Thursday, January 30, 2020
A Research Paper on G.K. Chesterton and The Man Who Was Thursday Essay Example for Free
A Research Paper on G.K. Chesterton and The Man Who Was Thursday Essay While doing research on G.K. Chesterton and his literary masterpiece, I came upon this article on Gilbert Magazine in which his answer to the question â€Å"What is the difference between progress and growth?†was posted. To this question, he answered: The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside of us.            First of all, I didnt even know he has a magazine. Secondly, since I have never heard of him before, I ask myself why on earth has it taken so long for me to discover such an amazing man? His statement above is just one of the marvelous pithy quotations of a man who never earned a doctorate and, in fact, never even attended a university. I have read some of them and I am amazed at how he can say something about everything and says it better than everybody else.            It is with utter delight that I am taking this journey to the discovery and uncovering of a genius – a journalist, a debater, an artist, a happy man – for in discovering him, I discover passion, wisdom, and myself. G.K. Chesterton: A Poet, Storyteller, and Ironist            G.K. Chesterton cannot be summed up in one sentence. Nor in one paragraph. With all the fine biographies I have encountered that have been written of him, I dont know if the Gilbert Keith Chesterton has really been captured between the covers of those books. In the first place, how could one simplify a man of such complex talents? He was very good at expressing himself, but more importantly, he had something very good to express – the reason why he was one of the greatest thinkers and writers of the 20th century and a champion of the Roman Catholic religion. K. Chesterton is alive and kicking today in a way that most of his contemporaries are not precisely because he enunciated clearly and forcefully the fundamental principles in the light of which issues, whether of today or of yesterday, can be confronted intelligently, and he has dedicated this extraordinary intellect and creative power to the reform of English government and society. Literary types would laud him for his poetry and novels and detective stories and plays; social critics would approve him for his prescient admonitions about eugenics and nihilism and socialism; champions of domestic democracy would like his doctrine of distributism; philosophers would be challenged by his insights and quips; the fundamentalist Christian would defend him for defending Christianity, and the Catholic Christian would enjoy the enjoyment Chesterton derived from his Catholicism. This is a multifaceted man.            Gilbert was a day boy at St. Paul’s. The masters rated him as an under-achiever, but he earned some recognition as a writer and debater. Although he never went to college, he proved that genius cannot be tied down to the rules of the academy, nor need we be subservient to the prejudices of the academy in evaluating genius. Chesterton, in fact, chose to be a journalist, because in that role he could think most profoundly, powerfully, cogently, and effectively.            He was vitally concerned with the injustices of Great Britain to its dependencies. He progressed from newspaper to public debate. He used logic, laughter, paradox, and his own winning personality to show that imperialism was destroying English patriotism.            In 1900 he published his first literary works, two volumes of poetry. In 1900 he met Hilaire Belloc, and in 1901 he married Frances Blogg. These events were two of the great influences in his life. From 1904 to 1936 Chesterton published nearly a dozen novels, the most important being The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904) and The Man Who Was Thursday (1908). In 1911 Chesterton created the ‘‘Father Brown’’ detective stories. During his literary career he published 90 books and numerous articles. He poured out a wealth of lighthearted essays, historical sketches, and metaphysical and polemical works, together with such well-known poems as ‘‘The Ballad of the White Horse,’’ ‘‘Lepanto,’’ and the drinking songs from The Flying Inn. Among his major critical works are studies of Robert Browning (1903) and Charles Dickens (1906). Prodigiously talented, Chesterton also illustrated a number of Belloc’s light works.            Chesterton spoke of himself as primarily a journalist. He contributed to and helped edit Eye Witness and New Witness. He edited G. K.’s Weekly, which advocated distributism, the social philosophy developed by Belloc. Chesterton’s overriding concern with political and social injustice is reflected in Heretics (1905) and Orthodoxy (1909), perhaps his most important work.            