Becoming an Effective Salesperson Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Becoming an Effective Salesperson - Term Paper Example Becoming an Effective Salesperson Selling means being able to persuade and convince the buyer that what is for sale is needed and a must for whatever purpose a buyer can be convinced that they are in need of filling. In examining the occupations that are defined as different types of sales, I feel that in my life I have the values and interests will allow me to become a successful salesperson. Being a good sales person requires a great many skills, and some natural talent. One of the primary skills that must be learned is how to sell, rather than just present a sales opportunity and hope the buyer buys the product. Being a professional salesperson means learning the skills that are required to motivate people to buy a product. It also means learning everything that one can possibly know about the product. Without behaving as a professional, sales will never be a profession, but merely something one is trying to accomplish. However, a professional knows how to move a sale and make it happen. A professional has gained the skills required through dedication to their profession. Many types of sales are accomplished without the company insisting that the sales associates treat their employment as a profession, however in order to take the position seriously and behave in a manner that best represents a product, treating the job as a profession will allow the worker to have the best possible tools for success. Treating the job of salesperson as a profession means honing the skills that best serve the position. According to Lytle (2000), â€Å"You want your customers to trust you. Your personal credibility and trust are vital parts of any successful salesperson-client relationship.† (p. 41). Part of being trustworthy is being prepared with solid, concrete information that closes the gaps between what the customer fears and what will bring the customer to the end of the sale. It is recommended that to be trustworthy, one must provide information that is accurate and complete, thus providing the most complete picture of how the product fills the need. Being trustworthy also means becoming prepared. Coming to a sales meeting with the intention of presenting several options that are the result of having studied the needs of the customer in comparison to the offerings of the company will go a long way in building trust (Lytle 2000). The two vital components to be truly trustworthy in the eyes of a customer is in being educated and in putting in work that creates a sense that the salesperson is prepared. One of the aspects of my personality that I think makes me suitable for a position in sales is that I am a firm believer in coming into a situation prepared for the outcomes. As well, I try to find ways to contribute to the situation, thus placing myself in a position of trust. I take this attitude with all tasks that I am giving, looking at the number of ways in which being prepared can contribute and then going about learning and studying the different aspects that might be n ecessary. I was taught the values of being prepared from a very young age, my parents instilling within me an ethic that provided me with the appropriate understanding of the connection between preparing for a situation so that should an opportunity present itself, I could honorably take advantage of it. Understanding the potential prospect means developing skills that will inspire the buyer to want to make a

Conceptual Art: Responses to Capitalism

Conceptual Art: Responses to Capitalism When Situationism evolved from the Letterist movement, in the middle of the last century, it set itself up in opposition to two other two other politically motivated groups: Dadism and Surreallism. Situationism, however, was only incidentally political, and rather than subverting the art world, aimed only to redesign its context, including the attitudes of the public, so that art could become something anyone could do or enjoy- something integrated into everyday life. Historically, arts efforts to bring down capitalist structures from within have been very ill-fated, with artists finding themselves ignored, scorned, crushed or – perhaps worse- accessories to political agendas. Artists and writers must work harder than ever to devise means of opposing or exposing capitalisms deceptions, but many commentators appear to have reached the conclusion that the battle is barely worth fighting. As we shall see, Jean Baudrillard argues that criticism of the status quo is no longer possi ble through art or literature and that the only efficient way of dissenting from capitalist society is to commit suicide, Modern art wishes to be negative, critical, innovative and a perpetual surpassing, as well as immediately (or almost) assimilated, accepted, integrated, consumed. One must surrender to the evidence: art no longer contests anything. If it ever did. Revolt is isolated, the malediction consumed. Thus the avant-garde movements in Europe put the artist under pressure to exhibit a certain individuality, while also – rather contradictorily- being a producer, and as prolific, political and reactionary a producer as possible, There is a lot of talk, not about reform or forcing the Enlightenment project to live up to its own ideals, but about wholesale negation, revolution, another new sensibility, now self- affirming or self-creating, rather than a universalist or rational self-legitimation. This in turn suggests a tremendously heightened role for the artist, the figure whose imagination supposedly creates or shapes the sensibilities of civilization. In a sense, the avant-garde has been socially commissioned to forecast the future, to scouting out new intellectual terrain, Aesthetic modernity is characterized by attitudes which find a common focus in a changed consciousness of time The avant-garde understands itself as invading unknown territory, exposing itself to the dangers of sudden, shocking encounters, conquering an as yet unoccupied future. The avant-garde must find a direction in a landscape into which no one seems to have yet ventured Early Attempts to Overthrow Capitalism In many ways, Dada and Surrealism represent the most successful artistic rebellions against capitalist norms, as they have attacked the conventional assumption of meaning itself, and in doing so drew attention to the ridiculous fact that such an assumption existed at all, Dada has often been called nihilistic and its declared purpose was indeed to make clear to the public at large that all established values, moral or aesthetic, had been rendered meaningless by the catastrophe of the Great War Dada preached nonsense and anti-art with a vengeance It is as though the Artist jumped before she was pushed. With its effort to close the gap between producer and produced by making everything equally alien, Surrealism also sought to negate its creator, using, pure psychic automatism intended to express the true process of thought free from the exercise of reason and from any aesthetic or moral purpose . Habermas, too, asserts that Surrealism poses a threat to arts existential rights, but still fails in two ways, First, when the containers of an autonomously developed cultural sphere are shattered, the contents get dispersed. Nothing remains from a desublimated meaning or a destructured form; an emancipatory effect does not follow. Habermas draws attention to the levelling affect of