Art Critique: Boys in a Pasture vs. Children Wrestling

While the basic nature of art is mimetic, these representations of reality functions to give an account of events and people that needs to be remembered. Art therefore partakes in accounting the history of mankind in relation to nature.Winslow Homer’s painting â€Å"Boys in a Pasture† and Paul Gauguin’s â€Å"Children Wrestling† are a case in point. Both paintings reflect a naturalist framework that depicted the innate and dedicated fondness of children on the natural environment, which at the same time reveals the ideal peace and harmony that both artists try to portray.   Their artistic approaches reflect Henry David Thoreau’s (1992) natural history which principally reflects the significance of the objectives and systems of science in humanity.SimilaritiesAside from the mode of painting which is oil painting in canvass, both painting have similar elements, children and nature.The Boys in a Pasture can be considered to portray Homer’s rem iniscence of his own childhood while at the same time conveying a positive outlook for a brighter future considering that it was painted after the American Civil war.   Homer’s principal source of inspiration for the painting was the American rural scene which depicted the serenity, peace and simplicity of life.In the same vein, Gauguin's painting contained the themes of peace and contentment however set in the ambiance of Brittany.   It also conveys a positive outlook by depicting children playing in nature. It must be noted that wrestling is contextualized as a regional tradition.â€Å"It was the practice for young Breton villagers to participate in wrestling matches after Sunday mass† (Dorra, p92)   Children and children playing are often used as representation of innocence, youthfulness and purity of thoughts vis a vis the corruption of mind that is attributed to maturity.   While Gauguin apparently uses this concept, Homer’s depiction of natural inn ocence was also reflected with his use of daisies which may have been derived from William Wordsworth's ritualistic exultation to youthfulness, â€Å"To the Daisy† of 1802.   (Scoggins, 1966)Finally, both Homer and Gauguin have their figures of persons with averted faces which are not particularly identifiable so that they can more effectively and generally represent a universal concept of children or youth.

The Role Money Plays

Critical Text-Based Analysis Money plays a vital role in Bahamian society. Throughout the years our governments have placed our cultural identity at risk. They negotiated contracts and decisions based on our country’s financial circumstances. It is evident that our islands are truly â€Å"up for sale† but this can have drastic effects. As the years go by The Bahama Islands are being sold for the naturalness of what they are and are being transformed into something different.Nowadays, there are more aspects of American culture rather than Bahamian culture on display. If this continues our country will eventually succumb to the hands of its main financial provider, the United States. The Bahamas is too dependent on other societies and if we don’t change our mindsets our culture would be destroyed. Immigration has become a major issue in Bahamian society. Many migrants travel here searching for a better way of life. Their values and customs have greatly influenced o ur society.This was indicated by the author in paragraph three, â€Å"Abaco is called ‘Wcylef Jean Refuge’ after its new owner, the Haitian hip-hop superstar, while white Abaconians steam in lobster-red fury at the fact that their land could now be owned by a Haitian. † This agitated the natives of Abaco because their beloved island is now owned by a Haitian. In the Bahamas, Haitians are populating our islands in vast amounts and are influencing our culture. This has led to clashes among the societies which have caused a negative opinion of them. This evidence proves that our native culture is on decline and must be preserved.The Bahamas is known as a tourism country. Most of our income comes from the tourism industry. This has allowed our country to become a popular tourist destination. However the government constantly jeopardizes our main source of revenue. This was stated in paragraph 6, â€Å"Dead dolphins and whales beach daily like drowned slaves. † As a result of signing the Pipeline Contract, many tourists travelled to other countries due to the pollution of the ocean. This was emphasized in paragraph eight when he mentioned how Cuba took over as the number one tourist destination.In addition, Bahamians escaped to Cuba to avoid working under poor conditions at the amusement park and factories. This is quite ironic considering Bahamians love to travel to other countries for their amusement parks. The industry further declined when Junaknoo was abolished in 2015. It was no longer of tradition but of a trend. This was displayed in the twelfth paragraph, â€Å"A thoroughly diluted version on Junkanoo, Junkanoo Lite, is currently serving as the official mascot of the Miami Dolphins. † These instances show how our culture is constantly placed at risk.The writer used various rhetorical techniques to enhance his message. He used similes and euphemisms to give his piece appeal. In addition, the use of sarcasm and humor strengt hened his purpose. Our society is becoming a replica of America. We are adopting customs and policies that are not our own. As indicated by the author our nation is losing its identity. This produced serious consequences in the future which inhibited our growth as an independent nation. Our governments should not sacrifice our culture for money but endeavor to save this special gem.

Article Summary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Article Summary - Essay Example The results of the study showed some correlation between active learning and the student departure process. One encouraging sign was that social integration plays an important role in active learning, and thus the two should be linked. Last week a new president was chosen for the University of Tennessee after much deliberation. The controversy revolved around the final interviews being made available on the Internet. Some people view this open process as unnecessary and in fact harmful to the reputation of the university. The authors of this article investigated numerous states’ sunshine laws, where information must be made public in state sponsored institutions. What was discovered was that there is much confusion around how these laws should be applied and in what circumstances. The recommendation given was that a common ground should be found that permits some information to be made public yet allows privacy on certain occasions. Also, the timing of the release of sensitive information should be done in a slow manner. Thirdly, there must be some closed door meetings that do not require information to be disseminated. Trustees should be informed of important decisions before the information is made availa ble to the public. Sunshine will continue to thrive, but the way in which they are used must be looked

Business Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 25

Business Law - Essay Example â€Å"Procedures for settling disputes by means other than litigation; e.g., by Arbitration, mediation, or minitrials. Such procedures, which are usually less costly and more expeditious than litigation, are increasingly being used in commercial and labor disputes, Divorce actions, in resolving motor vehicle and Medical Malpractice tort claims, and in other disputes that would likely otherwise involve court litigation.† Reading and understanding from the above definition, it can be interpreted that ADR is an alternate mechanism for justice which is less costly and more expeditious. Alternate Dispute Resolution consists of Arbitration, Mediation and Conciliation. Arbitration is a process by which the parties to the dispute appoint an independent Arbitrator who judges the case for the respective parties. This independent arbitrator is appointed on the behest of both the parties. Once the arbitrator is decided, the venue for the arbitration depends upon the parties to the matter. Unlike the Court system where the venue is decided as the courts itself, here the parties have more autonomy towards the way the case is going to take place. Hearings take place in accordance to the whims and fancies of the parties, and therefore the whole procedure is way more relaxed and chilled out. Mediation and Conciliation are the less popular form of ADR trials. These systems envisage a concept where the parties mediate and conciliate with the other parties on their own without the admission of an arbitrator. The process of Mediation and Conciliation is considered to be more in the zone of a personal conversation rather than a legal case going on. The idea of ADR has always been to allow a more open and calm approach towards justice delivery system. And it has ben quite successful in the Europe and UK with a streamlined method of arbitration, medication and conciliation process in practice. The ADR Group is a world-renowned

