Friday, January 24, 2020

Moliere Essay -- Biography Bio Biographies Jean-Baptiste Poquelin

Moliere is undoubtedly one of the most interesting and famous French writers ever. His comedic plays capture the reader with a a perfect blend of intelligent and slap stick jokes. He mastered the "strange enterprise of amusing decent people"(Guicharnaud, 2) with this simple philosophy: "Nothing is more effective(in making people laugh) then holding up the mirror to nature."(Guicharnaud, 21) Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was born in Paris on January 15, 1662. His father and Mother where both interior decorators for the king, although his mother died when Jean-Baptise was ten years of age. He was sent to College de Claremont, an aristocratic Jesuit institution. Poquelin took a degree in law, which he never used in practice, and moved back to work with his father. When he turned of age, he shocked his family by declaring he would not succeed his fathers position. Instead , he took the stage name "Moliere", and began his career as a thespian. He spent a short time in a debtor's prison and then immediately fled Paris. Thus began the most important stage in Moliere's young life. Moliere wondered about France, learning the trade of which he would eventually master, and become famous for. He learned how to handle everything about the stage. From writing, to acting, to controlling unhappy crowds that where armed with fruits and vegetables as missiles. Immediately, his own skits and plays where a success. His entire career was almost one of continuous success. He worked his own theater, with his own troupe(organization of actors) of which he was president. Louis the XIV was one of his biggest patrons. For fifteen years he managed, wrote, acted and organized performance at his theater. On February 17, 1673 Moli... ... to make them realize there false preciosity. He succeeds in mortifying them, and they depart from his home. In his time, the effort towards distinction became very popular. Although to us some of the ridulous antics of the two girls trying to seem prestigous are too far fetched to be realistic, they are "exact, not exagerated."(Bishop, 3) In writing it, he made many realize how ridiculous their actions where, maybe aleaving his anoyance. This practice though, still exists today. Too a good portion of the poplulation it will be a way of life. Now a days many young people attempt to be "cool" by buying the latest clothes and practicing all the latest trends. This is of course an effort to be more prestigious to there peers, and thus is human nature. As with all Moliere plays, they are still relevant in todays world, after all human nature is ageless.

Thursday, January 16, 2020

The True Purpose of Education

The purpose of a universal public education system can be debated, but originally, in the 1830’s, Horace Mann reformed the American school system in order to give all children the basis on which to learn and become judicious citizens. As public schooling has evolved throughout the years, the purpose of education has been slowly vanishing, being replaced by monotonous routines and pointless activities done by students that no longer are interested in learning, but getting good grades instead.The true purpose of learning isn’t being addressed properly in schools, and it isn’t being recognized by those who attend school in order to learn. In ‘An Education’, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson paints a picture of what an education is supposed to provide for a pupil. He writes, â€Å"The function of opening and feeding the human mind is not to be filled by any mechanical or military method†¦you must not neglect the form, but secure the essentials† (para. 9).In a sense, Emerson argues that the purpose of education is, not to mold a judicious citizen that has basic understanding of certain topics, but to guide and ultimately unleash the genius and determination in every man by giving them the essentials to learning. On the other hand, Mann in ‘Report of the Massachusetts Board of Education’ uses the analogy of Feudalism to show that when education is not made a mandatory opportunity for all, society gets broken into classes, like Feudalism, in which the rich and powerful abuse the poor and uneducated.Here we see a specific clash of opinions on what education is supposed to provide for an individual person, and a society. Although Emerson’s essay may seem less subjective than Mann’s, I believe Emerson holds a more broad understanding of what an education can give to a person. There are many cases in which twelve years of public school do not provide a student with the passion or direction in order to live a life full of learning and accomplishment, when twelve years of public education doesn’t provide an exceptional education.The solution might not be to end public schooling, but to begin public acceptance of young students becoming avid learners instead of teacher’s pets, self advocates instead of disabled pupils. Leon Botstein in ‘Let Teenagers Try Adulthood’ proposes that the answer to such an out of date and flawed institution is a world where sixteen year olds are â€Å"prepared to be taken seriously and to develop the motivations and interests that will serve them well in adult life† (para. 11). Being a 16 year old myself, I often wonder hat that would be like; if other adults didn’t know I attend high school or if that was completely irrelevant to begin with. As this is a nice thought, it is also a minor detail in the larger scheme of things. I find the solution of empowering students to be curious and to seek out what they want fr om schools to be far more superior. The public school system can indeed live up to the standard Emerson set for a great education; it just has to be changed. An excellent teacher has the power to provide students with the essentials to learning, good listening skills for example.However, public schools don’t often produce excellent students or teachers, and this is exactly what starts the banal cycle again. To what extent do our schools serve the goals of a true education? Our schools, being the student body, the leaders, and everything in between are too caught up in the everyday cycle of busy work and assessments, to realize that these methods need to be replaced with new ones that open the minds of students to what they can fulfill with the right passion for their education and the true purpose of being educated.