contemporary communication networks: networks which challenge the hierarchical assumptions of classical Marxism, and which have, in scale, surpassed what any postmodern commentator – even in the 1980s- could have imagined. More so than ever, our media are democratic and interrelated, A rationalized everyday life, therefore, could hardly be saved from cultural impoverishment through breaking open a single cultural sphere art and so providing access to just one of the specialized knowledge complexes. Any active dissent can be transformed into a commodity, a product to assist the perpetuation of capitalism. Catchy slogans devised by revolutionaries are used to sell mortgages, paintings that challenge conventional assumptions about beauty and form are written about in books to be sold, and bought by galleries where their beauty and form can be admired and valued- bought and sold. As the â€Å"Anti-Naturals† recently wrote, on the subject, â€Å"It is the nature of the Spectacle to transform all experience into a consumer commodity. It is no surprise, then, that so much of modern capitalist production should be focused on the authenticity swindle. It is not merely that we are told that our authentic self is only a credit card order away. We must be told what and how to purchase. Since, in the midst of the Spectacle, all experience is real only when it can be consumed, it is natural to follow the guidance offered by the array of products engineered to address each particular need. In reality, it is quite easy to mass market to hundreds of millions of individuals,‚ since each quest is identical in its basic features.† Any words spoken against can be turned into rallying support. Art, like any powerful weapon, can always be turned against those who use it. Whatever doesnt kill power is killed by it. In this way the Dadaists watched their anti-art works being systematically categorised as works of art, and were forced to focus their whole project completely on the evasion of this recuperation. Five years of agitation against capital, war and morality, brought them to an impasse of suicide or silence. Everything the Dadaists made, said, wrote or performed seemed to be turned against its critical purpose and used against them- and they abandoned the project. Effectively, they went on strike. The Dadaists left a legacy in the form of recuperated, commodified art works, and in multiple imitations of their style and attitude. Their advocation of collage and photomontage is now everywhere in advertisements, their paradoxically anti-art art surely at the very heart of current post-modernist critical theory. They were correct in their belief that this capitalist appropriation was inevitable while they were merely producing, and not controlling the means of production, but in some ways, they did in fact constitute a challenge to bourgeois morality. Dadaism questioned the philosophical assumptions which justified smug bourgeois attitudes, and uncovered the hypocracy of World War 1s brutality legitimising propaganda. In the end they felt that their subversions of established values were merely contributing too much to the culture they had been trying to undermine. The Situationist Asger Jorn was emphatic about the failure of Marxist theory, to liberate of art from commodification , â€Å"Instead of abolishing the private character of property, socialism does nothing but augment them as much as possible, rending humans themselves useless and socially non-existent. The goal of the development of artistic liberation is the liberation of human values by the transformation of human qualities into real values. Here begins the artistic revolution against socialist development, the artistic revolution that is tied to the communist project . . .† Debord and the Situationist Reaction to Capitalism Debords 1967 book The Society of the Spectacle, represented an attempt to articulate as fully as possible the Situationist philosophy. The term spectacle refers to the colonization of everyday life by commodity in late capitalism, an extension of alienation experienced between production and consumption. The spectacles subjective, one-directional effect requires a kind of non-participation, eventually resulting in a breakdown of communication between people. Situationism distinguishes between classical and modern forms of capitalism. Where classical capitalism demanded that wasted time describes any time not spent at work, modern capitalism actually reverses that, using advertising and other spectacular means to declare that it is the time spent at work that is wasted, and work is justifiable only because it provides the monetary ability to consume. Marx wrote that, the worker feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home The Situationists describe the spectacular society as a place where, the spectator feels at home nowhere, for the spectacle is everywhere . As Debord himself explains, So long as the realm of necessity remains a social dream, dreaming will remain a social necessity. The spectacle is the bad dream of modern society in chains, expressing nothing more than its wish for sleep. The spectacle is guardian of that sleep . However, the spectacle was not unique to capitalist society; the Situationists worked on a theory of the concentrated spectacle that would incorporate individual influences on capitalist regimes. This was principally contrived as a rhetorical framework to include the cult of personality in the dictatorships of places such as Cuba, the Soviet Union and China. The Situationists argued that the same tricks that society used to sell fast cars and kitchen appliances were used to promote and deify figures such as Chairman Mao. In anarchic efforts to subvert the spiritual and fiscal poverty of urban life under the tyranny of the spectacle, the Situationists developed a revolutionary art, departed from artistic convention. In their article Preliminaries Toward Defining a Unitary Revolutionary Program, Debord and the Marxist theorist Pierre Canjuers, assert, â€Å"At one pole, art is purely and simply recuperated by capitalism as a means of conditioning the population. At the other pole, capitalism grants art a perpetual privileged concession: that of pure creative activity, an alibi for the alienation of all other activities (which makes it the most expensive and prestigious status symbol). But at the same time, this sphere reserved for free creative activity is the only one in which the question of what we do with life and the question of communication are posed practically and in all their fullness. Here, in art, lies the basis of the antagonisms between partisans and adversaries of the officially dictated reasons for living. The established meaninglessness and separations give rise to the general crisis of traditional artistic means a crisis linked to the experience of alternative ways of living or the demand for such experience. Revolutionary artists are those who call for intervention; and who have themselves intervened in the sp ectacle in order to disrupt or destroy it.† Initially, the work the Situationist International produced was aimed at ridiculing formalist conceptions of the art object: Asger Jorn bought amateur paintings at flea markets and painted over them, subverting notions of authority and value. Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio invented a style of â€Å"industrial† painting where the canvas was over a hundred metres long, then cut strips off for potential buyers, thereby subverting traditional preconceptions of arts autonomy. In reality these processes were eventually absorbed by a capitalist art market bought, sold, exhibited, written about, and for the most part, politically neutered. In his 1974 book Theory of the Avant-Garde, Peter Burger points out that the avant-garde artists main goal is to shock the viewer, typically accustomed to organic or formalist works of art, in the hope that such withdrawal of meaning will direct the readers attention to the fact that the conduct of ones life is questionable and that it is necessary to cha nge it He goes on to state that, Paradoxically, the avant-gardist intention to destroy art as an institution is thus realized in the work of art itself. The intention to revolutionize life by returning art to its praxis turns into a revolutionizing of art. This is the kind of logic that prompted the Situationists to agree to stop producing art in 1961, when they decided to cease considering themselves artists. Any remaining members unwilling to abandon traditional forms of art, including Jorn, Pinot-Gallizio, and Constant found themselves either being forced into ideological resignation or expulsion. â€Å"It is a question not of elaborating the spectacle of refusal, but rather of refusing the spectacle. In order for their elaboration to be artistic and authentic in the new and authentic sense defined by the SI, the elements of the destruction of the spectacle must precisely cease to be works of art. Once and for all. . . . Our position is that of combatants between two worlds one that we dont acknowledge, the other that does not yet exist.† In The Situationist City, Simon Sadler write that, in abandoning early Situationism, the Situationist International abandoned its imagining of utopia a devastating decision, surely unprecedented in the history of the avant-garde, and yet at the same time surely the situationists greatest contribution to that history: the recognition that in changing the world, avant-garde art cannot be a substitute for popular redistribution of power It seemed that the SI recognized that for any avant-garde to succeed, it would do best striving to produce artists, and not art. The Dadaists, too, were aware that both art and artist are part of the capitalist system, and consequently as guilty in their participation as any other commodity or worker. Marcuse and Adorno, in contrast, argued that the Dadaist project was misguided for its attacks on conventional art. They saw art as an autonomous entity, separate from capitalist interests, and something intrinsically apolitical that must be preserved rather than aggressively undermined. For Adorno, art bears an essential negativity derived from its peculiar Form; its rearrangements of reality are conducted according to a system quite alien to those of capitalism. This â€Å"Form† grants art a: refuge and a vantage point from which to denounce the reality established through domination. While Adorno and Marcuse criticised the anti-artists for attacking artistic Form, they agreed with the avant-gardists in their slightly utopic aspiration of abolishing the distinction that existed between art and the rest of reality. In fact, Marcuse wished to see a society organised around the aesthetic principles he believed resided only within art. Both argued that this integration could not be achieved if artists were allowed to participate. Art should be kept apolitical and protected, in a realm conducive to calm reflection that might remind us of the truth an authentic life can afford us after the revolution. So, although they expressed their rejection of this view in different ways, the Dadaists, Surrealists and Situationists all aspired to a collapse of the distinction between art and the rest of life in present: â€Å"everyday life†. Instead of waiting for the revolution, all three argued that the integration of art and life was in fact necessary for the achievement of revolution, a revolution made possible only by a combined cultural, ideological and economic assault on capitalism. Asger Jorn, again, on the failure of the socialist revolution, â€Å"The capitalist revolution was essentially a socialization of consumption. Capitalist industrialization brought humanity a socialization as profound as the socialization proposed by the socialists that of the means of production. The socialist revolution is the fulfillment of the capitalist revolution. The one element removed from the capitalist system is saving, because consumptions richness has already been eliminated by the capitalists themselves†¦ Real communism will be the leap into the domain of freedom and of value, of communication. Contrary to utilitarian value (normally known as material value), artistic value is the progressive value because, by a process of provocation, it is the valorization of humanity itself. Since Marx, economic politics has shown its impotence and its cowardice. A hyperpolitics will need to strive for the direct realization of humanity.† Walter Benjamins Authentic Opposition: Crisis of Reproduction Walter Benjamin is probably Adornos most established opponent, particularly since The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, a work that concentrated upon defining the aura of traditional art preceding 1900, and assessed the decay of this aura under the impact of new media and cultural technologies. Benjamin argues that art has lost its authenticity because of mechanical mass reproduction in our capitalist-orientated culture industry. He is concerned about shifting attitudes to art, which came about as a consequence of the introduction of mechanical means of reproduction. Formerly unique objects, located in a particular space, lost their singularity as they became accessible to many people in diverse places. Lost too was the aura that was attached to a work of Art which was now open to many different readings and interpretations Unlike his Frankfurt School colleagues, however, and especially unlike Adorno, Benjamin argues, this loss of authenticity is actually a positive thing, because it democratizes and politicizes art. Benjamins claim that arts loss of authenticity might actually help free people, not enslave them in a capitalist culture industry starkly opposes Adornos ideas. In addition, each stage of reproduction of an original work of art also contributes to its loss of aura. According to Benjamin, then: culture has been transformed into an industry; thus art has become commodified; contemporary culture is the machinery by which oppressive ideologies are reproduced and disseminated; new media technologies such as phonographs, film and photography, serve to destroy arts aura and effectively demystify the process of creating art, making available radical new access and roles for art in mass culture; the spectator has become a collaborator and participant, who joins the author in determining the meaning of the production of the work of art. Art is successful only when it enables the critical contemplation of a viewer. Benjamin happily equates authenticity with authority- the authority of oppressive institutions such as the church or the state- and history. As Benjamin explains, the work of arts authenticity is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced Until the 20th century, artworks retained their aura, their â€Å"authenticity† precisely because of their inability to be mass-reproduced, whether religious artifacts or one-off paintings commissioned by individual wealthy patrons. This conception clearly presents aura and authenticity