I will upload the artical Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

I will upload the artical - Essay Example On the other hand, MM-GBSA is normally used in the computation of the free binding energy differences between the bound and the unbound states of solvated molecules. This paper seeks to critically discuss the MM-GB (PB) SA methods and their potential applications There are a number of alternative and competing methods to MM-GB (PB) some of which include free energy perturbation (FEP), multi-state Bennett acceptance ratio (MBAR) and thermodynamic integration (TI) among others [1]. Many people use these alternative methods due to their computational accuracy. However, compared to the other methods, MM-GBSA and MM-PBSA methods are more computationally efficient molecular modeling algorithms that are potentially quite useful in drug design particularly with regard to ranking drug binding affinity. Drug binding affinity ranking is critically important in computer aided drug design where it is normally used to facilitate the efficiency and accuracy of the routine identification of the possible candidates. This is particularly critical during the early stage stages of drug discovery [1]. Generally, Implicit solvents addresses the problem by representing solvent as a continuous medium as opposed to individual â€Å"explicit† solvent molecules in order to estimate free energy of solute-solvent interactions in structural and chemical processes some of which often include folding and conformational transitions of proteins. This can significantly help in the estimation of the contribution of each residue to the overall protein-ligand/protein binding; thereby helping in the identification of mutations that can potentially enhance the binding affinities of the protein complex. A number of previous researches have explored the potential reliability of using MM-GB(PB)SA in estimating ligand binding affinities of a series of structurally diverse inhibitors. On the other hand,

FILMSCORES INELIGIBLE FOR THE ACADEMY AWARDS Essay

FILMSCORES INELIGIBLE FOR THE ACADEMY AWARDS - Essay Example e composers who have worked extra hard to develop original scores with other music producers who have just edited other people’s work to come up with film soundtracks. If I may use the example of Crash, the 2005 winner of Best Picture at the Academy Awards, the soundtrack of the film was an original composition by Mark Isham that was later released the music labels Gut and Colosseum (Bridges 25). The soundtrack contributed significantly to the success of the film. Placing such an original score together with un-original pieces is obviously unfair. Another reason why that this be adopted is because doing so will provide clear boundaries of what is original and what is not. Establishment of the two categories will pressure the Academy to properly redefine the terms that a particular composition should reach for it to be considered original or not. This will consequently eliminate cases like the one experienced recently where the music scores for the films, The Black Swan, The Fighter and True Grit were disqualified on the basis of being unoriginal. Establishment of the two distinct categories will also encourage composers who feel that they can add something fresh to previously produced pieces and come up with outstanding film scores. As I have indicated earlier, the score of a film plays an important role in its success level and therefore, let me compare and contrast the scores of two films that have been hugely successful this year. One is the Ben Affleck directed thriller â€Å"Argo’’ and the latest installation of the James Bond series â€Å"Sky fall’’. Both films are predominantly characterized and accompanied by original film scores. In the case of Argo, the renowned Alexandre Desplat has scored the film (Bridges 17). The score features many orchestral elements and easy concessions that are easily listenable to common people. Its opening cue comprises a rich sound filled with Persian Instrumentation that is very flavorful and therefore resonates with

Managing Patient safety Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Managing Patient safety - Essay Example (I.O.M, 1999). Harm occurs if a patient’s quality of life or health is negatively affected by any element of their interaction with health care. This would be as a result of patient safety incident, which is any healthcare related event that is unexpected, unintended, and undesired and which could have or did harm the patients. It is, therefore, upon the NHS to ensure high standard, as well as safe clinical care is maintained and make sure they are in line with the current technology. According to the department of health, patient safety needs to be prioritized, as far as health care system is concern. The resulting patient safety management knowledge continually heighten improvement efforts to better patients’ welfare such as applying lessons learned from industry and business, educating consumers and providers, adopting innovative technologies, enhancing the error and the reporting systems, and finally developing new economic incentives (Fleming, M, 2000). Arguably, r esearchers ought to investigate and find out the effectiveness of patient safety in the health care system. This, in essence, can help ascertain the measures that can improve the conditions if need be. In this paper, my major concern entails patient care as practiced in any health care services with major focus on medication safety based on analyzing the current issues of patient safety management and understanding of systems and human factors in maintaining patient safety. It is evident from research that as far as patient safety is concerned, medication safety is one of the major issues that is quite disturbing. In this regard, human factors, which correlate with medication safety, play a major role, in so far as patient safety is concerned and cannot be overlooked when dealing with such sensitive issue as patient safety. Negligence, as a human factor, has increasingly become one major factor that affects medication safety basically because of lack of concern among the health care practitioners. For instance, I remember one critical instant when a health care practitioner, acting out of negligence, failed to rescue the life of Elain Bremonung, a young woman who was admitted in the hospital for routine sinus surgery. During the anaesthetic, she had breathing problems and the attending anaesthetist was slow at responding to the situation, thus became unable to insert a device to open her airway. The most distressing thing about it is that the affected patient was in a critical state. If not for the alarm sounded by one of the friends of the affected patient, the patient would have passed on. Arguably, there were no grave consequences reaped on this incident, however, one thing that is clear is that medication safety is up stake in many of the health care systems. This incident clearly shows that human factors, as well as organization factors play a role in medical safety. This, therefore, calls for need to investigate the link between organizational and human factors in relation to patient safety. I have considered such issues in my presentation. Hence in doing so, I would come up with an incident that reflects the role of organization and human factors in patient safety and finally outline recommendations to the situation. Patient safety. Patient safety is the prevention, avoidance and amelioration of adverse injuries or outcomes stemming from the processes of medical care. It is also freedom from healthcare associated, preventable harm. A

