Monday, May 18, 2020
Types Of Risk As Small Business Manager - 800 Words
Types of Risk Introduction There are all types of risks involved if one is small business manager or a manager of a larger corporation. The responsibilities on a day-to-day basis can be vital towards the success of the organization. The company facilities can be associated with working capital, production, and sales. The manager would need to reflect a common awareness of the potential risks that can be involved. Although, there can always be a risk involved in an organization, the manager would and should have the capability to identify the type of risks that the company can surface. In this paper, one will provide a further explanation on the various risks and along with presenting a way for financial managers on a moderate approach towards these risks. Property Risks Property risks defined under a business can comprise of various things that can cause damage to a property of the business. For example, a business can be damaged due to a flood. According to Pielke, Downton, Miller, (2002), ââ¬Å"Flood damage has increased in the United States, despite local efforts and federal encouragement to mitigate flood hazards and regulate development in flood-prone areasâ⬠(p. 1). Although flood insurance is not federally required, in some cases, individuals can be financially vulnerable to floods. If and when flood insurance is available, disaster assistance is usually a loan that one must repay with interest. In essence, there is not a sure way to avoid things fromShow MoreRelatedManagement And Ownership Of The Midnight Food Chain Owner1526 Words à |à 7 Pagesfast food restaurant. After serving the company for 3 years, he was promoted to general manager. He further acquired a specialized degree in Culinary and served a five st ar hotelââ¬â¢s food related operations. Therefore, it is believed that XYZ is the right person for the right job at the right time. It can also be assumed that he will generate high profits efficiently without losing quality. As soon as the business will expanded, the ownership will be more diversified and the sole-proprietorship willRead MoreThe Small Business Act Of 19531733 Words à |à 7 PagesThe Small Business Act of 1953 states that small businesses should receive a fair proportion of federal contracts and those small businesses should have the maximum practical opportunity to participate in federal contracting. The Small Business Act established the Small Business administration (SBA) to aid small businesses and to insure they receive a fair proportion of federal contracts. 3%governmentwide goal for awards go to historically underutilized business zone (HUBZone) small businesses, andRead MoreThe Small Business Act ( Sba )1619 Words à |à 7 PagesAccording to the Small Business Act (SBA) of 1953; small businesses should receive a fair proportion of federal contracts and those small businesses should have the maximum practical opportunity to participate in federal contracting. The Small Business Act established the Small Business administration (SBA) to aid small businesses and to insure they receive a fair proportion of federal contracts. 3%governmentwide goal for awards go to historically underutilized business zone (HUBZone) small businessesRead MoreEntrepreneurship1228 Words à |à 5 PagesSimilarities and differences between a manager, a business owner and an entrepreneur Date: 12/8/2011 Version: 1.0 Student Number: 110369257 Module: BUS1004 Similarities and differences between a manager, a business owner and an entrepreneur By Henry Amm Introduction The public perception of entrepreneurs today is almost legendary. They seem to seamlessly start up small businesses and make them grow and develop themselves almost overnight to big successes. (Beaver, 2005) This essay willRead MoreThe Concept Of An Entrepreneurship1345 Words à |à 6 Pagesdifferent people. The Business in Action textbook defines entrepreneurship as the combination of innovation, initiative and willingness take risks required to create and operate new businesses and an entrepreneur as a person with positive, forward-thinking desire to create profitable, sustainable business enterprise. According to this definition, a small business owner could definitely be classed as an entrepreneur, as anyone who runs and owns their own business is taking risks with their financesRead MoreInternal And External Data And Statistics Of Business Sales Managers Versus Entrepreneurs1272 Words à |à 6 Pagesexternal data and statistics of Business Sales Managers versus Entrepreneurs a nd gives advice for two chosen careers as requested by a client. Managers and Entrepreneurs share the same characteristics, but can also be very different with some traits. Managers play an entirely different role than an entrepreneur, because an entrepreneur is managing his own business, but both are concerned with business growth. If youââ¬â¢re an entrepreneur, you build businesses. If youââ¬â¢re a manager, you are then focusing onRead MoreHow Does Tight Control Stifle Creativity Innovation Creativity, Innovation And Entrepreneurship1727 Words à |à 7 PagesIt is an indisputable fact that the management style becomes an important way to measure the successes of business performance. In order to enhance the competition of a company, manager needs to focus on creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. In fact, the different type of control styles can be provided for separate level of employees. In many big companies, they apply tight control, for example McDonaldââ¬â¢s uses democratic leadership and achieve high production efficiency by imposing pressureRead MoreSurvivor Term Paper800 Words à |à 4 Pagesà Chapter 02 - Competing with Information Technology ANSWERS TO REAL WORLD CASES RWC 1: How to Win Friends and Influence Business People Case Study Questions 1. By changing the way his group talks about IT investments, CIO Tim Schaefer is trying to change the way the rest of the company sees IT. Why do you think this is necessary? What would be the prevailing mindset about IT in his company, such that he needs to do something about it? Provide some examples of how IT may be regarded in thisRead MoreRisk Management Portfolio Project. The Chief Risk Officer1356 Words à |à 6 PagesRisk Management Portfolio Project The chief risk officer for a small community bank must look at operational, financial and strategic risk. They must also be aware of both traditional risk management, as well as financial enterprise risk management. Operational risk is a type of risk that would involve the people, the processes the systems and external events that could take place. Historically operational risks are managed by front end managers were due to larger losses taking place in recentRead MoreFinancing and Investing: Guidelines1226 Words à |à 5 Pages1. As a small business owner, the ratios that I will find to the best important are the ones pertaining to my needs. These include liquidity ratios and profitability ratios, both of which are common to all businesses (Loth, 2012). The business will focus on these because they relate directly to cash flow and working capital. The liquidity of the company is also going to be important to bankers who are lending the company money and also the profitability ra tios are going to be important to shareholders