as profoundly undemocratic, as the means of artistic production remain in the control of the rich and powerful, then able use such art to maintain control over the masses. The introduction of mechanical means of reproduction of art, particularly photography and film, caused the very foundations of this setup to be radically altered. For the first time it was possible for anyone to acquire the means to take photographs of a work of art, or at purchase an image of the work. However hard cultural elites in the late 19th century had tried to protect the aura of art works, the social advance of the masses and the invention of media such as film, which depends upon distribution to the masses, had led to the inevitable decay of the aura in the 20th century. Benjamin marks the distinction between manual and machine reproduction of art, The whole sphere of authenticity is outside technical, and, of course, not only technical reproducibility, he states, Confronted with its manual reproduction, which was usually branded as a forgery, the original preserved all its authority; not so vis a vis technical reproduction Benjamin states two reasons this occurs. Firstly, machine reproduction is more independent of the original than manual reproduction; secondly, technical reproduction can put the copy of the original into situations which would be out of reach for the original itself. So mass-produced copies are able to engage with the wider world in a manner not possible for the original or one-off copies. Benjamin summarises his ideas concerning reproduction by asserting the technique detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. Many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence.† So to allow the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, is to reactivate the object reproduced, â€Å"It is these processes that lead to the tremendous shattering of tradition which is the obverse of the contemporary crisis and renewal of mankind In Benjamins conception, then, state and religious authorities have steadily lost the ability to control general access to such works of art, particularly since the 20th century began. This is most apparent in relation to the cinema, which destroyed the traces of aura with which art had been traditionally imbued; Benjamin cites arts historical value as a fundamental part of magical and religious rituals. In the process, capitalism strips art of its the idealistic, theological halo- to some extent a happy consequence and restorative, as it returns the art object to its non-utilitarian presence, its everyday reality. For Benjamin, an artworks â€Å"aura† refers to its uniqueness and the phenomena of distance, however close [an object] may be. He uses gives the example of distant mountains and a trees bough over head, both contain aura because they are images have not been effectively reproduced mechanically . Beyond the concepts of aura and authenticity, Benjamins concepts of reproduction and reversibility represent the core of his concerns about way in which arts role in society has been fundamentally altered in the 20th century. Benjamin proposes that the artworks aura of authenticity has withered away because of its reproduceability, and the process of reproduction brings art into closer proximity with a mass audience. However, paradoxically, as the authenticity erodes, the works essence becomes forefronted in the process, as it starts to become designed for reproducibility. As Benjamin describes it, â€Å"for the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. . . . From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for an authentic print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics†. Benjamins commentaries on the effects of reproduction inspired other writers, such as Lechte, â€Å"it is the process of reproduction as such which is revolutionary: the fact, for instance, that the photographic negative enables a veritable multiplication of originals. With the photograph, therefore, the spectre of the simulacrum emerges, although Benjamin never names it as such. The photograph as simulacrum by-passes the simple difference between original and copy† Barbara Krugers Situationism and the Irresistible Collage of Society Barbara Kruger addresses the negative aspects of capitalist society as an artist, writer, curator, lecturer and graphic designer. Her art is displayed both inside and outside museums and in a range of different forms. Occasionally her prints are framed and hung on the walls of museums and galleries in the traditional fashion, but Kruger is endlessly inventive, and often writes text to be printed or projected directly on the walls or floors of a museum. In Picturing Greatness, a photography exhibition curated by Kruger in 1987 for The Museum of Modern Art in New York, text was printed in large black type across a central partition. Kruger selected photographs for this exhibit from the museums collection, and according to the words on the partition, the photographs were mostly of mostly famous artists† who happened to be predominantly white and male. The text on the partition claimed the works can show us how vocation is ambushed by clichà © and snapped into stereotype by the camera, and how photography freezes moments, creates prominence and makes history. Krugers work continually questions the definition of art, artists and the ways in which â€Å"great art† should be exhibited. In this work, Kruger challenges the overwhelming dominance of male artists and draws attention to the females apparent invisibility in western art history. Just like the Situationists under Guy Debord, she has altered the meaning of art by rec ontextualising it. Crucially, the visitor to Krugers exhibition does not need to be familiar with the original photographs before seeing the show- even the uneducated viewer could read Krugers text, look at the original images and come to their own conclusions about the meaning. Thus the work achieves a kind of unique political democracy. Kruger has a background as a graphic designer, and as such creates effective bold images which are in many ways visually indistinguishable from advertisements, but rather than trying to sell a product, appeal directly to our social conscience. The subject of her text is always I, me, we, or you, as though Kruger engages in conversation with the viewer. Her messages probe the assumptions of the capitalist status quo: You are seduced by the sex appeal of the inorganic, When I hear the word culture, I take out my checkbook and We have received orders not to move. Similarly, Constant, of the COBRA group, proposed a city as a kind of physical expression of his utopia of â€Å"free play† which, in parts, bears striking resemblance to representations of the Internet, in books such as Mapping Cyberspace (with wild lines pouring out of the metropolis perhaps representing bandwidth and site traffic). Made with perspex and bike parts, Constants models and his diagrams for New Babylon demonstrate his yearning for future as something mobile, organic, animated, and self-celebratory. For Constant the city was a sort of perpetual festival of leisure. With its intricately connected wires suspending clear circular layers, ramps and walkways, Constants New Babylon recalls some kind of tensile organism. As Constant describes it, â€Å"The unfunctional character of this playground-like construction makes any logical division of the inner spaces senseless. We should rather think of a quite chaotic arrangement of small and bigger spaces that are constantly assembled and dissembles by means of standardized mobile construction elements like walls, floors and staircases. Thus the social space can be adapted to the ever-changing needs of an every changing population as it passes through the sector system.