Strategic Dependency Model and Strategic Rationale Modeling Assignment

Strategic Dependency Model and Strategic Rationale Modeling - Assignment Example The train driver opens the train door of the train only when the speed of the train is equal to zero. Platform signage, queue lane and gates have been designed to ensure that passengers disembark and embark the train within the given time limit. The system has to be efficiently designed so that all the movements take place in the prescribed time limit so that the train does not get delayed. The performance of the of the system can be measure by the timely performance of these actions : The system should be effectively networked so that an effective management can also be done at the station so that passengers are well aware of the arrival of the train and they manage themselves in front of their platform signage in the queue lanes. The point to be noted about the performance reliability is that when referring to system here refers to a centralized system. This system would help to send a message to the arrival station about the arrival of the station 5 minutes prior to its arrival, So that passengers gather themselves according to their platform signage in the queue lanes in front of the gates. The train driver opens the door when he records the speed of the train to be zero. ... So that all the passengers disembark and embark the train. Type Performance Measurable fit criterion The train driver opens the train door of the train only when the speed of the train is equal to zero. Platform signage, queue lane and gates have been designed to ensure that passengers disembark and embark the train within the given time limit. The system has to be efficiently designed so that all the movements take place in the prescribed time limit so that the train does not get delayed. The performance of the of the system can be measure by the timely performance of these actions : The system should ensure that an appropriate announcement is made 5 minutes prior from train making it to station so that passengers planning to disembark the train can gather near the train gates. The train door should open when train reaches the station and its speed becomes equal to zero. The system should be effectively networked so that an effective management can also be done at the station so that passengers are well aware of the arrival of the train and they manage themselves in front of their platform signage in the queue lanes. The point to be noted about the performance reliability is that when referring to system here refers to a centralized system. This system would help to send a message to the arrival station about the arrival of the station 5 minutes prior to its arrival, So that passengers gather themselves according to their platform signage in the queue lanes in front of the gates. The train driver opens the door when he records the speed of the train to be zero. This all is done to enhance the performance of the system to be designed so that all the movements including the disembarking and embarking the train takes place in 2

Literature Bachelor Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Literature Bachelor - Essay Example This mutable reality is also linked to the famous "catch" of the title, which will be discussed later and shows the absurdity of the modern world. In Jazz, the improvisational form of the art is used to suggest how the past is changeable through the perspectives of the couple who are slowly falling out of love with one another. An event in their past, like a theme in jazz music, may be different upon each 'playing' or 'remembering'. In Catch 22 time is represented as a manipulative continuum in which what occurs depends upon the person seeing it. The very structure of the book seems to reflect the paranoid and near-to-insane characters who inhabit it. Thus the novel starts with ten chapters dealing with the present, before flashing back to the past of the events in the Siege of Bologna for a few chapters. The present appears once again before flashing backwards into the past. The final section of the book is set once again in the present, but with a more formal and linear narrative than the fragmentation what characterizes the other parts. Slipping backwards in time, the reader learns how the characters avoid the true horror of what occurred on the undefended Italian mountain village with the rape and murder of a completely innocent girl. The soldiers do not want to admit what has occurred and so they at first deny it or obscure it through the various bureaucratic absurdities of the military situation they face. The insanity within both their present and past world is best described by the various 'catches' that the soldiers must face, the most famous of which is the catch 22 of the title: There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. (Heller, 1961) This kind of bizarre circular logic, which is obviously absurd and nonsensical, but is impossible to deny due to its own frame of reference. In the same way a person who tries to fully understand the past must be crazy, but if he is crazy he will then not have a genuine grasp of what happens. Again, a circular logic that wraps around itself and forbids any kind of rational in-roads into comprehension. The novel revolves around a kind of complex sense of dj vu that many of the characters express. Thus the chaplain has an "impression of a prior meeting was of some occasion far more momentous and occult that, of a significant encounter with Yossarian in some remote, submerged and perhaps even entirely spiritual epoch in which he had made the identical, foredooming admission that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, he could do to help him" (Heller, 1961). The use of the word "foredooming" is integral to this section. The past cannot be understood, but it is most readily available to the characters through the overwhelming sense of dj vu that many of them feel. The Chaplain is central to this questioning of history, and this is

Application Architecture Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Application Architecture - Case Study Example This is done using special Internet addresses that have been reserved for this purpose. These special addresses are invalid in the Internet itself. The hosts using these addresses may communicate among themselves, but they cannot access the Internet directly†. NAT In order to make it easy for the network administrator, the NAT translates all the personal and confidential IP addresses into inclusive IP addresses. This will require an incremental change devoid of host and routers modification. Furthermore, the NAT has its own drawbacks for instance; its performance is slow since each packet is processed before translating it. Therefore the ‘IP traceability’ also becomes complicated because data packets are hard to trace. 3 Tunneling Tunneling is also referred as port forwarding. Port forwarding is often used for establishing a secure data channel from head office to the remote office corporate network by utilizing the Internet. One of the methods for deploying a tunn eling protocol is to configure the WAN connection with port number along with allocation of the required service. For example, for accessing remote desktop for a payroll application, port number 3389 will be used with the service named as ‘RDP service’ along with the specific IP address of the computer. As discussed earlier, PPTP developed by Microsoft. Likewise, PPTP is required for transmitting encrypted data over the VPN. Besides, no data encryption is available on port forwarding configuration as compare to tunneling because every tunneling route needs to be defined. This may create complex configurations that are difficult to manage. 4 Access Control List In a router, firewall, multi-layer switches etc.; the Access Control List is characterized. If a data packet attempts to pass through a router, it will take in security rules and policies. In the same way, the user’s rights on the files and directories are identified related to the ACL operating system. In order to check quality, the files and folders are read, write and executed. Thus, the ACL offers security for the network data administration, system files and folders. 5 Sub Netting Sub netting is described in â€Å"document RFC 950, originally referred to the subdivision of a class-based network into sub networks, but now refers more generally to the subdivision of a CIDR block into smaller CIDR blocks† (Subnetting, n.d). In IPv4, a single subnet only encloses 254 assignable IP addresses. The issues related to the broadcast are always triggered, generating network congestion and disruption in services. Therefore, these IP addresses should be managed properly in order to control congestion. However, o overcome the above mentioned issues, the IP addresses are divided into smaller class C networks for better performance related to network management and security. In addition, to operate a corporate network, sub netting is needed in order to allocate private IP addresses to inb ound networks as the global IP addresses are limited. The global IP addresses can be configured on the bases of WAN (Wide Area Network) devices. 6 Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) The Virtual Local Are

