Discussion Board Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 5

Discussion Board - Coursework Example Despite the sinful nature of humanity, god is prepared through the use of His power to save the world from sins or problems and restore their initial nature according to God’s promises (Lee, 2010). In my opinion, I totally agree with Paul’s view of the human nature according to Romans 1:18-32. In the contemporary society human nature has been corrupted to reflect the sinful nature of the world. For instance human nature is filled with sinful desires such as homosexuality. The world has experienced a lot of problems and issues as a result of the sinful nature f human beings. Furthermore, it is evident that humanity as a result of its sinful nature has problems. Human beings have turned away from the worship of the one and true God and instead engaged themselves in the worship of idols. Money is considered as an idol of worship among human beings in the contemporary society. Hence, I totally agree with Paul’s view in relation to the nature of

Provinces of the Philippines and Kara David Essay Example for Free

Provinces of the Philippines and Kara David Essay Ang Huling Prinsesa† (The Last Princess) is a documentary from Kara David shown in I-Witness back in 2004. It is a challenging feat for anyone who wants to see and explore a mysterious tradition preserved for decades among some of the mountains isolated communities. I-Witness travels to the Tapaz Mountain, considered the farthest in Capiz, located in the central Philippines island of Panay. Reporter Kara David reaches the community of Rizal Sur, a village that looks just like any other isolated community, where the people living in traditional huts and survive on whatever nature provides them. In the midst of this community, she meets one of the last remaining binukots, 73-year-old Lola (grandmother). This old woman lives in an old hut, just like everybody else in the community. However, she has stayed inside a room in the house ever since she was five years old, living in isolation as the family chosen binukot. Since being chosen the binukot of her tribe, the old woman has worn a veil so that no one can see her face. She is lifted onto a hammock every day so her feet never touch the ground. She is bathed, combed and served only the best food like an ancient princess. Her work is to learn the traditional dances and memorize the tribe’s hours-long epics. Only the binukots learn the epics, which are taught to them orally. Thus, they are also the only ones who may pass the long stories of their ancestors to the next generation. Personal insight Stories of princess were part of our childhood memories. We dream of becoming one during those times. But in Tumandok tribe in Tapaz, Capiz, Philippines, there were women, who were treated like a princess. They are known to be the binukot.

Gulf War Was A Perfect Television War Media Essay

Gulf War Was A Perfect Television War Media Essay The media representation of wars has significantly changed over last years. Previously being just an instrument of coverage and propaganda, now media are considered a competent weapon. The war of real objects is partially being replaced by the war of pictures and sounds, information war (Virilio, 2002). On the one hand, information technologies can be regarded as humane weapon, because they lead to the fewer amounts of victims. On the other hand, they directly influence the mental structures, can fulfill the conscious with false images or distort the perceptions, spread moral panics or create virtual enemies and thus are an intelligent weapon of mass distruction. One of the famous works about the usage of information technologies in the war belongs to French sociologist Jean Baudrillard, and his concept of the Gulf War 1991 as the first television war will be assessed in the essay in correlation with his theories of hyper reality and simulacrum. Those concepts are applied to the media representation of the conflict in South Ossetia. The usefulness of the concept of television war for understanding modern conflicts is proved in conclusion. Hyper reality, simulacrum and information wars Philosophical approach of Baudrillards works is concentrated around two main notions -hyper reality and simulacrum. Both terms are related to the reality of the consumer society. According to Baurillard, we all live in the world, dominated by organized perceptions, while people loose an ability to perceive the real surrounding. Instead they face artificial or adapted environments: assembled chronicles of military operations, coverage of suicidal terrorist acts. Baudrillard (1996) claims that the reality is not only possible to represent, the reality should always be ready for representation and thus it becomes a hyper reality, existing only in simulation. It consists of media and cultural images that simulate the real world. Some of this images are representations of real objects, but aggressive information technologies, television and particularly advertisement create special images, deceiving representations of non-existing objects, which Baudrillard (1998), following Plato, calls simulacra. In postmodern culture, dominated by TV and Internet, the notions of true and false