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

The Reagan Doctrine To Wipe Out Communism

The Reagan Doctrine was a strategy implemented by U.S. President Ronald Reagan intended to eradicate communism and end the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Throughout Reagan’s two terms in office from 1981 to 1989, and extending to the end of the Cold War in 1991, the Reagan Doctrine was the focal point of U.S. foreign policy. By reversing several aspects of the policy of dà ©tente with the Soviet Union developed during the Jimmy Carter Administration, the Reagan Doctrine represented an escalation of the Cold War. Key Takeaways: The Reagan Doctrine The Reagan Doctrine was the element of U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy dedicated to ending the Cold War by eradicating communism.The Reagan Doctrine represented a reversal of the Carter Administration’s less proactive policy of dà ©tente with the Soviet Union.The Reagan Doctrine combined diplomacy with direct U.S. assistance to armed anti-communist movements in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.Many world leaders and historians credit the Reagan Doctrine as having been the key to the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Functionally, the Reagan Doctrine combined the tense brand of Cold War atomic diplomacy as practiced by the United States since the end of World War II, with the addition of overt and covert assistance to anti-communist guerrilla â€Å"freedom fighters.† By assisting armed resistance movements in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, Reagan sought to â€Å"roll back† the influence of communism on the governments in those regions. Prominent examples of implementation of the Reagan Doctrine included Nicaragua, where the United States covertly assisted the Contra rebels fighting to oust the Cuban-backed Sandinista government, and Afghanistan, where the U.S. provided material support to the Mujahideen rebels fighting to end the Soviet occupation of their country. In 1986, Congress learned that the Reagan administration had acted illegally in secretly selling arms to the Nicaraguan rebels. The resulting infamous Iran-Contra affair, while a personal embarrassment and political setback to Reagan, failed to slow the continued implementation of his anti-communist policy during the presidency of George H.W. Bush.  Ã‚   History of the Reagan Doctrine During the late 1940s, President Harry S. Truman had established a doctrine of â€Å"containment† in regard to communism intended only to limit the ideology from spreading beyond the Soviet bloc nations in Europe. In contrast, Reagan based his foreign policy on the â€Å"roll-back† strategy developed by John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower committing the United States to actively attempt to reverse the political influence of the Soviet Union. Reagan’s policy differed from Dulles’ largely diplomatic approach in that it relied on the overt active military support of those fighting against communist dominance. As Reagan first took office, Cold War tensions had reached their highest point since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Growingly suspicious of the country’s expansionist motives, Reagan publicly described the Soviet Union as â€Å"an evil empire† and call for the development of space-based missile defense system so fantastically high-tech that Regan’s critics would dub it â€Å"Star Wars.† On January 17, 1983, Reagan approved National Security Decision Directive 75, officially declaring U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union to be â€Å"to contain and over time reverse Soviet expansionism,† and to â€Å"support effectively those Third World states that are willing to resist Soviet pressures or oppose Soviet initiatives hostile to the United States, or are special targets of Soviet policy.† The Strategy of The Great Communicator Nicknamed â€Å"The Great Communicator,† Reagan made giving the perfect speech at the perfect time a key strategy of his Reagan Doctrine. The ‘Evil Empire’ Speech President Reagan first expressed his belief in the need for a specific policy to deal proactively with the spread of communism in a speech on March 8, 1983, during which he referred to the Soviet Union and its allies as the â€Å"evil empire† in a growingly dangerous â€Å"struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.† In the same speech, Reagan urged NATO to deploy nuclear missiles in Western Europe to counter the threat posed by Soviet missiles then being installed in Eastern Europe.   The ‘Star Wars’ Speech In a nationally-televised speech on March 23, 1983, Reagan sought to defuse Cold War tensions by proposing an ultimate missile defense system he claimed could â€Å"achieve our ultimate goal of eliminating the threat posed by strategic nuclear missiles.