Journal Entry Essay Example for Free

Journal Entry Essay In the twentieth century, the journal of my Irish ancestor, Detective Robert Shorts, was found during an Estate sale. He immigrated from Ireland in the early 1850’s as a teenager and spent the later part of his life as Detroit’s Detective and, later, Police Chief. The following are his words. October 24, 1872, Detroit. It was a dark time. The city had been safe since the 1830’s, so safe that women could walk about without their husbands or go to work without an escort. Now. Well, now things were dark. I found myself standing alongside the latest victim, pretty, well-dressed, not a prostitute. A lady of means, murdered in broad daylight. I wondered what the world was coming to. Back in Ireland, this never would have happened to her. Things were different there. The main difference being that in Ireland, you knew where the bad neighborhoods were, and unless you were there for reasons unmentionable, you avoided them like the plague—for that’s what it would get you, and that would be the best of things. Things had changed so much if you didn’t know the new buildings in town you could get easily lost and wind up in a bad spot. Which is probably what happened to the lady, I considered. I saw nothing that would have placed her in this dark alley that used to be a small, slightly urban park. My hand rested on my pistol as the city’s finest surrounded me to take pictures of the scene and lay the tape that would seal this woman’s fate in history as one of the first victims of organized crime. December 26, 1880, Detroit. I was named Police Chief today, called in to work to have the torch handed down to me as the last Police Chief had been murdered by vindictive members of the mob. As of yet, we have apprehended no one in the cursed plague of murders that have been a result of their organized crime since I began as Detective on the force in the early 1870’s. As the holiday passed me without celebration, I began to wonder why I ever came to this country. I came alone, without parents to support me, and with only my wits to get me to this country of freedom and inspiration. America. Land of the free, brave, and dangerous. I don’t know what most immigrants were thinking or where we got such ideas. But, in trading crime for commerce, it is true that I make more in wages in one month today than I ever made in more than two years of factory work back in Ireland. Yet, in looking out my window, I considered what there was to feel inspired about when more than six slaughterhouses surrounded the precinct. I had to endure the rancid smell of rotting meat day in and day out while I worked my cases. The mayor has promised change in the area of expansion, and a business district, which would place the markets and businesses on a different block, but that ideal seems a long way off. The papers said today that the city has seen extensive growth, moving the population from two thousand to more than one hundred sixteen thousand in the past fifty years (Schneider, 3). That’s more than one hundred thousand people who have moved within the city lines in the past fifty years. It’s no wonder the city is floundering in crime and un-planned expansion. From what I’ve seen, this dramatic increase has done more for the volume of crime and murder than it has for the success or development of the city, but there is hope of a revitalization from the industrial revolution sweeping the nation, even reaching a dark place like Detroit.