representations are destroyed, as people have access only to simulations of reality, which is no more real than the simulacra representing it. Moreover, we start to believe the maps of reality as more real than own experience and take the hyper reality as the actual environment (Mann, n.d.). Consequently, simulacra, which lost any connection to real things, dont have original or prototype, and can parallel some objects, change the notion of counterfeits or false. So a correlation appears that hyper reality becomes the battlefield and the simulacra the intellectual weapons in conflicts of all levels, from the business competition to wars between countries, which gradually turn into information wars. The most widespread technique of symbolic images usage in information war is propaganda, but now in the form of marketing or PR campaigns. Such campaigns provide the basis for military operations and are a perfect tool to make conform to one side or type of thinking. Thus they are the most integrated and hidden, but also the most pervasive parts of the new wars. The censorship is widespread, because the military-media campaigns require a gap between the event and the audience, and censorship breaks the flow of information, while propaganda specialists feed media with false information (Snow, 2003). In these terms coverage of military operations is now able to influence their process as it was, for example, in the movie Wag the dog, where imaginary war actions of American troops in Albania, staged to shift public interest from the reputation crisis of the president, led to real military response. So, the role of media in the modern wars is not limited to news coverage or propaganda, the media now should be regarded more likely as the fourth front of war. The reasons for it could be different. According to sociologist Paul Virilio (2002), the escalation of cybernetic wars of persuasion and propaganda is the result of graduate changes in weapons. The first, prehistorical, wars were tactical and used weapons of obstruction (ramparts, fortresses). The epoch of political wars made them strategic and reliable on weapons of destruction (bows, missiles). The new period of transpolitical wars is characterized as logistical and uses weapons of communication (telephone, radar, satellites, information carriers), which emerged due to global information networks and tele-surveillance. The turning point of modern epoch is the integration of media and industrial army, where the capability to war without war manifests a parallel information market of propaganda, illusion, dissimulation (Viril io, 2002: 17). The image prevails over the real space and substitutes it, changes the landscape from physical to audiovisual by technological accelerants satellites, internet and high-quality video on TV. The level of media influence is dependent on the communication forms, in which it is carried, because it is possible to frame the report, provided with knowledge of certain mediums advantages (Cottle, 2003). Television with live broadcast and reliance on spectacular images, simulacra, is in these terms the best communication weapon. It makes inefficient the object, but concentrates on its representation; it is not a reality, but a construction of it (Webster, 2002). TV news is often watched with the belief that it indicates, the reality, but in fact it is a version of events, shaped by journalists values and morality. The whole reality begins and ends on television screens, and any critical attitude emerges not an original version of event, but creates other symbolic representation in live images (Webster, 2002). According to Virilio (2002), the live image attracts not critiques, but emotion, apprehension. Thus it involves the spectator to the situation, makes him dependent on televi sual interface, even if the problem doesnt concern him directly. All these advantages were used strategically for the first time in the Gulf War, which Baudrillard (1995) called both a non-existing and a first television war. Gulf War 1991: the first television war Three essays of Baudrillard, referred to events in Iraq during January and February 1991, were published originally in the Liberation and the Guardian and lately collected in one book The Gulf War did not take place. Before the actual war, during the strengthening of American military and propaganda, he claimed that the Gulf War will not take place in reality. During the military actions his catchy slogan was that the Gulf War is not taking place and right after the operation he said that the Gulf War hadnt taken place, because the Western public perceived it just as a series of hyperreal TV images. For Baudrillard, media and especially television do not provide the opportunities for effective communication. Television is the technology of non-communication because it limits the interaction needed for symbolic exchange by giving the large amounts of signs impossible to critically analyze and react (Groening, 2007). A war demands a struggle between counterparts, exchange, communicatio n and interaction (Webster, 2002), while Baudrillard (1995) argued that the USA overloaded the symbolic communication space in this war and moreover, the goals of George Bush and Saddam Hussein were so