† Analogues with the Internet are irresistable. Equally, he could have been referring in a general way to those unique social structures which have grown from the anti-globalisation movement – structures which, although provisional, pragmatic and short term, are nevertheless ideologically committed to social change and serve as emblems of the ongoing struggle against capitalism, a battle fuelled entirely from reserves of creativity. Constants is city as collage, similar to that celebrated by the less politically motivated group, Archigram, in the UK (many of whose members now design massive architectural features for megaband stadium concerts). In this time of desperate connectivity and complicated layering of urban cultures, with invisible webs of communication engulfing us, the need to understand the city as a place beyond work and production seems more pressing than ever. The Situationist reaction to capitalism is also excellently expressed through anti capitalist collage: for example that of the General Lighting and Power group, whose slick mock-advertising images of soft focus female forms in leotards and computer graphics of office interiors and car accidents, wryly annotated with entertaining aphorisms such as: Aerobics is necessary: progress implies it (I see you baby, shaking that ass) and God is in the retailing Comparisons to Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger are obvious. Charles Rice, too, has observed the oversized billboard signs now proliferating in major cities, arguing convincingly that they serve to perpetuate the distance between the real and the impossible,these spatial fantasies effectively deliver identification with the distant and the unattainable† Many writers have noted the similarities between the Situationists idea of the derive (that is, the navigating of a city via means and routes other than those originally intended) and the experience of â€Å"surfing† the internet. Colin Fournier, architect and educator makes some potent observations on this area. It would seem that many of the characteristics of the internet reflect the S.I.s utopic city. The things considered prerequisite for their utopia: an ephemeral, negotiable type of city, where uses were determined by the population, surfing the web is like the idea of drifting or â€Å"deriving†, flaneur-like, through a city. The Situationist city and the web are uniquely flexible, anarchically dynamic: spacial relations secondary on any given route. The internet always seems to somehow recall the old Surrealist idea of using a map of one city to find ones way around another. Art as Capitalism: the Medias Re-appropriation of Images Increasingly, the media is becoming governed by imagery, and the average consumer is overwhelmed by visual information on a daily basis. Through sheer competition, the commercial sphere has been forced to use stranger, scarier, more extreme imagery to earn the attention of bewildered customers. Magazines such as Vogue have lured artists to their pages, where they are seen as innovative, visionary powers for re-inventing a complacent visual vocabulary. Thus, the traditional hierarchy of photography, in which the commercial and conceptual worlds were segregated, has been broken down into a fluid, integrated world- mutual respect has ensured that crossing the boundary either way no longer carries the taint or disrespect it once did. A new generation of artists have grown up with the rather cynical and postmodern idea that all things are commercially viable. Contemporary art school graduates are less likely to see their ventures into the commercial realm as contamination, and more as a necessary aspect of their endeavor. Commerce is incorporated into art at every level, from the means to the ends to the theme. That the common thread of art and fashion- the human body- has become such a commodity, seems like an obvious extension of this. Fashion spreads frequently borrow art photographers for their pages and mimic, in the case of Diesel and others, with considerable irony- the current art world trend towards narrative ambiguity and deliberately theatrical tableaux that recall â€Å"theoretical† artists like Jeff Wall and Cindy Sherman. Russel Wong is one such new generation artist, his work strongly informed by todays cultural fascination with celebrity. Wong has become famous through striking portraits of personalities from sports to music and movies, famous for capturing moments of vulnerability, warmth and humor. A number of Wongs photos have been used on the covers of international magazines. My photos are never confrontati

Essay --

1. Descartes takes upon the task of finding what beliefs he holds are certain and in order to do this he partakes in the method of doubt. This is the method of doubt: â€Å"reject every belief which you can find reason to doubt† (Ginsborg Lecture 1/19). However, he finds the task of attacking every single belief that he holds to be too difficult, so he looks at the foundations for his beliefs. This will cause the beliefs built upon those foundations to also fall apart (AT 19). Throughout the first meditation Descartes goes through deeper stages of doubt, which leads him lastly to his supposition of the evil genius. The first foundation that Descartes breaks down is the belief of what his senses tell him about â€Å"very small and distant things† (AT 19). He notices how his senses have deceived him about these things and, therefore, attacks the beliefs he has about â€Å"very small and distant things†. Because the foundation of beliefs concerning â€Å"very small and distant things† is flawed, all the beliefs that were implicated from it can no longer be believed. Upon breaking down this first foundation, Descartes finds that he can still come to believe certain things that his senses tell him, like sitting next to a fire and holding a paper (AT 19). Therefore, Descartes considers that he may be dreaming, which makes these beliefs doubtful. Descartes argues that it is possible that he may be asleep and dreaming because there have been times in which he dreamt of mundane things such as sitting next to a fire. He cannot distinguish being awake and asleep. Dreaming has deceived him – it has made him think that he has been doing something other than actually sleeping (AT 29). Due to dream skepticism, the foundation of beliefs gained through his s... ...ed into. In essence, Descartes is a programmed computer that is being controlled, and seemingly has free will over his thoughts, but really does not. His future thoughts have already been assigned and his past and current thoughts were assigned. This idea of thoughts being instilled within him also indicates a second flaw in Descartes argument, in that he assumes he has free will in his thinking. The God in this scenario instills every aspect of thinking, such as to â€Å"doubt, understand, affirm...†, and so forth within Descartes. He cannot be certain that he has any control over the thoughts within his mind because he may not actually even have the ability to think. Thinking is not going on, but thoughts are inputted. Thus, having argued that he cannot assume that his thoughts belong to him and that he has free will, Descartes cannot be certain of his own existence.