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

Sources of stress in elite football players

Sources of stress in elite football players Sources of stress in elite football players. Abstract In this piece we shall look at stress, its definition, and its potential occurrence in the world of the professional football player. We will examine the possible sources and use current literature sources to support our assertions. Having done that we shall examine in detail the case of Mr Vasey, a youngster who embarked on a professional football career but did not make it onto the elite circuit. We shall examine his personal account for evidence to support or refute our assessment. If you read some of the tabloid newspapers, you could be forgiven for thinking that an elite footballer’s life is little more than huge amounts of money, fast cars, a succession of pretty women and endless adulation from mindlessly adoring fans when performing on the football pitch. Some of the more disreputable papers may also dwell on a slightly different (but generally equally false) aspect of their life, the drink, drugs, sordid sex romps in hotel rooms and gambling. The truth of the matter, in the vast majority of cases, is that the elite footballer is a finely honed athlete at the peak of his training. He is required to perform daily in training routines and in the gym, less frequently on the pitch, and put himself at risk of career threatening injuries on a regular basis. All this is done in the full knowledge that he has worked his way up a professional ladder to a comparatively short window of elite performance and that there are always many more hopefuls who are climbing up behind him either waiting to push him off or to watch him as he falls. You may regard the introduction as rather melodramatic, but it is intended to illustrate the very different perceptions that are commonly held about the lifestyles of the elite footballer. In this piece we are going to review the stresses and pressures that are commonly experienced by this elite group and also how they (generally) manage to cope with them. We also intend to illustrate the theoretical problems faced by the elite footballer with a real case study of a young man, Mr Peter Vasey who has gone a long way to becoming one of the elite group and then, for various reasons, which we shall discuss, decided not to pursue it further. Stress and Stress management We all think that we know what stress is and that we can easily recognise it. It actually proves to be a very hard item to define as firstly, it is important to distinguish between physical (biological) stress and psychological stress. The two are clearly related but fundamentally different. Secondly, stress is a multitude of different responses to a multitude of different potential causes. In this piece we are going to consider the various causes of psychological stress on elite footballers. In this context we can look for a definition of stress in a particularly informative article by Crampton et al. (1995) . She reviews the various definitions of stress. â€Å"Hans Selye (1956), a pioneer in stress research, has defined stress as the non-specific response of the body to any demands made upon it (Kreitner Kinicki, 1992, p. 597). It is considered to be an internal state or reaction to anything we consciously or unconsciously perceive as a threat, either real or imagined (Clarke, 1988). Stress can evoke feelings of frustration, fear, conflict, pressure, hurt, anger, sadness, inadequacy, guilt, loneliness, or confusion (Cavanagh, 1988). Individuals feel stressed when they are fired or lose a loved one (negative stress) as well as when they are promoted or go on a vacation (positive stress). While many individuals believe they must avoid stress to live longer, Freese (1976) argues that it is the salt and spice of life and that to have no stress we would have to be dead.† Selve defines the basic â€Å"biological† interpretation of stress while the Kreitner definition starts to incorporate the possible psychological elements that generate the biological responses. Clarke adds to our understanding by considering the psychological responses that can be produced by various stresses and Cavanagh modifies the definition further by introducing the concept of positive and negative stress. Freese makes the very perceptive comment that stress is an integral and inevitable feature of life itself. This particular insight can be taken rather further insofar as there are some individuals who find stress hard to cope with (non-copers) and others who appear to positively thrive in stressful situations (copers) In terms of our footballers under consideration, we must accept that stress can, and does affect performance as we shall discuss (see on). Basic psychological   theory shows us that individuals who are less than optimally stressed may not make enough effort to achieve their designated goal whereas those who are overstressed may not be able to concentrate on the task in hand and perform to their maximum capacity. In either eventuality it is clear that optimal performance is impaired. Equally it follows that there is an optimal amount of stress to achieve optimum performance. In practical terms, that â€Å"optimal amount† is only really possible to quantify in retrospect, and that is why many would describe the work of the team manager, coach and trainer as an art rather than a science. Haspels (2004) looked specifically at the levels of stress in pre- and post-match footballers. Unsurprisingly, he found that the highest levels of stress were found pre-match in an International game. One of the standard measures of stress in the resting subject is the cortisol level. Unfortunately physical activity also puts up cortisol levels so one of the major predictors of stress was rendered useless in this study. Haspels also found that the players performed best when their stress levels were controlled before the game   Work by Anshel (2001) looked at the causes of acute stress on the playing field and came to the rather surprising conclusion that the major causes of stress in that particular situation was consistently found to be receiving what was perceived to be a bad call from the referee and making a major physical error (missed kick etc.) When these eventualities occurred, the athletes concerned tended to make negative cognitive appraisals followed by an avoidance coping strategy. The same study also found that approach coping was most commonly seen after positive appraisals. These observations clearly support the transactional coping model. The use of appraisals and coping strategy was directly dependent on the perceived nature of the stressful event. Stress is an inherent part of football. It may, in part, be added to by the unrealistic expectations of the coaches, managers and the fans. Every team in the league is told that â€Å"this year the cup will be ours† at the beginning of the season and all the training, playing and motivation will be directed towards winning it. The reality, of course, is that only one team will win it. Continued stress has been cited as the main reason for many of the younger players (including our study subject) for their lack of enjoyment and subsequently leaving the game. It is interesting to note that many sources cite youth as one of the causes of acute stress on the grounds that the youngster may not yet have developed the physical sports skills and coping strategies that the older, more experienced players have. We will not consider this element further as our concern in this piece is primarily the elite footballer who, by definition, has already mastered his game. In broad terms, according to Lazarus (1999), coping with stress consists of a person’s conscious attempt at managing the demands and intensity of events perceived as stressful or improving ones personal resources (e.g., positive affect, confidence, self-control) in attempting to reduce or manage ones perceived stress intensity. He also observes that one of the critical factors in an athlete’s adoption of a particular coping strategy is their cognitive appraisal of the stressful event or situation. Lazarus sums up his appreciation of the coping response as an athlete’s ability to accurately appraise the situation and the subsequent use of an appropriate coping strategy as the critical factor in explaining an athlete’s physiological and psychological adaptation to stress in sport.  Ã‚   Method Our method of investigation falls into two parts. In terms of the stresses faced by elite footballers and their coping mechanisms, we have consulted, appraised and quoted authoritative literature on the subject. In terms of the real problems faced by Mr. Vasey, we have interviewed him and the results of the interview are appended to this piece as appendix I Sources of potential stress Clearly there are a great many sources of potential stress that our hypothetical elite footballer may face. Broadly speaking they can be categorised into:- Sport related stress.  