different that they couldnt even be considered as counterparts. Hussein, a former US ally, was not regarded as the real enemy, and the outcome of the war was predictable both for participants and for audience of war (Mann, n.d.). Researchers express the controversial idea that bombing was the most precise in history and civilian casualties thus were minimized (Kellner, 2008). Consequently, the war can be regarded as hyperreal and overloaded by media provocations. The Gulf War was understood by Paul Virilio (2002) also as a turning point in history. He called it the first information war of images, media-staged event or the first electronic war in the form of televised series, broadcast live by satellite. The difference is that Virilio accepted the idea that the war really had taken place, but it moved to the fourth front of communication weapons and instant information. He warned about the doubling of the front, a communication between place of action the Middle East and place of its immediate reception the whole world, which extends widely over the Iraqi-Saudi border. Turning the battlefield into a theatre with the symbolic counterparts- Hussein and CNN emerges the risk of turning TV audience into fans on the stadium, counting casualties like goals of the favorite team. In comparison with Baudrillard, Virilio considers TV as establishing interactivity between those making war and those watching it. But he has the same idea about the role of common people in war impotent tele-spectators, victims of intelligent weapons and the people who serve them (Virilio, 2002: 47). It is obvious that Baudrillard didnt intend to act like a devils advocate and decline the existence of the Gulf War. He agrees that a massive bombing of military and civil objects took place in Iraq in 1991. And lately he (2002) told readers that official casualties in Iraq were estimated in order of 100Â  000, not counting the losses due to consequent hunger and diseases. But the question is why so few US soldiers died in this war, that it was named a war of zero casualties on the side of allies (Virilio, 2002: 97). After analyzing Baudrillards work, it becomes clear, that despite a catchy slogan in title, in fact the author compares real events with their interpretation, and the central conclusion is that the consequence of real events could hardly be named a war, while a consequence of those events representations was perceived as a real war. This effect was a main reason why he called a Gulf War the first and the perfect television war. US-led coalition relied highly on the television. On the first night of military operation, in Kourou, Ariane rocket launched two broadcasting satellites (Virilio, 2002), and it was a sign of parallel intervention of real forces and television. The leaders decisions were significantly based on intelligence reports, coming not from eye-witnesses, but from news and images. Bush recruited CNN and its owner Ted Turner to transit messages to Iraqi people and thus held diplomacy through interposed images (Virilio, 2002). Coalition forces were ordered not to get engaged in the direct battles with Iraqi army, but to use the means of virtual war in response to Iraqi attempts to turn the conflict into traditional. After interviewing soldiers, who were on the battlefield, Baudrillard (1995) claimed that the Western TV channels, especially CNN, offered audience highly edited reports from Iraq under the shape of live feeds. ABC News through life coverage of the Gulf War convinced the nation that Star Wars works (Bass, 2002). But Hussein used media even more cynically, creating a consequence of the images of hostages and the crying children. Attractive simulacra with no meaning behind were promoted by media of both sides: the CNN journalists with the gas masks in the Jerusalem, drugged and beaten prisoners on Iraqi TV, sea-bird covered in oil and pointing eyes into the Gulf sky (Baudrillard, 1995) and the quintessential symbol the Stealth F117, undetectable bomber, that nobody have seen, but everyone knew. The first object, destructed by F117, was also symbolic the building of Hussein forces communication centre (Virilio, 2002). The effect could be correlated with the essence of the conflicts media coverage: it is possible to see it only in time it happens, there is no time to prepare for it and no sense to watch it afterwards. As the victims of F117 see it just in the moment of action, viewers see the live broadcasts at the same time with the military journalists. The last reasons for perceiving the Gulf War as a television war are its results. Baudrillard and Virilio agreed that nobody fully lost or won in the conflict. Defeated in fact, Hussein remained in power and moreover won the information war. In spite of abilities given by Pentagon, CNN lost that television war, because American government issued a document, restricting the real time of operations from the TV present time (Virilio, 2002). Trying to prevent the American audience from communication weapons of Iraq, US officially imposed censorship and turned the public to the search for new information sources. To conclude, Iraq in 1991 was a place not of real war, but of massive violence and a remote enough zone for creating simulacra and holding a