complex action with our passions and goes far beyond the limits of these two simplistic alternatives. Andrei Bely says that when we listen to music we feel what giants must have felt. Tostoy masterfully describes this high tension of art in his Kreutzer Sonata: † Do you know the first place? Do you really know it?† he explains. Oh! †¦ A sonata is a frightening thing. Yes, this part, precisely. Music, generally, is a frightening thing. What is it? I don’t understand. What is music? What does it do? And why does it do whatever it does? They say that music elevates our  soul. Rubbish, nonsen se! It does work, it has a terrible effect (I am talking for myself, but it certainly does not lift the soul. It does not lift the soul, nor does it debase it, but it irritates it. How can I put it? Music makes me oblivious of myself; it makes me forget my true position; it transfers me into another position, not mine, not my own: it seems to me, under the effect of music, that I feel what I don’t feel, that I understand what I actually don’t understand, can’t understand. †¦ â€Å"Music immediately, suddenly, transports me into the mood which must have been that of the man who wrote it. I become one with him, and together with him I swing from one mood into another, from one state into another, but why I am doing it, I don’t know. That fellow, for instance, who wrote the Kreutzer Sonata, Beethoven, he knew why he was in that state. That state led him to certain actions, and therefore, for him, that state was sensible. For me, it means nothing, it is completely senseless. And this is why music only irritates and achieves nothing. Well, if I play a military march, the soldiers will march in step, and the music has achieved its purpose; if dance music is played, I dance, and the music achieves its purpose. Or, if Mass is sung and I take communion, well, here too the music has achieved its purpose; otherwise, it is only irritation, and no one knows what to do with this irritation. This is why music occasionally has such a horrible,terrifying effect. In China music is an affair of state, and this is how it should be †¦ â€Å"Otherwise it could be a terrifying tool in the hands of anybody. Take for instance the Kreutzer Sonata. How can one play its presto in a drawing room, amidst ladies in decollete? Play it, and then busy oneself, then eat some ice cream and listen to the latest gossip? No, these things can b e played only in the face of significant, important circumstances, and then it will be necessary to perform certain appropriate acts that fit the music. If it must be played, we must act according to its setting of our mood. Otherwise the incongruity between the place, the time, the waste of energy, and the feelings which do not manifest themselves will have a disastrous effect.† This excerpt from The Kreutzer Sonata tells us quite convincingly of the incomprehensibly frightening effect of music for the average listener. It reveals a new aspect of the aesthetic response and shows that it is not a blank shot, but a response to a work of art, and a new and powerful stimulus for further action. Art requires a reply, it incites  certain actions, and Tolstoy quite correctly compares the effect of Beethoven’s music with that of a dance tune or a march. In the latter case, the excitement created by the music resolves itself in a response, and a feeling of satisfied repose sets in. In the case of Beethoven’s music we are thrown into a state of confusion and anxiety, because the music reveals those urges and desires that can find a resolution only in exceptionally important and heroic actions. When this music is followed by ice cream and gossip amidst ladies in d’collet, we are left in a state of exceptional anxiety, tension, and disarray. But T olstoy’s character makes a mistake when he compares the irritating and stimulating effect of this music to the effect produced by a military march. He does not realize that the effect of music reveals itself much more subtly, by means of hidden shocks, stresses, and deformations of our constitution. It may reveal itself unexpectedly, and in an extraordinary way. But in this description, two points are made with exceptional clarity: First, music incites, excites, and irritates in an indeterminate fashion not connected with any concrete reaction, motion, or action. This is proof that its effect is cathartic, that is, it clears our psyche, reveals and calls to life tremendous energies which were previously inhibited and restrained. This, however is a consequence of art, not its action. Secondly, music has coercive power. Tolstoy suggests that music should be an affair of state. He believes that music is a public affair. One critic pointed out that when we perceive a work a work of art we think that our reaction is strictly personal and associated only with ourselves. We believe that it has nothing to do social psychology. But this is as wrong as the opinion of a person pays taxes and considers this action only from his own viewpoint own, personal budget, without bearing in mind that he participate the huge and complex economy of the state. He does not reflect that by paying taxes he takes part in involved state operations whose existence he does not even suspect. This is why Freud is wrong when he says that man stands face to face with the reality of nature, and that art be derived from the purely biological difference between the principle of enjoyment toward which all our