Sunday, May 17, 2020
My Opinion On Critical Thinking - 993 Words
Critical Thinking In life, critical thinking will help us do everything as solving problems or giving the right decisions to achieve the success. Do you ever think that you will become a billionaire in the future? It sounds fabulous, but it is an indisputable fact. Without critical thinking of people, it is not possible to have a society like we have today. Daily life can have more novelty thanks to creativity in each humanââ¬â¢s thinking. It is difficult to find success today. We can only study proven ways to develop more ideas. But it is not really easy to do. It requires you have to have a careful critical thinking to evaluate ideas from your observations and experiences to determine those issues are right or wrong. It depends on the behavior of each individual. People lack of critical thinking skills, they are easy to follow, speaking, lack of personal opinion and depending on the spiritual life of others. For a life of autonomy, there are indispensable skills of careful critical thinking such as recognizing problems, focusing observations and evaluating facts. First of all, cognitive problems help you have a basic understanding about events or opinions in the life. It is an important skill of critical thinking because it helps people understand problems quickly. When you realized that you are facing a certain problem, you will also recognize the necessity of having to act in accordance with what you have to do to fix the problem. ââ¬Å"I have reexamined Brocaââ¬â¢s data, the basisShow MoreRelatedMy Opinion On Critical Thinking882 Words à |à 4 Pages Attending this class was pretty nerve reacting, English is my worst subject and I tend not to do so well on it. I told myself that I need to get better at English because it matters and maybe one day Iââ¬â¢ll make it my favorite subject. What I think of critical thinking still reminds the same, I believe that critical thinking is for someone to think outside the box. By thinking outside the box, it makes you be more open to new ideas and youââ¬â¢re not afraid of taking a risk. Al so by making you seekRead MoreMy Opinion On Critical Thinking942 Words à |à 4 PagesCritical thinking is something that we use in our everyday life, although most of us may not realize that we are even doing it. The definition for critical thinking is the ââ¬Å"intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and actionâ⬠(Defining). In other words, it is when you take all theRead MoreMy Opinion On My Critical Thinking Skills Essay1441 Words à |à 6 Pagesimportance in using my own words and the importance of rereading and checking my material before turning it in. I gained much knowledge on the different sorts of vocations in psychology, and sub careers. This course has set me up for the other courses that I will need to finish my degree. My critical thinking s kills have been enhanced which has improved my thought process. The course was pretty much how I expected it to be. I knew what was expected of me and had excellent input on my strong points andRead MoreMy Interpretation Of Critical Thinking1482 Words à |à 6 PagesMy interpretation of Critical Thinking has been challenged by the author of this passage by the dean of college arts and sciences of Santa Carla University author and narrator Peter A Facione. I have come to the conclusion that my initial thoughts of what critical thinking was way off. The author has the reader asking himself questions, and forming scenarios where we actually had to use critical thinking. I think this method of understanding is a great way to teach new readers. Right off the batRead MoreCritical Analysis On Critical Thinking1311 Words à |à 6 Pages Critical Self Reflection Essay Critical thinking has been defined as the ability to be a disciplined thinker by using clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence. Critical thinking is a skill that takes years of practice to master. In this essay I will reflect on my personal stage of critical thinking and what strengths and weaknesses I currently have. This personal reflection will include what challenges I will face to advance my critical thinking skills and what requirements a criticalRead MoreCritical Thinking and Society Exercise1121 Words à |à 5 Pages | |Critical Thinking and Society Exercise | | | | | â⬠¢ Describe a situation in which critical and creative thought could have been used forRead MoreEssay about Critical Thinking: Strategies in Decision Making1010 Words à |à 5 PagesCritical Thinking: Strategies in Decision Making Critical thinking is a process of applying various skills to analyze information. Critical thinking uses rationality to distinguish between emotion and fact. This paper will discuss the definition of critical thinking, and the skills it takes to think critically. It will also provide an example of critical thinking applied to my current working environment. Finally this paper will discuss the importance and benefits of critical thinking inRead MoreCritical Thinking vs Making Assumptions Essay1139 Words à |à 5 Pages Critical thinking takes consistent behavior in asking the right questions about the subject. In my life, I have come across people who ask many questions and some people who ââ¬Å"go with the flowâ⬠and believe everything they hear because it is spoken with some sort of authority. Assumptions can be damaging to relationships and without critical thinking and communication, our thought process can assume the wrong idea entirely. When I speak with someone who is a critical thinker, they can be so convincingRead MoreSemester Reflection994 Words à |à 4 Pagesstarted, I had set my mind that I was destined to achieve a lot. During the start of the semester, I had several difficulties writing English assignments especially in terms of grammar. During the first week of the semester, I sat down, organized my thoughts and comprehended that throughout the semester, I had to achieve all that I had planned for. As a student of English, I had planned that throughout the semester, I ha d to improve my skills as a scholar, writer and critical thinker. Now that theRead MoreRelationship Between Listening And Critical Thinking1068 Words à |à 5 PagesThe Relationship Between Listening and Critical Thinking My fiancà © and I have been together for two years and I know him very well. I know his likes, I know his dislikes, I know his fears, I know what he loves, but most important I know when he is not listening to me. When we first started dating I never really picked up on it and I was just so happy to have him with me that when he gave a ââ¬Å"yeaâ⬠or a ââ¬Å"mhmâ⬠that I figured he was listening carefully and attentively to every little thing I said.