perfect television war. The TV Gulf War could have seemed a perfect simulacrum, a hyperreal situation. It is possible to partially agree with Baudrillards and Virilios argumentation, as it may be really the first example in the war history, when the TV technologies were used as a competent weapon and the whole war was spectacled on TV. But from the humane point of view, the statement the Gulf War did not take place undermines the seriousness of the Iraqi civilians massacre, the consequences for the political situation in Iraq and such consequence as the spread of international terrorism, which now is often perceived as the same symbolic non-event (Baudrillard, 2002): it catches the eye on TV screen when happening somewhere, but is not fully understood as possible to happen with the viewer. Nevertheless, Baudrillards theory is useful for understa nding representations of other modern wars, for example, the recent conflict between Georgia, South Ossetia and Russia. South Ossetia 2008 media war Conflict in South Ossetia will remain in the history of the post-Soviet area as a first war, which media helped to spread from the inter-country to cross-continental level. Known as Georgian-Ossetian war, the conflict in August 2008 turned into confrontation between Georgia and USA on one side and Russia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia on the other. On the 8 August Georgia started a bombing of its separatist region South Ossetia. The next day Russia deployed troops in Ossetia and started military operation against Georgia. The USA government expressed eagerness to intervene, but on the 16 August the ceasefire was signed. The actual political result is recognizing the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia by several countries, leading by Russia, and high tensions in the region. The number of casualties is still discussed and differs from 160 to 2000 on Ossetian side and from 60 to 400 on Georgian. Baudrillards concept of hyperreal television war is the perfect way of understanding this simulacra-rich conflict. The date of its beginning was a sign itself it was the day of opening the Olympic Games in Beijing, when by ancient traditions all the conflicts should be postponed. The violation of symbolic tradition instantly attracted the attention of worlds media. Artillery system Grad, used by Georgian forces as well as totally destructed building of hospital in Ossetian capital Tskhinvali, became symbols of civilian massacre. The anecdotic situation, when American audience mixed the Georgia as the Caucasus country and the US state, and started panics, was spread by media. Russian media discussed the interview with the 12-year-old ossetian girl on the Fox News, where she accuses Georgia, while being roughly interrupted by the journalist (Kukolevsky, 2008). And even unaware people remember Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, nervously chewing his necktie during the live TV inte rview. All those images were born by the war, which Georgian minister Temur Yakobashvili called a war for international public opinion (Collin, 2008). The media became a crucial battlefield in the conflict between Tbilisi and Moscow. The Georgian side claimed that it tried to reconquer its territory while Russian troops illegally invaded into it. Russians responded that Georgian government organized genocide, while Russian mission was to enforce peace. Both sides accused each other of spending millions of dollars on propaganda. Both sides even employed European PR agencies to promote their viewpoint. Georgia, backed by Western allies, from the beginning dominated in the information war. Started with cyberattacks and blocking of Russian TV, it used the help of USA and Great Britain, who didnt engage into real conflict, but actively engaged in the information one. All the leading global media CNN, Fox News, BBC, Sky News, Reuters, Associated Press were pro-Georgian. For example, Sky News showed a video report about the bombings of Tskhinvali by Georgian troops with a title Russia bombs the Georgian region South Ossetia (InoSmi, 2008; CNN, 2008). Georgia used a main advantage of Baudrillards television war that the world revealed the war from TV news. European audience, unaware of remote Caucasus regions, didnt know that some American and European correspondents presented the videos from Ossetian Tskinvali as the videos from Georgia (Vesti, 2009). Even Russian Foreign minister Sergej Lavrov agreed, that Russia lost that information war, but presented it as evidence, that Russia i s not an aggressor, otherwise it would have prepared a successful strategy (RIA Novosti, 2008). Nevertheless, I consider the results of Russian-Georgian information war as controversial as the results of real week-long conflict. The aim of attracting Western support wasnt achieved by any side. For example, German press claimed the conflict broadened the tensions between Russia and the West (Mannteufel, 2008), while some of British media found evidence of Georgia being an aggressor, guilty in war crimes (Milne, 2008). Some analysts consider Georgian media campaign as more effective because, for example, English-speaking ministers were always available for interview (Collin, 2008), but the media coverage was