I could say that Chesterton was not a philosopher in the sense of one who, like Plato or Aristotle, Aquinas or Bonaventure, Descartes or Kant, Hegel or Kierkegaard, made original contributions to the history of human reflection on the reality of the real. We can, however, say that he made two remarkable contributions which are still immensely worthwhile today: (1) he was unmatched in his ability to satirize the philosophical foibles of his day; and (2) although his philosophy was not unique his manner of expressing it was unique; one cannot read him, even today, without being again and again suddenly pulled up short. In view of his perennial concern with ideas and with ideas that count, with ultimates he has to be called a philosopher, not merely, however, as a lover of wisdom, but as one who possessed a certain kind of intuitive wisdom.            Throughout his life, G.K. Chesterton was one of the most colorful and loved personalities of literary England. To his intellectual gifts he added gaiety, wit, and warm humanity that endeared him even to his antagonists. This English author, journalist, and artist was born in London on May 29, 1874. He died at his home in Beaconsfield on June 14, 1936, but it doesnt matter. To those who know him and are passionate readers of his works, his wisdom lives on. To those like me who simply stumbled upon him, he lives again. In our hearts, his wisdom is timeless. The Man Who Was Thursday: A Masterpiece of a Non-Degree Holder Genius            Versatility of topic, address, genre, device, whatever more there is in the heaven and earth of mind and spirit brought to letterssuch is the hallmark and mandate of Chesterton. He can be straightforward and for right, crisp and to the point, or witty, with a certain malice aforethought. He can take the way of irony or simply snort when his patience is exhausted. He can soar with angelic sweep or swoop like a bird of prey. His descriptive hand is as authentic as any, as witness this from the beginning of The Man Who Was Thursday: The suburb of Saffron Park lay on the sunset side of London, as red and ragged as a cloud of sunset. It was built of a bright brick throughout; its skyline fantastic its ground plan wild. More especially this attractive unreality fell upon it about nightfall when the extravagant roofs were dark against the afterglow and the whole insane village seemed as separate as a drifting cloud. This . . . was more strongly true of the many nights of local festivity, when the little gardens were often illuminated, and the big Chinese lanterns glowed in the dwarfish trees like some fierce and monstrous fruit.            The Man Who Was Thursday was the phantasmagoric 1908 novel of eccentric anarchists, philosopher-detectives and a riddle-writing criminal mastermind who just might be God. Subtitled A Nightmare, this masterpiece by G.K. Chesterton better known for his Father Brown detective series mingles theological brainteasing with cloak-and-dagger capers like a cross-country balloon chase and a  bombing conspiracy fomented over jam and crumpets.            This metaphysical thriller spirals out madly from a marvelous premise: a London counterintelligence chief has formed a corps of â€Å"policemen who are also philosophers.†An initiate tells the books hero Gabriel Syme, who is with the British police: The ordinary detective goes to pot-houses to arrest thieves; we go to artistic tea-parties to detect pessimists. The ordinary detective discovers from a ledger or a diary that a crime has been committed. We discover from a book of sonnets that a crime will be committed We say that the most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher.            Soon after joining these vigilantes, he was hired by an unknown, unseen man to infiltrate the noted anarchist movement, making him stumble upon an anarchist conspiracy to destroy civilization and morality itself. He starts with a loudmouthed poet of disorder, Gregory, and follows him into a meeting of the anarchists. Gregory is forced to keep Gabriels identity a secret for his own sake, for he himself had led the policeman into their secret hideaway.            The undercover Gabriel manages to get elected as one of the seven top men in the organization, alias Thursday, much to Gregorys silent chagrin. Gabriel meets with the other members of the council, all of who appear to be dark and dreadfully evil most of all the President, the huge mountain of a man called Sunday. Little by little, however, Gabriel realizes that the other five people under Sunday are not at all evil, but all of them spies from the police!            