In what ways where the lives of people living at home affected by World War One? Essay

World War one began in 1914 when Great Britain declared war on Germany, this war was different to all previous wars for several reasons; it was the first war, which involved so many nations, and also where people at home were affected very greatly indeed. The war affected everyone, not just the soldiers, for the first civilians were killed or injured by German Zeppelins, which were able to fly over to Britain and actually drop bombs on the country. Propaganda was used greatly to influence the way that British people thought about the enemy and it was this key factor, which kept the British people against the Germans. Despite all the negative aspects and outcomes of the war, governments knew that to stand a chance of winning the war they had to invest more money into improving technology and the war was responsible for many technological and medical advances, these advances include the mass-production of the wireless and the discovery of penicillin. As a result of the conflict and the majority of men going off to fight, the role of women improved dramatically, from being the typical housewife and being subject and expected of a very domestic lifestyle, they found that during the war they had to take over the men’s roles, which involved them going out to work in factories and producing munitions. Throughout this essay I am going to look at various areas, as to how and what extent the people on the home front were affected by the war. Section A is very useful as it delivers various sources, secondary and primary and tells in detail the initial impact of the war 1914/1915. Source A1 clearly tells us that WW1 was the first war to affect Britain at home and this is very valid, the source also tells us about the severe increase in political control, the government passing the Defence Of the Realm Act (DORA) in August 1914 which increased the government’s control over the population, to get the most out of the people for the war effort. There was systematic and indeed, deliberate propaganda to influence people to help in the war effort by broadcasting (in cases) mindless nationalism, and this propaganda utilized children a lot to appeal to the people and showed that the Germans soldiers were not doing their job and they enjoyed killing, this infuriated the public and so almost everyone was up for war against Germany. Along with these large scale impacts were minor and social impacts including the cancellation of Bank Holidays and Bonfire Night. This source is secondary evidence, from a British History textbook; it will be well researched and contains factual information rather than speculation based on opinion. Source A2 is a very famous recruiting poster, which was issued in 1914, so therefore it is a primary source, and its purpose was to provoke a response – join the army. The key signifier/central image of the poster is an image of Lord Kitchener and in bold letters at the top of the page it says â€Å"BRITONS†, this is to display loyalty, nationalism and indeed, patriotism. The content of the source is stern and commanding, which instructs the British people to â€Å"do their duty†. At this time it was voluntary, rather than compulsory to join the army, whereas later the government made it compulsory to sign up. Source A2 (ii) delivers a blunt message towards men who didn’t want to participate in the war effort by going off to fight in the trenches. It blatantly displays a man being questioned by his children, and uses the children to appeal to the conscience of British men to make them feel cowardly and disloyal. The government used this type of psychological propaganda to influence people’s thoughts and minds and this created a large impact on their lives. This source is linked to A3 in terms of content, source A3 is a statement which puts psychological pressure on men from parents, peers and in fact, everyone. It states that the consequences would be more severe if they were to stay at home. It shows the effect of propaganda and its enormous impact on people’s lives. Source A4 is a photograph taken outside Southwark Town Hall, December 1915. It is linked to propaganda, and indeed, could be a form of propaganda in itself – as it is a photograph, it could also be set up, everyone seems happy, optimistic and enthusiastic, and this could create pressure on the men from a social aspect despite the fact that all the enthusiasm could only be superficial. The different hats in the photograph represent different social background – the flat hats represent working class and the bowling hats represent middle class, the photo shows definite unity between the classes, they are all merged together and creates an idea of confederacy within society itself. However this could again be superficiality. This section clearly shows that support for the war is very great; the section barely mentions opposition, which is demonstrated in source A6. This shows clearly that there is opposition to the war, although this opposition is a great minority. The source tells of one group of opposition, the â€Å"Women’s International League†. As time went on, this group increased in size. Most were upper class and middle class. They provided peaceful demonstrations by publishing pamphlets and leaflets, and held meetings to try to persuade other women to support them. This is secondary evidence, which has been compiled for a history textbook, so it has obviously been researched very thoroughly and is, therefore, going to be very reliable. Section A shows the initial impacts of the war and shows that the degree of impact was very great especially in the short term and shows that support for the war is very great, however it also tells us that as the war dragged on more and more people began to oppose the war. The section shows a great amount of psychological pressure that was put on the soldiers and the tightening of control over the country that the government had, and how its use of propaganda was able to win over and effectively indoctrinate the minds of the populace. Section B is very revealing, and it displays key and significant impacts towards Britain featuring propaganda, which influenced the way people felt towards the Germans. This section is very important in terms of the impact of the war on people, for example, food rationing and the great medical and technological exaltations. Source B1 (i) clearly shows that coal mining was very important, the government set up a railway committee, which controlled and organised all the country’s railways – coal was needed to run the trains and to effectively run the war, therefore, the government ensured that coal miners did not go out to fight the war and they were told that mining coal was as important as fighting. Source B1 (ii) blatantly demonstrates the effect the U-boat activity had on British citizens – the fact that there was an increase in U-boat activity meant that British supply ships were sunk very often, thus there were great food shortages, which led to food rationing. The people at home had to be fed and the soldiers fighting abroad had to be fed too, this left the government in a bit of a predicament. Food rationing began in 1917 so people had just about enough to eat, this food rationing was brought about by the government to allow them to control the amount of food eaten by the people at home so that if vessels containing food were sunk then it would not have a very great impact on British people at home. The government controlled the price of food such as bread and potatoes. Due to this food rationing, national health was generally not as good. B1 (iii) is clear and shows how the war led to great medical and technological advances. As doctors and surgeons had to treat thousands of injured men, they had to try out new ideas and techniques; penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming, which solved the problem of infection of deep wounds. Due to the war, technicians developed planes to fly faster, further and higher, and were also equipped with weaponry to fight. By the time the war was over, aircraft were the epitome of the times technology and hundreds of young men were able to fly planes. Chemicals were used greatly during the war for creating poison gas and high explosives; these techniques were then used in peacetime for medicine, photography and various other useful