Ã‚  Ã‚   Performance anxiety  Ã‚  Ã‚   Alpha male problems in a team game  Ã‚  Ã‚   Age  Ã‚  Ã‚   Competition stress   Ã‚  Ã‚   Constant motivation  Ã‚  Ã‚   Exercise dependence   Ã‚  Ã‚   Constant levels of fitness  Ã‚  Ã‚   Injury concerns   Ã‚  Ã‚   Dietary concerns  Ã‚  Ã‚   Drug monitoring concerns  Ã‚  Ã‚   Premature retirement Financial  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Living up to a perceived lifestyle  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Transient nature of   income  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Income dependent on continued performance Publicity related  Ã‚   Media attention  Ã‚   Family intrusion  Ã‚   Privacy intrusion Direct stress-related problems  Ã‚   Drink  Ã‚   Drugs  Ã‚   Relationship problems   Ã‚   Cognitive functioning   Let us consider each one of these potential stresses in turn Sports related stresses Performance anxiety In a well written and comprehensive article, Poczwardowski and Conroy (2002) discuss the stresses and coping mechanisms of elite performers. They categorise the various coping mechanisms into 36 sub-categories on the basis of direct interviews. The standard categorisations of problem-focused, emotion-focused, appraisal-focused, and avoidance-focused etc. were amplified and extended to cover a greater rang of detected strategies. For example   greater motivational changes after failure was reported by one athlete as a stimulus to train harder so as not to fail a second time. Stress can affect different sportsmen in different ways. Some appear to thrive and perform well, others find that it is a bar to optimum performance. Those elite footballers in the first category do not need any intervention as far as their performance in the game is concerned but an interesting study by Solberg et al. (2000)   looked at the use of different relaxation techniques pre- and post performance in elite athletes. They found that athletes who practised meditation-related relaxation techniques had their blood lactate levels returning to normal quicker than their non-relaxed counterparts. Contrary to expectation however, they found no significant difference in their levels of pre-exercise anxiety. Alpha-male problems in a team game This is an anecdotally reported phenomenon which does not appear to have been investigated from a scientific perspective. The typical alpha-male personality type is over represented in the elite footballer community. Aggression, speed, firmness of decision making, independence and rapid responses are all prized attributes of the elite footballer. These are seldom attributes that are seen in the personality types that are happy playing as an integral part of a team. Football, by its very nature, is played by a team of eleven on the pitch and off the pitch, a very much larger team is involved. Prima Donna behaviour, typical of the alpha-male, cannot be easily accommodated in such circumstances. It may be tolerated as long as the player concerned is delivering the results, but it can be an enormous cause of stress when the results stop being delivered. Age Footballers get older. In terms of their professional use, they age perhaps faster than professionals in other fields. There is a very narrow   â€Å"window of opportunity† for them to be at the top of their chosen field. To play at elite level for more than a decade is considered to be quite unusual. Part of the reason for this is the natural ageing process which is present in every other individual, but also there is the ever-present problem of both career threatening injury and also the huge wear and tear on the joints (see on) which can give rise to significant health impairment in later life. Turner et al. (2000)   examined this problem in some detail and their results make impressive reading. Their cohort were all professional footballers. 32% of whom reported having surgery on at least one occasion. Of those, over half had knee surgery and a quarter of those had complete joint replacements. 15% reported having hip surgery with another 9% awaiting surgery. Others in the group were having non-invasive treatments. Nearly half had physiotherapy in one form or another for injuries sustained during their career and over a quarter were having some form of analgesia or anti-inflammatory drugs for pain associated with football injuries. Osteoarthritis (OA) was diagnosed in at least one site in nearly half of the respondents and the vast majority of those were hips and knees. Significantly nearly 10% were registered as disabled due to OA and, very significantly, 72% of all respondents agreed with the statement   I am concerned with how OA may affect my body in the future, clearly a major source of potential stress.(Barlow et al. 2000) Although joint problems were, predictably, seen as the most common pathology, other morbidity was found. Neuropsychological problems were not uncommon, presumably related to episodes of concussion or repeated trauma such as heading the football. 10 of the group reported problems such as memory complaints, dizziness and headaches. Sport related problems included early retirement, enforced reduction in working hours or even a change to a sedentary occupation. Not only can all of this be viewed as a major source of stress to those who are suffering because of it, but also it must be stressful for the still-active player who may know what may be in store for him. Competition stress This is an area that has been extensively studied. Competition stress can be an enhancer for some players but equally it can be an inhibitor for others. There is a distinction to be made between the trait of anxiety and the state of anxiety which is quite significant and, to a large extent, is a reflection of the ability of the individual to cope with and handle the stress levels. Sanderson and Reilly (1983)   did the classic study in this field. Their target group were elite athletes. They found that the group of athletes who had the anxiety trait correlated highly with those who had high pre-race anxiety states and this correlated highly with the actual race performance. Very significantly, the greatest reduction in post-race anxiety levels was seen in those runners who performed well in their races. Constant motivation In order to maintain elite footballer status a player must find a source of constant motivation. Initially, in his adolescent training days, the motivation may be personal glory and the goal orientated drive that comes with wishing to achieve professional status. Having achieved that goal however, the player must then find other motivational drives to maintain his progress. For some, it drive comes from considerations of status and wealth, for others it could be the need for adulation and fame, others may have personal goals of achieving the pinnacle of their chosen profession, these are the achievement-junkies that are seen in any professional walk of life. Whatever the motivation, success invariable comes at a cost. Decisions, and therefore usually sacrifices, have to be made along the route of attainment and achievement. In this piece we are considering specifically the elite footballer who, by definition, has managed to achieve the peak of his career. We should perhaps also consider the   other athletes who by virtue of circumstance, situation, lack of motivation or perhaps even random differences in pre-natal myelination patterns, do not actually achieve the top of their profession. We shall discuss one such case in the case-study at the end of this piece. For every elite footballer, there are many who do not make the top echelon of players. There are arguably even more stress factors in this group who what to achieve but for one reason or another, cannot. As far as motivation is concerned, this is a major concern of every coach and manager in the country for reasons that we have set out above. Most premier teams will have psychologists who are motivational   specialists. Motivational theory is evolving at a rapid rate and reversal theory is the current â€Å"idea of the moment†. A particularly good book on the subject is edited by Apter (2001) . It deals with not only the current thinking on the subject but also the actual evolution of the reversal theory from its conception in the 70’s through to the applications of the present day. Significantly it also deals with the specific subject of stress engendered by the motivational process. It is a highly technical book and therefore we do not propose to enter into detail about its contents, but it highlights the psychological issues of burn-out, apathy and depression that are commonly seen in constantly ( and inappropriately) motivated players. In the context of elite footballers, there is a fascinating and short article by McNair (1996)   which looked at the effect of verbal encouragement on maximal effort output.   The game of football is anecdotally renowned for the aggressive verbal abuse beloved by many trainers, coaches and managers. One may argue that it is only a manifestation of their own frustrations and stresses that causes them to behave in this way and it is certainly a cause of stress to the players (clearly it is intended to be). McNair’s paper produces a cast-iron rationale for this â€Å"encouragement† as he found, by means of a very simply designed study, that verbal encouragement does increase the maximal output of skeletal muscle. Interestingly, while measuring the actual power output, he also measured the EMG tracings of the afferent nerves supplying the relevant muscles and found that verbal encouragement did not change the EMG readings, so the actual cause of the improvement was not ascertained but it was nonetheless real. Constant levels of fitness Constant levels of fitness are clearly a pre-requisite for an elite footballer. There may well be periods of injury where the fitness levels fall, but they must be quickly re-established in order to achieve optimum performance levels. Fitness, in general terms equates with earning power and job security for a elite footballer, so the overriding goal must be to achieve peak fitness at all times. This, in certain circumstances, can become an obsession (See on – exercise dependence) Exercise dependence Many studies have shown the exercise can give rise to demonstrable health benefits – both chronic and acute. There are some people for whom exercise actually becomes an obsession (Hurst et al. 2000). This is a real disease entity resulting in behaviour patterns that compel an individual to exercise despite the presence of obstacles. It also can produce both psychological and physical symptoms of withdrawal, if exercise cannot be taken (Pierce, 1994) ( Veale, 1995) (Thaxton 1982). These patterns are commoner in women and often associated with eating disorders but they are also seen in male athletes. Bamber et al. (2000)   has authored a paper which   produced a qualitative analysis of the whole issue. She found that elements of an eating disorder were always present to a greater or lesser degree, but that this was hard to quantify as many athletes will pursue closely monitored dietary regimes in any event. This syndrome is commonest in women, but does occur in men, particularly   it seems in those who have low self-esteem or a poor self-image. It may be thought that such traits are unusual in the context of elite footballers but perceived body image does not always reflect the true physique. Any experienced healthcare professional will tell you about the anorexic or muscle dysmorphic who perceives something quite different when they look in the mirror. It is commonly believed that such conditions are a result of compensation syndromes. People may have a need to try to excel in one area if they feel that they are in some way failing in another.