Angelina Grimke & Catharine Beecher

Angelina Grimke’s public appeal for the institution of the human rights of all moral beings is ultimately superior to Catharine Beecher’s doctrine of female supremacy limited to the domestic sphere. Both women are visionaries of their era offering contrasting views of women’s proper place in society as well as their moral duties. History has proven that Grimke is unwaveringly the contest winner of this debate . Compelling reasons for Grimke’s historical success can be seen in the women’s differing contextual arguments, the effective use of rhetorical mediums, and the personal embodiment of beliefs. Angelina E. Grimke’s Letters to Catharine Beecher is a contrasting response to Beecher’s Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism, which was addressed to Grimke herself. Specifically, Angelina’s 12th and 13th letters serve as a fervent vehicle for which Grimke meticulously counters Beecher’s affirmations of woman’s societal subordination. Grimke wrote the letters â€Å"because of a ‘deep and tender interest’ for the ‘present and eternal welfare’ of ‘Sisters in Chris’ whose eyes were closed to the Law† . Although Grimke addresses her letters to Beecher, her intended audience includes every American, regardless of gender, race, or social status that may come in contact with her publishing or be touched by it in any manner. By 1837, Grimke had gained significant clout from both the reverence and contempt of her followers and critics. She stood as a dedicated abolitionist who broke down multiple barriers for the advancement of women’s rights and moral social change. Catharine Beecher’s Essay sets out to rationalize women’s submissive role by claiming a rigid, social hierarchy- divinely instituted- placing men above women. She argues that women should only influence society through the activities of their separate, domestic sphere. Like Grimke, she ultimately sought to benefit American society through moral reform, but through different means. Angelina Grimke gains historical influence in part by her ability to appeal to the emotional intellect of feminine nature through her faithful articulation and egalitarian interpretation of the Bible. Angelina appeals to the intuitive dispositions of her female audience by imploring that they lift their voices to demand their basic human rights as moral creatures. She effectively argues that, â€Å"all humans, through liberation from sin by Christ’s gift of grace, have the same moral nature and, as a result, the same rights in religious and civil life† . It is woman’s sacred duty to exercise a political and public voice. Grimke uses the Bible to respond to Beecher’s claim of man as the superior sex. She writes, â€Å"Did Jesus then, give a different rule of action to men and women? † She quotes Scripture by stating: â€Å"said God, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy†¦they shall prophesy† . She calls on women to have faith in their struggles, â€Å"the disciples of Jesus were to walk by faith, not by sight. Did Abraham reason as to the probable results of his offering up Isaac? No! † . She passionately asserts that women suffer from â€Å"a violation of human rights†¦a violent seizure and confiscation of what is sacredly and inalienably hers† . She even effectively addresses the â€Å"clash between biology and religion† in the creation story. The formation of woman out of Adam’s rib serves as direct evidence that she is a part of him, made by his side so that she may be his companion and equal, â€Å"the last best gift of God to man† . Angelina’s open analysis and concise presentation of Scripture is a significant factor in her success. Grimke’s ability to invoke passionate response and appeal to thousands of people is based in the powerful combination of literacy and speech. In her literature, Angelina is very succinct and analytical, using the far-reaching hands of the press to access all of society. Her writings appeal to logical and educated minds, stating accepted foundations for her convictions: the truths of the Bible and the Declaration of Independence. As David McCants writes, â€Å"The principle of absolute human equality, which she believed was a biblical doctrine and with which she challenged the gender doctrine of male and female spheres, is essential† to her effectiveness. Angelina also used her voice to spread her message by making an emotional connection with her audiences. Her followers could relate to her sincerity as well as observe the â€Å"unusual religious inspiration in her speaking† . This tool of public speech also aided her cause in the form of visible opposition to her lectures. By combining the mediums of literacy and speech, Angelina Grimke could not be ignored. These two means of rhetorical persuasion proved to be a powerful language in her commitment to social reform. Another factor of Angelina’s progress is the radical nature of her arguments and the generation of loud opposition. â€Å"Success raises up opponents† . Angelina Grimke represented the most radical and controversial themes of her time. Not only was she a female Southern abolitionist and a champion of women’s suffrage, she publically proclaimed her contentious ideas to the masses. The very idea of â€Å"speaking to mixed audiences was a social taboo† . Women did not speak publically, certainly on political issues; these matters were seen to be too far above them. Angelina’s public response to Beecher and various other conservative opponents provoked dismay as she â€Å"extended the scope of [her] commentary beyond a simple defense†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦and proved it to be â€Å"a powerful offensive on woman’s rights† . Her offense may have initiated opponents to â€Å"attack her for her radicalism and extremist views† , but the notion of her successful preaching cannot be denied. Controversy only sustained Angelina’s prophetic conviction. Angelina stands out as a transcendent proponent for social reform because she emphatically integrates her doctrine into her personal life; she entirely exemplifies the principles for which she believes. Born into an esteemed Southern family, Angelina experienced the evils of slavery while growing up on her family’s plantations. Although she legally belonged to a slaveholding estate, she personally always rejected the ownership of slaves. Grimke left the Episcopalian church to become a Presbyterian in 1826 after experiencing a spiritual awakening and personal revelation of the truths of the gospel. Yet two years later, she converted once again to the Quaker church because in â€Å"her mind only Quaker understanding of the doctrine was scriptural† . Angelina responded with conviction to her calling of piteous moral discipline and the search for Christian perfectionism. The conversion to the Quaker called for a more simplistic, modest, and identifiable attire. The allusions to biblical dress allowed for Grimke to â€Å"justify [her] own public activity by likening it to that of loved heroic women of the Bible† . This practice afforded her credibility as well as