establishments. Corporations such as Marconi prospered after the war because of during the conflict they had to produce thousands of wirelesses for the forces and after the war there was great demand for the devices. The war led many medical and technological advances, which is quite ironic considering the nature of the conflict, and these advances were positive, i.e. cures for illnesses and new ways to store blood. A very great impact on peacetime Britain and a long-term impact in terms of medicine and most areas. The source is an extract from â€Å"Modern World History† textbook; therefore it is reliable, as it has been researched thoroughly, although it only shows positive aspects of the war. Source B2is an extract from â€Å"Modern World History†, a textbook that has been researched thoroughly and is reliable. The source clearly demonstrates the impact of propaganda and how it influenced the minds of the British people and portrayed a negative view of the Germans. Many people believed this government propaganda, and as a result Germans living in Britain faced discrimination. Impact was very great in business sectors and many shopkeepers refused to sell German products, the same ideas were present in cafes and restaurants, and the fact that The Royal Family changed their name from a German name to an English name shows how profound and great the impact of anti-German hysteria was. Nationalistic mobs attacked and ransacked shops owned by Germans in some of the major cities in Britain; only a few of the rioters were arrested and those that did were very lightly punished, this shows that the authorities turned a blind eye towards this extreme right wing nationalism. Germans living in Britain were taken away and put into camps until the war was over, for their safety, apparently. The second part of B2 is a photograph that clearly shows anti-German feelings. It shows a mass of people attacking a German shop and this photograph alone shows that the government’s propaganda has worked. Source B3 is secondary evidence written by Robert Roberts, he tells us about better conditions for children as a result of war. He states that by late 1916 children looked better fed, this could be ensued by the fact that there were numerous technological and medical advances during the war. However food shortages were very real and it seems quite hard to comprehend how slum children were becoming better nourished – this could be down to the rationing, giving them a chance to actually have more than they normally have. The source is questionable towards its reliability; the source is secondary, published in 1971. Source B4 (ii) is a political source and shows that the Labour Party benefited in 1916 when Lloyd George formed his war cabinet – they stressed at the same time that labour had no responsibility for the pre-war diplomacy that had led them to the war. Labour prospered because of the war. The same cannot be said for the Liberal Party – many principles of liberalism had to be abandoned such as free trade and voluntary military service. And the public image was damaged by the split between Lloyd George and his followers and the followers of Asquith, which resulted from Lloyd George’s appointment as Prime Minister. The source is secondary evidence derived from the book â€Å"A History Of Wales† 1993 – the source is retrospective, although may not be perfectly accurate and correct. Overall section B is very revealing as it shows the impact the war had on health and medicine – the discovery of penicillin was a significant aspect which solved many problems, the government’s increase in control, such as propaganda and food rationing which influenced the way British people thought and acted. There were many political changes, such as the appointment of Lloyd George as Prime Minister and there was many technological advances i.e. the advancement of aircraft. Section C is helpful because it shows the changing roles of women and work and reveals the impact of the war on women in the short term and long term. Source C1 shows the importance of women on the home front; prior to the war women had been campaigning to get the vote. When the war began, they stopped their protests. Women were needed to support the men and keep their spirits up – they handed out white feathers to the men to encourage them to go out and fight. As most men were in France, fighting in trenches, businesses found themselves short of a solid workforce, so the women took over the jobs, which had been left behind by the men. Some women took over their husband’s jobs, such as grave digging and blacksmiths, whilst others took over jobs directly linked to the war, such as ambulance driving and nursing – many even worked at the front, although far more went to work in banks, offices, and especially, factories where they produced munitions to aid the soldiers and ensure that the troops had a constant supply of weaponry and ammunition. In many cases, women did jobs that had never been done by a women before 1914, this increased women’s confidence and independence significantly. Source C2 is very important in terms of its contents, it states that women played a decisive role in the war effort, the women have been greatly affected by the war, as they are doing jobs which they had never done before the war started. People were also unsure of the future role of women after the war. The source is part of a speech made by Herbert Asquith in the House of Commons in 1917, when he was Prime Minister; in this speech he is clearly saying that women deserve the vote, whereas before the war he had been against women gaining the vote, a great reversal of opinion. Because the Prime Minister had changed his opinion, women received the vote in 1918; it was the war that was a crucial turning point for women to finally gain political equality. Source C3 shows social changes in the lives of women. The attitudes and behaviour of women changed significantly, this change was in towns and cities mostly. These changes were inflicted by an increase in confidence and independence; they began to go out to the theatre and they were affected by fashions. There was a great change from the fundamental lifestyle they’d previously been following. The source is from a report in the Daily Mail – primary evidence. It can be linked with source C8 that clearly shows that women faced many social and sexual changes as a result of World War One. There was a kind of revolution in the lifestyles of women, they began smoking in public and going to pubs with other female friends. They also began to buy their own drinks, which had been uncommon before the war. Source C8 is very reliable as it has been thoroughly researched and published by Louise Black – a very renowned historian. Source C4 is a selection of extracts from various history textbooks and, therefore, is likely to be quite reliable. David Evans tells us that women underwent many social changes and traditional areas of work for women changed. There were also changes in what was expected of women – whereas before the war it was often considered unbecoming for a woman to work, during the war it was considered unpatriotic for them not to. Sarah Davies states that the war was a key point in women gaining independence, which is a valid interpretation and women broke through the barriers, which had confined them to their homes. Dudley Woodget clearly points out that one of the most revolutionary changes of the war was the participation of women in the war effort – upper class women took part in the war effort and did their patriotic duty. These sources are all quite accurate and offer valid interpretations that are reliable. Source C5 is a poster issued by the government during the war, however no date is given. The source is clearly propaganda trying to encourage women to take part in the war effort, and make munitions. The woman is the central image on the poster and she is wearing a uniform, which indicates she is important, in the background there is a soldier waving approval, this shows that women would gain respect and it would entice them to take part. Source C7 is clear in its intentions that explain and perhaps even exaggerates the â€Å"revolution†. The war revolutionized the industrial position of women – they had to take part in the war effort. The source also shows that men’s attitudes towards women’s abilities changed dramatically, and people were made aware of the intelligence