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
Analysis Of Kahlo And Adelaide Labille Guiard - 1055 Words
Introduction Throughout history, art has been a means to heal and overcome pain. Frida Kahlo and Adà ©laà ¯de Labille-Guiard both created their self-portraits in order to overcome pain in their life, in the process defying social conventions and ideas of femininity. While Labille-Guiard stuck to historic reality, Frida created her own reality. This paper will explore the backgrounds of these individuals, including their hardships. Then it will reveal how these unfortunate events did not take away their success. Backgrounds Born in 1749 in Paris, Adà ©laà ¯de Labille-Guiard was the youngest of eight children in a bourgeois family. Her father was a merchant who owned a hat shop. There was much call for reform during her lifetime, the era of the French Revolution. During this time there was a strong reaction against the fanciful Rococo by the 1760s. The goal of the movement was to ââ¬Å"inspire virtue and purify mannersâ⬠(Stokstad 708). French portrait painters moved toward naturalistic poses and more everyday settings. Though the lightness of Rococo continued, stability and robustness were added to compositions (Stokstad 708). The Enlightenment brought ideas of tolerance and liberty, leading to change in social structure. Previously only men were admitted into the academy, but now women were accepted (Montfort 2). Many women, including Labille-Guiard, became leading portraitists. Her style has the same feminine charm as Rococo, although a comparison with the depiction of the women in
Euthanasia is Murder Essay - 591 Words
Euthanasia is the Greek word meaning ââ¬Å"good deathâ⬠. Euthanasia is the act of assisting in ending oneââ¬â¢s life, killing a person or an animal in a painless or minimally painful way. There are 3 different types of euthanasia. Volantary - which means that the doctor, or whoever performed the assisted death got full permission from the patient to kill them. Nonvolantary - without full consent of the patient or if the patient did give them their full consent, they werenââ¬â¢t fully decisionally-competent. And Involantary - this is when the person is killed against their will, they refuse to die but they are still killed. This Is murder! We are not god. We do not have the right choose who to kill, we cannot kill anyone we think would be better offâ⬠¦show more contentâ⬠¦The two separarate parts of murder: Actus reus (Latin term for ââ¬Å"guilty actâ⬠(based on evidence)) and Mens rea (Latin term for ââ¬Å"guilty mindâ⬠(intension)). Both these are needed to convict someone of murder. There is also manslaughter (which is just actus reus) which some euthanasia cases end up being. Euthansia, whether conducted a hostpital or a home, still falls under murder with both, Actus reus and Mens rea obviously present. If we changed our laws so that euthanasia was legal, every murderer could say they were carrying out euthanasia. If we bring back euthanasia we should also bring back the death penalty. Euthanasia is just murder with a different name, itââ¬â¢s the same, except they blame it on a dead person. It should be a law that you have to write a will once you reach a certain age when you are most likely to know what you want done with your belongings, once you are gone. In the future if you get damaged (mentally or physically), your belongings will go to the appropriate place. Euthanasia should and will hopefully be charged as murder in all cases. There is no exception for killing anyone even if they say they want to be killed. Nowdays it is very easy to forge anything especially an assisted suicide pleadge. The Australian Legal System is constructed so that it is practically impossible for someShow MoreRelatedEuthanasia = Murder Essay1100 Words à |à 5 PagesThe pain and the suffering that you may go through, and without your consent a doctor decides to pull the plug on you. Although that may be what you want, that would be known as human euthanasia. Why would someone want to legalize such a thing? Donââ¬â¢t you value your life enough to hope to stay alive? If euthanasia were legal, how would people think of doctors who practiced this form of homicide? Doctors are supposed to be our healers and protectors of the sick and disabled. We as patients hopeRead More Euthanasia Essay: Mercy Killing or Murder?1333 Words à |à 6 PagesEuthanasia: Mercy Killing or Murder? à à à We, as humans, are mortal beings.à Our life span is finite.à Even though we are mortal, we try to hang onto our lives as long as we can; fear of death and wanting to live forever are, after all, part of human nature.à Sometimes, however, the field of medicine capitalizes on this aspect of humanity. While it is certainly true that one goal of medicine has always been to prolong life, another goal has been the alleviation of pain and suffering.à One pointRead MoreEssay about Euthanasia as Mercy or Murder1311 Words à |à 6 PagesEuthanasia as Mercy or Murder In keeping with the root definition of euthanasia- literally [meaning] good death- [supporters] of euthanasia insist they are talking about helping terminally ill patients in insufferable pain die a dignified death- at the patients request. But this bears no resemblance to the true picture of the actual practice of euthanasia in the United States (Lyons np). Passive euthanasia is death by nonintervention, meaning a health care worker can discontinueRead MoreEssay about Active Euthanasia is Murder2447 Words à |à 10 Pages à à à Euthanasia is not about the right to die. Its about the right to kill.-International Anti-Euthanasia Task Forceà à à It seems impossible for me to claim I am anti-euthanasia or pro-euthanasia because there are two ways of participating in the process...active or passive.à After researching the topic, I have concluded that I cannot support active euthanasia because it seems to follow the same principle as homicide...one person killing another. I do not believe it is anyones right to decideRead MoreEuthanasia: Murder or Mercy? Essay1665 Words à |à 7 Pagesa way as to reach an impasse amongst two opposing parties. Euthanasia happens to be a topic that has been debated extensively for the larger part of the twenty-first century (Larue). Even the definition of euthanasia evokes mixed emotions: the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy (Merriam-Webster). The s truggle over whether euthanasia should be accepted as a common practice is majorly stimulatedRead MoreEssay about Euthanasia: Mercy or Murder?2228 Words à |à 9 PagesAccording to the Collins Canadian English Dictionary euthanasia is defined as ââ¬Å"the act of killing someone painlessly, especially to relieve his or her sufferingâ⬠(2004). Not everyone agrees with this definition. I have always believed that euthanasia was the human choice of ending another persons life because of the excruciating pain they are suffering due to an incurable disease. Some disciplines think that euthanasia should never be an option no matter what the situation. While other disciplinesRead More Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia are Murder Essay1903 Words à |à 8 PagesEuthanasia is Murder à à à à à On June 4, 1990, Janet Adkins committed suicide. She killed herself under the supervision of a man named Jack Kevorkian. Again and again, Kevorkian set up machines and killed patients that were supposedly terminally ill. He escaped punishment for years, but on March 26, 1999, Kevorkian was incarcerated for second-degree murder. (Online,99) He had developed many friends and many enemies. One of his followers was a woman who had developed coronary artery disease. HerRead MoreEssay about Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide are Murder995 Words à |à 4 PagesAssisted Suicide is Murder à If suicide is a right, then it is one that has remained undiscovered throughout the ages by the great thinkers in law, ethics, philosophy and theology. It appears nowhere in the Bible or the Koran or the Talmud. Committing suicide wasnt a right a thousand years ago, and it isnt one now. Thats why most societies, including our own, have passed laws against it (Callahan, pg. 71). Assisted suicide is murder! In all of history, there are only three circumstancesRead More Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide: Nice Words for Murder2054 Words à |à 9 PagesIncreasingly, in the courts and the media and in conversation, we are hearing about euthanasia and the so-called right to die. Its time we all are fully informed about what is going on, and what the appropriate response should be. Euthanasia is not a future problem. It is a present problem. It is happening now and becoming increasingly accepted. And we are asleep, not realizing that the road we are on will lead to the massive elimination of the elderly and incompetent, and anyone else consideredRead MoreEuthanasi The Treatment Of Euthanasia846 Words à |à 4 Pagesall forms of Euthanasia, whether passive or active, is a great way to aid and relieve patients with terminal or life threatening illnesses which makes their life unbearable and unliveable. Euthanasia in general is a steady process of ââ¬Ëassisted suicideââ¬â¢ that aids the patient in ending oneââ¬â¢s life with their consent or the consent of their close family member. Active Euthanasia is when death is intentionally accelerated, for example by the injection of a lethal drug; while Passive Euthanasia is the withdrawal
The Legacy of the Supreme Court and African American Freedom From Enslavement to Liberation free essay sample
This paper examines the history of U.S. Supreme Court rulings dealing with African- American issues. This paper discusses the history of the Supreme Court in its rullings on African-American topics. It specifically details three important cases listed below in the table of contents and their historical significance. From the paper: The United States Supreme Court has made many landmark decisions over the course of its existence. The most critical of these decisions have almost always directly pertained to notions of what constitutes an American individuals liberties. Because of the history of enslavement and racism in the United States, African American lives have perhaps been more crucially impacted by these decisions than white American lives have been. Table of Contents: I. Introduction II. 1857 Scott v. Sandford III. 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson IV. 1954 Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
A Study on Project Management Labour Productivity and Methods
Question: Describe about A Study on Project Management for Labour Productivity and Methods. Answer: Introduction Any viable and fruitful business comprehends the significance of productivity in the work environment. Worker productivity plays an important role in the different software related projects. Being profitable can help the firm increment and help the company utilise the Human resources it has. Most popular and successful organisations have happy and sound employees, which is one indicator of good association. In the following paragraphs, we have elaborately discussed the reasons why productivity is critical to the employees, employer and the customers. "Proactive conduct" Is what can help any average worker to excel in his work and become an important asset for the company (Turner 2016) Part A The process of development of software is quite lengthy and requires skill and effort from the various team members. The development of software goes through a process which includes various steps and requires the expertise of the team members. The new module creation for the software would require proper planning, analysis of details and requirements, designing, development and implementation, testing and maintenance. The whole process would include a project manager and a development manager who would be the instructor and supervisor. Then there would be members dedicated to figuring out the subject matters, the team of quality assurance, deployment team, functional analysts, development lead, developer, solutions architect, designer and training team (Chemuturi 2012). Part B Productivity in software development has been a critical exploration zone for quite a few years. It is the key for a successful programming company to control and enhance its productivity. Labour force effectiveness helps in determine the range as well as the extent of products as well as amenities which a specialist offers in a provided measure of instance. It is one of a few sorts of productivity that market analysts measure. Workforce productivity, frequently alluded to as work productivity, is a measure for an association or company, a procedure, an industry, or a nation. Be that as it may, as opposed to customary modern work, it is difficult to quantify for programming improvement. There are a few terms that are utilized pretty much synonymously, for example, execution or productivity. There are likewise different meanings of which yield isolated by info is the most broad one (Scacchi 2001). Part C There can be numerous problems within the system but here are the most common problems associated with the development of new software and its modules. As of now a large number of the applications are being discharged into the market straight after the designer testing, bypassing the client acknowledgment testing. That practice ought to be suspended and even a little change must be tried by an end-client. Every application will have a committed beta-analyzer chose from the end-clients. Simply after a beta-analyzer has passed the new code it is elevated from test to generation environment (Taiwo 2010). At the point when there is an absence of code surveys - yet one will begin doing code audits before one of the programmers checks it. It might be better to consider a "rollout audit". It is where one of the engineers needs to sit next with the other watch him/her doing the product rollout (Attar 2016). Instructions to minimize the rollback time when another discharge is turned out to be to be supplanted by a decent past adaptation enough to be pullout from generation. We do store a background marked by all discharges (as a parallels) to make it simple to go one rendition back - and however it is brisk it is still a manual procedure where it is uncertain of the result and it might cause the rollback to come up short and render the framework unusable(Enshassi 2007). However, programming intricacy and programming language unmistakably calculates favoured the connection of undertaking information vaults. This most presumably mirrors a typical instinct of storehouse originators that those components significantly affect improvement productivity and various programming qualities (e.g., dependability, maintainability).As of now the significance of a specific productivity element fluctuates relying upon the venture setting. The aptitudes of programming software engineers and investigators, for occurrence, appear to assume a more imperative part in upgrade/support ventures. So also, device/technique used by all accounts less vital is new improvement ventures. Then again, programming improvement that is not a continuation of a past item/discharge appears to essentially depend on the nature of venture management and group inspiration (M 2005). Customer Benefit Productivity in the work environment will regularly decipher into great customer administration and communication. This aggregate customer experience is the way to satisfy customers, and all profoundly profitable organizations utilise will pick up customer loyalty. At the point when a customer is loyal to your business, they will impart their experience to others, which is a marketing advantage leaving large amounts of productivity (Leblebici 2012). The Company The employees themselves are a speculation, and like any venture, they ought to yield a solid or beneficial come back to the company. In this manner, when employees are very profitable the company accomplishes its objectives of putting resources into them in any case. Productivity likewise motivates the working environment culture and support moral, creating a unspeakably better company environment (Designers 1999). The Work Force As if an unsaid rule, when a firm is exceptionally profitable, it inevitably gets to be successful, and as a result of this, motivators will undoubtedly be made accessible to the employees. These incorporate salary increases, rewards, medicinal protection etc. This will likewise motivate employees and gives them more openings for work as the company develops. Productivity in the working environment is a critical part of each company and when top management comprehends this idea, achievement is practically around the bend. Nevertheless, if your company doesn't give you the motivating force to expand productivity, you might need to begin searching for another employment on the grounds that the company is not competent enough to retain the employees (Bockerman 290-302). Part D Each occupation has an arrangement of quailed specialists, which can be utilized to instate the employments' space. The inquiry is the means by which to dispose of the designers at run time. Unmistakably every architect can just take at most one early occupation. That is to say, every early employment must be appointed to various specialists. Accordingly, we can essentially utilize the built-in all different. That is to say, when an early employment is doled out to a designer E, the architect E will be quickly expelled from all other early occupations. The same strategy likewise applies to last occupations. Aside from utilizing the above imperative on right on time/last employments; there is another sort of requirement, i.e. the time imperative, which can be utilized to dispose of architects from the 4 starting spaces. The thought is that every specialist just has a relaxed work time; the more occupations relegated to the architect, the shorter the extra time left. On the off chance that we work out which employment can no more t in a specialist's leisure time, then we can dispense with the architect from this present occupations' space powerfully (Wells 2002). This is a considerably more effective forward checking requirement. User dismissal- An expansive group of designers blazing through undertaking stores at the rate of $70,000 every day takes three months (without transitional turning points) to convey a framework capacity that is rejected by the end client(i Liviu 2014). Arrangement: Actualize Agile Development- Include the client in the development procedure. Make a turning point at regular intervals where the engineers must exhibit some usefulness to the clients. Immature innovation.-An undertaking group is endeavouring to actualize new innovation in a creation domain. The innovation does not perform. A few workarounds are attempted; all come up short. Toward the end of six months, unbeknown to management, nothing has been accomplished. Arrangement: Establish month to month progress audit turning points. Require recorded confirmation of advancement in Technical Investigation Reports (Stober 2009). Management quality, as indicated by the five management capacities, is characterized as: arranging, sorting out, instructing, planning, and controlling. These capacities characterize conventional management, yet they don't manage the general population issues that influence efficiency. These issues, characterized in the 1920s and known as the Hawthorne Effect are for all intents and purposes disregarded in customary management. Managers are still disengaged from the engineers in customary associations. I depict customary managers as chiefs, and current managers as leaders (McManus 2012). It has been gathered that programming development data from a wide range of projects finished from the mid-1960s are really important to see the growth of the programming language. Through today as premises of evaluating work that the people have been included in since the mid-1970s. The data is principally from conventional developments, in spite of the fact that there is sufficient data from new developments to incorporate into the general data. The data starts with Assembly language projects without any devices, nor advanced techniques to bolster them. All of the upgrades in instruments, languages, and techniques have happened in the innovation property of the Effectiveness Formula (Fujita 2004). We have seen no upgrades in the correspondence credit unless we need to incorporate the work area as a correspondence change. Management style has floated almost no past the five elements of management determined in the mid-1900s. The rate of efficiency change, with a few fixes, have adva nced at the rate of around 1.5 source lines for each individual month of exertion (sloc/pm) every year since 1960 due completely from innovation picks up. Correspondence comprises of three sections: visual, aural, and composed. By expelling the visual and aural components, the correspondence is constrained to just 7 percent of the first. Speaking with the programmer in the following cubical through the system is entirely not the same as perusing the composed word. One can send an inquiry and a reaction (additionally email) lands as composed words. We can assist limit correspondence by neglecting to give zones where programmers can impart eye to eye. Detachment likewise decreases inspiration when the general population is not ready to work as a gathering (Designers 1999). Conclusion This is the reason why it is required by the management to use proper planning and execution while planning a project. It is required that there is proper flow of work and that communication does not become a problem. One of the main reasons a company flourishes and makes profits is that their departments are working tirelessly together to help the company grow (Chemuturi 2012). References Attar, A .A. "A Study of Various Factors Affecting Labour Productivity and Methods to Improve It." Journal of Mechanical and Civil Engineering 5, no. 8 (2016): 11-14. Bockerman, P. "Do Job Disamenities raise wages or ruin job dissatisfaction? ." International Journal of Manpower 27, no. 5 (290-302): 1-12. Chemuturi, Murali. Requirements Engineering and Management for Software Development Projects. illustrated. Springer Science Business Media, 2012. Designers, American Society of Interior. Recruiting and retaining qualified employees by design. White paper , 1999. Enshassi, Adnan. "Factors affecting labour productivity in building projects in the gaza strip." Journal of Civil Engineering and Management 13, no. 4 (2007): 245-254. Fujita, Hamido. New Trends in Software Methodologies, Tools, and Techniques: Proceedings of the Third SoMeT W04. IOS Press, 2004. i Liviu, Miha. "Comparative study on software development methodologies." Database Systems Journal 6, no. 9 (2014): 1-20. Leblebici, Demet. "IMPACT OF WORKPLACE QUALITY ON EMPLOYEES PRODUCTIVITY: CASE STUDY OF A BANK IN TURKEY." Journal of business finance and economics 5, no. 2 (2012): 1-8. M, ASCE. "Impact of changeà ¢Ã¢â ¬Ã
¸ s timing on labour Productivity." Journal of Construction Engineering and Managemen 131, no. 5 (2005): 1-11. McManus, John. Risk Management in Software Development Project. Routledge, 2012. Scacchi, Walt. Process Models in Software Engineering. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc, , 2001. Stober, Thomas. Agile Software Development: Best Practices for Large Software Development Projects. illustrated. Springer Science Business Media, 2009. Taiwo, Akinyele Samuel. "The influence of work environment on workers productivity: A case of selected oil and gas industry in Lagos, Nigeria." African Journal of Business Management 4, no. 3 (2010): 299-307. Turner, J. Rodney. "Project Management." INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT 5, no. 8 (2016): 1-13. Wells, Timothy. Dynamic Software Development: Managing Projects in Flux. CRC Press, 2002.
Monday, April 20, 2020
Weber, Durkheim, Marx and how they account for religion Essay Example For Students
Weber, Durkheim, Marx and how they account for religion Essay How do we account for religion its origin, its development, and even its persistence in modern society? This is a question which has occupied many people in a variety of fields for quite a long time. At one point, the answers were framed in purely theological and religious terms, assuming the truth of Christian revelations and proceeding from there. In the 18th and 19th centuries, a more naturalistic approach developed. Instead of needing to believe in the truth of the religion, what was required was just the opposite: intellectual detachment and a suspension of belief. Three people who ended up doing just that were Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Marx studied philosophy in Berlin under William Hegel. Hegels philosophy had a decisive influence upon Marxs own thinking and theories. According to Marx, religion is an expression of material realities and economic injustice. Thus, problems in religion are ultimately problems in society. Religion is not the disease, but merely a symptom. It is used by oppressors to make people feel better about the distress they experience due to being poor and exploited. This is the origin of his comment that religion is the opium of the people. We will write a custom essay on Weber, Durkheim, Marx and how they account for religion specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now People do not have an objective view of the world; they see it from the restricted point of view of their own positions. (p. 35) At times I may seem to be focusing more on economic rather than religious theory, but that is because Marxs basic stance is that everything is always about economics. According to Marx, humans even from their earliest beginnings are not motivated by grand ideas but instead by material concerns, like the need to eat and survive. This is the basic premise of a materialist view of history. At the beginning, people worked together in unity and it wasnt so bad. But eventually, humans developed agriculture and the concept of private property. These two facts created a division of labor and a separation of classes based upon power and wealth. This material organization of society is what Marx calls class consciousness. This, in turn, created the social conflict that drives society. All of this is made worse by capitalism which only increases the disparity between the wealthy classes and the labor classes. Confrontation between them is unavoidable because those classes are driven by historical forces beyond anyones control. Capitalism also creates one new misery: exploitation of surplus value. For Marx, an ideal economic system would involve exchanges of equal value for equal value, where value is determined simply by the amount of work put into whatever is being produced. Capitalism interrupts this ideal by introducing a profit motive a desire to produce an uneven exchange of lesser value for greater value. Profit is ultimately derived from the surplus value produced by workers in factories. A laborer might produce enough value to feed his family in two hours of work, but he keeps at the job for a full day in Marxs time, that might be 12 or 14 hours. Those extra hours represent the surplus value produced by the worker. The owner of the factory did nothing to earn this, but exploits it nevertheless and keeps the difference as profit. Economics, then, are what constitute the base of all of human life and history generating division of labor, class struggle, and all the social institutions which are supposed to maintain the status quo. Those social institutions are a superstructure built upon the base of economics, totally dependent upon material and economic realities but nothing else. All of the institutions which are prominent in our daily lives marriage, church, government, arts, etc. can only be truly understood when examined in relation to economic forces. It should be clear now that religion is one of those social institutions which are dependent upon the material and economic realities in a given society. It has no independent history but is instead the creature of productive forces. As Marx wrote, The religious world is but the reflex of the real world. Marx asserts that religion is only dependent upon economics, nothing else so much so that the actual doctrines of the religions are almost irrelevant. This is a functionalist interpretation of religion understanding religion is not dependent upon the content of beliefs, but what social purpose religion itself serves. Marx believes that religion is an illusion whose chief purpose is to provide reasons and excuses to keep society functioning just as it is. Just as capitalism takes our productive labor and alienates us from its value, religion also takes our qualities our highest ideals and aspirations and alienates us from them, projecting them onto an alien and unknowable being called a god. Religion is meant to create illusory fantasies for the poor. Economic realities prevent them from finding true happiness in this life, so religion tells them that this is OK because they will find that true happiness in the next life. For Marx, the problem lies in the fact that just like an opiate drug fails to fix a physical injury it merely helps you forget your pain and suffering, religion also does not fix the underlying causes of peoples pain and suffering instead, it helps them forget why they are suffering and get them to look forward to an imaginary future when the pain will cease instead of working to change circumstances now. Even worse, this drug of religion is being administered by the same oppressors who are ultimately responsible for the pain and suffering in the first place. Emile Durkheim continued with Marxs theories in his book The Elementary forms of Religious Life that was published just a few years before his death, in 1912. As Marx had argued that every class had its own conscious view of reality, Durkheim went further to demonstrate that even the most basic social ideas as time, space and God can be seen as creations of society. Durkheim suggests that there is not one reality but many and that this reality only exists because of the symbolic creations of humans and their rituals. Durkheim studied the aboriginal tribes of Australia in an effort to understand religion. He concluded that religion always involves a distinction between things that are sacred and things that are profane. Durkheim uses the example of the totem pole that functions to hold the tribe together. The totemic animal, Durkheim believed, was the original focus of religious activity because it was the emblem for a social group, the clan. He thought that the function of religion was to make people willing to put the interests of society ahead of their own desires. All members of the tribe gather together to perform periodic totem rituals, it is these rituals that set the rules for social order. It is forbidden to kill or harm the totem animal and it is therefor forbidden to kill or harm ones fellow tribesmen who name themselves after the totem. In the modern Christian religion, Durkeim argues that the moral commandments such as The Golden Rule and The Ten Commandments are primarily social rules. These rules regulate humans behavior toward eachother and serve to maintain a sense of social unity. People do not follow these rules out of their fear for heaven or hell but for their desire to be accepted by society. If they participate in the religious rituals they will feel a sense of belonging, whereas those who break the rules and avoid the rituals suffer from social isolation. To Durkheim, God is merely a symbol of society. Max Webers sociology is the foundation of scientific sociology of religion in a sense of typological and objective understanding. .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738 , .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738 .postImageUrl , .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738 , .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738:hover , .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738:visited , .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738:active { border:0!important; } .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738:active , .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738 .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u42ef4fe84dab335c6393dd8f42e62738:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: 12 Angry Men EssayRejecting Karl Marxs evolutionary law of class society, or Emile Durkheims sustained law of moral society, Weber established the understanding sociology of the subjective meaning of religious action or inaction. He argued that the transformation of religion allowed for social changes where people could now work together to gain economic wealth. In a primitive society there were many gods, those kinsmen who worshipped the same household god as you could be trusted but those strangers who worshipped a different god were aliens and could not be trusted. The rise of the great world religions, such as Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, separated the idea of the natural world from the idea of the spiritual world. Instead of gods and spirits, people become widely concerned with the idea of heaven and hell. Weber argues that the idea of a universal God allowed for laws based on consistent general principles. Religion itself can also develop in new directions. (P. 133) In primitive religions one prays to the gods to make his crops grow or kill off enemies. In the event of a natural disaster the kinsmen would believe that the gods were angry with them and continue to hold ceremonial sacrifices until the weather was better. It was this fear of the gods that kept the primitive kinsmen from trusting anyone else. In this new spiritual realm, the righteous individual who follows all the rituals and laws of his religion can still hope for salvation even if his has bad fortune. The ideas of good and evil can develop separately from the ideas of worldly success and failure. (P. 134) In Webers writing The Protestant Ethic he discusses the role that religion played in the rise of capitalism. This new religious breakthrough opened many of the doors to industrialization: laying the basis for a moral community of trust underlying peaceful commerce; rationalizing the legal system; motivating people to remake political, social, and economic institutions in keeping with an imperative to transform the world more closely to the ideal. (P. 134) Religion was now responsible for uniting and enlarging a community who could live together in peace with the same moral and ethical code of conduct. Weber believed that the Protestant ethic broke the hold of tradition while it encouraged men to apply themselves rationally to their work. Calvinism, he found, had developed a set of beliefs around the concept of predestination. Followers of Calvin believed that one could not do good works or perform acts of faith to assure your place in heaven. You were either among the elect (in which case you were in) or you were not. However, wealth was taken as a sign by you and your neighbors that you were one of the Gods elect, thereby providing encouragement for people to acquire wealth. The Protestant ethic therefore provided religious sanctions that fostered a spirit of rigorous discipline, encouraging men to apply themselves rationally to acquire wealth. This naturalistic approach to religion represented a fundamental paradigm shift in how religion was to be viewed. Instead of requiring clergy in order to understand religion, the requirement became facts and information and research. Whether you agree with the evaluation of the social function of religion as Marx did, that religion was the opium of the people, as Durkheim did that religion was what made moral society hold together, or with Webers The Protestant ethic, it is obvious that religion played a key role in the development of society. 1- Collins, Makowisky; The Discovery of Society How do we account for religion its origin, its development, and even its persistence in modern society? This is a question which has occupied many people in a variety of fields for quite a long time. At one point, the answers were framed in purely theological and religious terms, assuming the truth of Christian revelations and proceeding from there. In the 18th and 19th centuries, a more naturalistic approach developed. Instead of needing to believe in the truth of the religion, what was required was just the opposite: intellectual detachment and a suspension of belief. Three people who ended up doing just that were Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Marx studied philosophy in Berlin under William Hegel. Hegels philosophy had a decisive influence upon Marxs own thinking and theories. According to Marx, religion is an expression of material realities and economic injustice. Thus, problems in religion are ultimately problems in society. Religion is not the disease, but merely a symptom. It is used by oppressors to make people feel better about the distress they experience due to being poor and exploited. This is the origin of his comment that religion is the opium of the people. People do not have an objective view of the world; they see it from the restricted point of view of their own positions. (p. 35) At times I may seem to be focusing more on economic rather than religious theory, but that is because Marxs basic stance is that everything is always about economics. According to Marx, humans even from their earliest beginnings are not motivated by grand ideas but instead by material concerns, like the need to eat and survive. This is the basic premise of a materialist view of history. At the beginning, people worked together in unity and it wasnt so bad. But eventually, humans developed agriculture and the concept of private property. These two facts created a division of labor and a separation of classes based upon power and wealth. This material organization of society is what Marx calls class consciousness. This, in turn, created the social conflict that drives society. All of this is made worse by capitalism which only increases the disparity between the wealthy classes and the labor classes. Confrontation between them is unavoidable because those classes are driven by historical forces beyond anyones control. Capitalism also creates one new misery: exploitation of surplus value. For Marx, an ideal economic system would involve exchanges of equal value for equal value, where value is determined simply by the amount of work put into whatever is being produced. Capitalism interrupts this ideal by introducing a profit motive a desire to produce an uneven exchange of lesser value for greater value. Profit is ultimately derived from the surplus value produced by workers in factories. A laborer might produce enough value to feed his family in two hours of work, but he keeps at the job for a full day in Marxs time, that might be 12 or 14 hours. Those extra hours represent the surplus value produced by the worker. The owner of the factory did nothing to earn this, but exploits it nevertheless and keeps the difference as profit. Economics, then, are what constitute the base of all of human life and history generating division of labor, class struggle, and all the social institutions which are supposed to maintain the status quo. Those social institutions are a superstructure built upon the base of economics, totally dependent upon material and economic realities but nothing else. All of the institutions which are prominent in our daily lives marriage, church, government, arts, etc. can only be truly understood when examined in relation to economic forces. It should be clear now that religion is one of those social institutions which are dependent upon the material and economic realities in a given society. It has no independent history but is instead the creature of productive forces. As Marx wrote, The religious world is but the reflex of the real world. Marx asserts that religion is only dependent upon economics, nothing else so much so that the actual doctrines of the religions are almost irrelevant. .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9 , .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9 .postImageUrl , .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9 , .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9:hover , .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9:visited , .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9:active { border:0!important; } .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9:active , .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9 .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .uaec7fe42cd0bba60b6ac9d8658eb7cb9:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Adolescent Peer Pressure EssayThis is a functionalist interpretation of religion understanding religion is not dependent upon the content of beliefs, but what social purpose religion itself serves. Marx believes that religion is an illusion whose chief purpose is to provide reasons and excuses to keep society functioning just as it is. Just as capitalism takes our productive labor and alienates us from its value, religion also takes our qualities our highest ideals and aspirations and alienates us from them, projecting them onto an alien and unknowable being called a god. Religion is meant to create illusory fantasies for the poor. Economic realities prevent them from finding true happiness in this life, so religion tells them that this is OK because they will find that true happiness in the next life. For Marx, the problem lies in the fact that just like an opiate drug fails to fix a physical injury it merely helps you forget your pain and suffering, religion also does not fix the underlying causes of peoples pain and suffering instead, it helps them forget why they are suffering and get them to look forward to an imaginary future when the pain will cease instead of working to change circumstances now. Even worse, this drug of religion is being administered by the same oppressors who are ultimately responsible for the pain and suffering in the first place. Emile Durkheim continued with Marxs theories in his book The Elementary forms of Religious Life that was published just a few years before his death, in 1912. As Marx had argued that every class had its own conscious view of reality, Durkheim went further to demonstrate that even the most basic social ideas as time, space and God can be seen as creations of society. Durkheim suggests that there is not one reality but many and that this reality only exists because of the symbolic creations of humans and their rituals. Durkheim studied the aboriginal tribes of Australia in an effort to understand religion. He concluded that religion always involves a distinction between things that are sacred and things that are profane. Durkheim uses the example of the totem pole that functions to hold the tribe together. The totemic animal, Durkheim believed, was the original focus of religious activity because it was the emblem for a social group, the clan. He thought that the function of religion was to make people willing to put the interests of society ahead of their own desires. All members of the tribe gather together to perform periodic totem rituals, it is these rituals that set the rules for social order. It is forbidden to kill or harm the totem animal and it is therefor forbidden to kill or harm ones fellow tribesmen who name themselves after the totem. In the modern Christian religion, Durkeim argues that the moral commandments such as The Golden Rule and The Ten Commandments are primarily social rules. These rules regulate humans behavior toward eachother and serve to maintain a sense of social unity. People do not follow these rules out of their fear for heaven or hell but for their desire to be accepted by society. If they participate in the religious rituals they will feel a sense of belonging, whereas those who break the rules and avoid the rituals suffer from social isolation. To Durkheim, God is merely a symbol of society. Max Webers sociology is the foundation of scientific sociology of religion in a sense of typological and objective understanding. Rejecting Karl Marxs evolutionary law of class society, or Emile Durkheims sustained law of moral society, Weber established the understanding sociology of the subjective meaning of religious action or inaction. He argued that the transformation of religion allowed for social changes where people could now work together to gain economic wealth. In a primitive society there were many gods, those kinsmen who worshipped the same household god as you could be trusted but those strangers who worshipped a different god were aliens and could not be trusted. The rise of the great world religions, such as Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, separated the idea of the natural world from the idea of the spiritual world. Instead of gods and spirits, people become widely concerned with the idea of heaven and hell. Weber argues that the idea of a universal God allowed for laws based on consistent general principles. Religion itself can also develop in new directions. (P. 133) In primitive religions one prays to the gods to make his crops grow or kill off enemies. In the event of a natural disaster the kinsmen would believe that the gods were angry with them and continue to hold ceremonial sacrifices until the weather was better. It was this fear of the gods that kept the primitive kinsmen from trusting anyone else. In this new spiritual realm, the righteous individual who follows all the rituals and laws of his religion can still hope for salvation even if his has bad fortune. The ideas of good and evil can develop separately from the ideas of worldly success and failure. (P. 134) In Webers writing The Protestant Ethic he discusses the role that religion played in the rise of capitalism. This new religious breakthrough opened many of the doors to industrialization: laying the basis for a moral community of trust underlying peaceful commerce; rationalizing the legal system; motivating people to remake political, social, and economic institutions in keeping with an imperative to transform the world more closely to the ideal. P. 134) Religion was now responsible for uniting and enlarging a community who could live together in peace with the same moral and ethical code of conduct. Weber believed that the Protestant ethic broke the hold of tradition while it encouraged men to apply themselves rationally to their work. Calvinism, he found, had developed a set of beliefs around the concept of predestination. Followers of Calvin believed that one could not do good works or perform acts of faith to assure your place in heaven. You were either among the elect (in which case you were in) or you were not. However, wealth was taken as a sign by you and your neighbors that you were one of the Gods elect, thereby providing encouragement for people to acquire wealth. The Protestant ethic therefore provided religious sanctions that fostered a spirit of rigorous discipline, encouraging men to apply themselves rationally to acquire wealth. This naturalistic approach to religion represented a fundamental paradigm shift in how religion was to be viewed. Instead of requiring clergy in order to understand religion, the requirement became facts and information and research. Whether you agree with the evaluation of the social function of religion as Marx did, that religion was the opium of the people, as Durkheim did that religion was what made moral society hold together, or with Webers The Protestant ethic, it is obvious that religion played a key role in the development of society. 1- Collins, Makowisky; The Discovery of Society How do we account for religion its origin, its development, and even its persistence in modern society? This is a question which has occupied many people in a variety of fields for quite a long time. At one point, the answers were framed in purely theological and religious terms, assuming the truth of Christian revelations and proceeding from there. In the 18th and 19th centuries, a more naturalistic approach developed. Instead of needing to believe in the truth of the religion, what was required was just the opposite: intellectual detachment and a suspension of belief. Three people who ended up doing just that were Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)