(Bamber 2003) Injury concerns Injury is the footballer’s constant fear. Football is a fast and occasionally violent game with frequent body contact being an intrinsic part of the game plan. Injury can vary from trivial to catastrophic or even life-threatening. Most injuries will have an impact on the elite footballer either at the time of the injury or, as we have seen above, at a later stage in his life. We have referred earlier to the comparatively short earning window of the elite footballer and clearly there will be considerable stresses involved if that window is cut short for any reason. Because of the huge investment that the average elite footballer represents to any club, a huge amount of energy and resources are employed to get an injured player back onto the field of play. It has to be said that the vast majority of professional clubs act responsibly in allowing injuries to heal properly before returning the player to training, but there will be the inevitable pressure on the less-than-scrupulous coach to get the player back on the field before full recovery has taken place. This has costs to the player in terms of impaired performance and also in terms of long term problems arising from an incompletely healed injury. Ekstrand et al. (2004)   looked at the problem as a result of the 2002 World Cup. They cite one of the major reasons for injury as being the frequency of the matches in a packed calendar for the top players. Injuries which would normally be regarded as comparatively minor did not get the usual chance to heal completely before the next game was due to be played. This resulted in a rising accumulative total of injuries above what might otherwise be expected over a comparatively short period. The study found that, over the ten months of the World Cup games the average player played 36 matches. The top players form each team played, on average, 46 matches over the same period. The survey showed that the players who played in the World Cup matches sustained 29% more injuries than players from the same teams who did not play. 32% underperformed when compared to their normal standard. These players had played statistically more matches than those who were felt to have played better than expected. One major finding was that 60% of the players who had played more than one match in the week before a World Cup match were either injured or underperformed during the World Cup game. The clear inference from this study is that tiredness and physical burnout affects performance in elite footballers. At the highest levels, players, clubs and coaches should be aware that this is a real phenomenon. And, at the very least, is a considerable cause of stress to the players. Orchard and Seward (2002)   Took this concept a stage further and looked at the injuries sustained by the entire Australian Football League over seasons from 1997-2000. Their findings are a major source of concern to the elite footballer world. In a season each team of 40 players would expect to receive 39 separate injuries. Clearly some players would be injured more than once (The major predisposing factor for injury is a pre-existing injury). The injury prevalence of players missing through injury in a week was 16% with a recurrence rate of 17%. They found that the commonest injury was to the hamstrings, followed by ACL strains and then groin injuries. For an elite footballer who depends upon his ability to play for his income, these figures represent a great cause of potential stress. Before leaving this area, we should consider one other area of injury which we touched upon earlier, and that is the sequelae of concussion. Bloom et al (2004) looked at this particular problem in great detail with particular reference to the psychological changes that were observed to occur after the injury. After suffering a concussive injury, the elite footballer was found to suffer from a greater incidence of symptoms of isolation, pain,anxiety, and disruption of daily life as a result of the injury. The investigators found that a source of added stress was, unexpectedly, from other team members who appeared to be giving support but were subliminally putting pressure on the injured athlete to return to play. The investigators found a worrying number of unexpected psychological symptoms including anger, denial, depression, distress, bargaining, and shock. Clearly this needs to be both recognised and addressed if the impact of the injury is not to be a further source of stress to the injured footballer Dietary concerns The elite footballer must always be at peak fitness and as a result his diet must always be under scrutiny. Fitness generally needs a BMI in the region of 20-23. Significant weight gains beyond this range not only reduce performance levels but also increase the wear and tear on the joints. We have already discussed the extent to which the knee joint is stressed during football training and playing. Adding weight to this joint is clearly only going to add to the degenerative changes that occur. An elite footballer needs to be able to accelerate his body mass rapidly in a given direction. It follows that the greater the body weight, the greater effort is needed. He will know this both at a cerebral level and also at an instinctive level. He will know that if his weight goes up significantly then it becomes harder for him to run as fast and to turn as efficiently. The average elite footballer is therefore very careful with regard to his diet. The average man in the population can afford to go out for an occasional extravagant meal or the odd evening or two at the pub without worrying too much about the consequences. The consequences for the elite footballer are that, in doing such things he would have to reduce his calorie intake over the next few days in order to maintain the status quo. This again can become a major source of stress for many. As the years go by, the average male tends to become slower and to put on weight as a natural process. This insidious reduction in the body’s efficiency is obviously a concern to a footballer who will often try to combat this trend with ever more aggressive training programmes and dietary regimes – again another source of stress. Drug monitoring concerns A number of elite footballers have hit the headlines lately as a result of random drug tests, either through failing or missing them. Doping and drug-enhanced training is a fact of professional football life in the current climate. It follows that the regulatory powers have to be ruthless in their quest for a drug-free sport. The fact that some players do gamble against the odds and take performance enhancing medications and drugs is a reflection of the stress and pressure that they feel under to constantly perform. It equally follows that they must feel that their performance is not good enough if they need to resort to such measures. The problems do not stop at performance enhancing drugs. Stress and other factors may tempt a player to use drugs of a different sort. Recreational drugs are common in elite footballer circles. In support of this statement we would consider the paper by Turner (2003)   In which he states that a recently retired elite footballer claimed that 80% of elite footballers in Australia had either been offered or used recreational drugs. This statement was extensively reported in the Press and other sources quoted the figure as being nearer 30%. The truth of the matter will clearly never be known but it can be contrasted with the figure from the UK which shows that over 18% of all the positive drugs screening tests done on athletes are currently for recreational drugs. This can be put in perspective against the 35% positive findings for stimulants and 25% for anabolic agents Premature retirement Retirement is a fact of life for all workers.   As we have discussed earlier, retirement from active playing – and therefore from a high earning capacity tends to come at a much earlier age for a footballer. It is therefore a major incentive to keep playing at a high level for as long as possible. Retirement through the natural ageing process is something that the elite footballer obviously has to come to terms with. It is comparatively unusual for a top rank footballer to be playing into his forties. He may have the experience to play well, but he is always judged on his results, and the fact of the matter is that there will always be younger players who will generally be faster and filled with raw enthusiasm ready to jump into any vacant slot at the top. The elite footballer therefore knows that his playing days are always numbered. We have discussed earlier the problems faced by the elite footballer in respect of the ever-present danger of injury. Clearly a career-ending injury can come at any time. It can be career-ending because of a dramatic incident such as a major fracture of a major bone or it can be a more subtle process, a bad tackle gives rise to an ankle injury which, in turn gives rise to an unstable ankle that does not allow the pivoting action necessary for efficient play. It becomes obvious that the player is not performing as well as another player in the squad and therefore he is replaced with greater frequency and then he becomes dispirited and eventually dropped from the team. The end process is just the same in either eventuality – cessation of an active playing career and the concurrent loss of high earning capacity. The result can be devastating for a man who, in order to achieve elite footballer status, may well have devoted a substantial proportion of his adolescent and adult life to improving and perfecting his football skills. He finds himself effectively out of a job at an age where most men are still looking forward to at least twenty more years of productive work. The immediate openings for him are limited to training, coaching or managing, all of which are highly competitive as they have been filled by his footballing predecessors and generally, they are not as well paid as his previous career. The stresses and psychological traumas are all too easy to see if the elite footballer has not been particularly level-headed in his approach to the profession. The unlikely body of Windsor Insurance Brokers Ltd. published a study of an investigation into the career-ending incidents of professional footballers in the UK (1997)   which makes interesting reading. They did not analyse the actual levels of stress that we are concerned about in this piece, but their findings make sobering reading to the current generation of elite footballers.   It would appear that few elite footballers actually reach retirement age without a significant injury. That injury is responsible (either directly or indirectly) for the eventual d

