Leadership Within the 12 Angry Men Essay Example for Free

Leadership Within the 12 Angry Men Essay Throughout the film, there is seemingly more than one â€Å"leader† throughout the jury as according to Nick’s definition of a leader being that there were multiple influences and instances that persuaded the decisions of others. Initially the situation is composed of a biased and opinionated jury that is almost unanimously convinced the defendant is guilty. Throughout the scene, there is a slow but sure change of mind throughout the jury as the protagonist, Juror #8, successfully persuades the other jurors who initially voted the boy guilty of murder to further investigate and examine the fact which eventually leads to the confirmation and agreement of reasonable doubt among the jury. Juror 8’s effective followership was best represented by his consistent approach and solution to the conflict that initially had nobody even listening. Juror 8 knew what he was standing up for, proper justice, even in the face of adversity as he was challenged by everyone in the room and his willingness and courage to assume the responsibility and challenge the assumed (198). He is also seen as a leader of the group through the honesty and integrity he displayed by â€Å"acting in accordance with solid moral principles† (41) as well as a drive to reach an honest verdict by convincing the group to look at all the possibilities despite the obvious and assumed. Juror 3 would best be classified as an alienated follower as his prejudice against the defendant clouds his judgment, placing a bias on why he thinks the boy is guilty. As it turns out, his own son that he hasn’t seen for 2 years had grown up challenging his authority and rejecting his morals providing the basis for the anger that is displayed so stubbornly until the very bitter end. As alienated followers â€Å"are capable, they focus exclusively on the shortcomings and have experienced setbacks and obstacles† (195) as did Juror 3 when initially, he had convincingly and mindlessly persuaded the others of the defendant’s guiltiness as a result of the anger he felt from the bitter relationship he had with his son. Juror 10 could most definitely be classified as conformist follower as his stubborn belief in the defendant’s guiltiness was supported by a mindless and intolerant argument supported by his racist, bigoted comments. Initially Juror 10 willingly participated in the heated yet convinced discussion as there was little doubt about the defendant’s guilt and conflict was at a minimum. As the tables turned and tension rose, Juror 10 found himself â€Å"concerned with avoiding conflict† (195) and became less of a contributor to the conversation. As with Juror 8, in any situation in which there is an uncertainty or doubt present, especially regarding a decision with such major implications such as the one presented to the â€Å"Twelve Angry Men†, I find it highly necessary to further investigate and take all things into consideration before coming to a decision. The suspicion of shady, questionable behavior of the CEO is to be examined and reviewed in the same manner that Juror 8 went about questioning the assumed â€Å"facts† and looked at all the possibilities.

Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Modern World :: Physician Assisted Suicide

Euthanasia and the Modern World      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   A long time ago, culture was universal and permanent.   There was one set of beliefs, ideals, and norms, and these were the standard for all human beings in all places and all times.   We, however, live in the modern world.   Our ethics are not an inheritance of the past, completed and ready for universal application.   We are in the situation of having to form our own beliefs and meanings of life.   This struggle is now obvious in the contemporary discussions of euthanasia.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Of the controversial discussions involving euthanasia, the question of legalization is an often argued one.   Whether euthanasia ought to be illegal is different from the question of whether it is immoral.  Ã‚   Some people believe that even if euthanasia is immoral, it still should not be prohibited by law, since if a patient wants to die, that is strictly a personal affair, regardless of how foolish or immoral the desire might be. [Rachels, 56]   My position is almost identical.   I believe there are some instances in which euthanasia is immoral, but I believe it should unquestionably be legal.   In the following paragraphs, I will display the position of the opposition to the legality of euthanasia as well as the position of the supporters.   I shall attempt to prove that, yes, euthanasia should be legal. There is a strong opposition against the legalization of euthanasia.   The main argument against the legality of euthanasia is sometimes known as the slippery slope argument.   People argue that if euthanasia was legally permitted, it would lead to a general decline in the respect for human life.   It is professed that we would kill people in the beginning simply to put them out of extreme agony.   This is the ideal.   But the opposition states that the killing of people wouldn't stop here.   The killing could perhaps escalate to mass murder of innocent victims.   When would the killing stop?   This is what scares the opponent. The opponents argue that once something is accepted, we have no right to deny other similar practices.   This is when doctors and patients would start taking advantage of the new law. Therefore, the first step should not be taken.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   I disagree with this notion and believe that there would hardly be any