inclinations gravitate, and that of reality which forces us to renounce satisfaction and pleasure. Between man and the outside world there stands the social environment, which in its own way refracts and directs the stimuli acting upon the individual and guides all  the reactions that emanate from the individual. applied psychology it is therefore of immense significance to know I as Tolstoy puts it, music is something awesome and frightening to average listener. If a military march incites soldiers to march proudly in a parade, what exceptional deeds must Beethoven’s music inspire! Let me repeat: music by itself is isolated from our everyday behavior; it does not drive us to do anything, it only creates a vague and enormous desire for some deeds or actions; it op ens the way for the emergence of powerful, hidden forces within us; it acts like an earthquake as it throws open unknown and hidden strata. The view that art returns us to atavism rather than projecting us into the future, is erroneous. Although music does not generate any direct actions, its fundamental effect, the direction it imparts to psychic catharsis, is essential for the kind of forces it will release, what it will release, and what it will push into the background. Art is the organization of our future behavior. It is a requirement that may never be fulfilled but that forces us to strive beyond our life toward all that lies beyond it. We may therefore call art a delayed reaction, because there is always a fairly long period of time between its effect and its execution. This does not mean, however, that the effect of art is mysterious or mystical or that its explanation requires some new concepts different from those which the psychologist sets up when he analyzes common behavior. Art performs with our bodies and through our bodies. It is remarkable that scholars like Rutz and Sievers, who studied perceptual proc esses and not the effects of art, speak of the dependence of aesthetic perception on a specific muscular constitution of the body. Rutz was the first to suggest that any aesthetic effect must be associated with a definite type of muscular constitution. Sievers applied his idea to the contemplation of sculpture. Other scholars mention a connection between the basic organic constitution of the artist and the structure of his works. From the most ancient times, art has always been regarded as a means of education, that is, as a long-range program for changing our behavior and our organism. The subject of this chapter, the significance of applied arts, involves the educational effect of art. Those who see a relationship between pedagogy and art find their view unexpectedly supported by psychological analysis. We can now address ourselves to the last problems on our agenda, those of the practical effect of art on life  and of its educational significance. The educational significance of art and its practical aspects may be divided into two parts. We have first criticism as a fundamental social force, which opens th e way to art, evaluates it, and serves as a transitional mechanism between art and society. From a psychological point of view, the role of criticism is to organize the effects of art. It gives a certain educational direction to these effects, and since by itself it has no power to influence the basic effect of art per se it puts itself between this effect and the actions into which this effect must finally resolve itself. We feet therefore that the real purpose and task of art criticism is different from its conventional one. Its purpose is not to interpret or explain a work of art, nor is its purpose to prepare the spectator or reader for the perception of a work of art. Only half of the task of criticism is aesthetic; the other half is pedagogical and public. The critic approaches the average â€Å"consumer† of art, for instance, Tolstoy’s hero in The Kreutzer Sonata, at the troublesome point when he is under the incomprehensible and frightening spell of the music and does not know what it will release in him. The critic wishes to be the organizing force, but enters the action when art has already had its victory over the human psyche which now seeks impetus and direction for its action. The dualistic nature of criticism obviously entails a dualistic task. The criticism which consciously and intentionally puts art into prose establishes its social root, and determines the social connec tion that exists between art and the general aspects of life. It gathers our conscious forces counteract or, conversely, to cooperate with those impulses which have been generated by a work of art. This criticism leaves the domain of art and enters the sphere of social life, with the sole purpose of guiding the aesthetically aroused forces into socially useful channels. Everyone knows that a work of art affects different people in different ways. Like a knife, or any other tool, art by itself is neither good nor bad. More precisely, it has tremendous potential for either good or evil. It all depends on what use we make of, or what task m sign to, this tool. To repeat a trite example: a knife in the hands surgeon has a value completely different from that of the same knife the hands of a child. But the foregoing is only half the task of criticism. The other half consists in conserving the effect of art as art, and preventing the read spectator from wasting the forces aroused by art by  substituting for its powerful impulses