â€Å"some reassure of respect and safety to a space where women’s words could be taken seriously in their movement toward a new place for women† . Another way Grimke lived out her principles was in her courtship and marriage to Theodore Dwight Weld. Weld â€Å"knew that Angelina could not fully commit to him until she was convinced that theirs would be a singularly uncommon marriage: a feminist marriage, a union of equals† . Her strong spiritual, emotional, and intellectual connection with Weld even had the consequences of her disownment from the Quaker church. Still, Angelina did not question her faith or personal convictions. She was unwavering in her private dedication to moral righteousness and the establishment of relationships of equals on purely human terms. On the other side of Angelina Grimke’s success is Catharine Beecher’s ultimate failure to manifest her doctrine in American history. She was unable to effectively advocate her values and gain the support needed for her ideal reformation. Beecher sends a conflicting message between her notion that women may only act and influence upon their private, domestic sphere and her personal defiance of this proclamation exemplified by her openly published literature. Her platforms of the modernization of women’s role in the home as a professionally trained schoolteacher seem to â€Å"carve out what certainly must be considered a â€Å"public† niche for herself† and detract from her argument against the visibility of women . The contradiction lies in how Beecher is supposed to publically reject the speaking role of women in an effective and persuasive manner. The publication of her â€Å"private letter† to Grimke does not serve as sound example. Despite her belief that women should remain in the domestic sphere, Catharine’s life was centered outside of the home. She engaged in strong advocacy of greater educational opportunities for women in order to challenge their intellectual abilities. The paradox between her personal life and her view concerning women’s proper role in society is further exaggerated by her unwed status and the professionalism of her literature. Beecher rationalized a feminine teaching body as a lengthening of one’s maternal role. This peculiar mode of â€Å"gaining influence and of exercising power† to be secluded in the domestic sphere calls for the intellectual, moral, and religious education of the nation’s children . She asserts that the rise and fall of the nation depends on the virtues, intelligence, and piety of the female sex . Yet the nature of higher education and expansion of knowledge calls for public rhetoric. Beecher suggests that females are inherently and fundamentally responsible for the collective success or failure of society through their instructive influence on the private sphere. This disheartening conclusion leaves no wonder why women were not compelled to support this propaganda. Catharine limits the scope of her own influence by binding women to one sphere in society. In doing so, she subsequently devalues female intellect and limits their potential. The seclusion of female action in the domestic sphere contests the influence of the early female Christian martyrs, the sanctity of Biblical women in public stations, and the benevolence of the former female ascetics who served as public ministers. Beecher’s concurrence with the early nineteenth-century social attitudes ordering male and female roles according to spheres and virtues limits women’s charitable endeavors, cultural influence, and creative knowledge. They are instructed to perfect society, but are given inadequate resources to do so. In order for her work to become as universal and historic as Angelina Grimke's, Beecher must to appeal to the aspirations of women and inspire unification toward a common purpose. In this regard, among others, Angelina Grimke’s call for an egalitarian forum in which new ideas are celebrated and social barriers are eliminated wins out at the forefront of nineteenth-century social and political reform. Although Grimke and Beecher represent opposing ideals in terms of women’s rights and societal reformation, they share some common ground. Both women were concerned with the well being of mankind and the desire for American women to be distinguished by their intelligence and influence on the interests of society. They both recognize the importance of supportive female networks and the promotion of their creativity. This mission encourages women helping each other overcome the conflict between individual aspirations and cultural imperatives. As visionary enthusiasts of their time, both used a public platform to petition support and gain recognition for their causes. Although Beecher does appeals to a portion of society, her arguments, rhetoric, and personal conviction leave much to be desired. Grimke’s unerring standard of equality on the grounds of human existence effectively challenged opposition, gained considerable recognition through her credibility and inspiration, and touched the hearts of a nation in desperate need of a radical social awakening. Works Cited Beecher, Catharine. Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism with Reference to the duty of American Females. Salem: Ayer Company, Publishers, Inc. , 1988. Beecher, Catharine, Margaret Fuller, and M. Carey Thomas. The Educated Woman in America. New York: Teachers College Press, 1965. Grimke, Sarah and Angelina Grimke. The Public Years of Sarah and Angelina Grimke: Selected Writings 1835-1839. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. Hobbs, Catherine. â€Å"Untitled. † Review of Angelina Grimke: Rhetoric, Identity, and the Radical Imagination by Stephen Howard. Rhetoric Review, 2001. Isenberg, Nancy. â€Å"Untitled. † Review of Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845 by Catherine A. Brekus. Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2000. Lerner, Gerda. â€Å"The Grimke Sisters and the Struggle Against Race Prejudice. The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 48, No. 4 (Oct. , 1963), http://www. jstor. org/stable/2716330. Mattingly, Carol. â€Å"Friendly Dress: A Disciplined Use. † Rhetoric Society Quarterly Vol. 29, No. 2 (1999), http://www. jstor. org/stable/3886084. McCants, David A. â€Å"Evangelicalism and Nineteenth-Century Woman’s Rights: A Case Study of Angelina E. Grimke. † Perspectives in Religious Studies 14 no. 1 (1987), http://ezp. lndlibrary. org/login? url=http://search. ebscohost. com/login. aspx? direct=true=rfh=ATLA0000973238=ehost-live. Nelson, Robert K. ‘The Forgetfulness of Sex’: Devotion and Desire in the Courtship Letters of Angelina Grimke and Theodore Dwight Weld. † Journal of Social History, Vol. 37, No. 3 (2004), http://www. jstor. org/stable/3790158. Phipps, William E. Adam’s Rib: Bone of Contention. † Theology Today 33 no. 3 (1976), http://ezp. lndlibrary. org/login? url=http://search. ebscohost. com/login. aspx? direct=true=rfh=ATLA0000757237=ehost-live. Sicherman, Barbara. â€Å"Review Essay: American History. † Signs Vol. 1, No. 2 (1975), http://www. jstor. org/stable/3173057.