In the process, however, Gabriel succeeds in getting an entire French countryside to think he and his new friends are really anarchists (meanwhile they are thinking, or wondering in disbelief, that the entire countryside is full of anarchists after them). They nearly get lynched. When things are settled, this group of undercover police go back to England to seek out Sunday, whom they soon find is the very man who hired them to infiltrate the council in the first place! Sunday leads them on a strange and wild chase, during which the six philosophize about the nature of their strange antagonist.            Phantasmagoric escapades proliferate, and police pursuit collides with the carnivalesque nature of the universe. They realize that they have been seeing him from behind, and from behind he looks brutal; but the apparent evil was misleading. The journey ends at a palatial estate where the six are treated like kings, and finally see Sunday for who he is The Sabbath, the peace of God. The council of anarchists has turned into a High Council commemorating the Seven Days of Gods Creation.            The purpose of Sunday as the evil anarchist was to bring forth good through the others to urge them on to unnatural virtue. As they were fighting, they were fighting Satan. As the hearers grow indignant at Sundays using them for his purposes and allowing them to go through such trials, the paradoxical Problem of Evil seems somehow resolved. The last question asked of the strange man as he recedes into space is Have you ever suffered? and the answer the Christian knows is whispered from the distance. The last scene sees Gabriel Syme waking from his reverie, and chatting philosophy with the other Poet of Saffron Park, Gregory.             Chesterton offers up one highly colored enigma after another in The Man That Was Thursday. He truly knows how to create an atmosphere of hallucinatory suspense, to use the fantastic and paradoxical and fugitive to glimpse the other side of God. In an article published the day before his death, he called this literary masterpiece of his, â€Å"a very melodramatic sort of moonshine.†I guess thats how we would describe a novel set in a phantasmagoric London where policemen are poets and anarchists camouflage themselves as, well, anarchists. By turns hilarious and terrifying, Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday is a lyrical search for truth in a world where nothing is what it seems.            This is not a book. This is a glorious experience. Works Cited Bloom, Harold. Modern Horror Writers (Writers of English). New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1994. Chesterton, G.K. The Autobiography of G.K. Chesterton. New York: Sheed Ward, 1936. Chesterton, G.K. The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare. New York: Dodd, Mead Company, 1908. Coren, Michael. Gilbert, The Man Who Was G.K. Chesterton. New York: Paragon House, 1990. Dale, Alzina Stone. The Outline of Sanity: A Biography of G.K. Chesterton. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1982. Dale, Alzina Stone. The Art of G.K. Chesterton. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1985. Ffinch, Michael. G.K. Chesterton. San Francisco: Harper Row, 1986. â€Å"More letters asking Whats the Difference?.†Gilbert Magazine Outlining Sanity. 30 November 2007 http://www.gilbertmagazine.com/page_16.html Titterton, W.R. G.K. Chesterton: A Portrait. Folcroft, Pennsylvania: Folcroft Library
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
The Dystopian Society Depicted in Brave New World, V for Vendetta, an
It is commonplace for individuals to envision a perfect world; a utopian reality in which the world is a paradise, with equality, happiness and ideal perfection. Unfortunately, we live in a dystopian society and our world today is far from perfection. John Savage, from Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, V, from V for Vendetta by James McTeigue and Offred, from The Handmaid’s Tale by Margret Attwood, are all characters in a dystopian society. A dystopia is the vision of a society in which conditions of life are miserable and are characterized by oppression, corruption of government, and abridgement of human rights. Unfortunately, corruption is government is a phenomenon far too prevalent in today’s world. In the movie V for Vendetta, V is attempting to exact revenge for the many homosexuals who were taken and murdered by the government. As one of the few survivors of this genocide, V devotes his life to pursuing those responsible. It is V’s belief that the government has misappropriated too much power from the citizenry and as a result destroyed the nation’s democratic framework. He says, â€Å"People must not be afraid of their government. Government should be afraid of their people.†The power should be in the people’s hands, not the government. V uses violence to get his revenge and causes a great deal of chaos and rebellion against the government. He says, â€Å"Violence can be used for good.