How China became Chinese Essay

Jared’s Diamond’s â€Å"Guns, Germ and Steel† is an historical narrative that focuses on alternate explanations to the rise and fall of civilizations and the development of cultures and societies by tracing evolutions and nuances in world and human history dating as far back as 13,000 years ago to the present. It is an historical treatise that moves away from a largely Eurocentric model of the world towards a more objective analysis of the various environmental, biological, political and economic phenomena surrounding a continent’s growth. The book attempts to unravel the varying fundamental and decisive causations to explain and answer why continents developed differently from each other. For instance, Chapter 16 of the book lays down the conundrum how China became Chinese today—what with its monolithic ethnicity and almost unified language and uniform racial identities, as opposed to its European and North American counterparts: Both of which are characterized by diverse cultures, language and races. Accordingly, China is the way it is now because of several penultimate causations. Foremost of these reasons is that they gained a decided head-start advantage in terms of food production and animal domestication because of its strategic geographic location. There is the Yellow River in the north and the Yangtze River in the south which conveniently cut across the whole span of the continent thereby making trade and production much easier (331). Because of the advances in food production and animal domestication techniques compared to its backwards hunting-gathering neighbours at that time, ethnic north and south Chinese were able to dominate the entire socio-cultural landscape. As early as 7,500 BC, Jared Diamond notes that based on the archaeological pieces of evidence found scattered in the East Asian regions, it would be fair to conclude that â€Å"China was one of the world’s first centres of plant and animal domestication† (229). These valuable crops and animals contributed to the growth of Chinese civilizations especially in terms of population, language and political and social structures because they jumpstart the economy of a given locality. Diamond continues that â€Å"as elsewhere in the world, in China food production gradually led to other hallmarks of civilization† (330). The Chinese began to invent and discover the process of bronze metallurgy and its uses as substitute domestic tools and probably even in warfare. Furthermore, apart from the optimization of the post-Neolithic metal tools technology, the millennia that followed â€Å"saw the outpouring of Chinese technological inventions that included paper, the compass, the wheelbarrow and gunpowder† (ibid. ). These are manifest indications or signs that the Chinese society has undergone a gradual yet upending process of unification or otherwise known as the great Sinification over the years that it had started to develop and took advantage of their valuable food and animal resources. The most interesting part of Diamond’s analysis however has something to do with the correlation he makes with food production and its residual yet significant consequences as with the spread of infectious diseases (ibid. ). Since pigs, according to Diamond, were domesticated so early and became so important in the region, Influenza must have likely have risen in China (ibid. ). Nevertheless, suffice it to say that China is the solid and monolithic China of today because of the advantages in its geographic locations and the kind of culture that was nourished through time because of trade, domination, ethnic assimilation and language unification as also added consequences of early developments in food production and animal domestication. In other words, because China enjoyed critical benefits during the formation of its civilization at such an early stage, it was able to mass up early and thereafter steam-rolled its neighbours in the Southeast and East Asian regions. Leaving in its wake are fragmented but major influences in other countries of today, such as Japan, Korea and/or Southeast Asian countries, by way of language, race and literature. Indeed, as Jared Diamond concludes the chapter, he writes that the â€Å"persistence of Chinese writing in Japan and Korea is a vivid 20th century legacy of plant and animal domestication in China nearly 10,000 years ago† (333) and owing largely to the leaps and bounds advances in farming in the eastern regions of Asia, China became the Chinese of today and traces of its powerful and overwhelming culture can be gleaned from Thailand and other proximate Asian countries—their cousins (ibid. ). Of course, China is not China today solely because of its early advantage in food production and animal domestication as Jared Diamond argues. There are other important factors which taken together with China’s historical development can make for another alternate hypothesis to explain its present day unified state. It would be a little too much of a stretch of the imagination to correlate present times with the circumstances then present several millennia ago. Although Diamond’s premises are elegant and sound, the simplistic and abbreviated accounting of Chinese history leaves more historical questions than it answers. Denis Sinor argues that China did indeed gain a strong foothold in development early on because of its geography (49). But geography is not all that there is available that arguably led to Chinese domination in the region (51). For instance, the occasional barbaric attacks from the Mongol hordes from the north stimulated the solidification of the small communities in China to a powerful unit under one dynastic rule to parry away the constant threat of invasion. Assuredly, food production and animal domestication have little to do with the menace of warfare except for the fact that surpluses in resources can be a motivating factor for the invaders. Still, because of these threats in the Chinese regions, the warring civil clans in China unified to face a common enemy (Sinor 65). In so doing, the Chinese developed a stronger and distinct identity from their neighbours. For lack of a better term, the Sinification was an offshoot of the fact that China has nurtured a crude sense of nationalism as reflected in their literary works, language and cultural masterpieces—including the building of the Great Wall of China simply because unification was a necessity for warfare. Without a doubt, the lasting legacy of the Great Wall bespeaks that need to solidify China at a time when wars from its neighbours were imminent. It is also important to consider the varying political ideologies in ancient and modern China. Its important leaders and other iconic historical figures adopted a monistic approach to its rule. Laws were codified according to the changing needs of the time. This means that the Chinese had a justice system that is inspired the ruling dynasty replete with its own brand of religious, philosophical and social ideas which required everyone to obey with all zest (Sinor 72). Nevertheless, going back to Diamond’s premises, there is no question that food and animal production acted as an impetus for development. Yet to heavily rely on such a primordial causation is to eschew other aspects of Chinese civilization such as its political and social history. True enough certain advantages in geography open doors for a nascent civilization but then again, once that door is opened, there are multitudes of other doors that the choice of one excludes other historical possibilities for a civilization. It just so happens that the Chinese example is a result of a singular development from the start of its development up to the present time. Works Cited Diamond, Jared. â€Å"How China Became Chinese: The History of East Asia†. In Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. Ed. Jared Diamond, pp. 322-333. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. , 1999. Sinor, Denis. Inner Asia, History, Civilization, Languages. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969.

