Viewing Terrorism through Social Psychology Essay -- Psychology

Acts of terrorism are becoming increasingly common in today's society. From the frequent suicide bombings in Israel, the recent violence in the Russian village of Beslan, to the attacks on the world trade centers on September the eleventh of 2001 that so violently shook the world; terrorism is rarely far from our minds. Terrorist groups have a variety of aims, acts of revenge, politics, but by far the most common, and arguably most disturbing reason for these actions is religion. It is exceptionally important that we can learn to understand the forces that drive people to commit such wanton acts of destruction, and social psychology can help us to do that. Social psychology is a diverse field of study, it is "the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behavior in social situations" (Social Psychology, Baron and Byrne). In social psychology we study the social factors which influence the individual to carry out certain actions, thus it is invaluable in studying terrorism. Social psychologists study both the immediate social context (the influence of whatever group we are in the immediate company of) and the wider social context (the effects of family, culture etc) both of which have great effect on personality, belief and behavior. An example of the effect of the immediate social context are the experiments carried out by Stanley Milgram. Milgram carried out a series of social psychology experiments into proximity and willingness of humans to cause pain to others using an electrocution device. The test also involved however the use of an authority figure to issue orders to carry out the electric shock. Milgram put volunteers in pairs and assigned one the role of teache... ...e understanding, to change an attitude so vastly of a devout person into a vicious killer it takes a depth of belief that no experimentation can understand, it goes beyond measurement and scale. Social psychology can indeed help us to understand terrorism, but I does not tell the full story, in the words of David Hume (A treatise of human nature) "this difficulty is to hard for my understanding." References David Hume: A treatise of human nature (Penguin Classics, 1969) L.B.Brown: Psychology and Religion (Penguin Education,1973) Baron and Byrne: Social Psychology ( Mark Juergensmeyer: Terror in the mind of God (University of California press, 2000) Roy F Baumeister: Evil, inside human violence and cruelty (W.H. Freeman and company, 1997) The Holy Bible: Mt 10:34 John Radford and Ernest Govier: A textbook of Psychology (Sheldon press, 1980)

Philip K. Dick Essay

During his lifetime, Philip K. Dick was able to achieve some success in the publication of his science fiction short stories and even published 16 novels in the course of just seven years in the early 1960s, but the author was always frustrated with his lack of mainstream success. The problem, of course, was that Dick was a man ahead of his time. Since his death, seven of his works have been made into motion pictures—a number surpassed only by Stephen King (Sutin 1). But the reasons for the change may have as much to do with a changing society as it did with the man himself. Arguably, Dick may not have been easy to work with. During the initial work on â€Å"Blade Runner†, Dick who was not directly involved in the project gave an interview criticizing the film adaptation. He was later shown a preview of some of the special effects and the working script before his death and is said to have been pleased with it (Sutin 1). Regardless of his later reaction to the script, Dick was a troubled man. He was first diagnosed as a schizophrenic when he was in seventh grade and later mental evaluations both differed and verified the diagnosis. Regardless of the specifics, it is clear that Dick suffered from a severe form of mental illness in addition to a drug problem (Sutin 1). And, in 1974, he had what most people would have classified as an encounter with extraterrestrials. Though he never called it such and openly discussed the possibility that the visions and auditory events may have been hallucinations brought on by his mental illness, the reports of the incident did nothing to make him appear more stable. Since his death, the rights to his work have been handled by a trust comprised of his three children who seek to maintain his work as he envisioned it (â€Å"Philip K. Dick† 1). But it is also more likely that the sudden interest in Dick’s work has more to do with the work itself than the loss of the man that created it.   Most of his science fiction deals with a dark future, much more bleak than the greed is good 1980s would have found appropriate. Indeed, science fiction films before â€Å"Blade Runner† and especially before â€Å"Star Wars† were more fantastical voyages beyond the stars than the complex moral and ethical dilemmas set forth in Dick’s work. â€Å"Blade Runner† forces the viewer/reader to contemplate issues of humanity and the questions of genetic research and to some extent the definition of life and the soul. â€Å"Minority Report† asks questions about free will and â€Å"Total Recall† makes us evaluate greed when it applies to things we have always taken for granted, like air. ‘Paycheck† leads to the question of whether a person would be willing to sacrifice all his memories for money and if, having said yes, he should be able to change his mind. Like Fitzgerald needed the Jazz Age, Dick needed the modern word. â€Å"Total Recall’ fit perfectly into the end of the decade of greed when people were beginning to rethink their priorities. After the cloning of Dolly the sheep and seemingly endless technological advances, the ethical dilemmas of â€Å"Minority Report†, â€Å"Blade Runner† and â€Å"paycheck† no longer seem like such outlandish ideas. These are true horror stories of real life ethics. And, Dick needed George Lucas to pave the way. Until the 1970s, science fiction was still a small branch of mainstream fiction. There had been Lost in Space and Star Trek, to try to bring the genre to the masses, but it was still a fringe culture until â€Å"Star Wars† made science fiction a real movie genre with real viewers. By taking a classic plot line and superimposing it on a background of outer space with special effects and a love story and an action movie, Lucas changed the face of science fiction. More readers were attracted to the genre and more viewers were attracted to science fiction movies. Then, studios could approach the body of work already completed by â€Å"Dick and not have to deal with any of the original writer’s foibles or personality defects and have a readymade supply for their newest hit genre. So, they did. Works Cited â€Å"Philip K. Dick†, , Accessed December 16, 2007. Sutin,   Lawrence. â€Å"Philip K. Dick, 1928-1982†, 2003, Accessed December 16, 2007.

The New Public Management ( Npm ) Essay - 3668 Words

NPM is a reality. NPM has come to stay and as a conception it will continue to dominate as long as market remains our focus of attention. Inception New public management (NPM) is basically management techniques and practices come from private sector. Now it is a global phenomenon. NPM emphasizes actually on shifting the traditional public administration to new public management. The key elements of NPM including various forms of decentralization within the public sector, the creation of autonomous agencies, reducing corruption in public administration, budgeting digitally, market focused economy and increasing performance, outputs and customers oriented services. From the very beginning, NPM was largely seen in the developed counties. It was particularly considered as Anglo-Saxon phenomenon. In the ninety decades, the implications of NPM techniques and rules came into developing countries with a transitional economy. The principles of NPM discussed in this assignment are the management decentralization with public sectors, downsizing, performance contracting and eradicating corruptions from the administration. They are being applied in crisis state but not in violent and consistent manner. It is known all over the world that performance contracting and contracting out have might be common policy in various numbers of crisis states. It has been adopted as instrument to reform a state owned entrepreneurship, grading the managers more operation. Freedom when holds themShow MoreRelatedNew Public Management ( Npm )1383 Words   |  6 PagesNew Public Management (NPM) was developed in response to some criticisms of the public sector. One of them is to make the public sector more financially accountable since they need to demonstrate to the government who provides them funding, that the money is being put into good use. 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