†It is ironic that the only way to fight against this government is through violence, rather than protests. Our government is democratic, but their government, in Britain, is a repressive dictatorship. Finch, a government agent, says, â€Å"If our government was responsible for deaths of almost a hundred thousand people†¦would you really want to know?... ...ourse, stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.†The struggle between happiness and society shows a society where true happiness has been forfeited to form a perfect order. Society will never be perfect. Equality will never be sustained. A dystopian society will always have corruption of government. Corruption is present all around the world but is swept under the rug. Abridgment of human rights happens every day in our country or another. Oppression is the cause for all the sadness in our world. There will be always selfishness in dystopia. One must sink for another to rise, but â€Å"good doesn’t mean good for everyone. It means worst for someone.â€
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Criminal Justice Essay
In my essay I will explicate how the various aspect of criminal justice relate to one another as well as why it so important in society. Criminal Justice refers to the facet of social justice that concern violators of criminal law. The community interest within the criminal justice system demands the apprehension and punishment of law violators (Schmalleger, 2012, pg. 7). The concept of criminal justice is that someone or persons accused of crimes are innocent till proven guilty though the proof is overwhelming. The three major elements of the criminal justice system are the police, the courts and the correctional facility and everyone play a major role within the criminal justice system. These processes involve a series of steps starting with a criminal investigation and ending with the discharge of a convicted offender from correctional supervision. The primary element of the criminal justice system is law enforcement. Police are public agencies whose functions are to take care of order within the community, manage crime by implementing the criminal law, and supply accommodations. They assist the prosecution by getting proof compulsory to convict an offender in court. Within the policing method the subsequent problems are dealt with: the crime, initial contact either with the victim or the suspect, investigation, apprehend and custody. The second element is that the court system. This is where the person charged with committing a criminal offense has their case determined by a judge or jury. It’s within the court system where justice and truth prevails. It’s the prosecutors’ job to ascertain his or her case. The defense is there for the offender and therefore the judge is there to stay order on each side. Within the court process charging, preliminary hearing perceiving of whether or not or not an arraignment or grand jury hearing, bail or detention, plea negotiations, trail/adjudication and sentencing takes place. Lastly is the correctional facility. At Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility we’ve been told that our agencies purpose is to up hold the penalization that was imposed by the court, to rehabilitate, and maintain safety. Whether public or behind the fence, we must maintain safety. During this stage it’s determined whether or not you go home or to jail, parole/probation or house apprehend. These agencies process suspects, defendants, and convicted offenders and are interdependent insofar because the selections of one agency have an effect on different agencies. The importance of criminal justice system in our society goes without verbally expressing. If you take a glance around without those systems in place crime rates would be at an all-time high. Applied to society, criminal justice is the system that guarantees fairness and equal treatment to any underneath its guidance. The agencies directly or indirectly associated with the criminal justice system have an effect on everything that transpires in our everyday lives. Law enforcement ascertains that laws are being obeyed; judges ascertain that people who transgress the law are penalization fairly and attorneys ascertain that everybody has a voice in a court of law. The components of the criminal justice system are the police, courts and corrections. All of these components have on common goal and that’s to protect society from crime and criminals. Our criminal justice system plays a vital role in ensuring that this is done. Without our criminal justice system it would be like the quote from Dr. Martin Luther King; â€Å"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere†.