often favorable to Russia. The Russian strategy in this war could have been more effective, if used the overviewed simulacra images actively, because they all were really catchy and could influence the target audiences. Also Russia could have provided the world media with evidence of Georgian genocide by opening an access to a war zone for journalists. Moreover, it could be useful to prepare a strategic crisis communication plans for the possible conflicts of this kind. But anyway, the negative image of Russia, popular among Western media, could undermine by now any communication efforts. To change the situation, Russia should become a part of global media system, which is impossible because of American domination. The main idea of case study is that in August 2008 South Ossetia became a centre not of a real war, which ended in one week, but of an information war, which lasts till now. On this battlefield a little Georgia, backed by Western transnational media, can beat the huge Russia and create herself an image of a victim of Russian military machine (Zinenko, 2008). Thus it proves the thesis of Baudrillard and Virilio, that the wars of new generation are being won or lost in the space of media and information technologies. Conclusion The theoretical concepts of information and especially television wars by Baudrillard and Virilio, engaged in the essay with the real wars in Iraq 1991 and South Ossetia 2008, emerge the question of what Kellner (2005) calls a centrality of media politics in advanced foreign policy. Of course, the idea of hyperreal television war is an ideal model, and by now there was no conflict that has been totally televisual. Critiques of Baudrillard draw an attention to his hyper-postmodern approach (Hegarty, 2004) or lack of meaningful political engagement (Economic expert, n.d.). Nevertheless, the fact remains in both analyzed war cases and in numerous other conflicts of the last decades the media opened the fourth front, created a hyperreal space of mutual information attacks and marketing-style campaigns, used the simulacra-like images to influence the audience and to attract it to one side. Moreover, media become a means of searching allies or oppositely turn back to life the old confrontations, like in case of South Ossetia they emerged a new spiral of Cold War between Russia and the USA (RIA Novosti, 2008). Consequently, the governments of new generation should consider media campaigns as a part of any successful military operations, and the people, who dont want to be manipulated be spectacular images, should try to be less ignorant and more human-oriented.

Are We Now Becoming the Terrorists? Essay -- September 11 Terrorism Es

Are We Now Becoming the Terrorists?    Terrorism is a weapon of the weak. Shut out of the great conversations that shape our histories and unable to control the grand forces that shape our destinies, terrorists strike out in angry desperation to force those they have identified as their oppressors to pay attention to the plight of the alienated and to hear the terrorists' demands. The events of September 11 were just such a gesture. The horror we felt watching a jet flown deliberately into a tall building and watching people leap to their deaths to escape the flames and collapse of the ruined skyscrapers filled us with a strange awe and a feeling of helplessness. We felt forced to pay attention.   The first question on everyone's lips was: what can we do? What can we do to prevent this from happening again? What can we do to punish those responsible? How we answer these questions will decide whether we live in a civilization worth defending, or if we, too, are weak.       This unprecedented attack on American soil brings into focus the connections between our freedoms, our security, and the international system. Our choices over what to do are constrained by the ways these parts of our lives are connected. Our leaders and representatives, responding to the theories and analyses of their advisors and of the think tanks that dedicate themselves to studying such questions, have already begun to speak of September 11 as this generation's Pearl Harbor and the need to prepare for war, and of the trade-offs we will have to make for our security. Their first responses - and those of many of us - are to lash out at those who have wronged us.       However, to lash out now is a path fraught with n... ...saster relief and peacekeepers, but we are the single largest supplier of arms to the already intensely violent Middle East. And because Israel is our strategic ally in the region, we won't even allow discussion of whether its policies towards Palestinians are racist.       If we are to do anything, we must be ready to take a path more difficult than anyone has suggested so far. We must be ready to be thoughtful and sober, and to look for political solutions to the problems in the world that are now producing the threats to our security. Today, we feel like now is the time to act. Our pain, our helplessness, our frustration at discovering we are vulnerable makes us want to take control over our lives again. We are ready to retaliate against acts of angry desperation with anger and despair. But now is not the time to become terrorists ourselves.   