dull, commonplace, rational-moral precepts. Few understand why it is imperative not only to have the effect of art shape and excite the reader or spectator but also to explain art, and to explain it in such a way that the explanation does not fill the emotion. We can readily show that such explanation is indispensable, our behavior is organized according to the principle of unity, which is accomplished mainly by means of our consciousness in which any emotion seeking an outlet must be represented. Otherwise we risk creating a conflict, and the work of art, instead of producing a catharsis, would inflict a wound, and the person experiences what Tolstoy when his heart is filled with a vague, incomprehensible emotion of depression, impotence, and confusion. However, this does not mean that the explanation of art kills the trepidation of poetry mentioned by Longinus, for there are two different levels involved. This second element, the element of conservation of an artistic impression, has always been regarded by theoreticians as decisively important for art criticism but, oddly enough, our critics have always ignored it. Criticism has always approached art as if it were a parliamentary speech or a non-aesthetic fact. It considered its task to be the destruction of the effect of art in order to discover the significance of art. Plekhanov was aware that the search for the sociological equivalent of a work of art is only the first half of the task of criticism. â€Å"This means,† he said when discussing Belinskii, â€Å"that evaluation of the idea of a work of art must be followed by an analysis of its artistic merits. Philosophy did not eliminate aesthetics. On the contrary, it paved the way for it and tried to find a solid basis for it. This must also be said about materialistic criticism. In searching for the social equivalent of a given literary phenomenon, this type of criticism betrays its own nature if it does not understand that we cannot confine ourselves to finding this equivalent, and that sociology must not shut the door to aesthetics but, on the contrary, open it wide. The second action of materialistic criticism must be, as was the case with many critic-idealists, the evaluation of the aesthetic merits of the work under investigation †¦ The determination of the sociological equivalent of a given work of literature would be incomplete and therefore imprecise if the critic failed to appraise its artistic merits. In other words, the first action of materialistic criticism not only does not eliminate the need for  the second action, but requires it as a necessary and indispensable complement.† A similar situation arises with the problem of art in education: the two parts or acts cannot exist independently. Until recently, the public approach to art prevailed in our schools as well as in our criticism. The students learned or memorized incorrect sociological formulas concerning many works of art. â€Å"At the present time,† says Gershenzon, â€Å"pupils are beaten with sticks to learn Pushkin, as if they were cattle herded to the w atering place, and given a chemical dissociation of H20 instead of drinking water.† It would be unfair to conclude with Gershenzon that the system of teaching art in the schools is wrong from beginning to end. In the guise of the history of social thought reflected in literature, our students learned false literature and false sociology. Does this mean that it is possible to teach art outside the sociological context and only on the basis of individual tastes, to jump from concept to concept, from the Iliad to Maiakovskii? Eichenwaid seems to believe this, for he claims that it is impossible as well as unnecessary to teach literature in the schools. â€Å"Should one teach literature?† he asks. â€Å"Literature, like the other arts, is optional. It represents an entertainment of the mind. †¦ Is it necessary that students be taught that Tatiana fell in love with Onegin, or that Lermontov was bored, sad, and unable to love forever?† Eichenwald is of the opinion that it is impossible to teach literature and that it should be taken out of the school curriculum because it requires an act of creativity different from all the other subjects taught at school. But he proceeds from a rather squalid aesthetic, and all his weak spots become obvious when we analyze his basic position, â€Å"Read, enjoy, but can we force people to enjoy?† Of course, if â€Å"to read† means â€Å"to enjoy,† then literature cannot be taught and has no place in the schools (although someone once said that the art of enjoyment could also he taught). A school that eliminates lessons in literature is bound to be a bad school. â€Å"At the present time, explanatory reading has as its main purpose the explanation of the content of what is being read. Under such a system, poetry as such is eliminated from the curriculum. For instance, the difference between a fable by Krylov and its rendition in prose is Completely lost.† From the repudiation of such a position, Gershenzon comes to the conclusion: â€Å"Poetry cannot and must not be a compulsory subject of education; it is time that it again become a guest  from paradise on earth, loved by everyone, as was the case in ancient times. Then it will once again become the true teacher of the masses.† The basic idea here is that poetry is a heavenly guest and it must be made to resume the role it played â€Å"in ancient times.