and abilities of women. Overall, section C is very informative and displays clearly how the attitudes of women and indeed, towards women changed. There were great changes socially and politically. The war gave women the opportunity to use their abilities and be noticed by society, and obtain equality as citizens. In Britain they obtained the vote in 1918 for women over 30, this was however still not equal with men, who were able to vote at 21. Section D provides a lot of information on the deeper, more profound effects of the war, such as women gaining the vote and the economic impacts of the war. Source D1 (ii) is primary evidence and is a report from the â€Å"Daily Sketch† (December 1917) it is a report about women over 30 gaining the vote, so, therefore, benefiting. This source shows that political and public opinion had changed dramatically. Hypothetically, before the war women would not have gained the vote. The majority, which proved â€Å"surprisingly big†, shows this immense change in opinion. Source D2 shows the long term, deeper, more profound impacts of the war; the death of nearly 750,000 British service men. Most of these deaths were young men aged between 18 and 25. These deaths were tragedies for their families. The long-term effects included children growing up without fathers and widows growing old without husbands. The men who died or were severely injured and left disabled could have grown up to become talented professionals e.g. doctors and mechanics. This generation of men is often referred to as the â€Å"lost generation†, which shows how deep the impact really was. Source D4 shows the economic impact, a general change in the outlook of the economy. Domestic servants were hard to come by – their number had halved during the war. D5 shows the psychological impact of the war on the next generation. It clearly tells of how the dead would never return and the entire nation, and indeed most of the world would have to live with that. It highlights the feelings of those left behind and how they were affected. The source is remembered by Vera Brittain, who worked as a VAD in France, the source is useful because it shows the feelings of those who stayed behind and lost people they knew. Source D7 is very useful. It shows, how in the latter stages of the war, people began to realise the actual amount of casualties and the horrifying conditions the soldiers faced. The disillusionment of patriotism and romantic hero-worship of the early years and given way to the reality. The source is from the Scottish Record Office and is a trustworthy and accurate description of the latter stages of the war. Source D8 shows how newspapers responded to the end of the war – patriotism is shown and the front page is composed entirely of pictures. Flags are present, showing nationalism. This is primary evidence – November 12, 1918. Overall section D is very useful as it shows the long-term effects and indeed, the psychological effects and lasting impact that the war had on those who lost people they knew and on the next generation. It is clear to see that the war had a great impact on the lives of the people at home. This impact was spread across several areas. Some of these effects were on women – they gained independence and were the closest they had ever been to political equality with men, as they gained the right to vote. The lives of the British people on the home front were affected greatly by the food rationing and the use of propaganda influenced the way the people acted and thought towards German people, Germans living in Britain became the victims of discrimination and their establishments (such as shops and houses) were ransacked. To say the least, the greatest impact of the war was the loss of thousands of men and this impact not only affected the people on the frontline and the home front but it would effect countless generations afterwards.

Neolithic Revolution Essay

The Neolithic Revolution was a fundamental change in the way people lived. The shift from hunting & gathering to agriculture led to permanent settlements, the establishment of social classes, and the eventual rise of civilizations. It was a revolution of achieving social and technological advances, while economic, political, and social changes resulted from the rise of cities, allowing the ability to support an increasingly large population. Therefore, the Neolithic Revolution led to the seven traits of civilization. Prior to the Neolithic Revolution’s transformations, people were forced to hunt for their own food. This resulted in humans following their food sources’ trail, whether it be hunting an animal, or essential natural resources. Because of the fact that people were constantly shifting from area to area based on their food, this labeled them as nomads; people who did not have a permanent home or residence. Due to the lack of food, there was a small population. Then, gradually, the Neolithic Revolution began to take place at different times and different places, a time period where humans shifted from gathering and hunting food to producing it. People began domesticating animals to provide food, as well as plants and crops, which varied depending on climate. As a result of domestication, agriculture began to take form. Agriculture is the farming of animals and plants, which made life easier and enabled people to remain in the same place. These were some of the building block s for civilization that took place during the Neolithic Revolution. Agriculture led to villages because farming encouraged the formation of larger and more stable communities than had existed before Neolithic times. Most hunting humans moved in small groups containing no more than 60 individuals who could not settle in a single spot lest the game run out. With settled agriculture the constraints changed. Communities developed around the cleared and improved fields. Now that food was plentiful and able to be harvested, population strongly increased. With more people and a lack  of diverse jobs, specialization of labor was developed when men and women became artisans, growing increasingly productive and creative. This occurred since farmers grew all the food, and not everyone had to be a farmer. Gradually, humans became innovative and improved quality and numbers of their products. People were slowly yet steadily continuing to progress towards the seven traits of civilization. Specialization of labor began to then lead to the seven traits of civilization. As villages evolved into cities and became more complex, many new jobs developed. For instance, officials gathered taxes, engineers planned irrigation systems, and soldiers defended city walls, resulting in government and military. As life in cities grew increasingly complex, people began to keep permanent records and developed writing. Other humans became skilled artisans who devoted their time to crafts such as baskets, metalwork, or pottery, while others built large public works such as temples or buildings. This was the development of art and architecture. Religion then resulted from things people could not explain, with early civilizations which had formal religious institutions that included ceremonies, rituals, and other forms of worship. As urban societies developed institutions and specialized labor, a social order developed based on people’s occupations, wealth, and influence. Due to their experience with agriculture, humans of the Neolithic Revolution then improved their farming systems and advanced their personal resources to be more productive. As shown, all of the seven traits were a result of the Neolithic Revolution, and led to civilization. The Neolithic Revolution caused the seven traits to take effect. If it weren’t for those traits, we may still be undeveloped nomads today. Having taken a huge step towards modern society, the early humans who lived during the Neolithic Revolution were hard at work in learning how to start a civilization. They have given up their nomadic days and discovered the advantages to settling down in one area. No longer were lives at risk every day. The Neolithic Revolution was the first step in building a modern society where humans can live in peace and not worry about betting on their lives for days’ worth of food and finally able to rest their minds without worry. The Neolithic Revolution was a crucial part of human history and  without it, we would not have civilization.