Community policing and Traditional policing Essay

History reveals that crime an awful act that people would not like to be a victim of. Police, therefore, play a significant role in ensuring that crime rates are reduced. Community policing and traditional policing are important aspects when it comes to issues of security and dealing with criminals (Kappeler & Gaines, 201, p. 89). Community policing requires that approaches to serious crimes be done in creative and innovative ways to ensure that there is long-term improvement in terms of security. In community policing, all crimes are treated as serious social problems and are dealt with accordingly. This kind of policing is not concerned about eradicating crime. Furthermore, the number of arrests or the crime rates is not the measure of success (Kappeler & Gaines, 201, p. 89). Community policing is concerned about ensuring that society provides opportunities for people to engage in meaningful business. Young people are often targeted because they are prone to becoming victims. Therefore, this is aimed at ensuring that future crimes rates reduce. On the other hand, traditional policing dictates rules and law to the public but are not on the ground to work with the community. They ensure that they respond quickly in case of a crime and this is a measure of their success. They also focus on identification of criminals, apprehending and prosecuting them. Traditional policing apprehends the criminals using the evidence that is collected at the crime scene. Both community and traditional policing complement each other. Community policing is aimed at ensuring that crimes rates are reduced through engaging the society to enter into gainful employment. Their work is to ensure that people live well with one another, while traditional policing is able to come in and assist in areas where crimes have been done by gathering evidence to assist them to apprehend criminals and take them to court to answer charges. The strategy of community policing is a design that may displace traditional policing. The role of the community policing is to ensure that there is law  and order and to deter any criminal activities from happening. Further, community policing is aimed at ensuring that people engage in constructive work. This strategy is aimed at reducing the rates of crimes hence slowly doing away with the traditional policing. Once the rate of crime reduces, traditional policing will have no role to play. Community policing strategy is constructed to help in creating organizational ethical behaviors. Ethics helps an organization to engage in activities that are in tandem with the moral obligation and the expectations of the society (Ortmeier & Meese, 2009, p. 254). Community policing is a force that does not cause anxiety in the community, but perform their duties diligently by relating well with the members of the community. Therefore, they assist the community members especially the youths with ideas and this makes them shun away from involvement in criminal activities. The major role of community policing is to ensure that society upholds to positive behaviors and moral standards. It helps to foster moral behaviors among the people. People should be able to live well with others and also show respect. Community policing is not concerned about the number of arrests they make but the magnitude at which they are able to change and transform the society into a better society. Therefore, this policing organization is built and performs its functions based on ethical standards. References: Gaines, L.. Kappeler, V. (2001). Policing in America (p. 640). Anderson Publishing. Ortmeier, PJ and Edwin Meese (2010). Leadership, Ethics and Policing; 2nd edition. Prentice Hall, New Jersey.