Monday, January 6, 2020
Praseodymium Facts - Element 59
Praseodymium is element 59 on the periodic table with the element symbol Pr. Its one of the rare earth metals or lanthanides. Here is a collection of interesting facts about praseodymium, including its history, properties, uses, and sources. Praseodymium was discovered by Swedish chemist Carl Mosander in 1841, but he did not purify it. He was working on rare earth samples, which contain elements with such similar properties they are extremely hard to separate from each other. From a crude cerium nitrate sample, he isolated an oxide he called lantana, which was lanthanum oxide. Lantana turned out to be a mixture of oxides. One fraction was a pink fraction he called didymium. Per Teodor Cleve (1874) and Lecoq de Boisbaudran (1879) determined didymium was a mixture of elements. In 1885, Austrian chemist Carl von Welsbach separated didymium into praseodymium and neodymium. Credit for the official discovery and isolation of element 59 is generally given to von Welsbach.Praseodymium gets it name from the Greek words prasios, which means green, and didymos, which means twin. The twin part refers to the element being the twin of neodymium in didymium, while green refers to the color of the salt isolated by von Welsbach. Praseody mium forms Pr(III) cations, which are yellowish green in water and glass.In addition to the 3 oxidation state, Pr also occurs in 2, 4, and (unique for a lanthanide) 5. Only the 3 state occurs in aqueous solutions.Praseodymium is a soft silver-colored metal that develops a green oxide coating in air. This coating peels or spalls off, exposing fresh metal to oxidation. To prevent degradation, pure praseodymium is typically stored under a protective atmosphere or in oil.Element 59 is highly malleable and ductile. Praseodymium is unusual in that it is paramagnetic at all temperatures above 1 K. Other rare earth metals are ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic at low temperatures.Natural praseodymium consists of one stable isotope, praseodymium-141. 38 radioisotopes are known, the most stable being Pr-143, which has a half-life of 13.57 days. Praseodymium isotopes range from mass number 121 to 159. 15 nuclear isomers are also known.Praseodymium occurs naturally in the Earths crust at an abu ndance of 9.5 parts per million. It accounts for about 5% of the lanthanides found in the minerals monazite and bastnasite. Seawater contains 1 part per trillion of Pr. Essentially no praseodymium is found in the Earths atmosphere.The rare earth elements have many uses in modern society and are considered extremely valuable. Pr gives a yellow color to glass and enamel. Around 5% of mischmetal consists of praseodymium. The element is used with other rare earths to make carbon arc lights. It colors cubic zirconia yellow-green and may be added to simulated gemstones to mimic peridot. Modern firesteel contains about 4% praseodymium. Didymium, which contains Pr, is used to make glass for protective eyewear for welders and glass blowers. Pr is alloyed with other metals to made powerful rare earth magnets, high strength metals, and magnetocaloric materials. Element 59 is used as a doping agent to make fiber optic amplifiers and to slow light pulses. Praseodymium oxide is an important oxida tion catalyst.Praseodymium serves no known biological function. Like other rare earth elements, Pr exhibits low to moderate toxicity to organisms. Praseodymium Element Data Element Name: Praseodymium Element Symbol: Pr Atomic Number: 59 Element Group: f-block element, lanthanide or rare earth Element Period: period 6 Atomic Weight: 140.90766(2) Discovery: Carl Auer von Welsbach (1885) Electron Configuration: [Xe] 4f3 6s2 Melting Point: 1208 K ​(935  °C, ​1715  °F) Boiling Point: 3403 K ​(3130  °C, ​5666  °F) Density: 6.77 g/cm3 (near room temperature) Phase: solid Heat of Fusion: 6.89 kJ/mol Heat of Vaporization: 331 kJ/mol Molar Heat Capacity: 27.20 J/(mol ·K) Magnetic Ordering: paramagnetic Oxidation States: 5, 4, 3, 2 Electronegativity: Pauling scale: 1.13 Ionization Energies: 1st: 527 kJ/mol2nd: 1020 kJ/mol3rd: 2086 kJ/mol Atomic Radius: 182 picometers Crystal Structure: double hexagonal close-packed or DHCP References Weast, Robert (1984). CRC, Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. Boca Raton, Florida: Chemical Rubber Company Publishing. pp. E110.Emsley, John (2011). Natures Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-960563-7.Gschneidner, K.A., and Eyring, L., Handbook on the Physics and Chemistry of Rare Earths, North Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam, 1978.Greenwood, Norman N.; Earnshaw, Alan (1997). Chemistry of the Elements (2nd ed.). Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN 0-08-037941-9.R. J. Callow, The Industrial Chemistry of the Lanthanons, Yttrium, Thorium and Uranium, Pergamon Press, 1967.
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