† But Gershenzon does not concern himself with the fact that these ancient times are gone forever, and that nothing in our time plays the same role it played then. He ignores this fact because he believes that art is fundamentally different from all the other activities of man. For him, art is a kind of a mystical or spiritual act that cannot be recreated by studying the forces of the. According to him, poetry cannot be studied scientifically.† One of the greatest mistakes of contemporary culture,† he says, â€Å"application of a scientific or, more precisely, a naturalistic method to the study of poetry.† Thus, what contemporary scholars consider to be the only possible way of solving the riddle of art is for Gershenzon the supreme mistake of contemporary culture. Future studies and investigations are likely to show that the i creating a work of art is not a mystical or divine act of our soul, I real an act as all the other movements of our body, only much complex. We have discovered in the course of our study that a creative act that cannot be recreated by means of purely conscious operations. But, by establishing that the most important elements in art are subconscious or creative, do we automatically eliminate any and all conscious moments and forces? The act of artistic creation cannot be taught. This does not mean, however, that the educator cannot cooper ate in forming it or bringing it about. We penetrate the subconscious through the conscious. We can organize the conscious processes in such a way that they generate subconscious processes, and everyone knows that an act of art includes, as a necessary condition, all preceding acts of rational cognizance, understanding, recognition, association, and so forth. It is wrong to assume that the later subconscious processes do not depend on the direction imparted by us to the conscious processes. By organizing our conscious, which leads us toward art, we insure a priori the success or failure of the work of art. Hence Molozhavy correctly states that the act of art is â€Å"the process of our response to the phenomenon, although it may never have reached the stage of action. This process †¦ widens the scope of our personality, endows it with new possibilities, prepares for the completed response to the phenomenon, that is, behavior, and also has educational  value †¦ Potebnia is wrong to treat the artistic image as a condensation of thought. Both thought and image are a condensation either of the conscious with respect to the phenomenon involved or of the psyche, which issued from a series of positions preparatory to the present position. But this gives us no right to confuse these biological elements, these psychological processes, on the basis of the vague argument that both thought and artistic image are creative acts. On the contrary, we must emphasize all the ir individual peculiarities in order to understand each as a part of the whole. The tremendous strength that arouses emotions, inspires the will, fortifies energy, and pushes us to action lies in the concreteness of the artistic image which is in turn based upon the originality of the psychological path leading to it.† These considerations need one substantial correction if we move from the field of general psychology into child psychology. When we determine the influence exerted by art, we must take into account the specific peculiarities facing one who deals with children. Of course this is a separate field, a separate and independent study, because the domain of child art and the response of children to art is completely different from that of adults. However, we shall say a few brief words on the subject and trace a basic line along which child psychology intersects this field. There are remarkable phenomena in the art of children. First, there is the early presence of a special structure required by art, which points to the fact that for the child there exists a psychological kinship between art and play. â€Å"First of all,† says Biihler, â€Å"is the fact that the child very early adopts the correct structure, which is alien to reality but required by the fairy tale, so that he can concentrate on the exploits of the heroes and follow the changing images. It seems to me that he loses this ability during so me period of his development, but it returns to him in later years. †¦Ã¢â‚¬  Apparently art does not perform the same function in a child as it does in an adult. The best example of this is a child’s drawing which in many cases is on the borderline of artistic creativity. The child does not understand that the structure of a line can directly express the moods and trepidations of the heart and soul. The ability to render the expressions of people and animals in different positions and gestures develops very slowly in a child, for various reasons. The principal one is the fundamental fact that a child draws patterns, not events or phenomena. Some claim the opposite, but they  seem to ignore the simple fact that a child’s drawing is not yet art for the child. His art is unique and different from the art of adults, although the two have one very interesting characteristic in common. It is the most important trait in art and we shall mention it in conclusion. Only recently was it noticed that certain absurdities or amusing nonsense which can be found in nursery rhymes by inverting the most commonplace events play a tremendously important role in child art. Most frequently the required or desired absurdity is achieved in a nursery rhyme by assigni ng certain functions of object A to object B, and vice versa. †¦ â€Å"The hermit asked me how many strawberries grow at the bottom of the ocean. I answered him: ‘As many as there are red herrings in the forest.’ To understand this nursery jingle the child must know the truth about life: herrings exist only in the ocean, and strawberries only in the forest. He begins to look for the absurd only when he is absolutely sure of the facts.† We, too, feel that the statement, that this aspect of child art comes very close to play, is true; as a matter of fact, it gives us a good explanation of the role and the significance of art in a child’s life. â€Å"We still do not quite understand the connection which exists between nursery rhymes and child’s play. †¦ When evaluating books for small children, critics frequently forget to apply the criterion of play. Most folk nursery rhymes do not issue from games but are play, a game in themselves: a play of words, a play of rhythms, sounds; †¦ these muddles always maintain some sort of ideal order. There is system in this folly. By dragging a child into a topsy-turvy world, we help his intellect work, because the child becomes interested in creating such a topsy-turvy world for himself in order to become more effectively the master of the laws governing the real world. These absurdities could be dangerous for a child if they screened out the real interrela tionships between ideas and objects. Instead, they push them to the fore, and emphasize them. They enhance (rather than weaken) the child’s perception of reality.† Here, too, we observe the same phenomenon of the dualism of art. In order to perceive art, we must contemplate simultaneously the true situation of things and their deviation from this situation. We can also observe how an effect of art arises from such a contradictory perception. Since absurdities are tools for the child to use in understanding reality, it becomes suddenly clear why the extreme leftists in art criticism come up with a slogan: art as a method  for building life. They say that art is building life because â€Å"reality is forged from the establishment and destruction of contradictions. When they criticize the idea of art as the cognition of life and advance the idea of a dialectic perception of the world through matter, they reach agreement with the psychological laws of art. â€Å"Art is an original, chiefly emotional †¦ dialectic approach to building life.† Now we can envision the role of art in the future. It is hard to guess what forms this unknown life of the future will take, and it is even harder to guess what place art will take in that future life. One thing is clear, however: arising from reality and reaching toward it, art will be determined by the basic order of the future flow of life. â€Å"In the future,† sa ys Friche, â€Å"the role of art is not likely to change substantially from its present role. Socialist society will not be the antithesis of capitalist society, but its organic continuation.† If we regard art as an embellishment or ornament of life, such a viewpoint is admissible. However, it basically contradicts the psychological laws of art. Psychological investigation reveals that art is the supreme center of biological and social individual processes in society, that it is a method for finding an equilibrium between man and his world, in the most critical and important stages of his life. This view of course completely refutes the approach according to which art is an ornament, and thereby leads us to doubt the correctness of the above statement. Since the future has in store not only a rearrangement of mankind according to new principles, not only the organization of new social and economic processes, but also the â€Å"remolding of man,† there seems hardly any doubt that the role of art will also change. It is hard to imagine the role that art will play in this remolding of man. We do not know which existing but dormant forces in our organisms it will draw upon to form the new man. There is no question, however, that art will have a decisive voice in this process. Without new art there can be no new man. The p ossibilities of the future, for art as well as for life, are inscrutable and unpredictable. As Spinoza said, â€Å"That of which the body is capable has not yet been determined.†

Is the New SAT Harder 6 Challenging Changes

Is the New SAT Harder 6 Challenging Changes SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Significant changes are coming to the SAT in 2016, but the effect they'll have on the student experience is debatable. Is the new SAT harder?It's impossible to tell for sure without any data on new score patterns. In the meantime, we can make a few predictions for how the changes to the format and content of the test could increase its difficulty. In this article, I'll give you an overview of the changes to the test, list some factors that might make it more challenging, and suggest study strategies for students who may struggle on the new SAT. Overview of Changes for the New SAT You should know some relevant background information before we dive into the reasons the test might be more challenging.Here’s a summary of changes you can expect on the new SAT.For more details, check out this article. Overall Format: The new SAT will be out of 1600 points instead of 2400 points. The Reading and Writing (which is now called Writing and Language) sections will be compressed into one section