Investigating Chemical Equilibria essays

Investigating Chemical Equilibria essays The aim of this experiment is to study the effect of concentration changes on equilibria. In some chemical systems the energies of the reactants and the products are of a similar order of magnitude so that the reaction is reversible, that is, it can take place in either direction. If such a system is established in a closed vessel, so that no gases could escape, then a chemical equilibrium is established. The forward and the reversible reaction have the same rate. So, if for example we take the reversible reaction A+B © C+D, then the initially forward reaction occurs rapidly, but as the concentration of the reactants falls, the rate decreases. The reverse reaction initially cannot occur at all, but as the products start to form, its rate increases. Consequently, the rate of the two reactions becomes equal, the concentrations reach constant values and the equilibrium is established. There are conditions, such as the temperature, the pressure and the concentration. According to Le Chatelier ¡s principle,  ¡if a change is made to the conditions of a chemical equilibrium, then the position of a chemical equilibrium will readjust so as to minimise the change made ¡. If the concentration of one species is changed, then the position of the equilibrium will shift to the opposite side. A change in pressure affects only the gaseous molecules. If pressure is increased, then the equilibrium will shift to the side where the most gaseous molecules exist, whereas if pressure is decreased, the equilibrium will shift to the side where the least gaseous molecules exist. Temperature is the only factor that by changing it, the equilibrium constant kc is affected. If temperature is increased, the endothermic reaction is favored, whereas, if temperature is decreased, the exothermic reaction is favored. In this experiment we will investigate, the change in equilibrium that will take place when the concentration is altered. We will d...

Free Essays on Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance portrays two journeys; it analyzes a physical motorcycle trip and it discusses the individual human interpretation of quality, as determined by the classical and romantic lines of thought. Pirsig describes physical and meta-physical aspects of life, and it portrays how they are interconnected. Pirsig attempts to display the effects of his thoughts on ordinary life. Pirsig’s describes quality as being based on the individual mind, whether it thinks in the classical or romantic way. The physical journeys between Minnesota and Montana allowed the development of the relationship between the narrator and his son. The narrator discovers the love he feels for his son, and he attempts to relate to him as the story progresses. The protagonist’s world metaphorically ends with Chris’ death, as their evolving closeness shatters. The physical journey is characterized by Pirsig’s involvement and commitment towards nature as well as his classical interpretation of motorcycle maintenance. The classic interpretation of technology, and thus motorcycle maintenance, is present throughout. Pirsig attempts to rediscover his former self, who he likes to relate to the secluded and metaphysical philosopher Phaedrus. This process leads to the development of the metaphysical explanations. Phaedrus’ philosophies are infected with contradictions that lead to insanity. Pirsig the writer has transformed his personality from Phaedrus the philosopher. He is no longer influenced by metaphysical perplexities that previously â€Å"hijacked† his mind. These include the complex schools of thought for which there are no right or wrong answers: the nature and definition of quality and the reconcilability of classical and romantic thought. Metaphysics go hand in hand with classicism, as they both concentrate on meaning, purpose, utility, and quality as determined by an object’s contents. Conversel... Free Essays on Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Free Essays on Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance portrays two journeys; it analyzes a physical motorcycle trip and it discusses the individual human interpretation of quality, as determined by the classical and romantic lines of thought. Pirsig describes physical and meta-physical aspects of life, and it portrays how they are interconnected. Pirsig attempts to display the effects of his thoughts on ordinary life. Pirsig’s describes quality as being based on the individual mind, whether it thinks in the classical or romantic way. The physical journeys between Minnesota and Montana allowed the development of the relationship between the narrator and his son. The narrator discovers the love he feels for his son, and he attempts to relate to him as the story progresses. The protagonist’s world metaphorically ends with Chris’ death, as their evolving closeness shatters. The physical journey is characterized by Pirsig’s involvement and commitment towards nature as well as his classical interpretation of motorcycle maintenance. The classic interpretation of technology, and thus motorcycle maintenance, is present throughout. Pirsig attempts to rediscover his former self, who he likes to relate to the secluded and metaphysical philosopher Phaedrus. This process leads to the development of the metaphysical explanations. Phaedrus’ philosophies are infected with contradictions that lead to insanity. Pirsig the writer has transformed his personality from Phaedrus the philosopher. He is no longer influenced by metaphysical perplexities that previously â€Å"hijacked† his mind. These include the complex schools of thought for which there are no right or wrong answers: the nature and definition of quality and the reconcilability of classical and romantic thought. Metaphysics go hand in hand with classicism, as they both concentrate on meaning, purpose, utility, and quality as determined by an object’s contents. Conversel...