Obedience vs Responsibility Essay

Obedience and Responsibility In Stanley Milgram’s, â€Å"The Perils of Obedience†, Milgram states â€Å"The essence of obedience is that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person’s wishes, and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his actions. † (Milgram 6) Through his experiments he shows how we obey commands against our better judgment. It my belief that we are generally obedient as long as someone else assumes responsibility for the outcome. Therefore, this poses the question; would we be fully obedient if we were held responsible for the outcome? Milgram’s experiment consists of three roles: the experimenter, the teacher, and the learner. The learner, who is actually an actor, is strapped to an electrocution device is tested on his ability to remember a word of a pair when he hears the first one again. The teacher, the actual test subject, asks the questions and administers a shock ranging from fifteen volts to four hundred fifty volts for incorrect answers. The experimenter is simply there to guide the teacher and record the findings. The experiment begins by the teacher asking the learner questions. When the learner answers incorrectly, the teacher must correct him and administer a shock starting at the lowest voltage. As the experiment continues the voltages increase and so does the reaction from the learner. What begins as minor discomfort on the learner quickly turns into screams of pain and pleas to be released. The experimenter’s job is to record the reactions of the teacher based on learner’s reactions and how long the teacher will continue to go on with the experiment. The results of the first experiment conducted on a group of Yale undergraduates, showed that about sixty percent of them were fully obedient, even to the maximum voltage. (Milgram 2) A colleague of Milgram’s dismissed the findings stating, â€Å"Yale undergraduates are a highly aggressive bunch who steps on each other’s neck on the slightest provocation. † (Milgram 2) He believed that when the experiment was carried out on â€Å"ordinary† people the results would be much different. The second experiment was conducted on professionals, white-collar workers, unemployed persons, and industrial workers. The results were very much the same as those of the Yale students. One specific experiment involving Fred Prozi, a good natured unemployed fifty year old, shows that once responsibility is placed on someone else we are content with following demands that are given. At one point in the experiment Prozi turns to the experimenter and says, â€Å"You accept all responsibility? (Milgram 4) Once the experimenter agrees Prozi continues and inflicts a 450 volt shock numerous times despite hearing the learners scream of agony and pleas to be released. This shows that once we detach ourselves from the responsibility of the outcome, we will comply with the demands given even if the effects of the demands are harmful, destructive and blatantly clear. In a variation of the experiment, the teacher was not required to pull the lever that shocked the learner; rather they just had to administer the word pair test. This removed even more of the responsibility of the teacher, since they were not actually inflicting pain on the victim. The result of the result of this experiment showed that 37 out of 40 adults continued to the highest level on the shock generator. (Milgram 7) We see this type of behavior in everyday society. People are willing to carry out the demands of others if they feel the demands are not neccassarily their views or actions. An example of this could be someone dismissing someone from a job because their senior boss ordered them to. They may not feel the same way about the employee or the descision to fire them, but they remove any emotional responsibility because they were just following orders. An even better example of this would be that of war in modern society. Since soldiers are given orders to kill by their superiors, they can remove any emotional responsibility because they were simply following orders. Likewise, the person odering the soldier to kill someone removes the responsibility on the superior because they are actually committing the act of murder. Also, many Americans can justify was because we as individuals aren’t actually fighting the war and do not see the effects of the war daily. In conclusion, it is my belief that if we were held personally responsible for the demands ordered by another most people would not comply with those demands. It is easy to put our conscience at ease when we are not responsible for the actions ordered by another, it is not as easy if we were to be held responsible. I believe that Milgram’s article proves this to be true, not just in the experiments he conducted in the article but in modern society as well.