worth 800 points (Math will still have its own section). There will be four answer choices for each question instead of five. There are only four sections plus the essay, similar to the structure of the ACT (Reading, Writing and Language, Math with no calculator, and Math with a calculator). Reading: There will be no more sentence completion questions (all questions are passage-based)! Some questions will ask you to identify textual evidence for your answers to previous questions. You'll see data interpretation questions that will ask you to read charts and graphs that relate to the passages. Writing and Language: All questions will be based on longer passages rather than individual sentences. Writing style (paragraph structure, making logical arguments) will be more important than it was on the old test. You'll see a few data interpretation questions on this section as well. Essay: It's gonna be optional! You'll get 50 minutes instead of 25 You will need to analyze an argument that you read in a passage rather than writing a personal opinion-based response to a prompt. Your essay score won’t impact your Reading and Writing score. Math: There will be some trigonometry on the test. Some problems will have more than one part. There's a no calculator section. Questions will deal with real-world scenarios more frequently, and there will be fewer â€Å"tricky† questions. Ooh so many shiny new changes! Why Might It Be Harder? Here are a few reasons why I think the new SAT could be harder in general. You Can’t Memorize Vocabulary for Points One of the major changes on the new SAT is that there are no more sentence completion questions.The College Board is trying to de-emphasize knowledge of obscure vocabulary words on the test.Many of these words are not relevant to students after high school, and there have been claims that the old sentence completion questions favor wealthier students.On the new SAT, you will see vocabulary in context questions rather than sentence completion questions.These questions will refer to a word in the passage and ask you to choose the answer that represents its most accurate definition given the context. With this new format, memorizing lists of SAT words won’t help you much.You’ll need to have strong overall reading comprehension skills to understand nuances in the definitions of more common words.It’s harder to study for these questions than it might be to study for sentence completion questions because the skills you need are usually acquired over time through independent reading rather than by studying vocab flashcards. Domino Effect on Reading Questions Another new feature on the Reading section is the inclusion of â€Å"find the evidence† questions.You’ll get a question about a reading passage that requires you to make an inferred conclusion.Then, the next question will ask you to choose the evidence that you used for your answer.You’ll have a choice of four different quotes from the passage. I describe this as a â€Å"domino effect† because if you get the first question wrong (or can’t decide on an answer), you’ll probably get the second one wrong too.Even if you get the first question right, you might not be able to pinpoint the quote that fits best as evidence.Since one question relies on the other, it’s easy for things to get messy. I'm presenting this view of the situation because this article is about how the test might be harder. However, it's also possible that these types of questions will make things easier for you instead. Seeing potential direct evidence for your answer might make you realize a mistake on the previous question and actually help to improve your score. I think it's likely that this will balance out the problem. Noooo skinny naked Pillsbury Doughboy! What have you done?! More Reading Overall The new SAT involves a lot more reading than the current (soon to be old) SAT.All the Reading questions are based on passages.Even the Writing questions will reference parts of passages rather than isolated sentences.The essay also involves more reading because you’re asked to analyze an argument made in a passage rather than just reading a short prompt and responding to it. Less Room for Subjectivity and Variation on the Essay The essay is changing a lot on the new version of the test.Whereas before you had to form an opinion and make up your own examples, now you will be asked to analyze an author’s argument. This will make for stricter grading criteria and less flexibility in general.On the new essay, there will be pretty clear correct and incorrect responses. Data Interpretation Questions The new SAT is going to have graphs on the Reading and Writing sections! The horror!This actually isn’t so bad, but it’s different from anything the College Board has done on the test in the past.These new types of questions could be confusing or challenging for some students who aren’t comfortable drawing conclusions in this context (or have avoided the ACT because of the Science section!). More Advanced Math and Writing Content Math problems will get a little more in-depth with the inclusion of word problems that have more than one part in the grid-in section.Higher-level concepts will be tested, including a light sprinkling of basic trigonometry. The Writing section will also test a wider variety of concepts that may be more challenging. The old Writing section primarily focused on grammatical rules, whereas the new SAT Writing section will ask more questions