† The system, officially called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) by the Department of Defense and â€Å"Star Wars† by pundits and critics, was to employ advanced space-based weapons like lasers and subatomic particle guns, along with mobile ground-based missiles, all controlled by a dedicated system of super-computers. While acknowledging that many, if not all of the necessary technologies were still theoretical at best, Reagan claimed the SDI system could make nuclear weapons â€Å"impotent and obsolete.† 1985 State of the Union Address In January 1985, Reagan began his second term by using his State of the Union address to urge the American people to stand up to the Communist-ruled Soviet Union and its allies he had called the â€Å"Evil Empire† two years earlier.   In his opening remarks on foreign policy, he dramatically declared. â€Å"Freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few; it is the universal right of all God’s children,† adding that the â€Å"mission† of America and all Americans must be to â€Å"nourish and defend freedom and democracy.† â€Å"We must stand by all our democratic allies,† Reagan told Congress. â€Å"And we must not break faith with those who are risking their lives—on every continent, from Afghanistan to Nicaragua—to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth.† He memorably concluded, â€Å"Support for freedom fighters is self-defense.† With those words, Reagan seemed to be justifying his programs of military assistance for the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, whom he had once called the â€Å"moral equal of the Founding Fathers;† the mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan fighting the Soviet occupation, and anti-communist Angolan forces embroiled in that nation’s civil war. Reagan Tells the Soviets to ‘Tear Down This Wall’ On June 12, 1987, President Reagan, standing under a larger-than-life white marble bust of Vladimir Lenin at Moscow State University in West Berlin, publicly challenged the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to dismantle the infamous Berlin Wall that had separated democratic West and communist East Berlin since 1961. In a characteristically eloquent speech, Reagan told the crowd of mostly young Russians that â€Å"freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things.† Reagan's "Tear Down This Wall" Speech. The Reagan Foundation. Then, directly addressing the Soviet Premier, Reagan declared, â€Å"General Secretary Gorbachev if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!† Surprisingly, the speech received little notice from the media until 1989, after Mr. Gorbachev had indeed â€Å"torn down that wall.† The Grenada War In October 1983, the tiny Caribbean island nation of Grenada was rocked by the assassination of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and the overthrow of his government by a radical Marxist regime. When Soviet money and Cuban troops began flowing into Grenada, the Reagan administration acted to remove the Communists and restore a democratic pro-American government. On October 25, 1983, nearly 8,000 U.S. ground troops supported by air strikes invaded Grenada, killing or capturing 750 Cuban soldiers and setting up a new government. Though it had some negative political fallout in the United States, the invasion clearly signaled that the Reagan administration would aggressively oppose communism anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. The End of the Cold War Reagan’s supporters pointed to his administration’s successes in aiding the contras in Nicaragua and the mujahideen in Afghanistan as evidence that the Reagan Doctrine was making headway in reversing the spread of Soviet influence. In the 1990 Nicaraguan elections, the Marxist Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega was ousted by the more American-friendly National Opposition Union. In Afghanistan, the Mujahideen, with the support of the U.S., succeeded in forcing the Soviet military to withdraw. Reagan Doctrine advocates contend that such successes laid the foundation for the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.   Many historians and world leaders praised the Reagan Doctrine. Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990, credited it with helping to end the Cold War. In 1997, Thatcher said that the doctrine had â€Å"proclaimed that the truce with communism was over,† adding that, â€Å"The West would henceforth regard no area of the world as destined to forego its liberty simply because the Soviets claimed it to be within their sphere of influence.† Sources and Further Reference Krauthammer, Charles. The Reagan Doctrine. Time magazine, April 1, 1985.Allen, Richard V. The Man Who Won the Cold War. hoover.org.U.S. Aid to Anti-Communist Rebels: The Reagan Doctrine and Its Pitfalls. Cato Institute. June 24, 1986.25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.