High School Education Essay

Education has been the proposed priority of the different countries all over the world in an effort to develop the social abilities of the children who will be taking over the country in the future and will be leading it to another way of growth. High school is viewed to be an important time for the students especially as it is a transition between the time of elementary learning and into specialized learning (Armstrong, 1998). Moreover, it is also situated during the development years of the adolescent which may factor to their presence of mind while developing for their future needs. In this regard, it is important to determine the overall direction/objectives of High School in this generation and to determine ways on how these objectives can be implemented and achieved. Today, the main objective of High School also known as secondary school is to provide educational program that enhances full potentials of the students in terns of academics and social aspects. In addition, the educational institution today must be able to establish a more comprehensive and efficient High School or secondary school. It has been said that High school is the time wherein the students themselves are finding their cognitive skills developing and thus are also developing their behaviors appropriately, is also then the time where teachers must focus on tackling these factors equally and comprehensively; as such, the authors acknowledge that high schools must prepare their students for specializing and further studies in different universities. Social competence must also be assessed as the teachers must be able to gauge the abilities of their students and thus from that must then be able to construct their goals for the end of the school year that will include the knowledge that the students have gained, the development of their views, as well as their own goals further than the end of their years in their high school Today, high schools are determined to provide a variety of learning methods to reach all students’ needs. Recognizing that in the past, instruction has often been geared to a hypothetical average student rather than to individual students with different backgrounds, attitudes, needs, interests, and abilities, new ways of learning are being created. These ranges from options for students within the school itself, to community involvement, and even to visiting or living in other countries. In order to meet these objectives innovative projects and programs are designed to reach students who have become frustrated and uninvolved in the work of the conventional high school. Options are intended to make learning more interesting, realistic, and meaningful to students. New ways of approaching the academic disciplines, more personal relationships with students, and imaginative learning activities are being invented example of ingenuity in creating many types of options within one school. Aside from that, High School today is now trying to integrate their educational program with information communication technology. It is noted that innovative Information Technology (IT) applications can provide advantages such as: students experienced greater independence and responsibility for their own work and progress; students are more capable of beating deadlines; and fostered students’ ongoing reflection about their work: either by redrafting and/or reviewing it, and especially by comparing it with assessment criteria with the aim of improving their overall standards. Similarly positive, Goodison (2002) said that even if in terms children’s awareness most students are not aware if ICT made them more productive in any way and that some pupils see the complexity of software applications as barriers to task completion, ICT contributes to the promotion of learning independently.

The Logistics of Product Recovery (EndofLife) Case Study

The Logistics of Product Recovery (EndofLife) - Case Study Example It is now being realized that producer responsibility needs to be increased in areas of Northern America and to increasingly shift the burden of environmental protection for the government to the producers. This also enables the government to shift the responsibility of economic responsibility from the government to the local taxpayers. The scope for such laws is also being expanded to other non-recyclable wastes such as fluorescent bulbs, paint, mattresses, appliances, mercury thermostats and medical sharps. The use of EPR shall essentially require the formation of a separate and somewhat parallel system of waste management or collection mechanism that is the key to increase the quantity of waste collected. The maximization achieved within the collection system is also responsible for increased industrial as well as consumer participation in management of waste products. The laws help in mandating such convenience in collection methods which is difficult to define (Michelini & Razzoli, 2010). This paper is aimed at analyzing the scope of reverse logistic management and developing of a proper model that would be helpful in EPR management deriving most benefits from reuse and recycle of end-of-life products. The paper suggests the establishment of the OEM takeback methodology for the benefit of companies and the environment because it is the most efficient management technique for wastes. However, it also suggests the use of pooled takeback within the collection mechanism to facilitate convenience and also eliminate the drawbacks of the OEM method by way of using the benefits of pooled takeback in the collection procedure. The components, product, equipment, materials and even the total technical system can go backwards in the supply chain for rework in the manufacturing process so as to facilitate reuse and enhancement of unsatisfactory products on quality and component