about stylistic choices within long passages.For example, questions will ask you to determine where a sentence belongs logically in a paragraph. Thankfully, only Writing style matters on the new SAT, not sartorial style. You can wear a burlap sack to the test for all I care (but I wouldn't recommend it; that stuff is distractingly itchy). Will It Be Harder for You? How Can You Prepare? It depends partially on what kind of student you are.I’ll go through a few different qualities that might cause students to struggle on the new test and provide prep strategies to help you combat these problems. Case #1: You Tend to Rely on Memorization Like I said in the previous section, memorizing vocabulary words won’t help you much on the new SAT. If you’re a really intense studier and were hoping to ace the Reading section based on memorization skills, you might have some trouble.Understanding meaning in context will be a critical skill, so on-the-spot analytical thinking is more important than remembering the dictionary definition of â€Å"obsequious.† You should still know what obsequious means, though, because it's a fun word, and it describes a lot of people. Study Strategies: Practice with passage-based questions.The best remedy for this issue is to get more comfortable with answering the types of questions that are hard for you.Although there are limited practice resources for the new SAT, passage-based questions on the old SAT will still be helpful to you for this purpose. You can also practice reading comprehension in your daily life.Set aside time every day to read a couple of challenging articles online.Learning through experience is the easiest way to build better reading comprehension skills. Case #2: You’re a Slow Reader The new SAT will have way more reading than the current version, which means that time problems are more likely to happen.All questions in both the Reading and Writing portions are based off of passages rather than individual sentences.If you had trouble with time on the Reading section in the past, the new test might end up being harder. Study Strategies: Again, I’d recommend setting aside more time for independent reading.You can also try and build up your speed by taking practice tests.The key is to start preparing early so that you have time to improve; reading quickly and comprehensively is a skill that you won’t learn overnight. You can also practice with the ACT English and Reading sections.ACT English is very similar to the new SAT Writing section because it’s all based on passages.It's a good idea to check out some strategies for ACT English that will give you better ways to approach this new format.ACT Reading is pretty different from SAT Reading in terms of what the questions look like, but if you’re just trying to improve your reading speed, you should time yourself and try to complete the section. Case #3: You’re Less Confident in Math and Science The new SAT will test slightly more advanced concepts in Math, and it will also include a bit of data interpretation.If the Math section is the scariest part of the SAT for you, the new test could be more of a challenge.Math will also make up a greater proportion of your score with the elimination of the separate Writing section (half of the test versus a third).Your math skills will have a greater influence on your overall performance. Study Strategies: You can also use the ACT as a resource in this situation.The ACT Science section will give you some practice with data interpretation questions.ACT Math problems are more aligned with the format of the math section on the new SAT as well (trigonometry, more straightforward problems).Make sure you’re comfortable with any formulas that might show up on the test.You can also buy a review book that’s specifically designed to improve your math skills. If all you see when you look at this image is a terrible drawing of a staircase, you might have reason to be concerned about the new SAT. Conclusion: Is the New SAT Harder? That really depends on what's challenging for you! Changes thatmight make the testmore difficult include: Memorization won’t help you as much Some reading questions depend on one another There’s more reading overall The essay has a less flexible grading structure You’ll have to do some data interpretation Math and Writing concepts are a little more advanced You personally may find the new SAT particularly difficult if: You tend to rely on memorization for your vocabulary knowledge Speed reading is not your forte Your skills in Reading and Writing are significantly stronger than your skills in Math The good news is that now you know what’s going to be on the test, and you can prepare accordingly.If you think you might struggle, make sure you plan your studying well in advance so that you aren’t caught off guard by the demands of the new format. What's Next? How can you set an appropriate goal for your score on the new SAT? Read this article for some advice on calculating a target score based on your plans for college. The new SAT is similar to the ACT in many ways. Check out this article for a full breakdown of the difference and similarities between the two tests. Should you even take the new SAT, or is the ACT a better choice? This article will guide you in figuring out which one suits you better. Disappointed with your scores? Want to improve your SAT score by 240 points?We've written a guide about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now: