Saturday, March 21, 2020

Free Essays on Socialization Agents Of Coming Of Age In Mississippi

Socialization Agents of Coming of Age in Mississippi The title of Anne Moody’s autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, suggests an ongoing process of socialization. The most important socialization agent would be Anne’s family. I believe this because family is the most important factor in a child’s life. They decide how the child will perceive life, and whether or not the child will succeed in life. A child is molded by the way a family treats the child and by their actions. In the autobiography, Anne is abused by her older cousin. She is terrified by the thought of him. I believe this abuse made her stronger when she became older. Her parents divorced when she was five years old. Her father was a womanizer and a gambler. She saw the pain and suffering that her mother went through. She heard her mother crying in the middle of the night because she was depressed. I think the divorce and the pain that she saw made Anne grow up faster than a child that doesn’t go through that. Anne’s family was poor. Her mother was trying to support the children and herself, she barely had enough money to feed the children. Her mother always seemed to be pregnant. When Anne was nine years old, she got her first job. She started working for white women, sweeping and cleaning the white people’s houses. She was proud to bring money home to help feed herself and her family. Anne’s mother was a very strong person in one way, but very weak in another way. She was strong because she managed to hold the family together through many hardships, she kept the children fed and in school. She was weak because she was scared to speak up for herself; she was scared to fight for her rights. She didn’t question how black people were treated; she just took it and moved on. Anne was opposite of her mother, when it came to the weakness. She wasn’t scared to speak up for her rights, she questioned the injustice. Family pla... Free Essays on Socialization Agents Of Coming Of Age In Mississippi Free Essays on Socialization Agents Of Coming Of Age In Mississippi Socialization Agents of Coming of Age in Mississippi The title of Anne Moody’s autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, suggests an ongoing process of socialization. The most important socialization agent would be Anne’s family. I believe this because family is the most important factor in a child’s life. They decide how the child will perceive life, and whether or not the child will succeed in life. A child is molded by the way a family treats the child and by their actions. In the autobiography, Anne is abused by her older cousin. She is terrified by the thought of him. I believe this abuse made her stronger when she became older. Her parents divorced when she was five years old. Her father was a womanizer and a gambler. She saw the pain and suffering that her mother went through. She heard her mother crying in the middle of the night because she was depressed. I think the divorce and the pain that she saw made Anne grow up faster than a child that doesn’t go through that. Anne’s family was poor. Her mother was trying to support the children and herself, she barely had enough money to feed the children. Her mother always seemed to be pregnant. When Anne was nine years old, she got her first job. She started working for white women, sweeping and cleaning the white people’s houses. She was proud to bring money home to help feed herself and her family. Anne’s mother was a very strong person in one way, but very weak in another way. She was strong because she managed to hold the family together through many hardships, she kept the children fed and in school. She was weak because she was scared to speak up for herself; she was scared to fight for her rights. She didn’t question how black people were treated; she just took it and moved on. Anne was opposite of her mother, when it came to the weakness. She wasn’t scared to speak up for her rights, she questioned the injustice. Family pla...

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

John Henry Newmans Definition of a Gentleman

John Henry Newman's 'Definition of a Gentleman' A leader in the Oxford Movement and a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, John Henry Newman  (1801-1890) was a prolific writer and one of the most talented rhetoricians in 19th-century Britain. He served as the first rector of the Catholic University of Ireland (now University College Dublin) and was beatified by the Catholic Church in September 2010. In The Idea of a University, originally delivered as a series of lectures in 1852, Newman provides a compelling definition and defense of a liberal arts education, arguing that the primary purpose of a university is to develop the mind, not dispense information. From Discourse VIII of that work comes A Definition of a Gentleman, a superb example of character writing.  Note Cardinal Newmans reliance on parallel structures  in this extended definition in particular his use of paired constructions  and tricolons. A Definition of a Gentleman [I]t is almost a definition of a gentleman to say he is one who never inflicts pain. This description is both refined and, as far as it goes, accurate. He is mainly occupied in merely removing the obstacles which hinder the free and unembarrassed action of those about him, and he concurs with their movements rather than takes the initiative himself. His benefits may be considered as parallel to what are called comforts or conveniences in arrangements of a personal nature: like an easy chair or a good fire, which do their part in dispelling cold and fatigue, though nature provides both means of rest and animal heat without them. The true gentleman in like manner carefully avoids whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in the minds of those with whom he is cast;all clashing of opinion, or collision of feeling, all restraint, or suspicion, or gloom, or resentment; his great concern being to make everyone at their ease and at home. He has his eyes on all his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd; he can recollect to whom he is speaking; he guards against unseasonable allusions, or topics which may irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He makes light of favours while he does them, and seems to be receiving when he is conferring. He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort, he has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets everything for the best. He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuates evil which he dare not say out. From a long-sighted prudence, he observes the maxim of the ancient sage, that we should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend. He has too much good sense to be affronted at insults, he is too well employed to remember injuries, and too indolent to bear malice. He is patient, forbearing, and resigned, on philosophical principles; he submits to pain, because it is inevitable, to bereavement, because it is irreparable, and to death, because it is his destiny. If he engages in controversy of any kind, his disciplined intellect preserves him from the blundering discourtesy of better, perhaps, but less educated minds; who, like blunt weapons, tear and hack instead of cutting clean, who mistake the point in argument, waste their strength on trifles, misconceive their adversary, and leave the question more involved than they find it. He may be right or wrong in his opinion, but he is too clear-headed to be unjust; he is as simple as he is forcible, and as brief as he is decisive. Nowhere shall we find greater candour, consideration, indulgence: he throws himself into the minds of his opponents, he accounts for their mistakes. He knows the weakness of human reason as well as its strength, its province and its limits. If he be an unbeliever, he will be too profound and large-minded to ridicule religion or to act against it; he is too wise to be a dogmatist or fanatic in his infidelity. He respects piety and devotion; he even supports institutions as venerable, beautiful, or useful, to which he does not assent; he honours the ministers of religion, and it contents him to decline its mysteries without assailing or denouncing them. He is a friend of religious toleration, and that, not only because his philosophy has taught him to look on all forms of faith with an impartial eye, but also from the gentleness and effeminacy of feeling, which is the attendant on civilization. Not that he may not hold a religion too, in his own way, even when he is not a Christian. In that case, his religion is one of imagination and sentiment; it is the embodiment of those ideas of the sublime, majestic, and beautiful, without which there can be no large philosophy. Sometimes he acknowledges the being of God, sometimes he invests an unknown principle or quality with the attributes of perfection. And this deduction of his reason, or creation of his fancy, he makes the occasion of such excellent thoughts, and the starting-point of so varied and systematic a teaching, that he even seems like a disciple of Christianity itself. From the very accuracy and steadiness of his logical powers, he is able to see what sentiments are consistent in those who hold any religious doctrine at all, and he appears to others to feel and to hold a whole circle of theological truths, which exist in his mind no otherwise than as a number of deductions.