World War I Essay -- History, Cult of the Offensive

World War One took a toll on everyone between 1914 and 1918. What were some of the main causes and effects of World War One? There were many causes to World War One but one of them was the Cult of the Offensive. According to class notes on 4/4/11, countries should not wait to be attacked, they should attack first. The Cult of Offensive was â€Å"a military strategy of constantly attacking the enemy that was believed to be the key to winning World War One but that brought great loss of life while failing to bring decisive victory† (Hunt, 803). This strategy made the citizens ready and wanting to go to war. Also employs German propaganda and quick wars. Another key cause was Nationalism. Nationalism is â€Å"an ideology that arose in the nineteenth century and that holds that all peoples derive their identities from their nations, which are defined by common language, shared cultural traditions, and sometimes religion† (Hunt, G-4). Nationalism can also be described as the attitude that people of a nation have when they care about their national identity as well as the actions these people might take when seeking to achieve self determination. Everyone in the European countries had a lot of pride and joy for their country. This led to these countries trying to prove their dominance and power. Every country had to show that they were the best to all the other countries. Since this was happening, everyone wanted to show their best by helping an alliance in war. During 1870-1914 there was a substantial growth in standing armies (Class notes, 4/4/11). Many men were ready to go to war. Many countries including Germany and France doubled the size of their armies. The arms race then developed which was almost like a contest to see which co... ...security. â€Å"It was supposed to replace the divine secrecy of prewar power politics. As part of Wilson’s vision, the league would guide the world toward disarmament and arbitrate its members’ disputes† (Hunt, 818). The signing of the Treaty of Versailles did not completely end World War One. Many people’s lives were influenced by the political, economic and psychological effects. The war also changed people’s hopes and spirits because they developed a feeling of disillusionment. They believed their governments did not know in any way how to serve the best interests of the people. The psychological effect of the war on people was huge. The loss of their loved ones on the battlefield was very disturbing to them. There were millions of people who died during this war. These people just had to accept reality and release the dreams they had for their families.

What is a Vision :: Business, Constructing a Vision Statement

Introduction A vision is a statement that paints an idealized picture of what an organization wants to become. Jick (2002) offers a similar definition. He calls it, â€Å"an attempt to articulate what a desired future for a company would look like† (p. 142). Although many definitions for vision are similar, the effects visions have on organizations vary. For some the vision is an agent of change, for others it is a source of confusion. The difference lies in certain elements of the vision, and how the leader implements the vision throughout the organization. This paper will look at what makes an effective vision and how it impacts an organization; it will highlight the significance of employee identification, and how a leader can develop and institute a vision in an effective manner. It also takes a look at the current vision of an organization, and offers some recommendations to increase that vision’s effectiveness. An Effective Vision Constructing a vision statement is not as simple as scribbling down the first thing that comes to mind. A leader take must include certain elements in the vision to ensure it is effective and contributes to the success of the organization. A few of those elements include long-term, inspiring, and aligned with the values and culture of the organization. A vision should look beyond the day-to-day operations of the organization and focus on the future. By developing a long-term vision, a leader moves the focus of employees from the daily tasks to the future goal. Deetz, Tracy & Simpson (2000) write, â€Å"When an organization has a clear sense of purpose and knows where it wants to go, that gives meaning to what happens day in and day out† (p. 53). A long-term vision impacts the organization by highlighting the contrast between where the organization is and where it needs to go. Jick (2002) argues, â€Å"This creates a structural tension between today and tomorrow that seeks a resolution" (p. 144). The organization then succeeds as motivated employees work towards their objectives in order to calm the tension, lessen the gap, and turn the vision into reality. For a vision to be truly effective, it has to inspire employees to take action. This means it has to reflect a greater purpose that stirs up passion in employees. As an example, Nike’s vision is â€Å"to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world† (Nike, 2011). The vision reflects a greater purpose to impact the lives of athletes everywhere, and paints a picture for employees of why their work is important. What is a Vision :: Business, Constructing a Vision Statement Introduction A vision is a statement that paints an idealized picture of what an organization wants to become. Jick (2002) offers a similar definition. He calls it, â€Å"an attempt to articulate what a desired future for a company would look like† (p. 142). Although many definitions for vision are similar, the effects visions have on organizations vary. For some the vision is an agent of change, for others it is a source of confusion. The difference lies in certain elements of the vision, and how the leader implements the vision throughout the organization. This paper will look at what makes an effective vision and how it impacts an organization; it will highlight the significance of employee identification, and how a leader can develop and institute a vision in an effective manner. It also takes a look at the current vision of an organization, and offers some recommendations to increase that vision’s effectiveness. An Effective Vision Constructing a vision statement is not as simple as scribbling down the first thing that comes to mind. A leader take must include certain elements in the vision to ensure it is effective and contributes to the success of the organization. A few of those elements include long-term, inspiring, and aligned with the values and culture of the organization. A vision should look beyond the day-to-day operations of the organization and focus on the future. By developing a long-term vision, a leader moves the focus of employees from the daily tasks to the future goal. Deetz, Tracy & Simpson (2000) write, â€Å"When an organization has a clear sense of purpose and knows where it wants to go, that gives meaning to what happens day in and day out† (p. 53). A long-term vision impacts the organization by highlighting the contrast between where the organization is and where it needs to go. Jick (2002) argues, â€Å"This creates a structural tension between today and tomorrow that seeks a resolution" (p. 144). The organization then succeeds as motivated employees work towards their objectives in order to calm the tension, lessen the gap, and turn the vision into reality. For a vision to be truly effective, it has to inspire employees to take action. This means it has to reflect a greater purpose that stirs up passion in employees. As an example, Nike’s vision is â€Å"to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world† (Nike, 2011). The vision reflects a greater purpose to impact the lives of athletes everywhere, and paints a picture for employees of why their work is important.