Gender Roles Of Society And The Bible Essay - 1691 Words

Gender Roles in Society and the Bible Upon losing the election to become the 45th president of the United States, Hillary Clinton gave a concession speech and told â€Å"all the little girls who are watching this...never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and to achieve your own dreams† (Clinton). While Candidate Hillary Clinton said these girls are â€Å"deserving of every chance,† our society may prove otherwise. Although women today are no longer denied basic rights such as voting, our patriarchal society still sets up barriers, which limit a woman’s ability to be considered equal to a man. Here, â€Å"equal† would be defined as being perceived in the same light for equal opportunities and outcomes. Similarly, Christian women today are not limited in the same ways they were in early Christianity; however, the Bible still presents women in subalternate roles, compared to men. In American society today, there are doubl e standards in the way men and women are perceived that date back to â€Å"traditional† Biblical expectations of women being subservient to men. First, women in the professional world face harsh criticisms that are both portrayed in the media and rooted in Biblical interpretations. A Commercial by Pantene points out the issue of labelling. A man is labelled â€Å"boss,† while a woman is labelled â€Å"bossy†; a man staying late at work is â€Å"dedicated,† while a woman staying late at work is â€Å"selfish† (Social VoiceShow MoreRelatedWhat Does Gender Inequality?1395 Words   |  6 PagesWhat fuels gender inequality? What are the reasons gender inequalities are still so high in today’s society? Gender inequality refers to the unequal treatment of an individual based on his/her gender. Gender is defined as the amount of characteristics and attributes distinguishing that person between, masculinity and femininity. 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Despite her breakthroughs, Murray was also a woman of her time, and by today’s standards, she wouldn’t likely be considered a true feminist, as she does recognize that there are roles specifically assigned for women and men. However, Murray was also a powerful author who understood her audience and social landscape of her time well. The way Murray justifies her thoughts about feminism and her conscious and purposeful framing ofRead MoreThe Different Characteristics Of God Essay769 Words   |  4 Pages Different characteristics of God are displayed in men and women, which helps us more fully understand each gender. While God is genderless, males display some traits and women embody other characteristics of God. Throughout the Bible, God is referred to as father, ruler, lord, and head, all of which are roles God calls men to and are characteristics generally natural to men. 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Nevertheless, the purpose of the verses differs within each stanza of the poem. The Wife of Bath is a sexually promiscuous, lustful, and manipulative woman. She marries men one after the other as they get older and die. In order to combat and overthrow the speculation and criticism being thrust upon her by societal norms becauseRead M oreEssay On The Handmaids Tale And 19841503 Words   |  7 Pagesgovernment of a strict, totalitarian society, and I provoke fear and take away freedoms from all of my fellow citizens. Through reading Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale and George Orwell’s 1984, it becomes evident that both novels discuss the differences in gender roles. In 1984, there is gender equality amongst the classes. However, The Handmaid’s Tale shows very different roles for each gender and the importance of each as well. The differing gender roles give the government an incentive toRead MoreThe Outlander, By Gil Adamson1619 Words   |  7 PagesMary’s Character in The Outlander, and Gender Roles in the Early 1900s â€Å"Let women be what God intended, a helpmate for man, but with totally different duties and vocations†. In 1870, those words were said by Queen Victoria. By the early 1900s, what she said was still ringing in the ears of the people, even in Canada, which was a considerably young country at this time (History Learning Site). The Outlander, written by Gil Adamson, takes place in Canada during 1903. The story is about a mad youngRead MoreEssay on Historical Roles of Men and Women in Leadership1231 Words   |  5 Pagesleadership gender roles might actually start to make sense. The previous sentence was not an error in thought or printing. Much of modern analysis of gender perspectives in leadership and the roles of men and women seem to forget the thousands of years of history and the more recent, evolution of gender equality, which has taken place to get to where we are at present day. The key word is evolution; we are slowly but steadily evolving into a better and mor e efficient society through gender equalityRead MoreEssay about Historical roles of men and women in leadership 1217 Words   |  5 Pagesleadership gender roles might actually start to make sense. The previous sentence was not an error in thought or printing. Much of modern analysis of gender perspectives in leadership and the roles of men and women seem to forget the thousands of years of history and the more recent, evolution of gender equality, which has taken place to get to where we are at present day. The key word is evolution; we are slowly but steadily evolving into a better and more efficient society through gender equality